Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 85

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Archive 86

Report for untagged episode redirects

Is it possible to get a report in my userspace for a list of redirects to pages that have a list of episodes (using one of the templates {{Episode list}} or {{Episode list/sublist}}) for which the redirects are episode redirects whose title is the same (or similar - typos, disambiguation, etc.) to the one in the |Title= parameter (of the above templates) and that don't use {{R from television episode}} or {{Television episode redirect handler}}? An example would be And a Trauma in a Pear Tree which redirects to Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (season 24). Gonnym (talk) 12:23, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

@Gonnym: I am from Dutch wiki and practicing Python. What would you like to do with the results? Do you need to exclude redirects that contain a template redirecting to {{R from television episode}} too (the other template mentioned has no incoming redirects), like Mother's Rosario using {{R from episode}}? Do you prefer the use of {{No redirect}} for the results? Wikiwerner (talk) 17:06, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

@Wikiwerner, just put the results in a user subpage like User:Gonnym/episode redirects in a list like:

* {{-r|Redirect}} → [[target]]

— Qwerfjkltalk 17:14, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm searching for episode redirects that aren't tagged with either {{R from television episode}} or {{Television episode redirect handler}}. How would the search know a redirect is an episode redirect? The target article it redirects to uses {{Episode list}} or {{Episode list/sublist}}. Mother's Rosario is indeed an episode redirect, but it already contains {{R from episode}} so it shouldn't appear on the list I need. Gonnym (talk) 08:54, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Literally Mother's Rosario neither uses {{R from television episode}} nor {{Television episode redirect handler}}, but {{R from episode}} redirects to (is an alias for) the first one. I needed to know if the search indeed should exclude redirects using this (and other) redirect template(s) too. Wikiwerner (talk) 18:51, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Redirects to one of the two templates are fine as they are still placed in an episode redirect category (see the hidden categories on the redirect). Gonnym (talk) 19:31, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Doing... A first attempt has been published. However, it contains many false positives, due to a mistake using the Python 'continue' command. I am retrying now. Wikiwerner (talk) 14:46, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

Thank you! Will take a look at it now. Gonnym (talk) 17:28, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

Not sure how big the list will be without the false positives, but if it will also be big, it's probably better not to use any template in the linking (so not using {{-r}} as it reached the post expend size. Gonnym (talk) 17:31, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes, you could use

site.expand_text(text)

before saving. (assuming you're using pywikibot). — Qwerfjkltalk 12:16, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Indeed I use pywikibot. My script already had finished again, this time the right way. But thanks for the tip. If necessary, one may use subst:-r for the redirect links. Wikiwerner (talk) 17:00, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Any chance some of this can be done in SQL? May be worth investigating WP:QUERY or Template:Database report. If not, just ignore this :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:12, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

I have thought about that, but I think a query cannot search the source text for titles of incoming redirects. My Python script has just finished again, this time without the -r template. For each article containing the templates mentioned (or redirect aliases), incoming redirects have been added to the list if the article contains the template with a "Title =" parameter value equal to the first characters of the redirect title, ignoring case differences. I hope the result is right and sufficient! Wikiwerner (talk) 18:36, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Looks good, thank you! Gonnym (talk) 18:40, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

So this is Y Done. You are welcome. Wikiwerner (talk) 17:00, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Replace standard unreferenced templates with BLP variants

Requesting a bot that replaces Template:Unreferenced with Template:BLP unreferenced and replaces Template:More citations needed with Template:BLP sources when applied to BLPs. So far I've been monitoring the former manually through this search, but the latter is too large of a task. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 01:57, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

@Thebiguglyalien Coding... GoingBatty (talk) 17:45, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

@Thebiguglyalien: FYI, BattyBot has been converting {{Unreferenced}} to {{BLP unsourced}} for many years. My goal has been to run that task at least monthly. GoingBatty (talk) 04:13, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

@GoingBatty, I could set up a Toolforge job to do this if you want. — Qwerfjkltalk 16:04, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

@Thebiguglyalien: BRFA filed GoingBatty (talk) 19:17, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

@Thebiguglyalien:  Doing... GoingBatty (talk) 03:41, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

@Thebiguglyalien:  Done! I'll continue running the bot task about once a month. GoingBatty (talk) 18:56, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

InternetArchiveBot Request to archive all sources with domain BuzzfeedNews.com

As Buzzfeed News is shutting down and per this ongoing discussion on WP:RSN, I am requesting a big job that would ask the bot to archive all https://buzzfeednews.com citations. This is my first time dealing with WP:BOTREQ and bots in general, but if I understand IABot correctly, I'm not allowed to ask it to modify domains.

This query makes note of 1,965 articles that cite https://buzzfeednews.com. — That Coptic Guy^{ping me!} (talk) (contribs) 19:03, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

@That Coptic Guy, WP:URLREQ. Izno (talk) 19:09, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Scan a spreadsheet and add coords.

{{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}} What I need is a bot that can scan this spreadsheet take the municipality name and then find that article (if there is one) and then take the coords from the spreadsheet (Column AC and AD) and insert the coords into the infobox or coord template. A bit more info at this TH discussion. It would also be useful to know which towns didn't come back with a page so we can create redirects to the correct articles. PalauanReich^🗣️ 06:50, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

@PalauanReich, there doesn't seem to be consensus that the source is reliable. — Qwerfjkltalk 09:48, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

@PalauanReich: I already have a program that reads values from CSV file(s), and inserts the values on page(s). I didn't read any of the discussions you provided, but if Qwerfjkl is correct about the source's reliability, then a wider discussion is required. —usernamekiran (talk) 10:20, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Well I asked in RSN here, and I’ve gotten no reply for a couple days. The source seems generally reliable. UNDP is reliable and ArabiaGIS has been contracted by the LB government many times as well as other reputable sources. I was going to ask at the WP Lebanon talk but the project seems inactive. PalauanReich^🗣️ 15:01, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl forgot ping PalauanReich^🗣️ 15:01, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

@PalauanReich, given no response, I would be inclined to wait until it is clearly reliable. BRFA is currently backlogged, so there's no rush. — Qwerfjkltalk 20:02, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl@Usernamekiran After an intial RSN that got no responses and a second one, there doesn't seem to be much interest. I'd say the source is reliable, nobody has raised any concerns, the main concern at this RSN was precision problems and possible inaccuracies. I would be willing to manually verify all them after, it's just making all the edits thats the issue mainly the issue. PalauanReich^🗣️ 15:20, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

@PalauanLibertarian, you would do well to reread Tigraan's comment on the TH thread and get clear consensus beforehand. If you don't get clear consensus I expect the BRFA to languish for a couple of months at least; I doubt given the backlogged state of BRFA a BAG member will be willing to look at a tricky case like this one. — Qwerfjkltalk 17:03, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Ok, ill try again PalauanReich^🗣️ 17:17, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

N Not done for now, with no prejudice against new request after a consensus is formed regarding the reliability of the source in question. —usernamekiran (talk) 23:57, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

pinging User:PalauanLibertarian, post rename. —usernamekiran (talk) 00:13, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

It's not like I haven't tried to. I asked there 3 times and got no responses about source reliability. The only responses were about possible inaccuracies. PalauanLibertarian^🗣️ 00:26, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

@PalauanLibertarian: Hi. I apologise if I gave you the wrong impression. I did not intend to mean that you didn't try anything. But the responses mentioning "possible inaccuracies" mean the source could not be established as a reliable source/there was no consensus for using it or establishing its reliability. We can either wait for a consensus to form (consensus can change), or we can find a better source —usernamekiran (talk) 00:36, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Ok, sounds good PalauanLibertarian^🗣️ 00:50, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Restart User:Reports_bot

The "participate" form over at WP:MolBio doesn't seem to work, and appears to have also stopped at other projects like WP:MED. When the form is filled in, it successfully creates a user subpage (examples) but I'm guessing that User:Reports_bot is supposed to spot that and add it to the members list. Any ideas on how to get it up and running again? It seems as though the bot is also menat to keep the WikiProject Directory up to date too, so has a few functions that'd be useful to restart. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 12:33, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Also pinging @Harej and ‎@MZMcBride as people who have been involved with the bot previously. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 12:38, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

The page history suggests that additions were never automated. The whole setup is pretty janky. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:25, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Harej's response appears to have been to mark the task in question as defunct on their userpage, so I don't think they intend to fix it. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 23:46, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

@MZMcBride, I wonder if reportsbot wasn't configured correctly in that case, because for e.g. WP:MED it was updating that list correctly until late 2022. @All, Since the core activity of the bot is scanning for pages that fit the pattern [username]/WikiProjectCards/[wikiproject name], and copying those pagenames into [wikiproject name]/Members could a lightweight replacement bot be created to take over those functions? There's quite a few wikiprojects that it affects. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 03:10, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

It may be possible to build this on top of {{database report}} without a new bot. I'll look into this when I get a chance tomorrow. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 04:24, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

I took a look, and while this might be possible to implement that way, it would really be cleaner as a separate bot. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:10, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

WP WikiProject Weather timelines

WP:WPWX is also in need of a bot that can change colors within timelines on articles. This would only involve substituting in the new color parameters that were approved in a recent RfC. I can provide more specific details on this if anyone is able to do this. Noah^Talk 19:36, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

@Hurricane Noah, I seem to recall something like this earlier. I may still have the code I used. — Qwerfjkltalk 19:58, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl: Well... the colors are different now so the coding would be different, but yes, I see what you mean. The old request was at User talk:Qwerfjkl/Archive 9. Would you be willing to perform the changes? I could provide the new colors and appropriate categories of articles here. Noah^Talk 20:03, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Extended content

Atlantic/Eastern Pacific hurricanes New text = Colors = id:canvas value:gray(0.88) id:GP value:red id:TD value:rgb(0.43,0.76,0.92) legend:Tropical_Depression_=_≤38_mph_(≤62_km/h) id:TS value:rgb(0.3,1,1) legend:Tropical_Storm_=_39–73_mph_(63–117_km/h) id:C1 value:rgb(1,1,0.85) legend:Category_1_=_74–95_mph_(118–153_km/h) id:C2 value:rgb(1,0.85,0.55) legend:Category_2_=_96–110_mph_(154–177_km/h) id:C3 value:rgb(1,0.62,0.35) legend:Category_3_=_111–129_mph_(178–208_km/h) id:C4 value:rgb(1,0.45,0.54) legend:Category_4_=_130–156_mph_(209–251_km/h) id:C5 value:rgb(0.55,0.46,0.90) legend:Category_5_=_≥157_mph_(≥252_km/h) For all season-related articles with timelines in the categories (may need to check subcategories): Category:Atlantic Ocean meteorological timelines, Category:Atlantic hurricane seasons, Category:Pacific hurricane seasons, and Category:Pacific hurricane meteorological timelines Pacific typhoons New text = Colors = id:canvas value:gray(0.88) id:GP value:red id:TD value:rgb(0.43,0.76,0.92) legend:Tropical_Depression_=_≤62_km/h_(≤39_mph) id:TS value:rgb(0.3,1,1) legend:Tropical_Storm_=_62–88_km/h_(39–54_mph) id:ST value:rgb(0.75,1,0.75) legend:Severe_Tropical_Storm_=_89–117_km/h_(55–72_mph) id:STY value:rgb(1,0.85,0.55) legend:Strong_Typhoon_=_118–156_km/h_(73–96_mph) id:VSTY value:rgb(1,0.45,0.54) legend:Very_Strong_Typhoon_=_157–193_km/h_(97–119_mph) id:VITY value:rgb(0.55,0.46,0.90) legend:Violent_Typhoon_=_≥194_km/h_(≥120_mph) In addition, please change any values of TY within the actual part where storms are listed to STY since typhoon is now strong typhoon. The legend name also changes from typhoon to strong typhoon. The VSTY and VITY need to be added into the timelines since those statuses are now being included (the VSTY and VITY are within the coding above). A caveat is that articles dated 1972 or earlier need to use the colors for the Atlantic/Eastern Pacific. For all season-related articles with timelines in the categories (may need to check subcategories): Category:Pacific typhoon seasons North Indian New text = Colors = id:canvas value:gray(0.88) id:GP value:red id:TD value:rgb(0,0.52,0.84) legend:Depression_(31–50_km/h) id:DD value:rgb(0.43,0.76,0.92) legend:Deep_Depression_(51–62_km/h) id:TS value:rgb(0.3,1,1) legend:Cyclonic_Storm_(63–88_km/h) id:ST value:rgb(0.75,1,0.75) legend:Severe_Cyclonic_Storm_(89–117_km/h) id:VS value:rgb(1,0.85,0.55) legend:Very_Severe_Cyclonic_Storm_(118–165_km/h) id:ES value:rgb(1,0.45,0.54) legend:Extremely_Severe_Cyclonic_Storm_(166–220_km/h) id:SU value:rgb(0.55,0.46,0.9) legend:Super_Cyclonic_Storm_(≥221_km/h) For all season-related articles with timelines in the categories (may need to check subcategories): Category:North Indian Ocean cyclone seasons and Category:North Indian Ocean meteorological timelines South-west Indian New text = Colors = id:canvas value:gray(0.88) id:GP value:red id:ZD value:rgb(0,0.52,0.84) legend:Zone_of_Disturbed_Weather/Tropical_Disturbance_=_≤31_mph_(≤50_km/h) id:TD value:rgb(0.43,0.76,0.92) legend:Tropical_Depression/Subtropical_Depression_=_32–38_mph_(51–62_km/h) id:TS value:rgb(0.30,1,1) legend:Moderate_Tropical_Storm_=_39–54_mph_(63–88_km/h) id:ST value:rgb(0.75,1,0.75) legend:Severe_Tropical_Storm_=_55–73_mph_(89–118_km/h) id:TC value:rgb(1,0.85,0.55) legend:Tropical_Cyclone_=_74–103_mph_(119–166_km/h) id:IT value:rgb(1,0.45,0.54) legend:Intense_Tropical_Cyclone_=_104–133_mph_(167–214_km/h) id:VI value:rgb(0.55,0.46,0.9) legend:Very_Intense_Tropical_Cyclone_=_≥134_mph_(≥215_km/h) For all season-related articles with timelines in the categories (may need to check subcategories): Category:Southwest Indian Ocean meteorological timelines and Category:South-West Indian Ocean cyclone seasons Australian Region New text = Colors = id:canvas value:gray(0.88) id:GP value:red id:TL value:rgb(0.43,0.76,0.92) legend:Tropical_Low_=_<63_km/h_(<39_mph) id:C1 value:rgb(0.3,1,1) legend:Category_1_=_63–88_km/h_(39-55_mph) id:C2 value:rgb(0.75,1,0.75) legend:Category_2_=_89–117_km/h_(55-73_mph) id:C3 value:rgb(1,0.85,0.55) legend:Category_3_=_118–159_km/h_(73-99_mph) id:C4 value:rgb(1,0.45,0.54) legend:Category_4_=_160–199_km/h_(99-124_mph) id:C5 value:rgb(0.55,0.46,0.9) legend:Category_5_=_≥200_km/h_(≥124_mph) For all season-related articles with timelines in the categories (may need to check subcategories): Category:Australian region cyclone seasons and Category:Australian region meteorological timelines South Pacific New text = Colors = id:canvas value:gray(0.88) id:GP value:red id:TDi value:rgb(0,0.52,0.84) legend:Tropical_Disturbance id:TD value:rgb(0.43,0.76,0.92) legend:Tropical_Depression id:C1 value:rgb(0.3,1,1) legend:Category_1_=_63-87_km/h_(39-54_mph) id:C2 value:rgb(0.75,1,0.75) legend:Category_2_=_88-142_km/h_(55-74_mph) id:C3 value:rgb(1,0.85,0.55) legend:Category_3_=_143-158-km/h_(75-98_mph) id:C4 value:rgb(1,0.45,0.54) legend:Category_4_=_159–204_km/h_(99–127_mph) id:C5 value:rgb(0.55,0.46,0.9) legend:Category_5_=_≥205_km/h_(≥128_mph) For all season-related articles with timelines in the categories (may need to check subcategories): Category:South Pacific cyclone seasons and Category:South Pacific meteorological timelines Winter New text = Colors = id:canvas value:gray(0.88) id:C0 value:rgb(0.3,1,1) legend:Category_0_&_N/A_<_1.0_RSI id:C1 value:rgb(1,1,0.85) legend:Category_1_=_1.0–3.0_RSI id:C2 value:rgb(1,0.85,0.55) legend:Category_2_=_3.0–6.0_RSI id:C3 value:rgb(1,0.62,0.35) legend:Category_3_=_6.0–10.0_RSI id:C4 value:rgb(1,0.45,0.54) legend:Category_4_=_10.0–18.0_RSI id:C5 value:rgb(0.55,0.46,0.9) legend:Category_5_≥_18.0_RSI Category: Category:North American winters

@Noah, I can probably do this, but I'm busy right now with several bot tasks. If anyone else wants to take this on, go ahead; otherwise I'll try to start on this soon. — Qwerfjkltalk 10:59, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl: Checking in since it's been nearly 2 weeks. Noah^Talk 03:33, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

@Hurricane Noah, yes, sorry. I just took care of 3 BRFAs, so I'll start this one today hopefully. — Qwerfjkltalk 10:40, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

BRFA filed— Qwerfjkltalk 11:44, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

@Hurricane Noah, the BRFA has been approved for trial. Can you please prove a plaintext list of the articles needed to edit (e.g.)

Foo
Bar
Foobar

etc.
Using a tool such as WP:PETSCAN or WP:AWB.
For each of the new colour schemes. I only need 100 articles for the trial, but I'll need the rest for when the BRFA is approved.
Sorry about the large delay on this. — Qwerfjkltalk 16:15, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl: [1] contains all Atlantic/eastern Pacific storms which would be the first item in the collapsed extended content above. Noah^Talk 16:22, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

@Hurricane Noah, unfortunately a lot of these have already been converted, so it'll need a more complex search query to find articles using the old colour scheme. I don't have time to do this right now, so I'll have to do this later. — Qwerfjkltalk 17:08, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

@Noah, with my trusty Search++ script, I've made an appropraite query. I presume the categories should be checked recursively (i.e. including their subcategories etc.)? — Qwerfjkltalk 16:00, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl: Yes. Not every article within subcategories has the timeline, but there are quite a few there. Noah^Talk 16:11, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

@Hurricane Noah, I don't believe there are any articles left that need to be edited in those categories (edits such as this one appear incorrect). I think I'll stick to the top level for now, while the bot's in trial. — Qwerfjkltalk 16:28, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

On further queries, it seems there aren't that many articles that need to be updated, so this may not need a BRFA. I can only find around 500 articles that need editing. — Qwerfjkltalk 19:15, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

I'd imagine that's likely a result of the delay. I saw people going around changing articles en mass after a couple weeks passed. Noah^Talk 16:43, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

@Hurricane Noah, I'm running this on my account due to the low number of pages, though it appears there are some errors. — Qwerfjkltalk 18:35, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Hm... it must be an inconsistency in how the timelines were constructed within the same region. Noah^Talk 18:41, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

@Hurricane Noah, I reverted some of my edits that caused the error, if you want to undo the revert and fix them correctly. [2] — Qwerfjkltalk 19:19, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

@Hurricane Noah, I've gone through all of the changes manually (except for the Pacific typhoons ones), and top level (ignoring subcats, because its tricky to tell which articles to edit). — Qwerfjkltalk 19:39, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. I will look into it this weekend since I have my last final exam tomorrow. Noah^Talk 20:41, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Multiple requests related to noticeboards

taken from archive, got no responses last time

Here are some possible tasks for a bot:

1. Remove/revert blank responses at Help:Introduction/feedback and the other feedback pages (though i question the usefulness of these pages altogether, looking at the responses).
2. Automatically comment on WP:RFPP/E when the respective talk page is protected or redirects to a talk page (for example, if someone requests an edit to Wikipedia:Contents WP:Contact us/Licensing, the bot should comment that the talk page is protected).
3. Comment at AIV, AIV/TB2, UAA, and UAA/BOT when the reported account is globally locked.

137a (talk • edits) 13:42, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Number 3 could be done by AIV helper bot theoretically. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 16:39, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Zippybonzo regarding #3. The first two seems doable but it needs more discussion for various scenarios. Like, in case blank responses from feedback pages are removed, then should the all the posters be notified, or only registered accounts, or nobody? Regarding #2, wouldn't it be better to post "the talkpage of protected XYZ page is not protected, the edit request should go to Talk:XYZ"? —usernamekiran (talk) 17:02, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Guess I should ping @JamesR: since he operates AIV helper bot? 137a (talk • edits) 19:30, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

• @137a: I can create a bot for the first two tasks, but I'm not sure if we really need a bot for them. Also, I think this should have wider discussion/consensus first. —usernamekiran (talk) 20:15, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

  For no 3, I would think that the bot should just remove the request, being that it is effectively blocked, and appealing a lock is a lot harder than appealing a block. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 15:31, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Expand "Language distribution: Kordestan Province" citations

I'm not sure if this is the right place to propose something like this, but here it is: There are 1,208 pages (according to this search) that use one exact citation towards this page. The citation is fairly simple: just this:

"Language distribution: Kordestan Province". Iran Atlas. 2015. Retrieved 22 March 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link).

However, it gives neither authors or an archived copy of the webpage. This website itself, part of a project from Carleton University, gives a more detailed suggested citation (under the header "To cite this page"). This includes authors and other broader information. Assuming it is acceptable to use a page's suggested citation, I suggest replacing these bare-bones web citations with the fuller references, along with a link to an archived copy of the webpage (there is one at archive.today [3]), like has been done at Qaba Sorkh (reference number three). Since there are roughly 1200 articles with the bare-bones citation, this would be nigh-on impossible to do manually. Could a bot replace these simple citations with the fuller ones, such as can be found at Qaba Sorkh? The more detailed citation modified from the webpage's suggested format looks like this:

Mohammadirad, Masoud, Erik Anonby, et al. (2022). Language distribution in Kordestan Province, Iran (Archived copy). In Erik Anonby, Mortaza Taheri-Ardali, et al., Atlas of the languages of Iran (ALI). Ottawa: GCRC (Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre), Carleton University.

I propose mass-expanding these references to fuller version, using the information in the webpage's suggested style of citation:

Mohammadirad, Masoud; Anonby, Erik; et al. "Language distribution in Kordestan Province, Iran". Atlas of the languages of Iran (ALI). Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre, Carleton University. Archived from the original on 28 May 2023.

(Thanks to GoingBatty for helping with the technicalities here)
Basically, it's a find-and-replace job with the goal of expanding citations. Thank-you, Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 19:43, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

@Edward-Woodrow: Why switch from a reference with {{cite web}} to a reference without {{cite web}}? GoingBatty (talk) 20:40, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

@GoingBatty: The second reference is more complete, and, as far as I can tell, cannot be done with {{cite web}}, mostly because the suggested reference in the source only ever uses et al to refer to the additional authors, and incorporating et al in the references produces an error. This is the best I can do with a citation template (is there a better way? If so, please tell me!):

Mohammadirad, Masoud; Anonby, Erik, "Language distribution in Kordestan Province, Iran", Atlas of the languages of Iran (ALI), Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre, Carleton University, archived from the original on 28 May 2023

Thank-you, Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 20:58, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

@Edward-Woodrow: How about using |display-authors=etal like this?:

Mohammadirad, Masoud; Anonby, Erik; et al. "Language distribution in Kordestan Province, Iran". Atlas of the languages of Iran (ALI). Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre, Carleton University. Archived from the original on 28 May 2023.

GoingBatty (talk) 21:13, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Brilliant, thank-you! I will adjust my proposal. Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 21:15, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

@Edward-Woodrow, if no one else does this, I can do it in a couple of weeks, just ping me. — Qwerfjkltalk 11:25, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

Right-ho, thanks. Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 23:06, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl:.Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 19:50, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

@Edward-Woodrow, sorry about the delay. BRFA filed. — Qwerfjkltalk 09:36, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

No worries, and thanks a lot! Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 12:12, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

@Edward-Woodrow,  Done. — Qwerfjkltalk 15:05, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Bot to remove BLP tags of people who have died 3 or more years ago

Hello again. I was wondering if a bot could remove BLP tags for people who have died three or more years ago per the Category:Deaths by year category. I stumbled across the BLP tag at Johnny Burke (Canadian singer), despite having died in 2017.

With this search, I found over 1,300 articles tagged as BLPs while skipping over people who died between 2021-2023. The reason why I am not requesting for 2 years or less is because of WP:BDP. Thanks! MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 19:03, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

These should be individually verified to be true since it could be vandalism that was not caught. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 00:49, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

If the false positive rate is low enough, might be OK to do this by bot. The false positive rate could be verified via a bot trial of 50 edits or something. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:03, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Should they be removed or just changed to alternative templates? {{BLP unreferenced}} to {{More citations needed}} and {{BLP unreferenced section}} to {{More citations needed section}} ? -- WOSlinker (talk) 07:43, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Replacement would be preferable to removal. Primefac (talk) 08:35, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

I feel like this would be a place to generate a report for manual review rather than a bot task. I would also suggest that any such review be sorted so as to start with the subjects who have been dead the longest. BD2412 T 20:17, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

That's a very easy one: e.g. 2020, 2021, 2022 etc. Wikiwerner (talk) 16:29, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

@Wikiwerner: Can we get one for pre-2020? I would guess the set will be small enough to have one group, but perhaps subdivided further if my guess is wrong. BD2412 T 02:20, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

@Wikiwerner: Oops, never mind, I see this was just a search. BD2412 T 02:21, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Seems like an easy enough task for AWB if it's only 1300. I'd also recommend just changing the templates, as they are still lacking in those templates (presumably). Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:13, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

@MrLinkinPark333 - Based on the feedback above, I would be happy to file a BRFA to convert from BLP templates for dead people once my current request (which converts to BLP templates for living people) is resolved. GoingBatty (talk) 02:18, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for looking into this :) MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 02:40, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

This would be useful, indeed.BabbaQ (talk) 16:23, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

@MrLinkinPark333: BRFA filed. GoingBatty (talk) 01:09, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for working on this! MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 01:26, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Spin (physics) ––> Spin (particle physics)

Please, fix these links. There are 1648 ones, I cannot do it manually. Thanks! — Zalán Hári (talk) 08:49, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

@Hári Zalán, is there a reason why the links have to be retargeted? — Qwerfjkltalk 09:20, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl: I have renamed the article. Zalán Hári (talk) 09:22, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

At the moment, the links are WP:NOTBROKEN, except for articles like Euler angles which should link instead to a different meaning of "spin" such as rotation. Are further changes planned, such as retargeting Spin (physics) to dab Spin#Physics and mathematics as a {{R from partial disambiguation}}? Certes (talk) 09:43, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I plan it. Zalán Hári (talk) 06:23, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

In that case, this seems like a sensible idea. I've bypassed the redirect in the templates which used it, which takes care of nearly half the links, leaving roughly 700 articles containing "particle" which might be edited by bot and 200 articles which don't and probably need a human with AWB or similar. Certes (talk) 11:33, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, this sounds like we're at WP:AWBREQ territory, especially if it's a bit more time-sensitive. Primefac (talk) 08:10, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

This is seemingly within AWB territory, however it might be worth a RM as to prevent 700 unnecessary edits. CLYDE ^{TALK TO ME}/_{STUFF DONE} 03:51, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

It's not that crazy an amount. It does need some user input. Perhaps add as a job for WP:AWB users? Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:32, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Maybe a bot to do the articles which mention "particle" and AWB or DisamAssist for the rest – but, per WP:NOTBROKEN (and probably WP:COSMETICBOT), we should only be doing this at all if the plan is to make Spin (physics) into something other than a redirect to Spin (particle physics). Certes (talk) 18:34, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

I'll start going over these with AWB. When I'm done I'll post here and ping @Hári Zalán: Dr vulpes ^{(💬 • 📝)} 21:32, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

@Dr vulpes: Thank you. Zalán Hári (talk) 12:37, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Hey @Hári Zalán, I'm done with those edits. Took a bit to clean up a few of them but I think we're good. Dr vulpes ^{(💬 • 📝)} 01:38, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Thank you! Zalán Hári (talk) 02:59, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Request for a bot to clear out Category:Redundant infobox title param

Hello again. I'm looking for a bot to help clear out Category:Redundant infobox title param. Per the category description, the |title parameter can be removed in the infobox if they match the article name. A lot of there are populated by Infobox comics creator and Infobox comic book title. See for example my removals of the |title parameter at Quino and Captain America (vol. 5). Currently, there's 2,435 of them to go through. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks! MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 19:03, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

cc @Primefac, per User:PrimeBOT/Parameter removal records Frostly (talk) 00:56, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

This is the definition of a COSMETIC edit and I will not run my bot for it unless there are substantive edits that go along with it. You should just remove that tracking cat from the template and save everyone the hassle. Primefac (talk) 06:30, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

While I don't think I agree with it being cosmetic, I do think I agree that the right solution in this case is just to remove the category. Izno (talk) 18:42, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

I do suppose you're right, technically speaking removing deprecated or invalid parameters are also cosmetic to a certain degree, but those are categories that need to be cleaned for the betterment of the project (maintenance, upkeep, etc). This is a category that does not matter and serves no administrative or maintenance need. Primefac (talk) 18:46, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Somewhat related, using a title for the infobox (at least in creative works such as television series and episodes) can cause errors, vandalisim or just inconsistencies with the article title itself and the title used in the lead, which is part of the reason most usages were removed from the television infoboxes. Gonnym (talk) 13:54, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Erasing all links to fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands from mainspace

Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 405#fmg.ac (Foundation for Medieval Genealogy) reached consensus that fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands is a completely unreliable source, has been repeatedly recognised as such, had to be phased out, and now we've agreed it should be completely purged. 576 references to fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands had been made through Template:Medieval Lands by Charles Cawley, which has just been deleted at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2023 May 25#Template:Medieval Lands by Charles Cawley. User:Frietjes was so kind as to let me know that I could check at External links search just how many references we've still got to fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands throughout English Wikipedia. It turns out that number is 1,326, way too many for anyone to go and delete manually. Not all links to the domain fmg.ac need to be purged, just those under the subdomain fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands. Nor should links outside of the mainspace be removed, such as the Talk:, Wikipedia:, User: etc. spaces. Is it possible for a bot to carry this out? Thanks in advance! Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 19:20, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Nederlandse Leeuw, I created a list of pages without duplicates (filtering out user and talk pages) at User:Frietjes/f. you could always use WP:BOTREQ to see if there is a bot operator interested in helping. Frietjes (talk) 19:26, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

@Frietjes Thanks! Have I filed this request this correctly? Is there anything else I should do? Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 19:30, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Nederlandse Leeuw, looks fine, I have updated the lists to filter out some false positives. Frietjes (talk) 20:07, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested: who may be interested or be able to help. Frietjes (talk) 20:09, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

The template is no longer in use by any articles, I cleared them out earlier. There re still URLs as listed here, basically everything using the string "fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/". I'm doing all this manually so I might dip in and out of removing links when I take a break from clearing no target errors, but I can't help with any automation. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:20, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

@Nederlandse Leeuw, I believe the correct place for this is WP:URLREQ. — Qwerfjkltalk 21:45, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl Okay, should I move this whole text to over there, or just link from there to here? Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 21:47, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

@Nederlandse Leeuw, whichever you like, as long as you explain why the URLs should be removed. — Qwerfjkltalk 21:50, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Done, hope this works. Thanks for the tip! Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 21:58, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Quick category cleanup

Moved to Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Tasks § Quick category cleanup

 – –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:02, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Bot that adds Template:Talk header to talk pages without one

Resolved

I notice a lot of talk pages without talk headers and was wondering if a bot can be created to do such a task? Lightoil (talk) 03:15, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

This template does not need to be placed on every talk page, and should not be indiscriminately added to talk pages using automated editing tools * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 03:23, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Okay understood Lightoil (talk) 03:27, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

@Lightoil: Per Pppery's comment, Not a good task for a bot.. GoingBatty (talk) 03:31, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Fixing of categorisation error caused by error in uw template

As per Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 206#Categorisation error due to error in user warning template, an error in Template:Uw-username caused the following code to appear:

{{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACENUMBER}}|3|{{#ifeq:{{ROOTPAGENAME}}|{{ROOTPAGENAME:}}[[Category:Pages which use a template in place of a magic word|S{{PAGENAME}}]]|[[Category:Wikipedia usernames with possible policy issues|{{PAGENAME}}]]}}}}

The actual markup that should have appeared is:

{{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACENUMBER}}|3|{{#ifeq:{{ROOTPAGENAME}}|<username at the time of subst>|[[Category:Wikipedia usernames with possible policy issues|{{PAGENAME}}]]}}}}

Can someone run a bot that checks the username of the user talk page at the time of substing this template, and fix the markup accordingly? —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 13:22, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

1520 occurences. — Qwerfjkltalk 15:10, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks a lot @Qwerfjkl. Is there a way to get this list as a pagelist of AWB? I guess I can it myself now using regex captures. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 15:50, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

@CX Zoom, sure, see Special:Edit/User:Qwerfjkl/sandbox/42. — Qwerfjkltalk 16:52, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

You're amazing, Thank you —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 18:41, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Help with creating/populating men's footballer categories

{{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}}

Resolved

Hello, following the outcome of this RfC from last year, it was decided that men's footballer categories should be created to match the women's categories which had already existed. Therefore, I was wondering if a bot would be able to help create the relevant men's categories necessary, and then to move the appropriate pages to the new categories. I have finished cleaning up/completing the category trees for women, so now only men's footballers directly populate the relevant categories. There are five category trees needing to be adjusted, with each containing a type of footballer category by country/nationality (e.g. Category:Moroccan footballers). Each of these categories should become a container, with the articles in each category then diffused to a men's subcategory (e.g. Category:Moroccan footballers becomes a container, with the articles moved to Category:Moroccan men's footballers). The five category trees are:

• Category:Association football players by country
• Category:Association football players by club
• Category:Association football players by nationality
• Category:Expatriate association football players by location
• Category:Expatriate association football players by nationality

The first two category trees will not require any category changes to articles, as the category for each country acts as a container.

Given the large number of articles involved, any help with creating a bot would be really appreciated. Thanks, S.A. Julio (talk) 17:25, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

@S.A. Julio: Hello. I think I might be able to create a bot for that, but I have not understood your request completely. Would you kindly explain the categories (examples) in your sandbox? with main/container cats with single asterisk, and subcats with increasing asterisks? Also, example articles would be good too. —usernamekiran (talk) 12:07, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

@Usernamekiran: Sure, I'm working on compiling a full list, but I have gotten it started here. Hopefully that is somewhat clearer. S.A. Julio (talk) 15:11, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

@S.A. Julio: Hello. I apologise, I was buy in real life. Also, I still don't understand what exactly needs to be done. Could you please dumb it down for me? also pinging @Certes, Primefac, and Qwerfjkl: or anybody who could explain what needs to be done. There is relevant discussion at User talk:S.A. Julio/Footballer categories, where SA Julio explained it to me, but I didn't understand. Once I understand what "edits" need to be done, high chances are I will be able to automate it. —usernamekiran (talk) 10:01, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

@Usernamekiran, for each category in the category trees, create a men's subcategory, move the article to the men's subcat, and containerise the original category. — Qwerfjkltalk 10:25, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

One commment: before we add categories and populate them, is everyone happy with the names? We seem to include the word "association" at high but not low levels. For example, Women's association football players by country contains Women's footballers in Afghanistan, Women's footballers in Albania etc. (and, exceptionally, Women's soccer players in Australia). Certes (talk) 11:43, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

also, should it be Women's soccer players in Australia or Women soccer players in Australia —usernamekiran (talk) 13:38, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

The category tree for the sport in most countries uses "football", e.g. Category:Football in France as the article is at Football in France. The only exceptions are Ireland and New Zealand categories, which use "association football", and Australia, Canada, South Africa, the U.S. and U.S. Virgin Islands, which use "soccer". As for the women's/women wording, we use "women's footballers" consistently, based off women's association football. S.A. Julio (talk) 13:52, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

• @S.A. Julio: Hi. I went through the category tree/structure of Association football players by country. There are five subcategories for Footballers in England:
  1. Footballers in England by club‎ (1,805 C, 1 P)
  2. Footballers in England by competition‎ (2 C)
  3. English footballers‎ (5 C, 23,893 P, 3 F)
  4. Expatriate footballers in England‎ (1 C, 5,405 P)
  5. Women's footballers in England‎ (4 C)

If I am getting this correct, then you want to update all these categories (excluding women's) to the format: "Men's footballers in England by club", "Men's footballers in England by competition‎", "English men's footballers", and "Men's expatriate footballers in England". Is that right? If that's the case, are we sure that all 23,893 articles in the category "English footballers" are about men footballers? If we cant be sure, then this might not be a good task for a fully automated bot. If we are sure that there are no articles about women footballers in these categories (except for "Category:English women's footballers", and all women's subcats), then I can create a program for this task. —usernamekiran (talk) 16:23, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

The title for 4. should probably be "Expatriate men's footballers in England": we're identifying the subsport(?) of "men's football" rather than saying it's a category for men. As well as the obvious women's subcategories (Footballers in England by club contains Women's footballers in England by club), there are more subtle inclusions to deal with. For example, Footballers in England by club contains Aston Villa F.C. players which in turn contains Aston Villa W.F.C. players. Certes (talk) 18:19, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

@Usernamekiran: Yes that category structure is correct (with the adjustment Certes mentioned), for an already-completed example see Category:Footballers in Denmark. And yes, I've gone through every subcategory to verify women's players were moved to the appropriate subcategory. As for the Aston Villa example Certes mentioned, this is something I was planning on adjusting soon, though it may be easier to find all the categories to fix once the category tree has been divided. S.A. Julio (talk) 20:33, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

• @S.A. Julio: I have created a rudimentary program for the task. You said "category trees" of the aforementioned five categories, but I am still not sure about the recursion depth. I mean, I am not sure how many subcategories need to be updated, or where to stop. Maybe Certes knows? —usernamekiran (talk) 13:31, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

  @Usernamekiran: Only needs to be done for every country, no further. I already have full lists of the relevant categories to be containerised if this would be helpful, as there are a few dependent territories that may not show up in the top-level of the category tree. Also, I created a table here which may be useful to convert between country names and their demonyms used in categories. S.A. Julio (talk) 18:06, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

  As I recently discoverd, you can convert to denonyms using the countryinfo module:
  

  ​
  from countryinfo import CountryInfo
  ​
  ​
  country = CountryInfo('Singapore')
  print(country.demonym())
  ​
  'Singaporean'
  

  — Qwerfjkltalk 14:23, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Coding... —usernamekiran (talk) 12:24, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

BRFA filed courtesy ping @S.A. Julio, Certes, and Qwerfjkl: —usernamekiran (talk) 17:01, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

 Doing... —usernamekiran (talk) 09:46, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

 Done —usernamekiran (talk) 18:35, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Merge duplicate WikiProject banners

{{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}} Could anyone help with a bot task to merge the duplicate WikiProject banners found on pages listed at Category:Pages using WikiProject banner shell with duplicate banner templates? Gonnym (talk) 12:39, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Potentially, but Special:Permalink/1136270024 is a rather problematic edge case - an exception should probably be made in the tracking since it's a valid use case. Primefac (talk) 12:59, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

I've modified Template:WikiProject Articles for creation/sandbox to handle a second reviewer and tested a merge here. Can there be more than 2 reviewers? Gonnym (talk) 14:27, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

I mean, I doubt there are all that many pages that have been accepted twice, let alone three times! I think I just got lucky on that particular check, don't even know how many there would be. Primefac (talk) 10:08, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

@Gonnym: BRFA filed to delete duplicate WikiProject banners, which should make it easier to find pages which need merging manually. GoingBatty (talk) 18:56, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

@Gonnym: Doing... GoingBatty (talk) 02:25, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

@Gonnym: Y Done with the work I signed up for, which still leaves thousands of more complicated talk pages to resolve. GoingBatty (talk) 03:33, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Report for folks NPP patrolling too fast

{{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}} I'd like to request a bot that generates a report somewhere of NPPs and admins who Page Curation "mark as reviewed" (type=pagetriage-curation&subtype=review) 10 or more mainspace non-redirect articles in 2 minutes. This is way too fast to be proper NPP patrolling and these folks will need further scrutiny. Thank you. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:29, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

10 articles in 2 minutes is insanely fast, essentially "I don't even need to check the review quality there's no way that an adequate review could be done that fast". If all the bot does is print out a report for NPP coordinators to look at I think a threshold of as low as >1 article a minute would be valid. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 22:36, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Looking at my own page curation log I seem to fairly regularly hit 2 in the same minute, and have hit 3 in the same minute twice this month (in one case 3 disambiguation pages, in another case 3 taxonomy stubs). * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:41, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

If the bot prints out the article titles in question, it would be relatively easy to identify trivial reviews like taxa stubs (we could also tell it to ignore dabs, although I'm not sure that's necessarily called for). I'm not married to >1 as the threshold, and it could be worthwhile to design a threshold that looks at sustained rate to weed out small patches of easy articles (e.g. >5 articles in 5 minutes, instead of >1 in 1 minute) _signed, Rosguill ^talk 22:47, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

 Request withdrawn. Someone way too clever did this as a database report instead :) I especially like the left(log_timestamp, 12)/group by/having trick in that query. We'll probably set this up to write to a subpage of "Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Reports/" using {{Database report}}. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:00, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Reports/Fast article reviewers. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 05:38, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Noting that the database report includes redirects, contra the initial design specification. Folly Mox (talk) 05:50, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

I guess you mean stuff like Whoopin'. The problem is that once an RFD is added to a redirect, it no longer remains a redirect, which is why they are appearing here. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 06:00, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

I guess I'm just wondering if there's a way to get to the dataset NL specified originally, since it's possible to review redirects accurately at a significantly higher rate than articles. It's possible there's a technical barrier; I'm no expert here. Folly Mox (talk) 06:33, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Just exclude pages with Category:All redirects for discussion. — Qwerfjkltalk 11:50, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Something like quarry:query/75365? — Qwerfjkltalk 12:01, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I've updated the query used in Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Reports/Fast article reviewers to exclude RfDs and AfDs. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 04:30, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Physics biography project tagging

{{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}}

Resolved

This is my first ever such request, so apologies in advance if this is the wrong venue.

What I'm looking for basically is if an article is already tagged with WikiProject Biography and WikiProject Physics, to then add the bio=yes parameter to the Physics project banner if it's not already present, and s&a-work-group=yes to the Biography project banner if not already present.

Just the batch of existing ones if need be (so may be better suited for AWB?), but ideally something on-going, though doesn't need running that often.

Given could be bio=yes, or bio=y, detection using categories. More specifically, just regular articles, not list-class, or categories themselves, or templates, or files, etc. Something like https://petscan.wmflabs.org/?psid=25332108. Happy to include drafts. Plus something to deal with s&a-work-group=yes.

For transparency, the initial discussion was at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Physics#Article_classification_thought. I do not have the ability to code this myself.

Thank you. -Kj cheetham (talk) 15:10, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Um... apologies if I wasn't clear on the main thread, I was planning on doing this. Primefac (talk) 15:20, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Ah sorry, I thought you were telling me to write a proposal! -Kj cheetham (talk) 15:21, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Fixing templates still using old NFL style/color templates that are now redirects

{{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}} Hello.

Could somone please create a bot editing templates still using the old NFL style/color templates the following way:

1. {{NFLPrimaryColor| => {{Gridiron primary color|
2. {{NFLPrimaryColorRaw| => {{Gridiron primary color raw|
3. {{NFLPrimaryStyle| => {{Gridiron primary style|
4. {{NFLAltPrimaryColor| => {{Gridiron alt primary color|
5. {{NFLAltPrimaryStyle| => {{Gridiron alt primary style|
6. {{NFLAltSecondaryColor| => {{Gridiron alt secondary color|
7. {{NFLSecondaryColor| => {{Gridiron secondary color|
8. {{NFLSecondaryColorRaw| => {{Gridiron secondary color raw|
9. {{NFLTertiaryColorRaw| => {{Gridiron tertiary color raw|

There are thousands of templates (mostly navboxes) that use these template redirects.

Thank you. HandsomeFella (talk) 20:54, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

N Not done There is no reason to remove template redirects, and in fact is one of the reasons why they even exist; making thousands of edits just to change one template call to an identically-working one is pointless. Primefac (talk) 08:06, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

AU/NZ Railway station redirects

Hi, I noticed a little inconsistency with railway station articles in Australia and New Zealand.

Context: The typical format for the name of train stations in Australia and New Zealand is Example railway station, otherwise if that name is used more than once around the world, then Example railway station, Administrative Division is used. The administrative divisions used are the full names of the states/territories of Australia, e.g. “Western Australia”, and the country of “New Zealand”. This is typically used for train stations that are in regional areas outside of a major city. However, for metropolitan train stations within the bounds of major cities such as Sydney and Melbourne, then it should be Example railway station, City.

Context ctd: Thus, many articles have redirects with the disambiguators, e.g. the article Example railway station might have redirects from “, New South Wales” and “, Sydney”. Or Example railway station, City might have a redirect from Example railway station, State. Some real examples of articles include Panania railway station, Epping railway station, Sydney and Gloucester railway station, New South Wales. Often, these redirects exist because of page moves, someone manually created it and/or someone created an erroneous redlink to a station when it was incorrectly disambiguated, and a redirect was created. But, other times, some redirects exist, some don’t.

Request: Are there any bots (or possibly one to be created) that could parse the names of a station’s article (or potentially a list of names) that would be manually inputted by the user, then the bot would check what format it is in (e.g. no disambiguator, city disambiguator, administrative division disambiguator, or other), then create redirects as necessary for the other disambiguators?

Request ctd: It should ideally process names in alphabetical order and then sorted by the administrative region it is in, while timestamping/logging each action into a readable list. It should also list the main article’s name, and redirects that already exist. Note that if the railway station is in an “other format” such as Newcastle Interchange, then the bot should just ignore it. It should also check the redirects that already do exist, and add/change the class of the article to “redirect” for the relevant WikiProjects. Possibly, the user could input the city and/or administrative region that the station(s) are in into the bot’s interface.

I am aware of the WP:MASSCREATION policy, but I think because these are redirects and not articles, it should be ok. It’d also help out those who like to search for station articles, but instead they add in an unnecessary disambigator, and those who place redlinks.

Would love to hear your thoughts guys, and thanks for making it this far :) Fork99 (talk) 08:28, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Also forgot to add, I have zero programming knowledge/skills lol Fork99 (talk) 08:30, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

WP:MASSCREATION does not apply to redirects. — Qwerfjkltalk 09:18, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Actually, some stations in New Zealand are disambiguated by the major city it’s in, or the region that it’s in. Fork99 (talk) 09:34, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Top 25 report

Resolved

I am requesting that a bot start adding the Top 25 report template to the talk pages of articles appearing in Wikipedia:Top 25 Report. In is an achievement for articles to get enough views to appear on this list, and a template exists. BabbaQ (talk) 08:52, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

@BabbaQ: this seems doable. Signpost already has a table/list of traffic report, I always wondered how it was created. Maybe Igordebraga can share more information. —usernamekiran (talk) 23:38, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

pinging JPxG as well. —usernamekiran (talk) 00:15, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is the best idea vis a vis banner bloat and blindness. Frostly (talk) 01:56, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

@Frostly: blindness is not exactly an issue. But I'm not comfortable with the "bloating" issue too. I'm not sure which template is it, "in the news", or top articles, or something else, but there is a template which expands every time. If it is this template it would be like "this article was in top 25|first date|second date|so on". And the top articles are sort of rotational. —usernamekiran (talk) 05:51, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

On most articles that appear on the Top 25 report more than one time, the dates are merged into the already existing template. It does not bloat the talk so to speak.BabbaQ (talk) 06:28, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to the idea, but I do think this will keep on increasing the size of the template, but the increment is not problematic. On the other hand, repeated occurrences are not high in frequency, and even if the bot doesn't update it, chances are very high that someone will manually update it. —usernamekiran (talk) 07:06, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

I agree, in fact from what I can tell less than 0,2 % of Wikipedias articles will ever appear more than one time on Top 25 Report. The Report has been going for almost ten years and very few articles appear often, and for most articles it is in my opinion a fun and important achievement to get more than 500,000 views in a single day.BabbaQ (talk) 07:14, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

@BabbaQ: Coding... I can write a task on this. I'll let you know when it's done. Capsulecap ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:41, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

@BabbaQ: BRFA filed I have submitted this bot to BRFA. Capsulecap ^{(talk • contribs)} 00:24, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

@Capsulecap: - Thank you so much.BabbaQ (talk) 07:02, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Identifying Oversized Stub Articles in WikiProjects

First time I've done this, so hopefully this makes sense.

I would like to request the assistance of a bot in identifying large stub articles within various WikiProjects. The purpose of this task is to highlight articles within the WikiProjects that have a significant character count and may require further attention or improvement.

If it would help to show the logic, I have developed a program that can analyse the character count of articles in designated stub categories associated with each WikiProject. The program uses an algorithm to scan the articles' content and generate a report listing the articles that exceed a certain character limit (e.g., 10,000 characters). The report includes the article's title, the character count, and a link to the article page. Tell me where to show the code and I could do this.

To facilitate the testing and implementation of this program, I propose that the bot initially runs in a user sandbox or designated user space. This will allow for easy monitoring and review of the generated reports by the WikiProject members.

A significant number of stub categories in the WikiProjects have large articles. The program aims to identify such articles with large character counts which may suggest misclassification.

Please let me know if you have any queries. JASpencer (talk) 08:03, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

@JASpencer: Hi. This is indeed very interesting, and helpful task. But according to WP:STUB, a stub is an article deemed too short and incomplete to provide encyclopedic coverage of a subject. I'm not sure if we would be able to create a program that will be able to judge the encyclopaedic value of the content. There are a quite a few stubs which have lots of text but it doesn't cover the subject adequately. But maybe your program can screen/shortlist them, and then humans can go through the list? Also, there is a tool by the name "fountain tool" or something, it is used to evaluate the articles for Wikipedia Asia month. I think that tool excludes stuff like infobox, references, and other templates, and counts only the actual article text. Maybe you can incorporate some of its logic/functionalities in your program? —usernamekiran (talk) 20:07, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

@Usernamekiran: The idea eventually would be for this to be an alert to active projects saying that there is a large amount of text on these articles that are categorised as stubs. As an intermediate step it would go to a sandbox while it's being refined (including an on/off button for projects to opt in or out), but eventually it would be posting a link to projects so that they can have an idea of likely non stubs in their stub category. JASpencer (talk) 06:28, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

@JASpencer: We already did this on the Military History Project. A bot run went through all the project's stubs and all those not rated as a stub on ORES were re-categorised. ORES is good at assessing whether an article is a stub or not, with few false positives. Our project checklists were used to re-assess the non-stubs. This includes the presence of infboxes and, the size of articles, and whether or not it is fully referenced. Those (very few) re-categorised as B class were flagged for human checking. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 11:33, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Thankyou @Hawkeye7. To achieve what I originally laid out all that would need to be done would be to make that stub categorising bot available to other projects. Is there a mechanism for doing that? JASpencer (talk) 07:35, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

@JASpencer, I would ask the bot op. — Qwerfjkltalk 14:50, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Thank you @Qwerfjkl. I've asked asked over at the project. JASpencer (talk) 15:48, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

A new Bot run would be created that goes through the stubs for a particular project and reports those longer than the specified size. The Bot library already has the ability to count the characters of text in an article. It would need to know where to report its results. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:46, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

@Hawkeye7 for now it should be going to a sandbox to prove that it works. (I created something, but rather naively didn't realise that Wikipedia would rightly block it). What would I need to do? JASpencer (talk) 08:10, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

@JASpencer, (I created something, but rather naively didn't realise that Wikipedia would rightly block it) - what do you mean? — Qwerfjkltalk 11:52, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl. Hopefully doesn't matter now, but I had created some code in python in collab to create a list of the non stubs within the stub categories, which works well. But then I tried to see if it would write this within a sandbox within Wikipedia. It got blocked and I realised that I shouldn't be doing that so came here. JASpencer (talk) 13:44, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Sure. I wasn't going to update any pages at all for the test run. I was skeptical about whether there really was any large stubs, but the Bot quickly found one for me: 2002 Indian heat wave (11 kB) Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:40, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Hawkeye7 is there anything I need to do further? JASpencer (talk) 12:55, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Is there a project you want the Bot to run against? I will handle the approval process. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:24, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

@Hawkeye7, I've not got a particular project in mind, I want it to become a general service. I've run the code against the Northern Ireland and Ireland projects, so I know they've got some articles that should meet this. Do you want the code? JASpencer (talk) 12:50, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

@Hawkeye7, is there anything you need from me for this? JASpencer (talk) 12:20, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

@Usernamekiran I just stumbled upon your comment above. Personally, I would say that Start class would meet your description, not Stub. I interpret Start class as something with more than just the barest of entries, yet still lacking in reasonable coverage. In other words (and to use your own): "There are a quite a few stubs which have lots of text but it doesn't cover the subject adequately" That makes it a Start-class article, though I suspect you might be able to offer some exceptions. Cheers, Nick Moyes (talk) 14:03, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

List of Wikipedians by non-automated edits

There are various lists of Wikipedians by edit count and related stats. One that I'd be interested to see would be Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by non-automated edit count. I think the presence of such a list might be a small help re Editcountitis, as it'd recognize/incentivize editors whose edit count has not been juiced through tons of (typically low-value) automated edits.

Would anyone be interested in coding a bot to populate and maintain such a page? Courtesy pinging Legoktm and 0xDeadbeef, who run the bot that updates the overall edit count list, in case either of you might be up for it. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:48, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

How is non-automated edit vs automated edit defined? Legoktm (talk) 22:40, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

This thing knows. Folly Mox (talk) 22:54, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Interesting, it's controlled by MediaWiki:XTools-AutoEdits.json. Legoktm (talk) 23:07, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Sounds like we need three lists: total, manual and (semi-)automated. Or possibly two: manual and (semi-)automated. The negative/subtraction name "by non-automated edit count" rather should be a positive name "by manual edit count". I'm not convinced automated edits are typically low-value, anyway, manual edits often have the same characteristics. Plus it's so hard to tell since automation can take many forms that are impossible to track. -- GreenC 03:58, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

XTools doesn't distinguish between semi-automated and automated edits, so if we're using their definitions, we won't either, at least to start. I'm guessing that there may be some blurriness that would make such a distinction tricky.

"manual edit count" sounds fine for the page name.

Regarding your other points, we're never going to come up with a perfect measure of editor contributions. This list will need a caveat lector just like the other — the goal is just to provide another angle that perhaps incrementally reduces the incentive to game the system. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 05:03, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Cricket Archive

The Cricket Archive (https://cricketarchive.com) have introduced a subscription access to their website. We have about 14,600 articles referencing the site. Could a bot add |url-access=subscription to those that do not have this. Keith D (talk) 22:09, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Couple thoughts: it includes http://www.cricketarchive.com and http://www.cricketarchive.co.uk .. though not sure if it's every URL. They have a "system" of first flashing the original page on the screen then a Javascript redirect to the paywall page. It makes link rot detection and maintenance a custom job ie. not doable by IABot. I set the domains to 'subscription' at iabot.org meaning the bot will skip them. I think adding |url-access= is a good idea where possible, anyone can do this, including with AWB. If the cite has an archive URL with |url-status=dead (or no |url-status= same thing), maybe the |url-access= is redundant. -- GreenC 04:03, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Updating a module based on a PDF

Resolved

Hey folks, I was perusing Category:ATP Tour navigational boxes and realised that a) most of these templates are out of date, and b) this would be a good task for a bot. From The ATP site gives this PDF, which contains all of the useful information that could be used for a module. Before I start writing the module, I guess I was wondering if anyone would be able to utilise this information in a way where it could be updated weekly as the stats update. The way I see it:

1. PDF gets updated with stats
2. Bot scrapes PDF for relevant information (rank, name, country)
3. Bot transfers old stats into "last week", then updates stats

From there the module can give ranks and any changes from week to week for use in the various templates. If this seems workable, let me know. Thanks. Primefac (talk) 16:07, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

@Primefac I checked and it seems fairly simple to extract the data from that PDF to a JSON file that a module could use. I'll try to come up with a proof of concept for that. Taavi (talk!) 12:33, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

@Primefac hey I created a script that reads the pdf and transforms into a data frame and saves an excel sheet. Now we just need to implement the data scrapping and adding to the wiki page. I'm new to botting in wikipedia, but I'll see if I can implement the data scrapping part latter today.

the release of code:

https://github.com/pfc15/ATP-raking/releases/tag/v1.0.0 Pfc55 (talk) 18:43, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Update for the work I was doing this weekend: I now have a working proof of concept in the form of testwiki:Module:ATP rankings, with the data updated by a bot to testwiki:Module:ATP rankings/data/singles.json. I suspect that the module will need some work, but I'd appreciate if someone would check that the JSON-based data format is workable before I file a BRFA. Taavi (talk!) 18:54, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Excellent. I'll play around with it in the next wee while and see if I can get something usable for you. Thanks! Primefac (talk) 19:39, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Taavi, that is a cracking module. I ported it over and modified your template base slightly so that it can be used more dynamically. Let me know if I missed anything in the functionality. Primefac (talk) 10:59, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, that looks good to me. I suspect the automatic linking code will need some work to handle cases where the article title doesn't exactly match what's in the PDF (disambiguations etc). BRFA filed either way, and we can tweak those later. Taavi (talk!) 11:17, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, at the moment the Russian players are given a blank code in the PDF, so that will likely need to be modified somehow to be RUS in the json. Primefac (talk) 11:30, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Removing bogus "Korea" flag

Deferred

• "pageant" insource:/"name=Korea"/

Hopefully everyone knows there is no national flag of "Korea"; there is a DPRK (North Korea) and a South Korea. Unfortunately, several beauty pageant fans have added the nonexistent "Korea" flag to over 80 articles as indicated in the search results above. It should be pretty simple to have a bot rename it to South Korea by removing the name=Korea parameter from the flag template. ☆ Bri (talk) 22:01, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

This could be a job for WP:AWB/Tasks. Beware that, outside the pageant world, teams have competed as "Korea", both historically and on special occasions such as the combined team in Ice hockey at the 2018 Winter Olympics – Women's tournament#Group B. Certes (talk) 07:30, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Agreed; this should be done either entirely manually or via AWB. I will note that "Korea" is often the name given to South Korea in passing terms since it is more prevalent and "present" on the world stage. Primefac (talk) 08:14, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Indeed; we have Miss Korea which (assuming the article is correct) is a South Korean pageant. Certes (talk) 11:51, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

archive-date timestamp mismatch

The archive date doesn't match on many of User:AShiv1212's articles such as Ahimsa (2023 film). DareshMohan (talk) 07:31, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

@DareshMohan: Hello. I don't understand your question/issue. Would you kindly rephrase it? —usernamekiran (talk) 08:40, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

There was a new featured added to CS1|2 this weekend, it now displays a red error message if the archive-date doesn't match the date in the archive URL, visible in Ahimsa (2023 film). I have a bot to fix them. There is a tracking category now, so I know which articles to target. Looks like about 12,000 pages have this error it's a lot. I'll do this. -- GreenC 16:23, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

User:GreenC, is this task safe enough that you might allow your bot to run unsupervised? I ask because it seems like a pretty simple fix and a pretty easy error to make. Hope it doesn't take up too much of your time. Folly Mox (talk) 16:29, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes I'll consider it, as a full-time unsupervised bot that runs via a cron schedule. That will take some work since I would need to extract all the relevant code and libraries from the main bot into a separate tool. But that is the right thing to do. It should also be in IABot, since it edits in over 200 wikis. There is more to it than fixing dates, like in The Great Indian Rescue it's caused by a missing |archive-url=. Or this which requires maintain the same date format (iso, mdy, etc). There are probably other things like that. So the first run will be about discovering what the bot needs to do to fix the errors. -- GreenC 16:44, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

excuse for intruding. how @AShiv1212 was adding archives and what source of these errors? rudrudu (talk) 03:16, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Example: |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201028113503/https://www.tvguide.com/news/drag-48227/ |archive-date=October 28, 2022 .. notice the date in the URL is 20201028 and the |archive-date=October 28, 2022 don't match. It should be |archive-date=October 28, 2020 -- GreenC 05:39, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

let me rephrase: is the user adding archive url, dates manually? or is user using_ userscript or gadget or ref button? rudrudu (talk) 08:56, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Given that the user is adding wikilinks into |website= parameters, my guess is that they were filling out the templates manually, and setting the |archive-date= equal to the |access-date= for some reason. None of their edit summaries contain links to userscripts. Have you tried asking the user directly? Folly Mox (talk) 13:26, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

@Folly Mox Have you tried asking the user directly? yes, question. setting the |archive-date= equal to the |access-date= for some reason. so, user/editor is updating access-date as archive-date, interesting..... rudrudu (talk) 13:55, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Restarting User:Reports_bot

Prev discussion: /Archive_85

Hi - I want to re-raise this item, since we have users assuming that wikiprojects that use the bot. For example this conerstaion occured because the user created a WikiProjectCards page but it wasnt added by the bot this page, so they assumed the wikiproject wasnt accepting new members. There are dozens of other users that have attempted to sign up to the wikiproject but not appeared on the participant list. I suspecrt similar scenarios are happening for the other wikiproject that use the bot (WP:MED WP:WPWIR etc). (ping @Pppery, Harej, and MZMcBride: I realise you're busy but I wanted to make sure you saw this). T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 02:55, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Ugh. First off, Reports bot, when it worked, appears to have based which projects to run off of Wikipedia:WikiProject X/wikiproject.json, where Molecular Biology was never listed, so it never updated that page. And then of course it stopped running in September and nobody with the ability to fix it cares.

I guess if nobody continues to do anything I will dust off my previous attempt based on {{database report}} and get it to actually work, but I'm really not inspired. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 04:05, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Given the unsurprising lack of response I've done that for Wikipedia:WikiProject Molecular Biology/Members and Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Members. The way the new system works is that SDZeroBot edits Wikipedia:WikiProject Molecular Biology/Members/Report every 3 days (or when manually told to edit it), and then some template magic I wrote uses that page to populate Wikipedia:WikiProject Molecular Biology/Members (and hence Wikipedia:WikiProject Molecular Biology). Given that there are a lot of other projects using the system and none of the others have complained anywhere visible I've only converted those two, but if someone makes a specific request to set up the system for a new WikiProject I will be happy to grant it.

Oh, and during the process I found and reverted some undetected month-old vandalism. That's Wikipedia ... * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 14:44, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Seeking to correct misspellings in articles tagged "use British English"

Hello!

I am a new editor who noticed a large number of uses of US English on British English-tagged pages and I would like to see what can be done with a bot. The first thing I fixated on was use of "percent" over "per cent", but soon noticed others such as "program" over "programme". Is there a way of programming a bot to reform these and similar spellings? Of course it would have to take into account proper names of things and direct quotations. I think it might be advantageous to programme the bot to do a general sweep of the tag and nip any future issues in the bud so words such as "colour" (US: "color"), "enrolment" (US: "enrollment"), "travelled" (US: "traveled"), "hippy" (US: "hippie"), "aluminium" (US: aluminum"), "gaol" (US: "jail"), "rouble" (US: "ruble"), "aeroplane" (US: "airplane"), "sulphur" (US: "sulfur"), and so on are reformed also. It should not touch words containing -ize/-ise, because both are acceptable in BrE (indeed I saw a sign at my local GP surgery recently that read "sanitize your hands"). Stolitz (talk) 01:51, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

/Frequently denied bots#Bots to automatically spell-check articles * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 02:04, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Ah I see, sorry. Stolitz (talk) 02:19, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

From that link: Manually-assisted bots are acceptable, so long as they include international spell checking (not only country-specific spell checking) and the operator does in fact examine every proposed edit before allowing the bot to make it. WP:AWB or WP:JWB may be useful here, though their users needs pre-approval (to deter mass drive-by vandalism) and we normally expect longer experience before granting it. Certes (talk) 09:17, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

That's okay, I will see what I can do. 𝔖𝔱𝔬𝔩𝔦𝔱𝔷 (talk) 09:19, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

@Stolitz: Have you looked at the User:Ohconfucius/EngvarB script? GoingBatty (talk) 22:28, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Addition of needs-infobox=yes to Wikipedia:WikiProject Green Bay Packers template banner

Standard WikiProject tagging request here. I have been slowly working on Category:Green Bay Packers articles needing infoboxes, bringing the total down from about 100 articles to 24 as of this writing. I have been averaging about 3 or 4 a day, so I expect to clear the category in about a week. However, it has been a really long time since I had a bot run through the category tree and tag the relevant article talk pages (see here for the last request). So, for the request, could I have a bot owner run through the following categories and sub-categories, check if an infobox exists on the page, and if not, tag {{WikiProject Green Bay Packers}} with the needs-infobox=yes:

Green Bay Packers players

no subcategories

Green Bay Packers personnel

Green Bay Packers announcers

Green Bay Packers coaches

Green Bay Packers employees

Green Bay Packers executives

Green Bay Packers scouts

Thank you for any help you can provide. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 21:54, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

@Gonzo fan2007: Hi there! There were four biographical articles without infoboxes that weren't already tagged as such. I added the WP GBP banner to two of them, and the needs-infobox=yes parameter to all four. I did not add needs-infobox=yes to these pages:

• Talk:Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame
• Talk:List of Green Bay Packers in the Pro Football Hall of Fame
• Talk:List of Green Bay Packers players
• Talk:List of Green Bay Packers retired numbers
• Talk:List of Green Bay Packers first-round draft picks
• Talk:List of Green Bay Packers starting quarterbacks
• Talk:List of Green Bay Packers players: A–D
• Talk:List of Green Bay Packers players: E–K
• Talk:List of Green Bay Packers players: L–R
• Talk:List of Green Bay Packers Pro Bowl selections
• Talk:List of Green Bay Packers players: S–Z
• Talk:List of Green Bay Packers head coaches
• Talk:List of Green Bay Packers general managers
• Talk:List of Green Bay Packers presidents

Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 01:53, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Y Done thank you so much GoingBatty! « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 14:40, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Add project banner template to all articles relating to Nagorno-Karabakh

Hello, i'd like to request a bot add the template {{WikiProject Artsakh}} to the talk pages of all articles in this category tree:

Nagorno-Karabakh

Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

Nagorno-Karabakh-related lists

Republic of Artsakh

I'm not sure how many of them already have the template, but combing through all of them & adding it individually would be extremely tedious. Thanks! Sawyer-mcdonell (talk) 22:16, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

@Sawyer-mcdonell: Doing... GoingBatty (talk) 22:47, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

@Sawyer-mcdonell: Y Done! GoingBatty (talk) 02:23, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

thanks! Sawyer-mcdonell (talk) 03:28, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Clear out IUBMB_EC_number parameter from Template:Infobox enzyme

Resolved

The IUBMB_EC_number parameter was removed from Template:Infobox enzyme in February 2013 by Boghog (the value is now automatically calculated from another field). At this point there are over 4800 entries in Category:Pages using infobox enzyme with unknown parameters and all but a dozen or so are the IUBMB_EC_number parameter. I've done parameter removal using AWB before and know that the regex can get tricky on some but in this case I don't think it would be that bad the values should be of the form A/B/C/D where A,B,C &D are all numbers. Naraht (talk) 15:28, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Naraht. I am also manually removing the deprecated |IUBMB_EC_number= from Template:Infobox enzyme as I find them. I would be in favor if a bot removed all occurrences. This parameter was necessary before Lua support was available in Wikipedia templates. With Lua, this parameter can automatically calculated from the mandatory {{EC_number}} parameter. Boghog (talk) 17:56, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Boghog NP. I've done similar AWB removal before when it was less than 1000, but this is particularly large and seems particularly easy to code the regex.Naraht (talk) 02:20, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

I think @Primefac might have a non-expiring BRFA to delete template parameters. If so, could probably ask them to work on this bot task. Correct me if I'm wrong. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:16, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

You are not, and yes I can (probably this afternoon). Primefac (talk) 06:29, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

 Done, down to 15 in the cat. Primefac (talk) 19:22, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Primefac thank you. Now all I have to do is find other template parameters at that level of agreement and age and volume to delete. 1/2 :)Naraht (talk) 21:57, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Remove all the East Khandesh redirect links

I wrote a separate article about East Khandesh (EK), now we don't need EK to redirect at Jalgaon district, so req to delete all such redirects. Tesla car owner (talk) 11:57, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

 Not done. First, because I have redirected the page as basically unnecessary (it's a former district and all of the information is already included in the target), and second, the primary page would be East Khandesh anyway which would remove the need to change every redirect. Primefac (talk) 12:07, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Automatically create redirect to Wikipedia talk:Template index/User talk namespace in all talk pages with *Uw-

Wikipedia:WikiProject User warnings says:

"To help centralise discussions and keep related topics together, all uw-* template talk pages and WikiProject User warnings project talk pages redirect to [Wikipedia talk:Template index/User talk namespace]"

However, many talk pages still do not do this. It would be quite tedious to have to go through every single template, go to its talk page, check if it redirects to it, and if not create it.

Could anybody create a bot that checks if a Uw- template's talk page redirects to Wikipedia talk:Template index/User talk namespace, and if it doesn't, create it? Millows (talk) 21:46, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

@Millows, only 134 pages, this belongs at WP:AWBREQ. — Qwerfjkltalk 15:07, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Gutenberg author IDs

Template:Gutenberg author takes an |id= that is either a name eg. |id=Quick,+Herbert .. or a number |id=4251. When a name, it goes to a search page like this then you click through to the author page. When a number it goes directly to the author page. Ideally one would use the number it's more accurate and direct. Most cases on Enwiki are the name and would benefit by changing eg. Special:Diff/1169939608/1170077601.

A bot could scrape the search page and change the ID to the number. It's only safe when there is a single name in the search result page. The template is in about 11k pages. Potentially one could add support for Wikidata, which might have it, but they didn't always correctly match the authors on Wikidata with the authors on Gutenberg and Wikipedia. Plus the problem of unwatched vandalism. This is a relatively easy and low-controversy bot or AWB project. -- GreenC 02:26, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

@GreenC, I think changing the name to the id could be run first, and then those updated values could be exported to Wikidata (e.g. like this) — Qwerfjkltalk 15:16, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Agree. That's a cool link. -- GreenC 23:52, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

@GreenC, BRFA filed. — Qwerfjkltalk 19:40, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

 Done for the most part. I've rerun it a couple of times to catch cases where it couldn't get the data from the site i.e. the query failed, but there may be a few I've missed. — Qwerfjkltalk 17:39, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Fixing episode redirect links

I'd like to request a bot that will fix the redirect targets of the redirects listed at User:Gonnym/sandbox/database report with the precise anchor target. A target page that uses the standard Template:Episode list (or Module:Episode list directly) will have anchors as "#ep<number>" where the number is the |EpisodeNumber= value (of the mentioned template or module call). So for example, for "His Maker's Name" the link is [[The Zeta Project#ep2]]. Note that some are targets to episode articles (alternative names, spelling, disambigiation, etc.) and do not need to be changed so the bot should just skip these. Gonnym (talk) 15:41, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

@Gonnym, I've pretty much written the code for this, but two things: firstly, what do you mean by "some are targets to episode articles" (preferably give a few examples). Secondly your sandbox query has timed out and just shows an error. — Qwerfjkltalk 22:11, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Qwerfjkl! The query should now be fixed. Regarding the first question, a few examples:

• The Real Deal (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode) which redirects to The Real Deal (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) It's a valid redirect and it's a correct target so it shouldn't need an "ep#" target fix.
• Behold... The Inhumans which redirects to Inhumans premiere. The redirect is an episode to an article which is a combined article of two episodes. So both the redirect and the target are valid here.

The above redirects appear on my report and should be ignored. The bot should check that the redirect target link contains {{Episode list}} or the module invocation (some pages invoke the module directly. See The Simpsons (season 10)#Episodes) and only fix those targets. Gonnym (talk) 11:27, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

@Gonnym, the way my code works is it just uses {{episode list}} where |Title= matches the redirect's title, and then it gets the value of |EpisodeNumber=. So it would just skip cases like Behold... The Inhumans because the target doesn't use {{episode list}}. (Likewise with The Real Deal (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode).)
I don't currently have the code working on the module, but I don't think that would be too tricky. — Qwerfjkltalk 11:31, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Great! Additional question, does the |Title= check ignore disambiguation? That is, would A Bolt From the Blue (Lois & Clark) and A Bolt From the Blue (Lois & Clark episode) both be fixed? Gonnym (talk) 11:44, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

@Gonnym, no, not right now. it should also probably ignore if the title is linked. — Qwerfjkltalk 12:05, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Ignoring linked titles for now would be a good idea. Hopefully you can get it to work with disambiguation as a large percentage of titles would be with disambiguation (either basic "(TV series name)" or extended "(TV series name episode)" (or some other form such as "(episode")) Gonnym (talk) 12:13, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

@Gonnym, I assume just removing anything in brackets would work? — Qwerfjkltalk 15:06, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Not sure I understand the question. What links are we talking about? Gonnym (talk) 15:13, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

@Gonnym, for example, using A Bolt From the Blue (Lois & Clark episode), it would match if the episode list tile parameter was "A Bolt From the Blue" - removing the brackets. — Qwerfjkltalk 15:27, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Ahh sure, that should work for the vast majority and any others could probably be handled manually. Gonnym (talk) 15:32, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

┌───────────────────────────┘
In that case I've got the code pretty much ready to go. I'll file a BRFA. — Qwerfjkltalk 15:41, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

@Gonnym, BRFA filed. — Qwerfjkltalk 16:01, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

@Gonnym, I've got the bot to process a few of these, but it seems there are endless edge cases. I've tackled the clear ones. — Qwerfjkltalk 17:51, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Hello

Fix references. Java. i wanna using bot on this wiki Aesthetic of me (talk) 16:54, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

Probably not going to happen, you're very new here and I am not sure your idea is fully programmable. Primefac (talk) 17:26, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

@Aesthetic of me: What are the reference problems you want to fix, and how to you propose to fix them using Java? GoingBatty (talk) 19:20, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

• there's also Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Aesthetic Bot. It hasn't been transcluded to main BRFA page. —usernamekiran (talk) 10:59, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

  also, Aesthetic Bot (talk · contribs) has made eight seven edits in mainspace (and one in aerospace). I think botop is unaware of the bot related policies. —usernamekiran (talk) 11:04, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

  @Aesthetic of me: I added your bot request to the list at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval. Your bot is not supposed to be making edits until it is approved by the Bot Approval Group (BAG). I think BAG is going to want more information before approving your request. GoingBatty (talk) 18:28, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

  For the record I do not particularly like it when other users add (unprompted) someone else's BRFA to the requests list; a BRFA can very easily still be under construction and could have been further modified before it was "submitted". Unless one is asked for assistance, they should not be trolling through the BRFA subpages to find un-submitted task requests. Primefac (talk) 10:05, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Entertainment Tonight Canada

Hi, I don't know if there's already a bot that can handle this, or if it's something I would need to request a new bot be written for, but the situation is that it was announced today that the entertainment news series Entertainment Tonight Canada will be cancelled in a couple of weeks, and apparently the website is disappearing with it — but as a person who edits principally in the film, television and music areas, it's obviously a source I've cited a lot (and I mean a lot a lot) in the past several years, so the links are going to need to be archived for salvage purposes.

It's obviously not a task I want to grind through all by myself if I don't absolutely have to, so I wanted to ask if there's a bot that can check for all Wikipedia articles that feature links to the https://etcanada.com/ domain, and ensure that there's an archived copy added to the citation if there isn't already one present yet? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 19:36, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

@Bearcat, see WP:URLREQ. — Qwerfjkltalk 19:40, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Okay, thanks Bearcat (talk) 19:41, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Move Coord Templates to the bottom of the first paragraph

When {{Coord}} templates are at the top of an article, they always break the page previews, making them display with no text. I'd like to request a bot that moves them to the bottom of the first paragraph to remedy this. (Don't know why this happens, but it does get fixed when you move it.) LOOKSQUARE (👤️·🗨️) talk 01:11, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

@LOOKSQUARE: programming wise, seems doable. But the template is used on around 1,300,000 pages. This change would need wide community support, we are basically changing/creating a WP:MOS standard. —usernamekiran (talk) 01:32, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

@Usernamekiran: It's actually already in the MOS. MOS:ORDER says to put coordinates at the end of the article, in between authority control and DEFAULTSORT. Putting coordinates there fixes the issue, though I'm similarly unsure of whether this is a better solution than just fixing page previews. Vahurzpu (talk) 04:20, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

I agree that we should investigate fixing the root cause, instead of making 1.3 million edits. Is there an example diff and steps to reproduce? –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:24, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae: Most recent page on which I spotted this issue was Bibliothèque nationale de France. If you're looking for more context on the root cause of the problem, see Module talk:Coordinates#Protected edit request on 29 May 2023 and phab:T338204 Vahurzpu (talk) 04:39, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Ah I see. The screenshot in phab:T338204 shows the problem. Looks like the code in mw:Extension:Popups is where the root issue is. A patch to the popups repo that fixes phab:T338204 is probably the way to go here. –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:51, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Is there a list of things bots might do when editing the page for other reasons? Essentially cosmetic or non-essential, easy to implement and only when editing for other approved reasons. There must be 100s of minor uncontroversial things like this that bot ops can voluntarily include in their bots without needing explicit approval. -- GreenC 04:39, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

The thing that immediately springs to mind is Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/General fixes, though I'm not sure whether they're suitable for this task. Vahurzpu (talk) 04:41, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. Looking at AWB's current genfixes, they do have some that fix MOS:ORDER stuff (categories, deletion tags, maintenance tags). Adding a genfix for coordinate MOS:ORDER could be a good secondary strategy to help with this problem, in addition to fixing the root cause in Extension:Popups. –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:55, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

I do agree that updating the genfixes code to include this would be good, as it would allow for fixing "in the background" as it were. Primefac (talk) 08:31, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

+1 to AWB for posterity. —usernamekiran (talk) 13:49, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

There's a bunch of cosmetic CheckWiki stuff that could be done as well. — Qwerfjkltalk 09:52, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Links to recent discussions:

• Template talk:Coord
• T338204
• Module talk:Coordinates
• WP:VPT archive 207
• WP:VPT archive 206

Before acting on the above, please check these discussions. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:50, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Extending stale draft notifications to Draft talk pages

Currently, User:FireflyBot posts notifications to the talk pages of page creators of AfC Drafts that have not been edited for five months, to warn them of impending deletion (BRFA). However, this approach of notifying only the page creator is suboptimal, as it does nothing to attract the attention of other editors who may be interested in rescuing the draft. In this discussion, extending the bot task to also post notifications to the draft talk page itself was suggested as a solution. I have asked Firefly about this, but he's been quite busy and probably won't be available to work on it any time soon. He did say, "if someone else is willing to write it I can run it as part of the same task." So I'm asking to see if someone might be. --Paul_012 (talk) 20:12, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

I am not opposed to this (strictly speaking) and will not stop someone who wants to do this and help out, but I am genuinely curious how many drafts have more than 1 watcher (ostensibly the page creator) to the point where this would actually be useful. Primefac (talk) 20:23, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

It's not just for people directly watching. WikiProjects can also use Special:WhatLinksHere to track changes to all talk pages under the project's tracking category. As draft project tagging has been encouraged for some time, this will be useful at least to those who regularly check their project's WhatLinksHere. Granted, a more visible alternative approach would be to expand WP:Article Alerts to cover impending G13 deletions as well, but this feature has been requested since 2015 without any sign so far of being implemented, so I'm trying to ask around to see if something can be done somewhere. --Paul_012 (talk) 21:24, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Ah, good point, didn't think about non-watchlist methods of tracking. Primefac (talk) 09:17, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

• pinging Firefly for their input as well, as their bot could do this task. General question: Is there a venue/page that lists all drafts that are to be deleted? If not, I think we could create a subpage somewhere under AfC to list drafts that are to be deleted after a week (or maybe a month). The recently edited, or deleted drafts from that list could be either removed by bot, or human(s). —usernamekiran (talk) 03:02, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

  usernamekiran, re-read the initial statement - Firefly already has been asked about this.

  To answer your question, we have Category:AfC G13 eligible soon submissions and User:SDZeroBot/G13 soon. Primefac (talk) 09:17, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

  strange. I missed that somehow. Would it be feasible to create a bot task to mirror/list all the existing pages from Category:AfC G13 eligible soon submissions to a particular page, and to remove redlinks from that particular page? It is doable, but I am not sure if it would be worth it as I don't know how many editors would be interested in that. Watchlisting a page with list is easy/convenient than going through the category manually. It can be done into addition to notifying on the talkpage of draft. —usernamekiran (talk) 16:48, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Forward VPM MassMessages to a new MassMessage list

I recently discovered that all major WMF announcements go to WP:VPM, because that's the page listed at m:Distribution list/Global message delivery and a few other global MassMessage lists.

I'd like to receive all MassMessages that go to VPM on my talk page. I can't do that by subscribing to the source, because m:Distribution list/Global message delivery only contains noticeboards and announcement venues (not individual user talk pages).

I therefore would like a bot that, whenever User:MediaWiki message delivery posts a message to WP:VPM, the bot submits another Special:MassMessage request that copies whatever was put onto VPM and re-announces that onto a new MassMessage list. I have to imagine I'm not the only one who wants to see global announcements on my talk page.

This shouldn't be too hard to do, right? Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 21:31, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

@L235, I might do this. Can you ping me in a few days if I forget about it? — Qwerfjkltalk 17:19, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

(I'd assume the bot would just get every edit onto VPM by User:MediaWiki message delivery and just resend the message to a given or list, or something of that sort.) — Qwerfjkltalk 17:20, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

@L235, I've done most of the work coding this. Can you grant my bot the Mass Message Sender perm so I can test it out? I'd also like a MassMessage list to test it out on. — Qwerfjkltalk 16:09, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl: Happy to. I've started a list at User:L235/VPM test list for now, but feel free to move it anywhere you see fit. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 16:16, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

@L235, great, seems like that worked. — Qwerfjkltalk 16:26, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

@L235, BRFA filed. — Qwerfjkltalk 16:39, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

<Mrs Chatter> bot

A bot that can translate over 35 languages. It's pretty cool if you ask me. It would have a giant blue button that says "Chatter Box Mode" that helps translating. I am pretty good at drawing so I could even make a logo for the Bot. There could even be a chatter box squad or maybe CBS to help answer the questions people have about the Mrs Chatter bot. The bot's userpage could have like a sort of table with the world HELLO in different languages like Bonjour, Dumelang, Mmolo, Sao bona, Dumela, Elko, and Namaste and even many more DJ Aquah (talk) 10:03, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

There's a lot more to making a bot than giving it a cool userpage and logo. 1) What exactly would this bot do? Automatically translate pages? (Fully automatic translation is not allowed due to low quality.) 2) How would it be triggered? 3) Bots usually just edit automatically and don't have user interfaces. If you want something with a user interface, you may want a user script instead. This doesn't sound like a great idea, but I decided to make a detailed post anyway, hopefully to teach you a little bit more about our bot process. Hope this helps. Happy editing. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:11, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

You may be interested in the content translation tool, and in particular why machine translation is disabled. Certes (talk) 11:11, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Blocked as a sockpuppet. Archiving. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:51, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Creating archive page for added ITN items

While we currently archive the WP:ITNC page to review past candidates for In The News, we don't have a similar function for the ITN items that are actually added to {{In The News}}. Is it possible that, given a date range and a target page, for a bot to capture "significant" additions to the template along with the date added. So for example, the bot should be able to review this diff, and create a line on the target page with the date of the change, the editor that added it, and the text of the addition (here being "Tharman Shanmugaratnam is elected as the next president of Singapore.")

The end goal would then to have the bot initially make monthly pages from the start of ITN, and then on a monthly basis create a new monthly archive.

I think the one constant is that all blurbs as well as RDs added start with a "*" mark, as to distinguish from minor typos or wording corrections or changes in the picture. However, I would rather the bot be overzealous and include false positives. Masem (t) 13:14, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

@Masem: Hi. I'm not 100% sure, but I think I can do that. Also, can you provide an example diff of bot's edit based on this diff? It can be your sandbox for the example. —usernamekiran (talk) 19:00, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

@Masem: Kindly check User:KiranBOT/sandbox, I made these edits using the bot. I think you expect blurb, editor name, timestamp format, correct? courtesy ping: Qwerfjkl (I couldnt have solved the diff issue without their help). —usernamekiran (talk) 17:00, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes, having the blurb, editor name, and timestamp would be good. It would also be nice to add, as a header, the time period it ran through. Can you run that for a larger period as I would like to see how it handles Recent Death additions too. Masem (t) 17:04, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

@Masem: The output you saw earlier did not include recent deaths, intentionally. I thought you wanted only the blurbs. I can add the time period it ran through, but I think it should not be in header. How about: *[[Bill Richardson]] − added by <username> at <date of addition>, removed by Stephen at 00:12, September 8, 2023. Thats just an example, the wording can be changed. —usernamekiran (talk) 10:44, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

If you can figure out when things were removed, that would be amazing, however, that is not essential. Its more the date added. Also probably should be clear that perhaps both the oldid and diff link for the point of addition (and also for point of removal, if possible) would be good to include. I did mean to also include the RDs, since they also should appear with a "*" in front of the entry. Masem (t) 12:10, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

@Masem: Hi. In this older version, you can see some lines beginning with | . They are from the "Main page image/ITN" template. In the current version, I have updated the program so that it will skip such lines. In this version, the bot excludes the lines beginning with | . I have also updated it so that lines beginning with *[[ are considered as recent deaths. Let me know what you think, and what other functionality would you like. —usernamekiran (talk) 13:14, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

I think this is in a good place (the second version where you are ignoring the pipe). As this is something that came up in ITN discussions I will check there to see if there is anything else before doing a full scale implementation. Masem (t) 17:31, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

@Masem: I have also updated the format of the timestamp. Now it is similar to a signature. And the archive pages will be created in "<month name> YYYY" format. e.g. "/September 2023". The only issue I couldn't resolve is the repetition of entries - when a line is edited, like the Morocco earthquake, every time it was edited, it was added as a separate entry. This happens because of the way diffs are presented. —usernamekiran (talk) 18:26, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks so much for this! It would be nice to add a header for each day, which would help to add some separation. For example ==September 10== and ==September 9==. I also think the "added by [Username] on [date]" part could be set off in a smaller font or otherwise separated from the main blurb, but I'm not sure exactly how that would be best formatted, and even as it currently is I don't particularly mind it. The single most important thing for readability, though: would it be at all possible to detect at least some cases of modification as distinct from addition? I can suggest some approaches. If in the same edit, one non-RD line is removed and another non-RD line is added in the same line number position, it is generally a modification. This is because new blurbs are usually added to the top and old ones are usually removed from the bottom due to staleness, so if the same line is added and removed it's a good indication of an intentional swap. I understand that this may not be a 100% accurate check, but you could also combine it with a second check like making sure the bolded link target is the same. Other approaches like textual similarity metrics based on edit distance or NLP algorithms are probably overkill, but could be attempted. I still think that checking the placement within the document and the bolded link target is good enough to reduce most of the duplication. In the case that you do detect duplication, I would probably try to put it underneath the original version, and have them listed as a chronological progression of edits. Example. 98.170.164.88 (talk) 01:45, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

the bot created "User:KiranBOT/September 2023". This is one of the many versions. I like the concept of adding updated blurbs below the original ones. I have implemented that in the program, and I think I may have tested it. I've created a method to find out updates, but two things I couldn't tackle so far are location swap of lines, and "ongoing" section. I'm currently out of town for a couple of days. I will do some more experiments after I get back. —usernamekiran (talk) 08:20, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

• PS: this is very important: currently - while testing, the bot is using one chronological order, but finally, it will be reverse chronological order. ie, the oldest entry will be at the top of the page, and latest at the bottom. For example, entry of 1 January, 2005 will be at the top of the page, and of 31st January will be at the bottom. —usernamekiran (talk) 08:26, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

  that page is looking good. The reverse order makes sense.

  Is it possible for each diff, that you can figure out what the most recent diff just prior to the template change on both WP:ITNC and WP:ERRORS as to add them after the information you have presently?

  Also, and this is probably much easier: since clearly doing it by month makes the most sense, providing a header link to the same month in our ITNC archives, such as Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates/September 2023 (only the first archives would need to be manually reset). Masem (t) 12:33, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

  I didn't understand your comment regarding the diffs. I'm not fully familiar how ITN stuff works in the background, I'll work on that. I can change the date format of archive page to be consistent with ITNC archives, and we can link them. But that might be confusing for the readers, I think we should keep the header format different. I'm not adamant about it though. —usernamekiran (talk) 14:42, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

  I am currently having some health issues, so I will probably be off the grid for a few days. Just wanted to let you guys know. Also, I'll finish the work as soon as I make recovery. Thank you for your patience, and understanding. —usernamekiran (talk) 15:29, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

  Please, take the time you need, there's no rush and the fact we have the basic of the solution are fine.

  By the diffs, I was wondering if it was then possible to find the diff on either (or both) pages WP:ITNC or WP:ERRORS which would be the last change made before the ITN template diff date. For example, if I use this template diff [4] which is around 18:00 on 15 September, then a link to this diff from WP:ITNC [5] which is the last change before 18:00 15 September on that page. While in this case, that specific diff does not point to the nomination that was implemented, I can see from going one diff forward that the posting editor also indicated that the nominations were posted. Masem (t) 15:37, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

• BRFA filed —usernamekiran (talk) 19:18, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Automatic AFL stat updates

I'd like to harness the data from afltables.com to automatically update all AFL players at the conclusion of every round. Some of the players are years out of date, which is a shame. The stats box (goals and games) could also be updated. Electricmaster (talk) 04:23, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Do not recommend a bot that edits every article at the end of every round, it's not efficient and arguably disruptive. Rather a bot that updates Commons in JSON, then a Lua template that pulls and displays data from Commons. The articles magically stay up to date without any bot (or human) edits. Such a system would work universally on any language wiki. However, should be careful of copyright, because maybe the website doesn't want their data replicated elsewhere. There's also a question of reliability. Before you start this project, to avoid problems in the future, query two places: the website contact here and WP:RSN. -- GreenC 23:00, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Redirects from organization/newspaper domain names

I would be interested to see a bot go through the |URL= parameter of all instances of {{Infobox newspaper}} and {{Infobox organization}} and create redirects if they do not already exist from the domain name to the article with the transclusion, tagged with {{R from domain name}}. This task could potentially be expanded to other infoboxes as well, but I think those two are a good place to start given that they'd help make linking to articles on sources in citations easier. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 08:26, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Do we massage the domain name in any way, e.g. remove initial "www."? Suggested easy by-product: a list of the domain names for which a page exists but is not a redirect to the article title. Certes (talk) 09:29, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Removing the .www is the only tweak I'm aware of. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 15:29, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

@Sdkb: Why would you create a citation with a link to an organization's/newspaper's domain name instead of their real name? (e.g. nytimes.com instead of The New York Times)? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 14:59, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Using the real name is always better. But a lot of citation tools just create the URL, so a lot of lower-quality pages have them. When I'm editing those pages to change to the full name and add a link, it often takes me a few moments to locate the page (particularly for local newspaper names that often need to be disambiguated since seemingly ever paper using some combo of a set of ~a dozen words). Having the domain name more consistently redirect to the article would make those edits easier. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 15:36, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

@Sdkb: How about requesting a query that will go through the |url= parameter of those infoboxes to generate a list, and then proposing a bot that use said list to make those edits (e.g. changing |website=nytimes.com to |website=The New York Times)? You could also provide the list to Ohconfucius, whose Fix Sources script makes some of those corrections. I'd also suggest asking the citation tool owners to adjust their tools, but some tools aren't maintained. GoingBatty (talk) 16:28, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

My Sources script already changes |website=nytimes.com to |website=The New York Times, among others, but I would be happy to add more similar converts that are not already included. Feel free to check here to see which journals are converted. -- Ohc ^{revolution of our times} 14:39, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

This is straying from the bot request. Knowing about the script is nice, and I've used it before, but not all editors will be using it, and it will never cover all local newspapers for which we have articles. And readers, not just editors, may search for newspapers using their domain name. So for all these reasons, creating the redirects would be desirable. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 15:49, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

• @Sdkb: if nobody is working on this, I could give it a try, but I'm sure if I can create the program for the task. as I'm not 100% sure what the bot needs to do. Can you kindly provide an example, or diff(s)? —usernamekiran (talk) 22:15, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

  Beware that some newspapers, such as the New York Times, conceal the URL in WikiData and extract it with website={{Official URL}}. There are url= parameters within the NYT's infobox, but they're nested in citation templates and are the URLs of sources that verify NYT's headcount, editor, circulation, etc. rather than the URL of the NYT itself. Certes (talk) 22:34, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

  well my schedule seems pretty busy, so it would be better to defer the task for the better. —usernamekiran (talk) 23:08, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Reuters in inappropriate parameter

There are a few hundred cases with |last=Reuters (Reuters insource:/\{\{Cite news[^\}]+last *= *Reuters/i). Correction as in this example would fix the issue. Would anyone be willing to perform this task? Leyo 13:26, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

It's a small enough task, WP:AWB/TASKS might be a better place to ask. Primefac (talk) 13:34, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

@Leyo: Doing... GoingBatty (talk) 15:34, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

@Leyo: Y Done! This took a chunk of articles out of Category:CS1 errors: generic name. Trying some variations to fix more articles. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 19:17, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Great work, thank you. --Leyo 20:46, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Correct use of italics

On most (about 80%) of the food and drink pages italics are used improperly (I have spent many hours of my days correcting errors of this kind), for example: many times on a page a food is put in italics and on the same page many times it's not; on one page a food is made italic and on others the same food is not made italic; it almost always happens that when one enters a wikilink of a food put in italics, one is confronted with a page without that food in italics. I myself struggle to continue reading foods and drinks pages, I don't want to imagine in the mind of a reader how much bloody confusion is created. I would propose to have a bot act by removing all italicised food and drink terms, or, even better, selecting every existing food, deciding whether to make it italic or not, and, again through the bot, changing everything at the same time, without (which is impossible) doing it without bot. I, however, have done my best, but I will announce that I will never again spend time on this problem, as I am in an endless loop. I wonder what's the point of italicising a food If there is zero uniformity. JackkBrown (talk) 07:07, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Please do not post the same text in multiple places, per WP:TALKFORK. The above is not a valid bot request. There is no way that a bot could know which text to wrap in italics (or, more properly, the {{lang}} template for foreign terms). – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:42, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

as explained by Jonesey95 above: Not a good task for a bot. —usernamekiran (talk) 12:50, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Apply page move for Power forward

Could a bot please change all instances of “power forward (basketball)” to “power forward” to correct the links to Power forward, which was recently moved? Thank you Rikster2 (talk) 19:43, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

@Rikster2, this seems WP:COSMETIC. — Qwerfjkltalk 19:45, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

It would remove a redirect for hundreds of articles in favor of a direct link. It seems like that should be standard for a page move. Rikster2 (talk) 19:47, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

@Rikster2, no, because there is no difference in how the page appears. See WP:NOTBROKEN. — Qwerfjkltalk 19:49, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

@Rikster2: As explained above this is Not a good task for a bot. If there were any links in the form [[power forward (basketball)]] without a pipe, it would be appropriate to change those. However, I could not find any in articlespace. GoingBatty (talk) 19:57, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

OK Rikster2 (talk) 20:22, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Apart from WP:COSMETIC arguments, there's also a practical advantage to leaving the links as they are. The term sometimes refers to Power forward (Australian rules football), Power forward (ice hockey) or Power Forward (album). A quick search for linksto:"Power forward" -basketball finds wikilinks which might lead to the wrong article and need improving. (There's currently only one result, and it's a false positive.) Changing the links would raise the number of false positives to 50, making any actual errors harder to spot. The qualifier is acting a bit like "(disambiguation)" in an INTDABLINK by marking these links as checked and correct. Certes (talk) 20:55, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Look, it’s fine for the change not to be made but I really don’t think it makes sense to leave redirects for that reason. What if the page had been created as “power forward?” You’d have the same situation. Why have primary pages at all if that tracking is so important? Let’s just leave it at “it’s only cosmetic so not a good use of the bot.” Rikster2 (talk) 21:27, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

OK; let’s just leave it at “it’s only cosmetic so not a good use of the bot.” Certes (talk) 21:51, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

the Bad Guy Patrol bot

I would like to request a bot and I would like to name it, the Bad Guy Patrol (BGP) and it would help me restore order on Wikipedia. It will help with vandalism, blocking and cleanups. Harley Quinn on duty (talk) 14:07, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

It could have a button that says "Go on patrol", with CGI animation police light. Or one that says WP:NOTHERE see Special:Contributions/Harley_Quinn_on_duty. - GreenC 15:01, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

N Not done. GoingBatty (talk) 04:42, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Request for Bot

Hello Wiki world. I am in Wikipedia for the past 8 months making a little bit contributions. It would be so helpful for me if you can enable the bot in my account. Thank youu!! EEverest 8848 (talk) 15:47, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

@EEverest 8848: Hi there! Please read Help:Creating a bot to see the process for requesting bot access. GoingBatty (talk) 18:32, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

EEverest 8848. We don't usually give bot flags to main accounts, only separate bot accounts after passing WP:BRFA. What did you have in mind? –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:56, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

From "Province of..." and "Provincia di..." to "province of..." and "provincia di..."

This is unmanageable. I have tried to do what I can, but considering the infinity of Italian municipalities and provinces, I wonder if you could ask bot to make all "Provinces" (with a capital 'P') "provinces" (with a lowercase "p"). I have done what I can, more than that I cannot, there are really too many corrections for one person. Examples: Province of Caserta; Comitini; Province of Trapani; Province of Udine. Thanks in advance. JackkBrown (talk) 21:03, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

This sort of task typically runs afoul of WP:CONTEXTBOT. Happily, there is no deadline. Make a list and work on it over time. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:09, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Bot to add archiving bots to talk pages

Sorry if I've missed a past discussion on this suggestion.

Manually setting up archiving bots on talk pages is time consuming, and there are an enormous number of pages were it hasn't been set up, leading to clogged talk pages. It would be useful for a bot to add one to talk pages that don't have one, with notional parameters (30d, 2 minimum, etc).

I think it would be important for editors to be able to exclude it, too, if consensus was that an archiving bot wasn't wanted for some reason. Cheers. Riposte97 (talk) 05:56, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

@Riposte97: are we talking about article talk pages, or user talk pages? Getting a consensus to force editors to archive their talk pages has extremely low chances of getting the consensus. Regarding article talk pages, there's a possibility of consensus, but from technical perspective I'm not sure if it is worth it. We shouldn't flatly/indiscriminately add archive bot's parameters to thousands of pages. A lot of the talk pages don't get edits other than wikiproject banners, and IA bot. If a talkpage is getting bulky, then it also means it is coming across the editors. Someone will eventually setup the archive. It is not that difficult :-) —usernamekiran (talk) 06:10, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Concur with kiran; we cannot force users to archive their talk pages, and a low-traffic talk page (a category which I would would guess 90% of existing talk pages fit into) does not need an archive bot to check it. Primefac (talk) 09:34, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

I'd estimate low traffic talk pages at a much higher percentage, closer to 99% (which gives ~60,000 moderate– to high-traffic talk pages, which seems still too many). I agree that autoarchiving is unnecessary for the overwhelming majority of article talk pages, and probably unnecessary or unwanted for the majority of user talk pages.

There's also not really a good way to estimate when archiving is going to be helpful or unhelpful. If an article has been relatively content-stable for a decade, very old talk page messages may still help inform a rewrite; if a major rewrite has occurred over the past week, even messages from a few months ago may no longer apply to the current revision. Folly Mox (talk) 11:30, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Fair enough! I was just talking about article talk pages. Thanks for the responses - I take your points. Riposte97 (talk) 00:18, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

IMO archiving talk pages is a necessary evil when they get too long. Otherwise it's easier to navigate one page. If such a bot existed it could have limits like when the page gets too long (whatever that means). Something like this would really need strong consensus. Lot of potential for ruffled feathers. I've often come across talk pages with only a few entries, then I check the archives, and there is a [1] page that is super long with lots of interesting conversation from 2003-2013 or whatever. Meanwhile from 2013-present there is hardly anything. In retrospect it seemed like a bad decision, in 2013, to dump everything out of sight because it killed the momentum of the talk page. They are sort of like villages, people see a lot of activity and join in. When the village is "destroyed" in the name of progress/cleanup/clutter, it may take a long time to recover the same intensity and variety of discussion. -- GreenC 01:07, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, I requested a query related to this thread, which found seven article talk pages without autoarchiving set up and with at least one edit per day over the past thirty days. Folly Mox (talk) 01:17, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

The top-edited one (by a very wide margin) is just an edit war between User:AnomieBOT and User:Bot1058. Folly Mox (talk) 01:21, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

User_talk:Bot1058#BOT fight: AnomieBOT vs Bot1058 * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 01:28, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Add parameter script=Latn to template:lang-ku using Latin

I noticed that a very large number of uses of the template:lang-ku display Latin text incorrectly (non-italics, in Arabic font; see, for example, here in the lead). Since it would take a very long time for anyone to go through and add the parameter script=Latn to make the text display correctly, is there any way that a bot can complete this task? Thanks in advance. Revolution Saga (talk) 22:00, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Major task: Update Template:Ct to Template:UCI team code

Please see the Template_talk:UCI_team_code#Requested_move_30_October_2023 where there was rough consensus to usurp the ct shortcut. Essentially, replace the 12,000 transclusions to bypass the redirect so that Template:Ct can redirect to Template:Contentious topics. Awesome Aasim 23:08, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Running through the 98 remaining templates that transclude {{ct}} might make a nice dent in the overall page count. I did eight or ten of the core ones that needed human attention. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:07, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Have worked on the rest of the templates with AWB. – robertsky (talk) 00:47, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

BRFA filed. – robertsky (talk) 00:54, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Convert links to Wikimedia sites in body text to normal interwiki links

A lot of pages have links to Wiktionary pages in the body text. This is fine, though I think the links are supposed to be like this (interwiki) and not this (external).

Would it be possible to create a bot that turns these into the first example? LOOKSQUARE (👤️·🗨️) talk 21:05, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm curious why you're using the heavy formatting. Your two links are this and this without them, which to me appear exactly the same. Primefac (talk) 21:07, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

oops it didn't work 💀

this diff is what I meant LOOKSQUARE (👤️·🗨️) talk 21:22, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

You mean this: Special:Diff/1162303860/1185448120 -- GreenC 21:49, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

*falls over on the floor*

*life support unplugs*

yes LOOKSQUARE (👤️·🗨️) talk 21:57, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

@LOOKSQUARE: Like this edit and this edit for the English Wiktionary, and this edit for the German Wiktionary? GoingBatty (talk) 23:00, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

As the section heading implies, there are also plenty of "external" links to en.wikipedia.org/.../Article_title, and presumably the mobile and non-English variants too. (A tiny number of them may be valid primary-source citations of Wikipedia in articles about Wikipedia.) Certes (talk) 23:12, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

all by itself, it is cosmetic editing. —usernamekiran (talk) 23:08, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

oh ok nvm LOOKSQUARE (👤️·🗨️) talk 23:13, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure it is merely cosmetic. It's replacing external links by wikilinks, which has a positive visual effect and clarifies that the target is internal to the WMF ecosystem and possibly this wiki. Certes (talk) 23:38, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree, it's not cosmetic. There are only around 2,000, not all should be converted. -- GreenC 02:19, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

@GreenC: Where should consensus be built to decide which should be converted and which are acceptable as is? GoingBatty (talk) 03:40, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

@GreenC: Your search is only for en.XXXX.org. There are links to many other languages that could be changed (e.g. de.wiktionary.org). Expanding to this search gets us to over 4,200. GoingBatty (talk) 03:44, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Add "wikipedia" and that is another ~500 results. Gonnym (talk) 06:54, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

yes, just saw this conversation/diffs from computer again, this is not cosmetic. —usernamekiran (talk) 02:42, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

LOOKSQUARE, consider using a gadget or userscript to take care of this. [spam] User:Alexis Jazz/Factotum converts many external links automatically to wikilinks. Special:Diff/1185452015, Wikipedia:Bot requests (history), m:User:LOOKSQUARE, etc. is just me wikt:en:copy-pasting URLS. If you enter an additional custom regex in the settings it could also update existing named links. (normally it avoids named links)[/spam]
As for having a bot do this: hmmm I don't know. You need to be very careful as sometimes it's on purpose, especially when there are extra parameters like ?useskin=monobook or ?uselang=de. But it's also used to show the difference between Wikipedia's mobile site and the desktop site. If the URL is a template parameter value you also shouldn't change it. It may seem easy but there are quite some edge cases. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 07:00, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, maybe there could be some kind of template, similar to {{Not a typo}} so that bots didn't accidentally convert an external link to normal. LOOKSQUARE (👤️·🗨️) talk 10:35, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

@Alexis Jazz: Are those edge cases in articlespace? I'd imagine there could be many in Help: and/or Wikipedia: and/or talk pages. GoingBatty (talk) 16:49, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

We have a few, such as the last item in List of Wikipedia controversies#Further reading. Of course, there are many Wikipedia URLs within citations (some legitimate, others unreliably circular sourcing) which I assume are not covered by this exercise. Certes (talk) 17:07, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

@Certes: Thank you for providing the example. Why shouldn't that link be changed to Wikipedia:Wikipedia as a court source to make it obvious that it is a page that exists within Wikipedia? GoingBatty (talk) 17:11, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Good question. It probably should. My usual yardstick is "if we created Forkpedia, would we want this link to lead to Forkpedia or to Wikipedia"? If Forkpedia then it should be an internal link; if Wikipedia then an external link. I think my example is a misplaced "See also" entry rather than further reading, so it should be internal. There's a better example in Circular reporting#Examples on Wikipedia. The 2008 link is about Wikipedia (and so would be external on Forkpedia) but it has an oldid= URL parameter and we can perhaps exempt those from any bot. Certes (talk) 17:28, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Other examples about Wikipedia include List of Wikipedia pages banned in Russia. We also have technical articles where Wikipedia is used as an example website, e.g. URL redirection#Redirect chains, HTML#Elements. Certes (talk) 17:38, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I meant that it would only replace Wikimedia links in the article text, not the "Further reading" or "References" sections. LOOKSQUARE (👤️·🗨️) talk 18:48, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

I wonder if the task can be split into two parts, one suitable for a bot and the other needing manual help with AWB or similar. Certes (talk) 18:59, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Archiving washingtonindependent.com

See Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Washington Independent.
But archiving those links is not quite straightforward. We should probably get rid of any link to the live domain (which is garbage) and we should only use archive.org snapshots that are older than, say, 2016. When there is no older snapshot, the link/reference should be removed entirely. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 01:34, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

I think WP:URLREQ is the correct board for this. I think GreenC has a bot that can easily fix usurped domains en masse, and that is the board that they monitor for this. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:17, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Novem Linguae, thanks: Wikipedia:Link rot/URL change requests/Archives/2023/November#washingtonindependent.com — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 14:40, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Deferred. Queen of Hearts ❤️ (no relation) 03:19, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Implement project-independent quality assessments

Looking for a willing bot operator to implement WP:PIQA by migrating quality assessments from WikiProject banners into {{WikiProject banner shell}}. To be more precise,

1. If there is a banner shell already on the page, then add |class= parameter and remove from project banners, e.g. [6]
2. If there is no banner shell, then add it and move class rating from project banners, e.g. [7]
3. If there are no assessments on page, then add empty |class= parameter to encourage editors to add a rating, e.g. [8]
4. If assessments of projects differ, then add the majority rating to the banner shell and leave any different assessments on those banners, e.g. [9]. These will be manually reviewed by human editors.
5. If assessments of projects differ, but there is no majority rating, then add banner shell with empty |class= parameter. These will be tracked and reviewed manually.
6. If the page has {{WikiProject biography}} with |living=yes or |blp=yes then add |blp=yes to {{WikiProject banner shell}}.
7. If any project banner has |listas= then move this to {{WikiProject banner shell}} and remove from project banners, e.g. [10]
8. For any of the projects which have opted out, the class parameter should not be changed or removed.

Thanks in advance — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:18, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

@MSGJ: How should the bot (or a manual user) handle a banner shell with two {{WikiProject Articles for creation}}, like Talk:1975–76 Notre Dame Fighting Irish men's basketball team? GoingBatty (talk) 04:47, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

For WikiProject tags that have different ratings but located on the same talk page, perhaps the bot should note these on a log page somewhere, then skip them. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:31, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

I've previously tested code at [11] that could add additional parameters to handle this situation. Gonnym (talk) 06:25, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

We are tracking these (and many others) at Category:Pages using WikiProject banner shell with duplicate banner templates but have not yet made any serious effort to fix them. Last time I asked the AfC project, they were happy for any duplicates to be removed and I would suggest leaving the one with the most recent time stamp — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:57, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Uh...false. We don't want duplicates removed, we indicated that they should be merged so that no information is lost. Primefac (talk) 13:01, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Novem Linguae said "You can just use your best judgment on which one to save" and you agreed with that ... but okay if you want to merge/consolidate somehow then go ahead — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:44, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

NL also said it'd be fine to boldly consolidate duplicate AFC banners on article talk pages. There are two possibilities - actual duplicated banners (in which case one should be removed) and two different banners, which should be merged, to best save the review history. Primefac (talk) 13:48, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

@MSGJ: How should the bot (or a manual user) handle a banner shell with two different {{WIR}} templates, like Talk:Ruth M. Davis? GoingBatty (talk) 04:52, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

These two WIR templates don't appear to have any class or importance specified, so I don't think it would confuse the bot. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:39, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Agree with Novem Linguae. Would like to get these merged one day, but hopefully will not affect this task and this task is already complicated enough! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:55, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Hopefully when running, the bot can also preform User:Magioladitis/WikiProjects. Gonnym (talk) 15:04, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

@MSGJ, BRFA filed. — Qwerfjkltalk 18:07, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Replacement for MalnadachBot?

Not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but I noticed that when User:MalnadachBot was procedurally blocked, its tasks 12 and 13 were still marked as active. I don't know if it has finished running through all lint errors on wiki, but task 13 is certainly an ongoing effort. Would we need a replacement bot to pick up these tasks, or do we have existing bots/procedures handling these things? Liu1126 (talk) 20:17, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

@Liu1126, this was previously discussed at Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive 18#MalnadachBot -- owner indeffed, what now? — Qwerfjkltalk 21:49, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, I somehow failed to find that discussion when searching the archives earlier. I was sure I wouldn't be the first person to notice this! Liu1126 (talk) 09:27, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Translate Article Pages from English to Gagana Sāmoa

I am in the midst of translating articles from English to Gagana Sāmoa which is a very necessary task given the massive inequality in the available information in each language. My hope is that more Sāmoa users will find Wikipedia to be a more hospitable site and access it to find information in their language. There is a massive disparity not only between English and Gagana Sāmoa but even between other languages and the languages of the Pasifika by and large. I would like to request a bot to help translate these articles as this task is overwhelming and this disparity will only grow given the population, internet access, and specialization of Sāmoa users. Something has to be done otherwise the language will likely go the way of 'Ōlelo Hawaiʻi. IonaPatamea (talk) 20:57, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Machine translations usually do a poor job. From other languages to English, they may create fluent-sounding text, but when you read it a little more closely, it doesn't make sense and contradicts itself. I imagine the same is true from English to other languages. Are you sure you want to do a bunch of mass translations on your wiki? –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:02, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I completely understand the concern. My only qualm is that there is a dearth of users translating pages to Gagana Sāmoa and my concern is that this is a collective action dilemma, or something like it, insofar as Sāmoa users will not necessarily use or contribute to Wikipedia until there is a sufficient amount of material available in the language. I feel that once that threshold is crossed there will be more incentive to both contribute, edit, and admin articles. Although I appreciate the concern for accuracy, which I also share, I think that the situation of the disparity between English and Gagana Sāmoa as sources of knowledge is not truly appreciated by those unfamiliar with the context. Sāmoa users are shifting their sources of information, and thus knowledge, from Gagana Sāmoa to English on an unprecedented level and this shift is having an unprecedented effect on the social structure, cultural continuity, and even viability of the Gagana Sāmoa itself which once lost will likely disappear for future generations. So, for the short-term, and in short, I feel that using machine translations are the best solution and I would like to use them in lieu of other options, which I must admit, I am not familiar with. Perhaps there are other suggestions? If not I would argue machine translation would be a good option. IonaPatamea (talk) 21:23, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

@IonaPatamea: Hi. We had similar issues on Marathi Wikipedia, and we organically reached 70k articles a couple of years ago. Currently we have around 75k articles, but most of these articles are promotional. Marathi has huge number of native users in the world — it's among the top languages with rich history, and still, very few are genuinely interested in Wikipedia. —usernamekiran (talk) 21:51, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the message! How was this content in Marathi generated organically if I may ask? Was there a concerted effort to get users to contribute or was this something that happened over time? Yes, as you stated the community for Sāmoa is much smaller. I hope that more content for Marathi will continue to be generated. Although I cannot speak the language it undoubtedly has a rich history and much to offer users. IonaPatamea (talk) 07:08, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Everyone's tolerances of machine translations differs. I would argue that machine translations can be used as a basis of writing new articles, but whatever that's generated from these translations should be vetted through, and edited, before publishing.

As for requesting for a bot that will ultimately affect Gagana Sāmoa wiki, this is not the right venue since the bot requests here are generally for edits on enwiki.

Alternatively what you can do is to create stub articles like what the Minnan wiki is doing and hopefully one day someone will come by to expand the content. In this manner, you can generate interests when getting press attention (X wiki has now N number of articles in effort to <do something with the language>) and as well as having more existing content as start points for anyone else whose interested in that particular topic while having a mild interest in the language. – robertsky (talk) 05:05, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Talofa! Thank you for your response and very helpful suggestion. I believe this sounds like a good way to generate, and sustain, enough interest for users. I appreciate the help and I will be sure to look into Minnan wiki. Fortunately, I am currently at one place where there are academics that teach Gagana Sāmoa at the tertiary or university level so they may be able to help with generating interest and press attention. The stub articles would be an efficient way to start getting more information out to contributors, academics, and the press alike. IonaPatamea (talk) 07:12, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Extending copyright expiration date on Pablo Picasso's works from 70 years (January 1, 2044) to 80 years (either April 8, 2053 or January 1, 2054)

I have seen Pablo Picasso's files on English Wikipedia that his works will be transferred to Wikimedia Commons on January 1, 2044, 70 years after his death. However under Spanish copyright law, the copyright term for Spanish authors who died before December 7, 1987, including Picasso who died on April 8, 1973, have life term plus 80 years, and for those who died otherwise have life term plus 70 years, though it is unclear if the copyright expires on his 80th death anniversary or January 1 following it. So for sure, there is no room to have his copyright expired on January 1, 2044. It's either April 8, 2053 or January 1, 2054. I am hoping for a consensus if his copyright expired on these bolded dates. Here are his works to have his copyright expiration date edited or added (if not) one-by-one. Ishagaturo (talk) 09:07, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

A better forum for this question is Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. Suggest moving this discussion there. (FWIW I think copyright on Wikimedia servers follows US law because that's where the content resides.) -- GreenC 16:24, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Not on Commons, though, where all the files will be deleted immediately after transfer. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.6% of all FPs.} 20:01, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Automatic tagging of some easily-identified non-English language text

This probably should not be implemented trivially for languages written in the Latin script, but with a few caveats, it seems pretty doable to write a bot that scours articles, and while staying out of appropriate templates, tags text using existing templates like {{lang}} as either being in a specific language, or at least being in some language written in a particular script, e.g. und-Hani or und-Cyrl as per the obligatory HTML |lang= parameter and ISO 639. If there is und text already tagged, it makes it much easier to see whether 漢字 is lang=ja-Hani or lang=zh-Hant, and also to quickly retag everything en masse.
If we are getting dangerous, I can think of multiple ways to further discriminate between, say, Japanese and Chinese-language text beyond simple checking for strings of CJK ideographs. Remsense留 21:16, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm wondering if this may fall afoul of WP:COSMETICBOT, since it doesn't alter the rendering of the page, but I feel like COSMETBOT exceptions have been carved out before for changes that alter the presentation of a page via speech synthesis, which this would do (and, AFAIA is the primary reason we tag non-English terms like this). As a minor note, I don't think it's necessary to specify in these templates the distinction between zh-hant and zh-hans or whatever they're called in the appropriate standards. Folly Mox (talk) 13:29, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Oh no, I think a cosmetic argument is a non-starter, since it's a fundamentally semantic change core to the HTML standard itself. Not to be overly dramatic, but every HTML page that doesn't tag foreign language content is meaningfully running afoul of the standard, because it has likely explicitly declared at the top that the whole thing is in English. And no—I don't think Hans versus Hant is useful for most end users, but it's a further specification one could make that I decided to spell out for some reason. Remsense留 14:24, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

author-link

We have a lot of citations that could be improved using |author-link= eg. Special:Diff/1186331321/1186342802. The problem is it's difficult to match the correct author, it requires a human. Thus wondering if/how this might be automated in certain cases. It doesn't require every case only those it can match with greater certainty. For example we know, per the above diff, there is only one Steven Poole there is no dab page. And we know Steven Poole writes for a publication called Quercus. Thus any other cites that match those criteria, is a good bet that is the same person, and where an |author-link= could be added.

Is this method 100% foolproof? Probably not, but is it at least 99% accurate in matching names? Probably. I think a test run would show how reliable it is. I don't have the time right now but wanted to mention in case anyone wants to run an experiment. Or had other ideas. A dump of CS1|2 citations on enwiki - not including cite web - can be found here. I currently have updates disabled, but can restart if anyone wants. -- GreenC 20:27, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

One could involve Wikidata: if the corresponding item is a writer, then the author link can be added. Wikiwerner (talk) 20:58, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't think that will help that much. Many authors cited on Wikipedia aren't "writers": probably as many or even more are scientists of some vein.

I'm not sure I have a better idea how to automate this though. Apparently Growth Team have a pretty good algorithm for suggesting appropriate wikilinks given topic and text, and I doubt their application will interface with template parameters, but solving the "what should link here" problem – of which this is a subtype – is not easy. Folly Mox (talk) 14:57, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

For a first pass, you might limit the suggestions to publications mentioned in the author's article. Perhaps exclude citations, so we don't link to a footballer of the same name whose transfer was reported in another edition of the same newspaper. Certes (talk) 15:21, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

I think look at existing uses of |author-link= and build a 2-column database: "Steven Pool = Quercus". Then find all other citations that cite Steven Pool and Quercus, and add the |author-link= if missing. It works backwards from what is know to be true. -- GreenC 19:42, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Good plan. For extra safety, any names with two author-links that don't redirect to the same article can be filtered out into a log file without attempting to fix them. There probably won't be many. Certes (talk) 23:00, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

I really like this idea. Folly Mox (talk) 14:29, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Incidentally, I did ask whether the future Suggested Links task will interface with citation template parameters, and although I got a response I'm still not sure. The conversation is at :mw:Talk:Growth/Feature summary § Suggested Links and interaction with non-prose text, in case anyone is interested. Folly Mox (talk) 13:20, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Question

Moved from Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard § Question

Can a bot make this kind of changes to multiple pages?

• Before: {{abcd|ᚠ|ᚡ|ᚢ |ᚣ|ᚤ|ᚥ|ᚦ| ᚧ|ᚨ|ᚩ}}, {{abcd|Ꭰ|Ꭱ|Ꭲ|Ꭳ|Ꭴ}}
• After: ᚠᚡᚢ ᚣᚤᚥᚦ ᚧᚨᚩ, {{abcd|Ꭰ|Ꭱ|Ꭲ|Ꭳ|Ꭴ}}

That is,

1. Check if Template:abcd only contains [ ]?[ᚠ-ᛸ][ ]? in each parameter.
2. If so, remove Template:abcd and |, but retain the text entered as parameters (including spaces).
3. If not (= if Template:abcd contains characters other than [ ]?[ᚠ-ᛸ][ ]?), leave it as-is.

172.58.208.108 (talk) 19:19, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Of course an unsupervised script can make a regex substitution across multiple pages, but the problem statement has been generalised beyond the point where a meaningful discussion can take place. (There is no Template:Abcd, and so it's also unclear whether you're actually talking about Futhark or using it as a placeholder.)

Can you give us an actual example of an article you'd like to make this sort of mass edit at, and describe the effect you'd like to achieve by doing this? Folly Mox (talk) 20:26, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

The template name "abcd" and the character range [ᚠ-ᛸ] are just placeholders. The actual request will use a different template name and a different character range. Anyway, I would like to know for sure if it is possible for a bot to make changes like what I wrote above. (The discussion has not begun, so I cannot give you more details at this moment.) 172.58.208.125 (talk) 23:02, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, there's no technical barrier to that sort of text processing. Folly Mox (talk) 23:21, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

SVG

Good day, can someone make a bot to run through this and append {{SVG-logo}} below the Non-free xxx template and add ==Summary== above the FUR template to files that don't have it? --Minorax^«¦talk¦» 11:22, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Something like Special:Diff/1183936918 --Minorax^«¦talk¦» 11:23, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Hey, @Minorax, sure I'll give it a shot. I'll let you know if I'm able to get something working and sent off to BRFA. Dr vulpes ^{(💬 • 📝)} 06:19, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Small Question

This is my first time posting here, so no idea if this should be done by a bot. So, the "IPAlink" template has another variation "IPA link" (notice the space). The official representation is "IPA link" but I find the "IPAlink" variation also is quite predominant. This isn't urgent ("IPAlink" redirects to "IPA link"), but would a bot fix this sort of thing? PharyngealImplosive7 (talk) 18:08, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

The links are not broken, and changing them would be purely cosmetic. The small improvement might not justify the human or machine effort and the resulting pollution to the page histories. Certes (talk) 18:27, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I thought. If my AWB request at PERM gets approved, I might do it myself, but it's fine. PharyngealImplosive7 (talk) 21:44, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

@PharyngealImplosive7: This is Not a good task for a bot. for the reason above, and doing so with AWB manually would go against the WP:AWBRULES because it would have the same pollution to the page histories. You could update Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects to add a rule to change {{IPAlink}} to {{IPA link}}, and then AWB editors and bots will make the update when doing something else that improves the rendered page. GoingBatty (talk) 22:21, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Ok. I see, and I won't update it manually. I'll just add it to the Template redirect AWB links you mentioned before. PharyngealImplosive7 (talk) 22:32, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Fixing duplicate banners

I asked at the help desk and I was told to ask here. The Organized crime task force and the Serial killer task force banners recently got added to the banner of Template:WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography using parameters. The previous banners (as wrappers of the new one with the parameters) were mass substituted. This has left ~6700 (see Category:Unknown-importance Crime-related articles, not counting ones that didn't have an initial basic crime importance) duplicates, that have both the original crime importance and task force importance but split between two duplicate banners.

Is there any bot that can merge the importance values on the pages that have both templates so there aren't so many duplicates (for example if there's two duplicate banners, one of which has the importance for wp crime and one which has the task force importance, add them together)? Of course the ones that were not initially tagged with the original crime ones will have to be manually tagged as they don't have the basic importance parameter, but that's less than 500 which isn't as bad (compared to 6700 that already HAVE all the required importance parameters) PARAKANYAA (talk) 17:56, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

@PARAKANYAA: I just ran my bot against Category:Pages using WikiProject banner shell with duplicate banner templates, which edited about 550 talk pages (many WP:CRIME related) to remove a WikiProject template only if every parameter is included in a duplicate WikiProject template on the same page. You'll need someone else to clean up those where the two templates have different parameters that need merging. GoingBatty (talk) 06:16, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

@GoingBatty Someone else meaning it must be done manually or someone else's bot? PARAKANYAA (talk) 04:03, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

@PARAKANYAA: Other bot operators may be able to fulfill your requests. Doing things manually is also an option. GoingBatty (talk) 04:17, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Well, I sure hope that someone's bot can... that would take a while. PARAKANYAA (talk) 04:21, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

to elaborate further on the problem and what I imagine the solution to be

a hypothetical bot should merge

{{WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography|serialkiller=yes|serialkiller-imp=low|organizedcrime=yes|organizedcrime-imp=low}} (or having 1 or the other task forc parameters, just showing both for sake of example)

on the same page as either

{{WikiProject Crime|importance=low}} OR {{WikiProject Criminal Biography|importance=low}} (also called WikiProject Criminal which iirc has quite a few transclusions)

would combine to be

{{WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography|importance=low|serialkiller=yes|serialkiller-imp=/nowiki>low|organizedcrime=yes|organizedcrime-imp=low}}

95% of the articles I've seen that have a crime duplicate have either the basic crimebio banner or normal crime (which doesn't matter, Crime/Crimebio/Crime and Crimebio are all the same now) with a crime importance parameter, and a separate banner with either the serial killer importance or the organized crime importance that lacks the crime project importance, so wiki categorizes it as unknown importance (though strangely WP 1.0's bot does not) PARAKANYAA (talk) 04:43, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Y Done. Primefac (talk) 12:58, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

template change

Hi, I would like to know whether a bot would be able to do this particular task or not. The task is to replace the existing format with the template like I did here on my sandbox to explain it better: [12]

The following articles: 2004 Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly election and 2009 Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly election require these template changes. Since I am finding this monotonous task quite difficult to do it myself, I am looking for help probably a bot might help I believe? Any info or help is appreciated. Thank you 456legend (talk) 05:52, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Depending how many pages need editing, this could be a good job for AWB. Certes (talk) 09:39, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

@Certes All the following articles will need this template changes:

1. 2004 Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly election

2. 2009 Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly election

3. 2014 Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly election

4. 2004 Karnataka Legislative Assembly election

5. 2008 Karnataka Legislative Assembly election

6. 2013 Karnataka Legislative Assembly election

7. 2021 Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly election

8. 2016 Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly election

And there are few more in addition to these articles.. 456legend (talk) 13:41, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. With a list that size, using AWB will be much quicker than writing a bot. Once you have a final list of articles, WP:AWB/Tasks should be able to help. Alternatively, a good programmers' text editor with regexp features should be able to do the job. Certes (talk) 13:57, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Not a good task for a bot. too small in scale/scope, as discussed above. Feel free to bring back here if scale/scope (in terms of number of pages impacted) massively increases. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 09:03, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

A bot to clear Template Sandboxes X21 to X71

Hello, it has come to my attention that template sandboxes X21 to X71 are not automatically cleared by Cyberbot I, which clears template sandboxes X1 to X20, and the main template sandbox. So I think there should be a bot that clears the rest of the template sandboxes. This bot would be called "SandBot", and it would clear the template sandboxes at 00:00 UTC and 12:00 UTC every day. It would do additional help for Cyberbot I for clearing template sandboxes X21 to X71. This is only a proposed bot I had the idea to create. RandomWikiPerson_277^{talk page or something} 19:58, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

RandomWikiPerson277, have you asked the operator of Cyberbot if they'd be willing to do this? — Qwerfjkltalk 20:40, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Well, I did contact the operator of Cyberbot, I haven't got a message back yet/ RandomWikiPerson_277^{talk page or something} 21:22, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Just delete them. There's absolutely no good reason to have so many sandboxes, and in particular your creation of 53-71 seems to serve no purpose other than wasting others' time. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:24, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

I did not mean to waste others time. I just decided to add some more sandboxes for some reason. RandomWikiPerson_277^{talk page or something} 15:01, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Mass WP:TFD maybe? –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:35, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

21-52 survived Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Template sandboxes X21-X52 in the past, although I think the outcome of that discussion would have been different if it had been at TfD since MfD is more inclusionist. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:47, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2023 December 14#Template:X21 –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:14, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

• Y Done task moot as templates deleted. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 09:01, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Protection fallback adminbot

Simple idea: monitor the protection log, and any time the protection level is increased, but the expiration time is decreased, wait until a few minutes before the expiration, and restore the status quo. If it really is the intention of the protecting admin to leave the page unprotected at expiry, they can leave a keyword like NOFALLBACK or something in the protection summary. An obvious complication would arise if the bot is lagging, and some edits slip in before protection can be restored, but that's a minor detail. Yes, I know about the PC trick, but people sometimes forget, and sometimes PC is isn't enough. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 03:58, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

From WP:ADMINBOT this needs a wider discussion on WP:AN or WP:VP, though I think this is a good idea. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 06:08, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be best to find someone willing to operate the bot before proposing it to the wider community? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:39, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

It's a chicken-and-egg problem, right? Operators don't want to invest time until there's consensus, and it's a waste of time to determine consensus if there's no operator...

It would be nice if we had a collective group of admin bot operators, so we don't need to rely on one single person volunteering, i.e. I'd be happy to contribute and work on such a protection bot but it would not be a good idea for me to do it alone.

P.S. Might be be easier to find an operator if this was a blue link. Legoktm (talk) 05:26, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

+1— Qwerfjkltalk 22:00, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Subtle hint there, Legoktm. I like it. @Suffusion of Yellow: feel free to take them up on that advice . More admin bot ops couldn't hurt. As for this idea, that does definitely seem like a doable one (technically speaking), though I am not entirely sure at just past 1am local time (my timezone) how I would implement that...but TheSandBot is an adminbot and I would be happy to entertain the idea.

I have played around with monitoring event logs on Commons, so I am sure I could find the log. The main question would honestly be keeping track of the changes and how to jump/kick-start the system. Though, as I think this through writing this, I guess it wouldn't necessarily need to have data pre-populated as it could just create entries etc (i.e. in a database) based on protection level changes that come in. Before this went to a community discussion, I would definitely like to hammer out some of the details/concepts before attaching my name to it as a bot-op. If you have any thoughts on either implementation or conceptually how this would work further, I am definitely all ears (seriously/no sarcasm). TheSandDoctor ^Talk 09:11, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Oh and, just re-reading your message @Legoktm:, I would be happy to tag-team something as well, potentially. I am thinking that the bot itself might not actually have to be hyper complicated. Could potentially just, at least for part of it, watch/listen for events, shove them in a database table with some sort of action date field, and another component makes some sort of a change at that date/time. Hmm... TheSandDoctor ^Talk 09:15, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, that's roughly what I was thinking as well. One suggestion I'd make is to store the "database" on a wiki page. This would provide 2 features: 1) it keeps all information on-wiki, which makes transferring the bot much easier since there's no separate database and 2) it provides an easily understandable opt-out feature for admins, since they could just remove it from the wiki page. So my idea of the workflow is:

• Bot watches event stream (or polls the protection log), to identify instances of protection level being increased and expiration time being decreased.
  • If found, the bot will add an entry to a fully protected user page (aka the "database page"), and ping the protecting admin in the edit summary
  • Admins can undo the bot right away if they don't want it to apply. And if they don't want notifications, they can mute the bot.
• The second part of the bot just watches the database page, identifies when the next protection change is needed, and sleeps until then.
  • When it's time, it restores the original protection level+expiry, and then removes it from the database page. And then sleeps until the next instance.

Seem reasonable and hopefully not too complicated? Legoktm (talk) 06:27, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks; that's much better than anything I could have come up with! And the first part (maintaining the page) can be done without needing community approval. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:00, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Is there a bot

Category:Pages using WikiProject Film with unknown parameters, a maintenance category which exists to flag problems where a use of {{WikiProject Film}} on a talk page is calling parameters that don't exist to be called, currently has 4,808 articles in it — and after looking at it and cleaning up the tiny single-digits handful of exceptions that existed anywhere after the letter B, I was able to determine that the remaining contents all relate entirely to an old, long-deprecated practice whereby B-Class articles in that queue were each also tagged as b1=[y/n], b2=[y/n], b3=[y/n], b4=[y/n] and b5=[y/n] for their individual success or failure in meeting each of the five B-Class criteria listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Film/Assessment. That's long since been deprecated and isn't done anymore, which is why those are landing as unknown parameters now — but with 4,808 articles to deal with, actually cleaning them up is more work than any human editor would ever actually be inclined to undertake.

Accordingly, I wanted to ask if there's any bot that can be set loose on the task of stripping b#= parameters from the contents of that category. Bearcat (talk) 17:20, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes. I'll try to get to this in the next few days. Primefac (talk) 17:42, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

@Bearcat: BattyBot 79 is going through all the subcategories of Category:WikiProject templates with unknown parameters, and will get to this if Primefac doesn't get to it first. GoingBatty (talk) 17:51, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Okay, no worries. It isn't urgent or anything, I was just wondering if it was possible — so if it is, it's all good. Bearcat (talk) 17:53, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Heh, thanks for the reminder GoingBatty, somehow managed to forget I approved that task... yesterday... Primefac (talk) 17:54, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

@Primefac: No worries - it's hard to remember what we did last year.  ;-) GoingBatty (talk) 00:15, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

@Bearcat & @Primefac: Doing... it will take about 13 hours, plus any manual work afterwards to manually clean up edge cases. GoingBatty (talk) 04:28, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

@Bearcat & @Primefac: Y Done! GoingBatty (talk) 02:37, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Awesome! Much thanks! Bearcat (talk) 04:32, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Add parameter for WikiProject Africa/The 10,000 Challenge

For the 5832 articles listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa/The 10,000 Challenge please add |AFR10k=yes to the project banner {{WikiProject Africa}} on the talk page. This adds a note to the banner and also populates Category:Articles created or improved during the WikiProject Africa 10,000 Challenge. Thanks — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:19, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

BRFA filed; seems simple enough. Primefac (talk) 20:35, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Many thanks! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:43, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

BRFA filed by @Primefac. GoingBatty (talk) 16:03, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

GNU/Linux or GNU-Linux to replace Linux on Wikipedia

Hello,

GNU is the Operating System and Linux is one of its Kernels. Linux is not an Operating System. Hence, why I believe a bot should locate and correct these errors. Where Linux is mentioned, it should be changed to GNU/Linux or GNU-Linux. This request is being made for Richard Stallman, who has cancer. Twillisjr (talk) 16:07, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

This is a naming controversy well-known enough to have its own article, and I don't think the Wikipedia community would have consensus for having a bot mass-change every occurence of the word across over 18,000 pages. (Not to mention, what if the word is being used to refer to Linux as a kernel, not as an operating system?) Bsoyka (t • c • g) 16:19, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, and even if this was uncontroversial the WP:CONTEXTBOT problem makes this Not a good task for a bot. Taavi (talk!) 16:47, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I'd like to interject for a moment, what you are referring to as Linux, is in fact GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU+Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, ..

Memes aside, I don't think this is a good task for a bot per above, even if Linux as an OS should always be referred to as GNU/Linux, this would have context bot issues (e.g. musl and Android (Operating System), and also Linux Foundation) 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 17:07, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Automatic NOGALLERY keyword for categories containing non-free files

I have noticed that many categories, especially content categories, include non-free files without the __NOGALLERY__ magic word, which is against WP:NFCC#9. I'd suggest using a bot to auto-tag such categories, skipping a whitelist for those categories covered by WP:NFEXMP (generally those categories concerning reviews of questionable files, such as CAT:FFD, and some maintenance categories that should contain no non-free files). –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 12:01, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that most categories on en.wikipedia should have __NOGALLERY__ and it would be actually smarter and less work to disable image showing on all categories by default (without requiring any code per page or bot work) and have a __YESGALLERY__ magic word for the much less instances of categories that actually could show images. Gonnym (talk) 12:38, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

I doubt that would be possible, since as a MediaWiki tweak that would have to apply to all Wikimedia wikis, many of which don't allow non-free files. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 02:48, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

From a coding perspective it could just be a setting that can be activated per wiki. I'd be opposed to any bot before other solutions are researched. --Gonnym (talk) 06:23, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

@Gonnym: Might want to report this request at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/? I'd still like to hear from other people on whether a bot would be a good solution in the short term. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 01:22, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

I think galleries are useful to visually navigate the category, and that they should be kept enabled for free files. — Frostly (talk) 10:02, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Would this need a bot?

Does the task at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Implementation of Template:Refideas editnotice require a bot, or is there another way to accomplish that? You can respond there if you like. BOZ (talk) 05:42, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

N Not done. A different solution was figured out. ^Queenof_Hearts 01:45, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Update links from http: to https:

My website runeberg.org just recently moved from http: to https: so it would be nice if someone could update the 11,000 links accordingly. This is not urgent, as everything works fine with automatic redirects, but it would be nice. Thank you. -- LA2 (talk) 22:33, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

@LA2: Is this a job for WP:URLREQ? Certes (talk) 22:53, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

@Certes: Indeed, it might well be. I'll post it there. --LA2 (talk) 22:55, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Deferred. ^Queenof_Hearts 01:40, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

 Done -- GreenC 16:33, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Fix redirect link: Saint Francis University

I just moved Saint Francis University to Saint Francis University (Pennsylvania), because there will be a university also named Saint Francis University in Hong Kong (Caritas Institute of Higher Education acquires university title, Government of Hong Kong Press Release). The page "Saint Francis University" will be a redirect to University of Saint Francis. Before doing so I need to fix all pages with link to [[Saint Francis University]] and replace it with [[Saint Francis University (Pennsylvania)|Saint Francis University]] (or, if the link is [[Saint Francis University|something else]], just replace the link itself, not description), which I found hundreds. Is there a bot that can do this task for me? --Leeyc0 (Talk) 12:04, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

With only 345 links to the old target, I think WP:AWB/TASKS would be the better ask here. Primefac (talk) 12:15, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for point out this too. I will have a look. --Leeyc0 (Talk) 12:22, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Also, the WP:CONTEXTBOT problem makes this Not a good task for a bot. GoingBatty (talk) 17:36, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

External links bot

There are quite a few external links templates created in recent years (See Category:Social media external link templates) and when used they offer a consistent style and allow for error tracking among other things. However there are still quite a lot of external links that don't use these. Sometimes they are bare links, while others have some kind of text with them. Would it possible for a bot to convert external links in the external links section (links in the body should be ignored as I'm not sure if these templates work in the body correctly or not) to use one of the listed templates at the bottom? Here is an example of an edit with IMDb title.

Templates:

• Template:Bandcamp
• Template:Blogger
• Template:Cyworld
• Template:Facebook
• Template:Facebook page
• Template:Instagram
• Template:Linkedin
• Template:LinkedIn page
• Template:LinkedIn URL
• Template:LiveJournal
• Template:Mastodon user
• Template:Medium.com
• Template:Muck Rack
• Template:Panoramio
• Template:Patreon
• Template:Pinterest
• Template:ResearchGate
• Template:ReverbNation
• Template:SoundCloud
• Template:Telegram
• Template:Threads
• Template:TikTok
• Template:Tumblr
• Template:Twitter
• Template:Vimeo
• Template:Vimeo user
• Template:Vine
• Template:VK user
• Template:Weibo
• Template:WordPress
• Template:YouTube
• Template:YouTube channel

If this is controversial and needs discussion, please point me to where it should be held. Gonnym (talk) 15:45, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

@Gonnym: Template:IMDb name and Template:Official website are two I manually add frequently. Template:Rotten Tomatoes and Template:Metacritic are two more to consider. There are almost 600 entries in Category:External link templates. GoingBatty (talk) 18:58, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

@Gonnym ...plus more in its subcategories. GoingBatty (talk) 19:08, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Maybe pick one template and start with that, to decrease the massiveness of this task. Get a consensus on a talk page somewhere, then someone can start working on a (now much smaller) bot task, then WP:BRFA it. Template:Google Scholar ID and some of the IMDB templates are the ones I find myself converting the most. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:21, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

While the task is big I think having a bot do only one at a time runs the risk of it becomming a spam bot (and having editors complaining) as a lot of times there are more than one of these on a page (Coco Lee as an example of one). Gonnym (talk) 22:41, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

My thinking is to do two two BRFAs: one that just does one template and gets the process started, then a big one for everything else later. This avoids WP:TRAINWRECK issues with deciding which templates to cleanup, minimizes the amount of bugs that are likely to crop up during the first bot run, etc. Up to y'all though. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:05, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Two cents, take it or leave it: In my workplace for something like this we'd start with a basic test of one, then do a broader test of, say, 3-5, then engage in more widescale implementation. DonIago (talk) 14:56, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Sure, sounds like a good plan. Gonnym (talk) 12:17, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

These templates have a serious drawback: standardized maintenance tools don't support them. IABot, Citation bot, WaybackMedic, reFill, etc.. pass them by like they don't exist. As a result there is a lot of link rot contained within these templates. IMO we are better off not having them at all, there are thousands, they don't reduce complexity and error, they add to it. They are islands of code no one is supporting due to the sheer number and variety. -- GreenC 04:41, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps the template parameters can be somewhat standardized, so that bots can be modified to recognize templates in the category. — Frostly (talk) 05:43, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

@GreenC I'm sure you have much more experience than I do with link rot, but I don't see how this isn't an issue that can't be fixed. If something needs to be changed in the web address, this would ideally require only one edit instead of tens of thousands of edits. How is that not a better method to handle these simple links? Also, these aren't citation templates and should never be used as such (regarding the list of bots you mentioned). Gonnym (talk) 12:20, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I think GreenC's concern is more what happens if the URL changes in a fashion that isn't easily dealt with. I can't think of any specific examples offhand (though I do know they exist) but to arbitrarily make up an example, if the URL changes from https://example.com/person/<number assigned to person> to https://example.com/profile/<persons_full_name>, the template cannot be updated in a fashion that will result in a meaningful change, since all we have on the template calls is {{example|<number>}}. On the other hand, I think at least one of the URL bots has the ability to match old to new, so if it sees https://example.com/person/<number> in the text directly it can update to the new code. Either way a bot will need to update everything, but with the latter case (again, assuming it's possible) there is already a bot that can do that functionality.

In other words, an elink bot will notice a change in URL if the URL is in the article, but a user has to notice a dead link if it's in a template. Primefac (talk) 12:27, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Ah ok. So worst case, both template and non-template links need to be all edited. In best case, a single edit to the template and all non-template links need to be edited. Hopefully a bot can be coded to handle the templated data and then there isn't even that problem. Gonnym (talk) 12:31, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

"Hopefully a bot can be coded" .. That's the problem. There are thousands of these external link templates. We have limited numbers of programmers interested and able to do this kind of specialized work. Incorporating these templates into complex bots is difficult and time consuming, and for any one template limited impact, so we triage it and ignore them. A couple large templates like {{official}} might get supported. Don't forget, these templates change so if a bot supports the template, and someone changes it, the bot has to be updated to avoid making errors. And this is just Enwiki there are over 300 Wikipedias, plus hundreds more in other projects. And the underlying code of saving dead links is quite complex to do correctly, only a few programmers have this down, these are large complex tools that have taken many years of development. A BOTREQ to make a dead link fixer, for one template, doesn't make sense. At best, a bot that converts templates to CS1|2 or square-link, then run the archive bots. -- GreenC 16:30, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

GreenC, I wonder how hard it would be to parse the templates. They seem fairly formulaic. — Qwerfjkltalk 16:59, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Whatever the case, before a bot can do anything, the very first thing is all these templates need parameters for inputting an archive URL plus rendering output when the link is dead. I suppose that is easy. Try 50 template at random and see how long it takes, don't forget to update the docs. If the templates are formulaic it shouldn't be hard. -- GreenC 22:09, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

@GreenC what are the parameters you want added? |url-status=, |archive-url= and |archive-date=? Gonnym (talk) 12:50, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

This is what most bots and tools understand by default. It's the right choice even if it gives the false impression of being a CS1|2 template which can cause some editors to reflexively add unsupported arguments like access-date. Bots and tools need some way to know if a template supports the parameters, they can't assume support exists. There are a couple ways to do this: In the template documentation include a TemplateData section eg. Template:Webarchive#TemplateData where the parameters are listed. There is also Category:External link templates with archive parameter which is probably easiest/best method. Or both because TemplateData still is useful for other things. Update: I just noticed in Category:External link templates with archive parameter the templates use |archive= like {{2006 Commonwealth Games profile}} - this looks like an alternative method in use, most of those templates are sports related so it was probably conceived by a few editors at some time.

According to Category:External link templates there are only about 700 in this category and sub-category excluding Wikidata. There is also Category:Citation templates and sub-cats which is well over 1,000. -- GreenC 16:47, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Another idea is citation templates use the |archive-url= trio, and external link template use simply |archive= which if it exists the template renders this URL as a replacement for what it would have rendered. It's going to be template-specific how to best approach this. Anyway, if it's true Category:External link templates with archive parameter is only for templates that use |archive=, it will be important to have a new category for Category:External link templates with archive-url parameter, so bots and tools can differentiate which parameters to use. -- GreenC 16:58, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

┌───────────────────────────┘
Maybe some sort of meta tempate would be helpful here, to standardise the templates. — Qwerfjkltalk 17:14, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Replacing TWL OCLC proxy links in articles

Hey all! For some background here, for TWL users to access Newspapers.com, the library sends them through a proxied domain at https://www-newspapers-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/. This often results in this domain name making its way into the mainspace, which is problematic because it can only be accessed by those with access to TWL.

JPxG has set up a way to replace these links with the unproxied domain using JWB (see more info and an example edit), but I feel like this is an area where a bot could step in.

Citation bot is able to clean these links up automatically (see an example edit), but it has to be triggered manually. These proxy URLs are not automatically placed in a category, which means a human editor would need to assemble a list of pages to be fixed for Citation bot to even look at them. Citation bot also wouldn't deal with these links outside of citations, such as with external links.

It's worth noting that I've previously filed a tangentially similar BRFA, which was denied as Citation bot would be easier to use and give better results. With these links, however, I don't think that's the case, mainly because Citation bot is tedious to trigger on these pages, but also because Citation bot doesn't even touch other proxied URLs, only Newspapers.com.

I'd love to make this happen using Pywikibot, but based on my previous BRFA I wanted to see some thoughts on this being fully automated. This task is already being done semi-automatically way through JWB, so I think it might as well be fully automated, potentially expanding additionally to other TWL-proxied sites. (Citation bot doesn't even touch other proxied URLs, only Newspapers.com.)

(CCing Headbomb for your thorough comments on the previous BRFA—would love to hear your opinion especially.) Bsoyka (talk) 18:32, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, there should be a bot for this. The JWB regex is dead-on-the-marmot simple, and never pops false positives (there's simply never any legitimate reason to link to www-newspapers-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org in mainspace so you can just replace it in ns0 indiscrim[...]ly). I run through every couple weeks and people always give me like 14 thankses for it so it seems like a particularly loved task. jp×g🗯️ 18:36, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

I support this bot and would further support a task like Qwerfjkl bot Task 17, to post on the usertalk of editors who leave links like this and tell them to stop doing it. Folly Mox (talk) 18:54, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Folly Mox, my bot only tracks categories. Is there an error category for this? — Qwerfjkltalk 19:04, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl: Not as far as I know. The replacement process itself would be built on a simple regex find/replace. Bsoyka (talk) 19:05, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Bsoyka, I know, I'm talking about notifying users. But thinking about it now, there's not much point if they can just be fixed. It would be trivial to setup a daily run on this with a bot. — Qwerfjkltalk 19:29, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

hrrmery mayhapsicles it could mention https://github.com/jp-x-g/PressPass which autoformats newspapers.com citations on firefox and chrome and autofixes this exact issue B^) jp×g🗯️ 19:33, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

JPxG, didn't recognise you for a moment there! I'm used to a green username, not blue. Congratulations on your adminship! — Qwerfjkltalk 19:33, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Seems like this has some general support to become fully automated. I'll give this a bit more time to sit for anyone else who wants to comment then work up some quick code and get a BRFA going. (Just trying to avoid what happened with my last one—thanks for all the feedback so far, everyone!) Bsoyka (talk) 19:33, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

As far as categories go, tracking categories could be built-in CS1/CS2 templates like Category:CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI and then Citation bot can run over them. The place to raise that is at Help talk:CS1. This is my preferred option, personally, as far as my own individual opinion is concerned.

As for bots doing this, two options. You build a list of articles and feed it to Citation bot (either via a page of links, or separated by pipes). Or you have a dedicated bot fixing that stuff.

Or you can do both, but the tracking category is what needs the least coding. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:28, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

@Headbomb: While I like the idea of a CS1 maintenance category paired with Citation bot to fix these, that wouldn't work for any TWL links other than Newspapers.com as far as I know.

Take, for example, this version of an article and its references 11 and 14. They link to doi.org through the TWL proxy, but Citation bot doesn't even touch them and they have to be replaced manually (or semi-automatically similar to JPxG's JWB settings mentioned above). (Edit: Probably not the best example since the DOIs are invalid to begin with, but I think the idea is still there.)

This is why I think a separate bot task would be useful—Citation bot only deals with proxied Newspapers.com links, but there are tens of other sources going through TWL proxies that it won't handle. Bsoyka (t • c • g) 22:45, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

It deals with many TWL proxied links, not just newspaper.com ones. It might not deal with all of them, which is a great argument to improve Citation bot by providing it with the full list of proxies used by TWL.

But again, a separate bot specifically on this is also not a bad idea. We'd just lose many of CB's other fixes, but proxied links are bad enough to be fixed on their own. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:48, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Oh, it does? Apologies, I had tested it a few times with other proxied sites and didn't get any more hits.

Appreciate the feedback though—I'll get started on a script and BRFA for now and we'll see where it goes. Bsoyka (t • c • g) 22:53, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

BRFA filed: Thanks for the feedback everyone! I'll point you in the direction of this new BRFA for further discussion. Bsoyka (t • c • g) 01:32, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

I will go vouch for it if necessary. It's always fun to push the big button on a JWB run but it's imperative that this problem have a solution beyond "JPxG makes an embarrassing mistake every couple weeks and wants to hide it behind a couple dozen JWB edits" jp×g🗯️ 10:55, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

It appears quite a lot in other namespaces (see Special:LinkSearch/www-newspapers-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org), I assume it should also be fixed there? — Qwerfjkltalk 11:22, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

No, TWL links in other namespaces are likely intentional and not bad practice. I'll often drop a TWL link on a talk page if I'm discussing a source, with the knowledge that the intended audience (other Wikipedia editors) has proxy access. Folly Mox (talk) 11:32, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Just going to update this with a quick Y Done tag! Bsoyka (t • c • g) 03:08, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

@Bsoyka Thanks for working on this! Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 12:24, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Tangentially, @Trizek (WMF), could you talk to the Editing team about whether the citoid service could automagically not add these URLs in the first place? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:48, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

T356056 documents the need. Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 14:38, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

@Bsoyka:, going by a search with insource:wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org which throws about 643 hits in mainspace, I wonder if expanding the scope to other wikipedialibrary domains would be warranted. It seems like there are a lot of links to that proxy. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:55, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

@Jo-Jo Eumerus: Thanks for the note! This is definitely on my radar and something I plan to gradually implement. I ensured my BRFA was phrased to allow expanding the scope like this, and I'm tracking progress on GitHub. Bsoyka (t • c • g) 22:07, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Bad citation fix for several hundred articles

Hi, I asked the following at the Help Desk, and they suggested asking here:

I noticed that there are a ton of pages tagged for needing verification from August 2022. All of the location ones really just need the first of the two notes citations (the one just going to census.gov) removed. Is there a way for someone to mass-fix this?

The note, as it is, is always in the Demographics section as:

"Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos can be of any race.<ref>http://www.census.gov {{nonspecific|date=August 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=About the Hispanic Population and its Origin |url=https://www.census.gov/topics/population/hispanic-origin/about.html |website=www.census.gov |access-date=18 May 2022}}</ref>"

It is the first of the two that needs to go, because the second has it covered.

To add: on all the pages I have fixed thus far with this error (see: recent Texas edits), it is the only note on the page, and always attached to a table with racial demographic data.

Thanks in advance! Edenaviv5 (talk) 16:18, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

@Edenaviv5: Doing... This is only 278 articles, so I'll do this manually via AWB (e.g. Special:Diff/1195891794). Future small requests can be made at WP:AWBREQ. GoingBatty (talk) 19:12, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

@Edenaviv5: Y Done! GoingBatty (talk) 19:36, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, @GoingBatty! Edenaviv5 (talk) 22:01, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

DRV template bot

See this discussion: is there a bot that can assist us with the deletion review process? Jarble (talk) 19:46, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Not a good task for a bot. per the discssion there. — Qwerfjkltalk 18:13, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Fixing uninvoked refrences

Deleting or otherwise removing errors from uncalled references. Geardona (talk to me?) 20:24, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

@Geardona: Could you please give some examples of these errors? GoingBatty (talk) 03:04, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Yep, I will get them in a bit. Geardona (talk to me?) 13:31, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Here is one (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370&diff=prev&oldid=1196258156) The refs were in the list but never appeared in the text, generating a cite error.(Cite error: A list-defined reference named "AutoVQ-40" is not used in the content.) Geardona (talk to me?) 14:08, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

I feel like there is a context issue here. Why are the refs there? Where they removed in the text by someone and they didn't realise the refs were below? Is there a typo? Is it a duplicate ref? Was it an accidental removal? Only some of these questions would have answers where "let's remove the reference entirely" would be the correct solution. Primefac (talk) 14:28, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

@Geardona: Agree with Primefac that this seems to require human review for context and therefore is Not a good task for a bot. GoingBatty (talk) 16:12, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Alright,  Thanks Geardona (talk to me?) 17:08, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, I wish the software wouldn't error over unused list-defined references. It's a pain if you're just adding them in advance (which is necessary before using them), and if someone has bothered to add an LDR in the first place it should probably at least display under "Further reading" even if not cited. Also, I've never known another software that yells at me for defining a variable without using it anywhere. I'm really not sure what the point of the error message is, especially so big and shouty. Folly Mox (talk) 18:14, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Not to re-open the bot discussion, but could there at least be a user-script that finds them easily, it is really annoying to have to use CMD+F to find the uncalled refs and then delete them. Geardona (talk to me?) 18:16, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Geardona, if you're going to be working on this task, I might suggest moving the uninvoked list defined references into "Further reading" unless the source is unreliable, rather than outright deletion. I haven't looked into this sort of thing in depth so I have no idea what the distribution of cases is like, but citing the source in the article might also be an option. Folly Mox (talk) 18:23, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Its mostly a visual editor issue (I think) where the user generates a second citation instead of re-using, leading to it just being there (speculation). Geardona (talk to me?) 18:32, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Disabling categories on drafts

Ever since the idea of immediately moving inadequate articles to draftspace emerged as a common alternative to deletion, the amount of time that has had to be invested in cleaning up polluted categories that have draftspace pages in them has gone way up, because the people who do the sandboxing frequently forget to remove or disable the categories in the process — so I wanted to ask if there's any way that a bot can be made to clean up any overlooked stuff.

Since there's already a bot, JJMC89bot, that detects main-to-draft page moves and tags them as {{Drafts moved from mainspace}}, the easiest thing would probably be to just have that bot automatically disable any categories on the page at the same time as it's tagging it — but when I directly approached that bot's maintainer earlier this year to ask if this could be implemented, they declined on the basis that the bot hadn't already been approved to perform that task, while failing to give me any explanation of why taking the steps necessary to get the bot approved to perform that task was somehow not an option. As an alternative, I then approached the maintainer of DannyS712bot, which catches and disables categories on drafts that are in the active AFC submission queue (which newly sandboxed former articles generally aren't, and thus don't get caught by it), but was basically told to buzz off and talk to JJMC89bot.

So, since I've already been rebuffed by the maintainers of both of the obvious candidate bots, I wanted to ask if there's any other way to either get one of those two bots on the task or make a new bot to go through Category:All content moved from mainspace to draftspace disabling any active categories, so that editors can cut down on the amount of time we have to spend on DRAFTNOCAT cleanup. If possible, such a bot would ideally also do an ifexist check, and outright remove any redlinked categories that don't even exist at all, though just disabling redlinks too would still be preferable to editors having to manually clean up hundreds of categorized drafts at a time — it's just that merely disabling the redlinks creates another load of cleanup work later on when the draft gets approved or moved by its own creator without AFC review or whatever, so killing redlinks right away is preferable to simply deferring them for a second round of future cleanup. Bearcat (talk) 16:18, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Technically, this is doable — without interfering DannyS712bot's task. But I also would like to know why this was rejected by these two bot operators, and at the BRfA as well. —usernamekiran (talk) 18:22, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

This seems like something we can also tackle at the source. Hey MPGuy2824. Does the WP:MOVETODRAFT script disable categories when draftifying? If not we should consider adding this feature. If so we may need to look at diffs to see where these undisabled categories are coming from (manual moves? old script?) –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:02, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

The MTD script wraps categories within {{Draft categories}} which disables them. (e.g. [13]) The older script disables categories by adding a ":" before the word "Category:". That leaves two possible culprits. 1. manual moves and 2. the regex in my script isn't catching all categories. Let me see if I can narrow it down by running a quarry or two. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 04:07, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Maybe Bearcat can provide some diffs for us to examine. Would be interesting to see if any of these are being created by MoveToDraft, or something else. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:24, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

I've only ever seen manual moves; in fact, I wasn't aware that MTD even existed. Bearcat (talk) 12:41, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

@Bearcat: I already have a bot task approved for adding {{Draft categories}}. The challenge for me is identifying which drafts have article categories. There's Wikipedia:Database reports/Polluted categories to find user pages with article categories, but I'm not aware of anything comparable for drafts. Going through Category:Pending AfC submissions looked like an easy start, especially since it's so small at the moment, but I didn't find any drafts with article categories. I'm open to further discussion. GoingBatty (talk) 21:36, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Database reports/Polluted categories (2) catches categories with drafts in them; the minor flaw is that it's currently not correctly recognizing the {{Polluted category}} template that used to flag maintenance categories as "don't bother with this because we don't care about it", so it's picking up things it doesn't need to pick up like Category:Miscellany to be merged and Category:Wikipedia Student Program. But even if that report is failing to react to that template properly, a bot could potentially be programmed to react to that template around whatever's stopping that report from reacting to it.

In the case of the particular issue I was asking about, just working directly with Category:All content moved from mainspace to draftspace itself is also an option: have a bot go through that, and disable categories that are on the pages in that category. That won't catch all categorized drafts by itself, but it will certainly catch the ones that are categorized because they're former articles that got moved into draftspace without the mover disabling the categories in the process — and at this point, that accounts for the majority of categorized drafts, so it would become easier for human editors to catch whatever's still left if we only have to deal with 25 or 30 per cent as many pages as we do now.

I genuinely doubt that there's any way to make a bot perfect at catching all improperly categorized drafts without ever missing any — but if we can get bots to deal with as many as possible, that still reduces the amount of time that human editors have to invest in worrying about it. So I don't think we need to shoot for "the magic bullet that will make a bot infallible at instantly catching every draft that ever gets categorized at all" — let's just aim for "where can a bot make as many dents in the problem as feasibly possible by working on defined targets". Bearcat (talk) 22:48, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

@Bearcat: Aha - thanks for telling me about that report! I ran the bot over the report, and manually cleaned up some drafts that had incorrect categories. I've added it to my favorites, so I can run the bot when it gets republished. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 04:16, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Ah, ok. I think the reason you didn't know about it might be that the report you already knew about used to catch both user-polluted and draft-polluted categories in the same place — but then they were split up into two separate reports later on for whatever reason, so you might simply never have found out about the newer draft report. Bearcat (talk) 12:41, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

If you don't want to have your bot churn through 8000 pages most of which don't need action, then Category:Content moved from mainspace to draftspace from November 2023 (using the current month instead) would also work fairly well. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 23:32, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Actually, yeah, that's a good alternative too. In reality, categorized drafts will virtually always be new pages that became categorized drafts within the past couple of days (and humans can catch the less common exceptions where a much older draft gets recategorized more than a month later), so the dated categories are likely more manageable chunks for a bot to grind through. Bearcat (talk) 23:48, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

• The other thing is, just having a bot go through the polluted category reports doesn't solve the problem all by itself — sometimes drafts are categorized not by direct declaration of categories on the page itself, but by artificially smuggling in transcluded categories from a template or infobox. (There is a rule that templates aren't supposed to be transcluding categories at all, but people don't actually obey it, so in reality it happens quite frequently anyway.)
  A bot can't fix cases like that, which means that even if a bot is pounding through that report a human still has to go through it every few days anyway to suppress any transcluded categories that the bot couldn't fix — but if most of the categories on the report have already been cleaned up by a bot, but I still have to inspect all of them anyway to look for one or two pages that might have been missed, then that's a huge imposition on my time. So what we also need is a bot that's catching and killing categories on drafts before they even get picked up by that report at all, so that the size of the report itself is reduced — which means that there does need to be a bot that whips through Category:All content moved from mainspace to draftspace, or a dated subcategory of that, on a daily basis so that a larger percentage of categorized drafts get resolved before they even show up on the polluted categories report in the first place. Bearcat (talk) 13:43, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

  Does something like searching the Draft namespace with insource:/\[\[\s*[Cc]ategory\s*:/ -hastemplate:"Draft categories" -insource:/\[\[\s*[Cc]ategory\s*:[^]]*[Dd]raft/ or a variation do the job? Wikiwerner (talk) 20:48, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

  @Wikiwerner: The search you suggested includes pages where the categories are inside <nowiki>...</nowiki> or <!--...--> tags to prevent categorization. GoingBatty (talk) 01:59, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

  There are also permissible categories for drafts, like Category:Marvel Cinematic Universe drafts. BD2412 T 02:06, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Wikiwerner: However, if you run the same search and "Sort by edit date", the most recent potential pages will be on top, and you may find some pages to be fixed. GoingBatty (talk) 02:33, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

  I already excluded categories for which the name contains 'drafts': see the last part of my search text. Nowikis and HTML comments can be skipped easily with the existing bot? Wikiwerner (talk) 09:27, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

  @GoingBatty: That's right. You have got a bot approval; could you process this search's results? Wikiwerner (talk) 10:06, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Wikiwerner: Done, so everything left should be a false positive. GoingBatty (talk) 18:16, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you very much. I have used a tiny script to list up the remaining draft articles found together with their categories, and they contain no article categories anymore. So, for now, we have finished! Wikiwerner (talk) 19:07, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

  About transcluded categories: I have checked the report Polluted categories (2) and cleaned all categories by using {{Draft categories}}. None of the drafts is categorized anymore, so no categories were transcluded at that time. Wikiwerner (talk) 12:47, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

• Not sure how I managed to miss this thread for so long, but one comment regarding the "finding of drafts with categories" - we have Category:AfC submissions with categories. Wouldn't it be easier to patrol that then have to parse out all of the polluted category stuff and/or use regex in searches? Primefac (talk) 09:51, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Primefac: While it's good to monitor Category:AfC submissions with categories, we'd want to decategorize the drafts before they become AfC submissions. GoingBatty (talk) 20:01, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be possible to change the Draft namespace properties so that it's contents is never shown on category pages? Wikiwerner (talk) 15:32, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

No. — Qwerfjkltalk 15:33, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

List of Sejm members (2023–2027)

Hi, I would like to ask if it would be possible to align text to the right in the # of votes and % of votes columns in the table listing over 460 MPs located in the List of Sejm members (2023–2027)#List of members section. The use of {{Table alignment}} is imposible due to merged cells which help with wisual representation. There fore befoure every cell in mentioned columns which all contain numerical data, "align-text: right|" sholud be placed. Chears! — Antoni12345 (talk) 23:49, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Antoni12345, you should ask this at WP:VPT. — Qwerfjkltalk 23:56, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Oh now I see i wasn’t clear. My question was if the task could be done by a bot so I wouldn’t have to manually place “text-align=right|” before 920 cells. — Antoni12345 (talk) 06:20, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Instead you may use Template:0. If you would like to apply this just at the page mentioned, then one could apply a one-time regex find-and-replace, for aligning right as well as using the template. Wikiwerner (talk) 10:40, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

If it's a single page, then copy the text to a word processor of some variety and use a find/replace to do it all at once. Primefac (talk) 14:41, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

@Primefac: if it would be that siple then I would do it. Unfortunately there is no unique frase befoure mentioned cells to use the find/replace tool. That's why i'm trying to request a edit by a bot. — Antoni12345 (talk) 19:26, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

You will not get a bot approved for a single page. Someone at WP:AWB/TASKS might be able to help.

Not a good task for a bot. Primefac (talk) 07:15, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

@Antoni12345:  Done manually in this edit. I first played around trying to fix the column header to align the whole column right, but that didn't work, so I figured out how to do it for each row per Help:Table. As Primefac suggested, I copied the section code and pasted it into Notepad. I then used find/replace 10 times:

• Find: || 1 Replace: || style="text-align: right;" | 1
• Find: || 2 Replace: || style="text-align: right;" | 2

...

• Find: || 0 Replace: || style="text-align: right;" | 0

I then copied the new code from Notepad back into WP, previewed the change, manually fixed less than 10 rows with different formatting, and saved. Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 15:10, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

@GoingBatty: Thank you so much! I am aware of the using find/replace tool ability in text editors, but i was stuck and couldn't think of the frase to find/replace. It would be even easier if I would think of aligning text on the stage of editing in excel but I haven't. And after you excel2wiki there's no coming back :--P Thanks again! — Antoni12345 (talk) 17:30, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

@Antoni12345: I also tried the VisualEditor. While it allows you to manipulate tables (e.g. adding/merging/removing rows/columns) but doesn't allow you to apply a format such as aligning right. :-( GoingBatty (talk) 17:34, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Early idea

"The three most dangerous things in the world are a programmer with a soldering iron, a hardware type with a program patch, and a user with an idea."

— Rick Cook, The Wizardry Consulted

So I have an idea, and...

Is it possible for a bot to find articles that:

• contain a number of words of readable prose (e.g., as calculated by Wikipedia:Prosesize) between x and y (e.g., 150 and 2,000) and also
• contain fewer internal links per word than some simple mathematical formula (e.g., "less than three total" or "less than one link per 100 words")?

If a bot could automatically detect such articles, then I'd like to have it add the {{underlinked}} template, on a schedule of perhaps a few articles being tagged per hour, to feed the seemingly popular Category:Underlinked articles for the Wikipedia:Growth Team features, without giving a large number of articles to the first editor and then leaving none for anyone else.

I realize that this would require a demonstration of consensus, but I don't want to make the suggestion, get people's hopes up, and then find out that bots can't count the number of words or links in an article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:21, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

The tagging part seems like a CONTEXTBOT problem, but I can imagine a bot-generated report that listed the 1,000 articles with the fewest links per 100 prose words. Humans could then look through the report and refine the bot's criteria. If somehow the bot can be made to correctly identify underlinked articles without false positives, tagging might be possible. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:22, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Related question, for WhatamIdoing: What can we do to provide feedback about this newcomer linking activity? I see that at least some edits are adding undesirable disambiguation links. Is the tool suggesting these links? – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:25, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

The tool doesn't suggest any specific link. It pops up a box that says things like "All you need to do is add one or two links to make a difference." They're using the visual editor, so its link tool will de-prioritize (in the search results) and label dab links (so you can see that it's not the kind of page you were expecting). However, it doesn't tell you what a redirect points to, so if you have a redirect to a dab page, then you'll see 'redirect' and not know that it's a redirect to a dab page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:25, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

It might be worth mentioning that the Suggested Links task, scheduled to be enabled on en.wp next year, does not use maintenance templates as an inclusion criterion. So if timetables are not further extended, any success in this effort will apply only to a few months of newcomer activity. Folly Mox (talk) 15:01, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Is word-counting and link-counting a realistic task, then? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:28, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, I don't know of any way to do it using queries, but running a bot on a database dump probably wouldn't be that hard. — Qwerfjkltalk 14:23, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

From a technical perspective, word counting and link counting are pretty straightforward to do. I explained how to implement prosesize word counts on my blog a while back, and that technique is used to power, among other things, Wikipedia:Database reports/Featured articles by size. Link counts are a simple database query or extraction from page HTML/wikitext. Unfortunately much of this work is blocked on the fact that the HTML dumps are currently created using proprietary source code. Legoktm (talk) 07:20, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for that, @Legoktm. It sounds like word-counting could be done "today" (i.e., by adapting existing code). I'm not sure how to summarize what you said about link-counting. On the one hand, you say it's a "simple" query, but on the other hand, that it's blocked.

Is the database report for FAs the size at time of promotion, or the size today? Tpbradbury had been looking into that recently. (He's been hoping to find out whether there was a trend in FA size over time.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:58, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

The report I threw together shows the size at time of promotion, as requested. There may be other reports based on current size. Certes (talk) 18:56, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't very clear @WhatamIdoing. Individually, getting an article's prose size and link count is simple. Finding articles out of the entire wiki that meet those criteria isn't really feasible right now because of the lack of HTML database dumps. So if there's some other way to limit the number of articles to check, e.g. just looking at a few categories, that's probably doable. Legoktm (talk) 07:43, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

If I wanted to get this for, say, all the articles in Category:WikiProject Medicine articles, excluding articles in Category:Society and medicine task force articles, then it sounds like we (i.e., you/someone/not me) could make a one-time report that lists each article and the number of words and links in it, but an ongoing "monitoring" process would be less feasible. Am I closer to understanding this now? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:54, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: I just tried writing some code and seeing how it went and here you go: User:WhatamIdoing/Possibly underlinked medicine articles (feel free to move elsewhere, etc.). It took about 15 minutes to generate the listing; definitely surprised me how fast it was. So I think it's fine to run as a regular thing on categories of roughly that magnitude, probably weekly?

I used the criteria you suggested at the beginning (between 150-2000 words and less than 3 links total), but we can change that based on what you find useful without really affecting the runtime.

So let me know if that list of articles is useful and if/how you'd like to move forward :) Legoktm (talk) 04:47, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

@Legoktm, thank you for this. Could you take a look at Motoric Cognitive Risk and Igor Smirnov (engineer), which are reported as having two links, but appear to have none? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:56, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

I tagged all nine of the identified articles as being underlinked. Less than 48 hours later, all of them were improved, and all of the tags had been removed by the (apparently many) watchers of the category. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:12, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out those two articles - I found a bug in my code, so I re-ran the report and surfaced ~280 more articles that meet the criterion and have updated the listing. Should I turn this into a regular database report that updates every week? Legoktm (talk) 06:18, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Probably not yet. Why is Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and Faculties in Scotland in the list? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:35, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

List items don't count for prose size (see this), so those links aren't being counted. Legoktm (talk) 06:54, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure that using Prosesize's limitations makes sense for counting links. It's a bit tricky, because you don't want a "List of 100 most popular songs", with links to 100 articles about songs, in this list (and Prosesize will do that), but you also don't want a medium-sized ==See also== section to exclude an article with completely unlinked text (and counting all links in list-formatted text will do that).

Unless you have ideas about how to get around this, it's possible that this is not a suitable task for full bot automation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:03, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Right, I think there are pros and cons both ways. The initial list missed a number of articles that were underlinked because the link was in a reference or something.

I'm also not interested in pursuing full automation, I think, if you find the list useful (but not necessarily perfect), to just regularly generate the list and let humans review it and decide whether to tag it or not. Legoktm (talk) 23:53, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

{od}

An update and some observations, in case anyone else is interested:

• Status: My burn rate is about 50 articles per week. Most of these (shorter) articles get thoroughly linked within about 36 hours. I expect therefore to reach the end of this initial list about a week from now.
  • Links might be added faster for a subject area of broader interest (e.g., food or sports).
• Edits: Most new contributors follow the suggestion/instruction to only add a couple of links. Consequently, an article might have ten or more editors make one, two, or three links before it gets removed from the list.
  • A significant fraction of the new editors who are editing these articles because they are listed in Special:Homepage for needing links have surprised me by trying to improve the article through other means, e.g., copyediting, adding citations, or (unfortunately/incorrectly) adding external links to other websites (like Red Cross). (Pinging Trizek (WMF))
    • I wonder whether this desirable "side effect" will evaporate under the new link-suggesting system.
• Primary pain point: Un-tagging articles requires manual effort. I remove the tags myself sometimes, usually thanking anyone who has made a plausible contribution. Most days, other experienced editors get to it before I do.
  • Trying not to overwhelm the cat's dedicated patrollers is kind of tedious. It would be easy to review hundreds of articles in one go, and Special:Homepage would be happy to have a mass-dumping of all of them at once in Category:Articles with too few wikilinks, but it would make manually reviewing the articles to see whether it's time to remove the tag very difficult.
  • It might be nice to have a bot auto-remove the tag after edits from 10 new editors.
• Future possibilities: After I've run through the previously unidentified 'backlog', I expect future runs to be much shorter, unless we change the criteria to be a little more expansive. It might be better to pick a different topic (maybe even deliberately aiming at a theme, like Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa during Black History Month in February and Wikipedia:WikiProject Women during Women's History Month in March).

WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:32, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the ping @WhatamIdoing!

@Folly Mox detailed a possibility to solve your problem: the Suggested Links task. It detects links and provide them to newcomers so that they can add the missing links. We will deploy it in the coming weeks, but the activation will be your community's responsibility.

It would be better to let newcomers adding these links. Easy tasks are easily solvable with a bot, but they are the best way to let newcomers discover that they can edit.

The number of links added through Suggested Links bu one use is default at 3. But this number can be changed by your community using special:EditGrowthConfig. These links are suggested on all articles where too few links are present, no matter if they are tagged or not. There is no banner to remove when enough links have been added, except on the already tagged articles.

The side effect you observed will be partially lost, as users won't be able to edit the entire article. But they have the possibility to continue editing the article in the standard way when they have published their added links. It also decreases the feeling some patrollers had at other wikis, that not all links are relevant: the tool won't suggest links into infoboxes or citations, and it won't suggest disambiguation pages.

As I write this message the Growth and Campaigns teams are working together on suggested tasks related to events. We can imagine creating focuses on topics, where newcomers would be invited to themes like you suggest.

Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 09:53, 26 January 2024 (UTC)