Wikipedia:Bot requests: Difference between revisions

Before making a request, please see the list of frequently denied bots, either because they are too complicated to program, or do not have consensus from the Wikipedia community. If you are requesting that a template (such as a WikiProject banner) is added to all pages in a particular category, please be careful to check the category tree for any unwanted subcategories. It is best to give a complete list of categories that should be worked through individually, rather than one category to be analyzed recursively (see example difference).

Alternatives to bot requests

• WP:AWBREQ
  , for simple tasks that involve a handful of articles and/or only needs to be done once (e.g. adding a category to a few articles).
• WP:URLREQ, for tasks involving changing or updating URLs to prevent link rot
  (specialized bots deal with this).
• SQL query
  (e.g. compiling a list of articles according to certain criteria).
• template
  written in wiki code or Lua.
• user script. Many useful scripts already exist, see Wikipedia:User scripts/List
  .
• WP:Citation bot
  , a user-initiated bot that fixes citations.

Note to bot operators: The {{BOTREQ}} template can be used to give common responses, and make it easier to keep track of the task's current status. If you complete a request, note that you did with {{BOTREQ|done}}, and archive the request after a few days (WP:1CA is useful here).

#	Bot request	Status	💬	👥	🙋 Last editor	🕒 (UTC)	🤖 Last botop editor	🕒 (UTC)
1	Bot to automatically revert date change vandalism		16	6	Pppery	2024-04-03 19:25	Primefac	2024-02-06 13:49
2	To add categories based on article's listing in a third page		8	3	Wikiwerner	2024-03-16 17:40	GoingBatty	2024-03-01 08:10
3	Implementing the outcome of Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television)#Follow-up RfC on TV season article titles	BRFA filed	18	9	Wikiwerner	2024-04-20 17:49	Primefac	2024-03-27 12:55
4	Auto-WP:NAVNOREDIRECT	Not a good task for a bot.	10	5	Wikiwerner	2024-04-28 12:22	Primefac	2024-03-13 18:37
5	Bot to add uncategorized tag to untagged uncategorized pages	Y Done	3	3	GoingBatty	2024-03-23 03:43	GoingBatty	2024-03-23 03:43
6	Mass changes needed for retirement of Drug Information Portal		6	4	WhatamIdoing	2024-03-13 17:40
7	NFL Draft move downcasing cleanup	BRFA filed	22	4	Bsoyka	2024-03-23 02:55	Primefac	2024-03-18 10:12
8	Bot to clean up wikiproject templates		8	2	Cocobb8	2024-03-24 15:05	GoingBatty	2024-03-23 19:12
9	Update WP: maintaince pages		1	1	OrdinaryGiraffe	2024-03-21 23:43
10	IMDB Bot		1	1	BabbaQ	2024-03-29 13:27
11	Automatic NOGALLERY keyword for categories containing non-free files (again)		8	4	Usernamekiran	2024-04-13 02:17	Usernamekiran	2024-04-13 02:17
12	Automatically replace superscripts with sup and sub tags		5	3	Qwerfjkl	2024-04-06 19:54	Qwerfjkl	2024-04-06 19:54
13	Green Bay Packers draft picks (1936–1969) & Green Bay Packers draft picks (1970–present)	Y Done	3	2	Gonzo fan2007	2024-04-22 15:57
14	UTF-8 debugging		4	2	Qwerfjkl	2024-04-07 20:55	Qwerfjkl	2024-04-07 20:55
15	Long-dash URL		1	1	GreenC	2024-04-08 22:16
16	Can we have an AIV feed a bot posts on IRC?		6	2	Lofty abyss	2024-04-29 10:29	Usernamekiran	2024-04-15 11:27
17	Bot to sync talk page redirects with their corresponding page		10	5	Anomie	2024-04-17 11:40	Anomie	2024-04-17 11:40
18	Bot to update match reports to cite template		1	1	Yoblyblob	2024-04-16 13:01
19	Converting Category:Harold B. Lee Library-related articles to talk page categories	Y Done	10	3	HouseBlaster	2024-04-20 17:08	Primefac	2024-04-19 20:37
20	Bot to mass tag California State University sports seasons		2	2	Primefac	2024-04-19 18:13	Primefac	2024-04-19 18:13
21	Football league infoboxes		7	4	Bagumba	2024-04-25 13:43	Primefac	2024-04-25 12:01
22	Clear Category:Unlinked Wikidata redirects		6	3	A smart kitten	2024-04-23 10:56	DreamRimmer	2024-04-21 03:28
23	Find linkrot with a specific pattern		7	3	GreenC	2024-05-01 16:20
24	Converting positional parameters to named parameters	Done	10	2	MSGJ	2024-05-04 05:49
25	Fixing stub tag placement on new articles	Not a good task for a bot.	3	2	Paul 012	2024-05-10 14:28	Primefac	2024-05-10 11:14

This section is pinned and will not be automatically archived.

Moved from Wikipedia:Request a query § Missing Redirects Project

 –  ― Qwerfjkltalk 17:57, 7 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, would someone be able to run this? John of Reading helpfully directed me here. ― Qwerfjkltalk 20:02, 5 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Courtesy link: [1]. Doesn't work if I just click it, worked when I copy pasted the URL into the URL bar though. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:26, 5 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Strange - it worked when I clicked it (just downloaded the files). ― Qwerfjkltalk 20:27, 5 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This appears to be a whole

.sql and .sh files. Judging from this custom SQL table named never_link_to, it also appears to run its own local SQL database. The readme file isn't great, I think it'd take a decent amount of time to comprehend this. And based on one of the comments you linked, this program may also need updating to work with the modern MediaWiki database structure. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:41, 5 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

What is the gist of the request? What kinds of redirects are sought to be made here? BD2412 T 15:40, 11 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@BD2412: The main page is User:Nickj/Redirects. In short, the query should provide a list of redirects that could possibly created, taken from piped links. It shouldn't make the redirects themselves; these require human supervision. ― Qwerfjkltalk 16:19, 11 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I see what you mean. If someone generates the list, I'll be glad to work on it. BD2412 T 16:40, 11 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think that a bot that would update stats relating to social media type websites would be helpful. This has been requested before, but the other attempts have never come to fruition. I'd like to make this bot myself, but would like clarify what would be the best way to execute this idea.

Bots that have been requested in the past have changed the page directly, and others have had criticisms. One question is, where would this info be updated / changed? You could change values on all pages that the related infoboxes, but this would only be on the english wikipedia. You could use wikidata, but there aren't very standardized properties for different statistics based on different accounts. Someone commenting on request for approval for "YTStatsBot" suggested using tabular data at commons, but I don't know how common it is for this to be used with bots.

So, thoughts? Should I try doing something with wikidata, use tabular data, or just update the pages directly. Thanks for your consideration, ― Levi_OP^Talk 00:35, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

From reading those discussions, Wikidata is probably the best option. Enterprisey (talk!) 03:22, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If I was using wikidata, what property would I update? And would if a user had multiple channels? Is there a property specifically for youtube subscriber counts as well as view counts that handles multiple channels, or would a new property need to be created. Thanks, ― Levi_OP^Talk 03:41, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like wikidata:Q50825725#P8687 is what you're looking for. If multiple channels, I'd say all of them, assuming the bot makes updates infrequently enough; I'd strongly advocate for only updating the count when the most significant digit changes, or perhaps when the two most significant digits change. Enterprisey (talk!) 04:33, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

My thoughts were that the bot would "run" once every 24 hours, at whatever time wikipedia is the least active. While running, the bot would loop through every occurrence of the social media followers property, and if the property has a youtube channel id entry, it would query the youtube api for the current sub amount. If it has increased by more than 10,000 subscribers, it would update the amount. Then how would this data be accessed by pages? Would all youtube infoboxes need to be updated to use wikidata instead of just user input parameters? ― Levi_OP^Talk 14:12, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Would all youtube infoboxes need to be updated to use wikidata instead of just user input parameters? Yes. I think there's a pywikibot script for moving infobox parameters to wikidata. ― Qwerfjkltalk 17:46, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You wouldn't need a script, just change the data values for |subscribers= and |views= in the infobox to call {{

WikidataIB

}} or whatever it is that calls up specific values.

For the record, if this were done on enWiki, I would suggest putting all of the values into a central module that could then be called on. I'm throwing it out there just since the question of "how" was asked, and it's a possibility. Primefac (talk) 17:50, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but if the data is only on enwiki, then that getting data from wikidata won't work. ― Qwerfjkltalk 17:53, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure which "that" you're referring to, but I'm referring to enWiki templates getting information from enWiki modules that are updated and maintained by an enWiki botop. Obviously if we store the data on enWiki then WikiData will not be able to use it. I was not advocating for or against either model, just putting it out there as an option. Primefac (talk) 18:00, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Primefac: You could just replace the actual value in the infobox to use the information from wikidata directly, but wouldn't this leave a lot of templates that have incorrect data/formatting? You'd still need a script to go through and remove all of the outdated information that used to be in the |subscribers= and |views= parameters. ― Levi_OP^Talk 18:48, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No. If I edit {{Infobox YouTube personality}} and change |data30= (which is "Total views") to be equal to {{#invoke:WikidataIB |getValue....}}, pointing at whatever P value the YouTube Total Views counter is stored in, then it doesn't matter what the user puts into |views= on any given article, because the infobox isn't looking for user-generated "views" values. Primefac (talk) 19:07, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I understand that it technically wouldn't be an issue, but we don't want populated parameters in templates that don't actually do anything all over wikipedia, right? Someone looking to edit the view count could try changing the value if it's still there and when nothing changes be very confused. ― Levi_OP^Talk 19:11, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If that's an issue I have a bot that will fix that. Primefac (talk) 19:13, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like wikidata:Q50825725#P8687 is what you're looking for. After looking at some of the other properties commonly used to represent youtube channels, wikidata:Q50825725#P2397 seems like a much better option than wikidata:Q50825725#P8687. While "Social media followers" has the subscribers for multiple channels, it doesn't include views, and also shows other accounts like twitter pages. "YouTube channel ID" seems like a much better option because it displays subscriber count as well as view count, and supports multiple channels. ― Levi_OP^Talk 19:25, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good to me, thanks for finding that. Enterprisey (talk!) 08:19, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Since no one else seems to have anything to say about how the bot would be run, what's next? If we wanted this to work, it seems that updating the {{Infobox YouTube personality}} to use a wikidata entry instead of user input would be the next step. Should we leave a message on the talk page of the template, or maybe also on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject YouTube? ― Levi_OP^Talk 16:26, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Levi OP: The next step would be to convert the template to using wikidata/enwiki module. Consensus should be found in which to use (if a change is necessary), at the appropriate place. ― Qwerfjkltalk 22:17, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

While I was going through the requests for edits to (semi-)protected pages, and specifically looking at the request on

• Notify the protecting admin, if they are still active (defined as editing, say, once a week or more) and still an administrator, on their talk page that there is a page they have indefinitely protected a long time ago. The bot would prompt the admin to re-examine whether the page still needs to be protected.
• Make a request for review at
  WP:RFPP
  for other admins to review if the protecting admin is not still an active administrator.

The bot would not be tasked with unprotecting any pages on its own. Nor should it necessarily prompt review of all indef-protected pages--there are some that definitely need to stay protected indefinitely, such as the site disclaimers, and so those could be marked in such a way to exclude the bot to avoid wasting everyone's time. But in other cases, the bot could prevent pages from being protected that really don't have to be. ChromaNebula (talk) 02:47, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, yes! That's definitely needed. I've often come across pages that got indefinitely protected (or salted) because of isolated instances of vandalism 10 or 15 years ago – that goes against the basic principles of our project. I'm glad someone is finally doing something about it! But I'm wondering, how would the bot distinguish those pages that actually do need ongoing protection (like, controversial topics, or articles with profanities in their title)? – Uanfala (talk) 02:57, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@ChromaNebula: Wikipedia:Database reports/Indefinitely semi-protected articles. ― Qwerfjkltalk 07:38, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Qwerfjkl It's great that this database exists! Should it be used to preemptively notify admins of pages they've protected a long time ago, or only when someone requests an edit? ChromaNebula (talk) 16:47, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The latter; if a page is stable and protected, we cannot prove that it is because of the protection or because the need has passed, but it does no harm to assume that protection is the reason. Primefac (talk) 14:01, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This argument goes both ways though: just like you don't see if any bad edits would have been made if the protection weren't there, you also can't see the good edits that would have been done. It can equally well be argued that there'd be no harm in unprotecting all those pages: if there truly is a need for any given page, that need will then make itself apparent and the page will get protected again. – Uanfala (talk) 23:13, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Genuinely, good luck getting that through AN; I don't strictly disagree with your logic, I just find it unlikely that the admin corps will agree to reset the vandalism counter on all these pages. I'm not saying individual pages cannot or should not be unprotected, but unless someone is attempting to productively edit the page there is no indication that dropping the protection is required, and it is doing its job at dissuading drive-by vandalism. Primefac (talk) 09:34, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think I should take this request somewhere else @Primefac? ChromaNebula (talk) 00:43, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think in order for a BRFA to be successful, a consensus that this is a "good idea" so to speak would be necessary; asking at

WP:AN would give a fairly good indication of whether this consensus exists. Primefac (talk) 11:22, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Given the big scope, this should probably be discussed at

the village pump (though of course with a notice of that discussion added to AN). – Uanfala (talk) 15:21, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

The idea may well have merit on a protection policy basis, but as a practical matter I'm not sure it's a good one. Regardless, I doubt this would have community consensus, particularly among admins. For fair reasons too, e.g. it would add a lot of workload, and the unprotection of more semi-protected pages will probably lead to even more driveby vandalism which is already getting past patrollers. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:48, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Alternately, we could have a bot that makes a list of those pages. (How many times have you seen someone say this?) – AssumeGoodWraith (talk | contribs) 12:18, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind. The database report is essentially only old articles. – AssumeGoodWraith (talk | contribs) 12:22, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I know this might sound crazy, but I've been thinking of a bot task where a bot would check for IPs that are not currently blocked with templates such as Template:Anonblock and Template:School block on their talk pages and then remove them. This is because it might confuse an IP user to be told that their IP is blocked even though they're not blocked, and the template is in present tense (ex. "your school, library, or educational institution's IP address is blocked") and it would be weird for that to be on an IP which is not currently blocked wizzito | say hello! 23:42, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

See also {{Rangeblock}}, which uses the wording "has been blocked", which is ambiguous as to whether the block has ended. Certes (talk) 00:08, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

talk) 21:52, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Oops, this fell into my black hole of tasks. Looking into it again.

talk) 00:28, 8 April 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Welcome to the black hole of user talk pages. I'm not here to discourage any attempts to look into this, but I just want to make a couple of observations. The schoolblock template has a namespace check - when shown for a blocked edit it is typically current tense, but when shown on user talk pages it uses 'may be'. The anonblock template also uses 'may be', but at all times. In most cases anon users will never visit their talk page anyway, but these templates do serve the purpose of providing generally good standing advice for good faith school users - they probably should create an account while they can. One should probably check for range blocks, and these templates are sometimes used as a block notification just like any other block message. I can give an example showing both these latter issues: User talk:168.169.188.9. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 00:59, 8 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to summit a bot request for the removal of a stand alone (no context)

There is no consensus in this action, as this facts are not wrong... --Jonny84 (talk) 19:06, 1 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The fact is not incorrect, however there is consensus that this blurb statement is not neutral and creates undue weight issues, several editors said this statement needs to be removed, or a reference to the entire history made (not just the German period). The area was not just German since forever, to highlight this one fact is bias. Also, given today's events in Ukraine it is rather hostile, as it implies that Germany has some special claim to all these locations in modern Poland. I'm actually taken aback by the fact that this was not picked up earlier and the original bot template like this was used. --E-960 (talk) 19:25, 1 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: several editors do agree that this is a problematic stand alone (out of context) statement, including user
  Phil Bridger "...There are many thousands of villages in the world that are located in places that have been part of different countries over the last few centuries. Should we be repeating the history in every one of them, even when no source has been provided about the particular village in question, and admonishing people who remove such content? Of course not: that belongs in articles about the wider region that has changed hands, rather than in each one of the village articles." and user Black Kite "To be fair, the edit removed does suggest that the area had always been German before 1945, which is of course misleading..." and user Rsjaffe "This should be a brief article about a small village. Couldn't there be a statement that refers to the history of pomerania or western pomerania and just states that the village has been part of many different countries over its history?". I think my bot request addresses those suggestions, by removing the out of context statement and having the link to the history of the region. --E-960 (talk) 19:53, 1 March 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]

The idea of Pomerania being German "before 1945" can easily be interpreted as wrong. It is also vague and hard to discern what the authors' purpose was. Was it to talk about how it was the Third Reich's? Was it to mention how it was of the German Empire? I think that the "For the history of the region, see History of Pomerania" substitute is the best, or perhaps it should not even be mentioned at all. Most towns don't have anything talking about what previously owned it. Mebigrouxboy (talk) 22:38, 1 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm up for this - only one editor has objected, and without a policy-based argument. (I'll file it in a week or so.) ― Qwerfjkltalk 21:16, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@E-960: BRFA filed ― Qwerfjkltalk 08:27, 2 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As much as we

When users are making FA for reasons other than improving Wikipedia it can create trouble. Over at

WP:MOSTARTICLES, the top 100 were scrambled to derail certain users who were using their standings for off-wiki benefit. Imagine the press runs a story linking to the list, unscrupulous users create bots to drive up page hit counts in order to gain personal fame and notoriety, to compete, or for egotistical reasons. -- GreenC 00:54, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

I think we need to strike a balance. If our goal was to never present any information that could ever be gamed, we wouldn't have WBGAN/WBFAN, nor would we even allow things like Barnstars. Is it possible someone would abuse the system by creating pageview bots as you theorize? Sure, but it doesn't seem super likely to me, whereas the value of these lists to push editors toward improving articles that need it more seems much more plausible. Looking at it another way, we already have lists that measure impact poorly and are extremely easily gamed (e.g. by churning out boilerplate typhoon FAs)—what I'm seeking here is to create lists that are marginally better. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:08, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't it encourage low-effort FA creation, since cumulative views would increase when you have a large number of FA. Alt idea: measure the rate of change in views from before FA to post-FA. For example average views in the 5-year period before FA vs. average views post FA. This has the benefit of being neutral to minor topics that don't normally attract many views anyway, since it's measuring ratio not absolute count. That way obscure topic areas (Carolingian Empire) are not listed lower than high traffic topics (TV series), even though the former may have had a greater impact on page views percentage wise. GreenC 04:57, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The current WBFAN page is what encourages low-effort FA creation; this could only improve on that. On view change, there's nothing intrinsically about making an article an FA that increases its views. What can increase its views is linking to it more elsewhere, and while I've come across some egregiously underlinked FAs, I've also come across some FA authors who want to link to their page from everywhere, whether warranted or not. So if you're worried about perverse incentives, I think the alt idea is the one to fear.

And on prioritizing high-traffic topics, yes, that's the point. We're writing an encyclopedia for

a page that counts them both as one star

isn't measuring impact well.

I hope that helps clarify why I'd like to see these lists. If you're not convinced, though, that's genuinely fine—they're just lists in project space, so you'll be free to ignore them in favor of other pages that you prefer. Best, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 06:23, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In terms of implementation, for the GA side, the hardest part is mapping articles to nominators (which involves some tricky digging through diffs and munging wikitext). This is already implemented by User:SDZeroBot, the bot that populates

Cow Tools - gets about as many pageviews as all the others combined.) Colin M (talk) 18:14, 25 March 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Thanks for the thoughts, Colin! @SD0001, one simple way to do this might be to just add a "total annual views" column to the table your bot already produces at WBGAN. Would something like that be easy to code, and if so, would it be of interest? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:31, 25 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's better to put it on a separate page. I'm afraid I don't have the time though, but as mentioned below it should be pretty straightforward to do for a different bot operator if the existing article->nominator database is used. – SD0001 (talk) 20:22, 25 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@SD0001, just curious, why do you think it'd be better on a separate page? Thinking about it, having it on the same page people are already visiting might be best. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 05:04, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No need to reuse the code (that would be quite involved!) – SDZeroBot maintains the public s54328__goodarticles_p database on toolforge (table name: nominators2) containing the article–nominator mapping, which is updated in real-time. Then to update WBGAN everyday, it simply queries this table. This has been running for more than a year now and has been quite stable. – SD0001 (talk) 20:17, 25 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There'

The above message is not entirely clear, but I'm pretty sure there is no possible bot task here. These citations need to be fixed manually. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:46, 31 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Why not fix the problem rather than hide the problem? Keith D (talk) 18:55, 31 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if the above response is to me or to the OP. I am not advocating hiding anything. Discussion about how citation templates work is held at

Help Talk:CS1. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:34, 31 March 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

@Jonesey95 and Keith D:If you will SHOW me that someone ever trying to fix it manually - I'll agree with you that "problem is not rather a problem", but for now I see category is just incresing time after time and that's all. Besides category have description of reason and some remote from reality recomendation of how to fix it ("To resolve this error, ensure that the numbering of the |<last>n= parameters increments properly."). In reality though reason is editors ignore the requirements for filling in both fields, filling in only one of them, however they STILL FILL FULL INFORMATION about author of citing source, which means, in fact, in such frequent/cоmmon cases there's NOTHING to fix, only really needed thing is to SHOW the "first" field content, that is clearly easily fixed by filling "last" field by some insignificant character (i.e. "-"), that, as a result, will finally show the "first" field value (that case it's "Jamie Lovegrove") at the citing instead of hiding it (that case it's "Debbie Clark") "first" field value with popping up an error.

Isn't that a solution of a problem category represents? Or you really think someone will be interested to MANUALLY dig in already filled with valuable information fields? If talking with language of

math: "Rearranging the terms does not change the sum", so just fix category articles with a bot. Otherwise, on my POV, category will just raise indefinitely 85.238.102.237 (talk) 20:32, 31 March 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Discussion about how citation templates work is held at

Help Talk:CS1. This discussion shows that the category's predecessor (the category has been renamed) had more than 12,000 pages in it in 2014. Gnomes remove pages from this category all the time; you can enable the relevant category-watching preference to see it happening. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:41, 31 March 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

@Keith D:Where can I enable the relevant category-watching preference? That would help me see it all on my own. 85.238.102.237 (talk) 21:15, 31 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist: uncheck "Hide categorization of pages". Put the category page on your watchlist. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:54, 1 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Jonesey95:ah, only for registered users. Anyway - thank you ) At least now I see anonymous access valuable limits. 85.238.102.237 (talk) 08:32, 1 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In the case of Debbie Clark then Clark should be moved from |first= and placed in |last= field. Keith D (talk) 20:59, 31 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I understand that, however I doubt someone will manually move it. What I doing now does not imply "first" parameter analyzing as it will slow down whole process extremely. 85.238.102.237 (talk) 21:15, 31 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I do not insist on processing it exactly that way, I just offered a solution of "unhiding" "first" parameter value, anyway, when "-" added to the "last" parameter - it still falls into Category:CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list and still being processed later, but article that way already showing "first" field value and not hiding it (however sometimes it's being processed wrong way, that just returns article to category Category:CS1 errors: missing name, or even alternative way by... deleting both fields ;), that, in fact, really fixes both categories falling into issues). If you think that I have given insufficient arguments, close the bot request by denial. I have no any objections. 85.238.102.237 (talk) 21:15, 31 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is, in general, a bad task for a bot, unless very specific patterns can be reliable identified. It is however, a much better task for

There are fewer than 700 in the category, so I agree that AWB or JWB is the way to go. I took a look at one to see what a fix would look like, and found that the error was created by a bot, here. It even added the wrong author name, it appears, so an automated fix would leave that wrong. Dicklyon (talk) 21:42, 31 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Dicklyon: It's not the same error as when "last" field stays empty while "first" field not, but, yes, it make article falling into the same category. Isn't it the issue for a citation bot to be fixed for to be "more careful", i.e. with numbering a fields it adds to "cite" template? 85.238.102.237 (talk) 08:23, 1 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Headbomb:I still not clearly understand what is AWB, however have we move current topic (with all that text) to a page you pointed to? How to do it if it's really useful? 85.238.102.237 (talk) 08:23, 1 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As there's many misunderstandings, I propose to delete from "last" field of template "cite" within articles symbols By (287) and - (158), that obviously can be done automatically and will make happy user:Jonesey95, who make excessive and some way destructive actions to do the same. Who can do it? 195.138.94.101 (talk) 16:00, 1 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Deleting "By" won't make those more correct. Why don't you work on some by hand; if you can find author names, fix them. If there's a good pattern for a more general fix, we can get you onto AWB or JWB, or you can post for an AWB user to take it on, at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Tasks. Dicklyon (talk) 16:24, 1 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Closing a GAR discussion is quite a bit of faff, so I hope on of the magicians technical editors could help us out. A bot would have to do the following:

1. remove the {{GAR/link}} from the article talk page
2. update the {{article history}}, or change the {{GA}} template into article history it when not yet present, like this diff
3. remove the GA status from WikiProjects banners if delisted
4. remove the good article template from the article if delisted
5. remove the good article from the list of good articles if delisted
6. archive the discussion (if a community assessment). The current archive is found at Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Archive 67. As a bonus, the bot could make a new archive whenever the previous one is full. This is now done manually (see Wikipedia talk:Good article reassessment/Maintenance)

I think the

Howdy. NovemBot 1 does something similar for good topic promotions and featured topic promotions. I could reuse its code for turning {{GA}} into {{Article history}}. Can you provide a link to 1 recent individual assessment closure and 1 recent community assessment closure for me to review? Also, are you open to having a limited list of people who can summon the bot for security reasons, or does it need to be summonable by anyone? –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:46, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Brilliant!

A link to a and example for an individual delisting and a community reassessment closure. Individual reassessments are done by quite a large group of people, so I think it would be preferable to have it summonable by anyone. (Community reassessment closures are done by a smaller group).

talk) 16:38, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Sounds good. Next time you close a couple of these, can you just say "approved for delisting" and ping me and leave the checklist to me so I can practice a bit? Once I'm comfortable with the procedure then I'll start writing some code. –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:10, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the ping. Femke seems to have covered everything so I will just add that this would be really useful. Aircorn (talk) 08:49, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I just closed two discussions:

talk) 16:18, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Done. 1, 2,

work instruction I created. Please check those and let me know if everything looks good. If so, I'll begin writing a bot. I'll probably do the community process first. If we did a whitelist, how many people would we need to put on it? A whitelist would help with security concerns at the BRFA. –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:37, 14 April 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Everything looks good :).

I went back 2 years in the archives, and found around 20 people closing discussions; half of those only closed one discussion. So initially 20 people on a whitelist?

talk) 16:08, 14 April 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

As a note, this request is just for GAR, but if you could do something similar for GAN (new nominations) you'd be my new best friend. I can give you the steps required if this is something you could do. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:05, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. Happy to look into GAN promotion. Good idea on the steps, please share when you get a chance. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:16, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We already have a userscript to nominate GAs, so this is just for closing nominations. Looking at what this would take, it's probably better as a userscript. Here's what I've got - let me know if this is something you can do, or if there is something we can pass on to do elsewhere. Here's the list from

WP:GANI

:

I'd want a button, or instructions to add to the page for it to either pass, or fail. As far as I see it, passing requires:

1. Replace the {{
   Article History
   }} as above, which is quite confusing to do manually.
2. Update class on {{WikiProject}} to GA.
3. The big one is adding it to the suitable place on
   WP:GA
   . This is where I'd expect a userscript to be more beneficial, as it could list all of the places in this list, and where you should add the item. These are all in alphabetical order.

For a fail, it's simply just a case of changing {{

Looks good. I can do this one. You OK with a timeframe of several weeks? I gotta juggle GAR bot above and some other stuff. Also, the next time you do a promotion or two, instead of doing the steps yourself, can you ping me so I can practice? –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:52, 14 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. I've asked for a few different places, for a few years, so no drama. Anything you can get for me. I'll do a few reviews soon. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 10:42, 14 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

For some reason a great amount of talk pages have been added the following code: Please select the <code><span style="color:#0645AD;">New section</span></code> tab above to post your comments below. ([4]) and seems to have been mostly done by one editor (haven't checked them all of course). Aside from the fact that it looks out of place with the other talk page banners, using a hardcoded name for the section (which can change at some point) and a color scheme that makes the "New section" text look like a link is bad. As I doubt there was consensus for this, as if there was it would have probably be done by a template, or even directly via one of the talk page banner templates and not manually spammed, this should be removed. Gonnym (talk) 12:01, 15 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Would be easy to code this as an

AutoWikiBrowser bot. Only challenge might be ensuring it has consensus. Appears to affect 7,000 talk pages. Want me to try filing a BRFA for it? Any thoughts on a talk page we could post to to get consensus for this? –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:35, 15 April 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

That was also something I had trouble with. Since this is a generic message I had no idea what would be the correct the discussion venue. I have no problem with a discussion anywhere (though I'm pretty sure it never did have consensus originally). Gonnym (talk) 12:44, 15 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe

WP:VPM? If you take the lead on getting consensus, I'll script up a bot and BRFA. –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:56, 15 April 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

The instances I've seen were placed by an active and very competent editor. Why not consult them first? Certes (talk) 13:11, 15 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]