Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Taxobot

The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. The result of the discussion was

Request Expired.

Taxobot

Operator: Verisimilus

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Fully automatic

Programming Language(s): Perl, using PerlWikipedia

Function Summary: Make minor fixes to Taxoboxes

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): Continuous

Edit rate requested:

Initial rate: 6 edits per minute (to clear backlog)

Continuous rate: 4 epm max., as required

Function Details: Makes minor edits to taxoboxes. Initially, wikilinks the "Kingdom" appropriately, and removes unnecessary "colour" and "name" arguments.

Discussion

I can see that changes to the template have been made which should eliminate the need for the colour parameter. Those changes are clearly beyond my ken, but as long as everyone's happy with that, which they seem to be, that's fine. Are there any instances in which name would not be the same as {{PAGENAME}}? I'm sure it shouldn't happen, but will the bot wikilink the kingdom if it would create a redlink?

The bot will only remove the name if PAGENAME is the same as the name parameter - i.e. the parameter is redundant. There are lots of cases where it may differ: for example, "Oak (tree)" should display "Oak"; and there are other instances where a species name should be italicised etc. Verisimilus T 16:12, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry not to make myself clear on the kingdom-wikilinking - I've spent so long fiddling with Taxoboxes I forget that their inner workings aren't obvious to everybody! Basically, it'll search for the common unnecessary redirects, so will change:

[[plantae]] → [[plant]]ae]]
[[fungi]] → [[fungus|fungi]]

etc. Verisimilus T 17:09, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Finally, the scope of the change clearly requires a bot, but will that bot indeed need to run continuously after the first run has been completed? It seems to me that the name and colour parameter would simply be removed from the template, and editors would be notified. What other changes do you anticipate making once the first run has been completed? — madman bum and angel 12:49, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I anticipate running the bot periodically to check that new taxoboxes are as efficient as possible - notifying the editor who places a new taxobox is also a good idea. Verisimilus T 16:12, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fixing links to "unnecessary" redirects would itself seem to be unnecessary, and indeed, fall under Wikipedia:Redirect#Don't fix links to redirects that aren't broken. Trawling all transclusions of such a widely used template (especially "periodically", and even more especially as Polbot is churning out tens of thousands of fresh such on an on-going basis) also seems to be edging into "crawler" territory (i.e. "substantial portions of the page database"). If there's something that really needs fixed here, can't it be done on a more selective basis? Alai 06:31, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hadn't seen this redirect policy - will remove that function.

On a periodic basis, it would check the "What links here" page to Template:Taxobox for additions, and modify only these additional entries - once a taxobox has been fixed, I think it's safe to assume that no-one's going to add an unnecessary parameter (at least without good reason), so the bot won't need to go back to it. Verisimilus T 08:37, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, apart from that redirect function, it all looks great.

Approved for trial (20 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 23:12, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Any news with the trial? Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 21:39, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, had a busy week. Will implement as soon as I've finished coding - probably at the weekend. Verisimilus T 10:29, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Gosh. I didn't realise that there were almost thirteen million taxoboxes on Wikipedia. I may have to request a higher edit rate, as at 6epm it would take over four years of continuous running to edit them all..... I'll get it working first, then let you know. Verisimilus T 12:35, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That has to be off by several orders of magnitude; we have only 2.01 million articles total (see Special:Statistics), and most of them are about Pokémon. -- Visviva 04:07, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, thank goodness - I've since discovered that the "from" parameter in the URL is (effectively) random, and doesn't relate to the offset from the first transclusion!

One word: NO!. One reason: Polbot. Simply browsing the common names in List of endangered animal species should point out the problem clearly. IMHO, non-human-assisted bots should be categorically verboten for taxobox-containing articles. The Bird project has been all but tied up trying to fix it, we're about half-way through maybe (as regards workload - what's left now is the [[long tail] of errors, those most hard to find and thus, to fix) , and we've got only a few 100 of articles to fix, and birds are probably the group of animals where the least could go wrong (as common names are standardized and the IUCN info is 3 years old at most). I'm as of now spending 3 days and counting on what ought to have been some trivial edits on hybridization in the Geoemydidae that should have taken half a day, at most. I cannot put in words how much it sucks. Dysmorodrepanis 14:48, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I'm not sure I understood your comment. What in particular could possibly lead to the necessity of human input in this task, which requires no "guesswork"? Either the pagename is identical to the taxobox name=, or it's not and should be left. Likewise, either the colour argument is redundant, or it's not. If you can point out anything that would potentially lead to a human having to fix any aspect of this bot, please let me know! Verisimilus T 16:44, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please create a user page for your bot. Congrats on the rename. :) — madman bum and angel 14:36, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Thanks - it took enough sweat, but we got there in the end! Verisimilus T 14:39, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm unable to determine whether or not the objection raised above is a valid one. Perhaps notice of this task request should be posted in more venues? In any case, this task request has been approved for trial, so do feel free to start at your convenience. — madman bum and angel 05:46, 8 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Question: are any of the proposed bot tasks actually necessary? For example, is there any point in removing the "colour" attribute if it is set to the same color that the box would generate anyway? Are there taxobox "kingdom" fields which link to something other than a redirect to the appropriate kingdom (and if so, are those errors bot-fixable)? I don't see the potential for harm in the described bot tasks, but I don't see much potential for benefit either. -- Visviva 04:07, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

- Answer: The colours for kingdoms are liable to change at some points in the future as classification schemes are refined; removing the fixed colour parameter allows them to be changed in one place instead of a million.

Removing the name parameter will make it clearer that it is unnecessary, reducing clutter on page edit codes and making it easier for editors to manually create new taxoboxes. The automatic name parameter is more likely to be correctly italicised (or will be when I'm done with the template!) so editors should be encouraged not to specify it themselves. As mentioned above, I've abandoned the "working-redirect fixer". Verisimilus T 20:21, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This task was approved for trial 23:12, 12 August 2007 (UTC). Please start the trial at your own convenience; this task request will otherwise expire soon. — madman bum and angel 15:59, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry - have been too busy of late to mess around on Wikipedia... Still intend to complete this task when time permits. Verisimilus T 17:23, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you don't anticipate that being soon, we can go ahead and expire this task; you may then reopen it at any time with no penalty. — madman bum and angel 17:34, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Request Expired. — madman bum and angel 00:56, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.