Wikipedia:Bot requests
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- 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).
- WP:SQLREQ, for tasks which might be solved with an SQL query (e.g. compiling a list of articles according to certain criteria).
- WP:TEMPREQ, to request a new template written in wiki code or Lua.
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- WP:CITEBOTREQ, to request a new feature for 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).
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Automatic NOGALLERY keyword for categories containing non-free files (again)
I'll raise this again, since last time the discussion fizzled out, and was archived without formal action from a BAG member.
The issue is that files in categories are displayed by default, and this violates WP:NFCC#9 if there are non-free files in the category. They have to be tagged with __NOGALLERY__
if you want to disable display of non-free files in a category. This is an urgent issue, as categories without this tag thatt contain non-free files are everywhere, and because we take copyright very seriously it cannot wait for a human user to find the category and add the __NOGALLERY__
tag, which is why this task requires a bot. Every other routine task involving non-free files, such removing instances without a valid fair use tag, is already handled by a bot.
The previous discussion stalled after a user objected and suggested adding a new feature to MediaWiki to disable category galleries by default, which is less convenient due to requiring WMF action, and it would create the opposite problem: we would need a bot to enable gallery mode on categories that contain only free files. Even though most files hosted locally are non-free, there is no reason why a bot couldn't handle the task of adding necessary __NOGALLERY__
tags at the required scale. Only one other person contributed to the discussion, who objected the suggestion for a new MediaWiki feature because it would hinder navigation of categories specifically for free files, and nothing else happened after that. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 05:58, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
- User:JJMC89 has a bot that works with non-free images and might be interested in looking at this task. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:26, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
- @Jonesey95: Should I contact JJMC89 (talk · contribs) via their user talk page? –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 17:28, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
- It's worth a try. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:39, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
- I'm aware I've been pinged, but I don't have time to look into this right now. Someone else can take this up, or I'll circle back when I have the time. — JJMC89 (T·C) 17:38, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
- @Jonesey95: Should I contact JJMC89 (talk · contribs) via their user talk page? –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 17:28, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
- @LaundryPizza03: I think I/KiranBOT can do this. Can you provide an edit/diff? Then I can be sure whether I can do it. —usernamekiran (talk) 18:01, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
- @Usernamekiran: The edits which add the NOGALLERY tag look like: [1]. I'm pretty confident that this category contains non-free files. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 19:05, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
- @LaundryPizza03: that means, first the bot would have to identify categories with non-free files. I am not sure how JJMC89's bot works, but I am guessing it works through recent changes patrolling. @JJMC89: Is the source code of relevant task public? —usernamekiran (talk) 02:17, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
- Free images mostly are moved to Commons, or not? So we seldom wil have a category containing only free files. Then the category identification is easy: all file categories should have the nogallery tag. Wikiwerner (talk) 18:43, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
- @LaundryPizza03: that means, first the bot would have to identify categories with non-free files. I am not sure how JJMC89's bot works, but I am guessing it works through recent changes patrolling. @JJMC89: Is the source code of relevant task public? —usernamekiran (talk) 02:17, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
- @Usernamekiran: The edits which add the NOGALLERY tag look like: [1]. I'm pretty confident that this category contains non-free files. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 19:05, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
- Here's the SQL query I ended up with:
MariaDB [enwiki_p]> select count(distinct cl2.cl_to) from categorylinks as cl1 join categorylinks as cl2 on cl1.cl_from=cl2.cl_from join page on page_title=cl2.cl_to left join page_props on page_id=pp_page and pp_propname="nogallery" where cl1.cl_to="All_non-free_media" and cl1.cl_type="file" and page_namespace=14 and pp_propname IS NULL; +---------------------------+ | count(distinct cl2.cl_to) | +---------------------------+ | 5070 | +---------------------------+ 1 row in set (1 hour 35 min 26.445 sec)
- So there are roughly 5,000 categories this applies to. I do think that we should make sure this bot also cleans up after itself, once a category no longer has any non-free files in it, the NOGALLERY switch should be removed. Creating a wrapper like
{{non-free category gallery}}
or something would make it explicit what the intention of the nogallery tag is so it can be safely removed once no longer necessary. Legoktm (talk) 17:32, 21 June 2024 (UTC)- I suppose so. We could also have a {{nobots}} for categories that should contain no non-free files, or are plausibly under WP:NFEXMP such as Category:Wikipedia non-free content criteria exemptions. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 02:57, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
- I wonder whether a bot automatically adding
__NOGALLERY__
really is the best idea in the first place, versus a report so humans can decide whether the best solution is to remove the non-free images instead. Anomie⚔ 20:21, 22 June 2024 (UTC)- You mean like automatically tagging categories with a tag for a tracking category titled Category:Wikipedia categories containing non-free files without NOGALLERY tag? Why? –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 21:33, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
- Did you stop reading after the first half of the sentence?
so humans can decide whether the best solution is to remove the non-free images instead
. Although I was thinking more of Wikipedia:Database reports rather than a maintenance template and category. Anomie⚔ 11:50, 23 June 2024 (UTC)- I commented here hoping to just provide enough clues for someone else to pick up the task, but I suppose I can add another database report ;) Hopefully that provides enough data on whether this is suitable for an automated task or not. Legoktm (talk) 01:34, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
- I've used your query and {{Database report}} and setup a report at User:WOSlinker/Categories containing non-free files without NOGALLERY with the first 1000 categories sorted by file count. -- WOSlinker (talk) 12:44, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
- Most of the higher-listed items are image categories which shouldn't contain non-free files. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 19:51, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
- At User:LaundryPizza03/NOGALLERY analysis I have compiled every 10th item on the list, and what I think should happen to them. The results:
- NOGALLERY: 68/100
- Remove files: 21/100
- Shouldn't contain non-free files: 7/100
- Uncertain: 4/100
- It is possible that some of the categories will need CfD or migration of the files to a new file-specific category, but I didn't think that deeply. I note that we don't have clear guidelines on when files should be placed in content categories, if at all. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 20:57, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
- I've used your query and {{Database report}} and setup a report at User:WOSlinker/Categories containing non-free files without NOGALLERY with the first 1000 categories sorted by file count. -- WOSlinker (talk) 12:44, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
- I commented here hoping to just provide enough clues for someone else to pick up the task, but I suppose I can add another database report ;) Hopefully that provides enough data on whether this is suitable for an automated task or not. Legoktm (talk) 01:34, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
- Did you stop reading after the first half of the sentence?
- You mean like automatically tagging categories with a tag for a tracking category titled Category:Wikipedia categories containing non-free files without NOGALLERY tag? Why? –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 21:33, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
- I wonder whether a bot automatically adding
- I suppose so. We could also have a {{nobots}} for categories that should contain no non-free files, or are plausibly under WP:NFEXMP such as Category:Wikipedia non-free content criteria exemptions. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 02:57, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
Can we have an AIV feed a bot posts on IRC?
I used to have one but then the toolserver changed and somehow an account isn't easy to come by, now (I posted before, but nothing came of it)... ~Lofty abyss 03:09, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
- @Lofty: Hi. Do you have source code for it? Maybe I can do it. —usernamekiran (talk) 18:19, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
- @Lofty abyss: lol. I pinged a different user in previous edit. —usernamekiran (talk) 19:53, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
- No, I was hoping this page could be where bots are started from scratch, possibly, but I used some years ago, and on searching there seems to be several possibilities: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:IRC_RC_Bot https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:MediaWiki-Recent_Changes-IRCBot https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Administrator%27s_Handbook/Countervandalism_IRC_Bots
- It's also, generally, what the cvn bots do already there, except this would need to be a more specific page that is watched. ~Lofty abyss 20:16, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
- @Lofty abyss: your response reminded me, we have had this conversation before. I think User:Frostly was working on it. Maybe they have a partial code? —usernamekiran (talk) 11:27, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
- Obviously, I can't reply for them, but isn't there some way to do this collaboratively, like on github? One person doing it might be a bit much... ~Lofty abyss 10:29, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
- Just checking, but I don't suppose anything is going to happen on this front? ~Lofty abyss 18:17, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Lofty abyss: your response reminded me, we have had this conversation before. I think User:Frostly was working on it. Maybe they have a partial code? —usernamekiran (talk) 11:27, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
- @Lofty abyss: do you just want a bot that relays changes to the AIV wiki page? If so, you can use wm-bot for this. Also, getting a Toolforge account should be straightforward now, see the quickstart. If you end up making a membership request, please ping me and I can approve it for you. Legoktm (talk) 18:24, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Bot to update match reports to cite template
Per this discussion on WikiProject Football, it appears to be the best course of action to edit match report external links to full cited templates because of WP:LINKROT. I am making a request for a bot that could automatically do this, as there are many football pages that use the direct link system. An example of a page that does not is 2024 OFC Nations Cup qualification, while a major page that does use the direct link is the 2022 FIFA World Cup page. Yoblyblob (Talk) :) 13:01, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
- @Yoblyblob: is there any further discussion apart from that? There doesn't really seem to be a consensus there for this change. Mdann52 (talk) 09:03, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Mdann52 no, but it does follow WP:LINKROT, but I could make another discussion for further consensus. Is the best place for that on the project page? Yoblyblob (Talk) :) 12:16, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Mdann52 update: Please see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Football#Match_report_discussion_style for a seemingly unopposed discussion. The linkrot policy seems to be the best argument here. Yoblyblob (Talk) :) 22:00, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Mdann52 no, but it does follow WP:LINKROT, but I could make another discussion for further consensus. Is the best place for that on the project page? Yoblyblob (Talk) :) 12:16, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
- Yoblyblob - happy to look at this, will be an AWB task but the wikitext has a few caveats.
Coding... (for lack of a better option!). Mdann52 (talk) 18:04, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
BRFA filed Mdann52 (talk) 18:06, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you so much! Yoblyblob (Talk) :) 18:47, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- I think it is actually poor form (directed at @Yoblyblob:) to start manually making edits that do this task in advance of a BOT that is going to perform this task, once created. Especially for current tournaments. And especially reverting WP:GOODFAITH edits consistent with most other match results which follow that format, reverting without any edit summary. Pretty poor form for that. It will just create unnecessarily arguments, such as currently at User talk:J man708. Once the BOT is functional, which I understand that it is not yet, the changes will just happen and people will get used to it (and not argue with the BOT). It hurts nothing to leave the edits (by @J man708:) alone for the time being. Imagine if you started doing this in the middle of a World Cup or CONMEBOL competition! I recommend @Yoblyblob: simply to wait for the BOT functionality to occur.Matilda Maniac (talk) 22:46, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- We have already had the discussion; there is no need to mention me twice Yoblyblob (Talk) :) 22:55, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I really do not understand the need for this bot at all and even less so understand the need for the Match Report function to be changed from what it is. Using a archived match report link prevents linkrot, surely. - J man708 (talk) 00:40, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I would argue rather strongly against that. There are plenty of gnomes who do the same things as bots do, and while waiting for a bot request to be actioned, why not manually clean up some of these things? If someone wants to spend their time making edits that might not be made for a while (BRFA is not always a fast process) then more power to 'em. I will, of course, support your statement that edit summaries are Good Things. Primefac (talk) 01:06, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Not sure I said that from that positive perspective. For the avoidance of doubt, lack of edit summaries are Bad Things. Matilda Maniac (talk) 05:23, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- We have already had the discussion; there is no need to mention me twice Yoblyblob (Talk) :) 22:55, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- I think it is actually poor form (directed at @Yoblyblob:) to start manually making edits that do this task in advance of a BOT that is going to perform this task, once created. Especially for current tournaments. And especially reverting WP:GOODFAITH edits consistent with most other match results which follow that format, reverting without any edit summary. Pretty poor form for that. It will just create unnecessarily arguments, such as currently at User talk:J man708. Once the BOT is functional, which I understand that it is not yet, the changes will just happen and people will get used to it (and not argue with the BOT). It hurts nothing to leave the edits (by @J man708:) alone for the time being. Imagine if you started doing this in the middle of a World Cup or CONMEBOL competition! I recommend @Yoblyblob: simply to wait for the BOT functionality to occur.Matilda Maniac (talk) 22:46, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you so much! Yoblyblob (Talk) :) 18:47, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- @J man708 and Matilda Maniac: happy to put the BRFA on hold if the discussion needs to be resumed. Just let me know. There's also the option of another template to wrap this in to avoid the Bare URL issue, but then this won't automatically be picked up by the various bots that deal with dead links and archiving. Mdann52 (talk) 21:11, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Did not expect to see people against this, not sure how to get more participation in a discussion as the ones at WP Football were evidently too limited Yoblyblob (Talk) :) 21:21, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
Bot to mass tag California State University sports seasons
Hi! This is my first request here, so please tell me if I did something wrong. As a part of the California State University task force, I'm looking to add {{WikiProject California|calstate=yes|calstate-importance=low}}
to all of miscellaneous sports seasons' talk pages. The categories below contain the pages I'm looking to add the tag to, the bulk of the pages are from the football programs at each institution.
- Category:Cal Poly Mustangs men's basketball seasons
- Category:Cal Poly Mustangs football seasons
- Category:Cal State Los Angeles Diablos football seasons
- Category:Cal State Northridge Matadors women's basketball seasons
- Category:Cal State Northridge Matadors men's basketball seasons
- Category:Cal State Northridge Matadors football seasons
- Category:Fresno State Bulldogs football seasons
- Category:Fresno State Bulldogs men's basketball seasons
- Category:Humboldt State Lumberjacks football seasons
- Category:Long Beach State 49ers football seasons
- Category:Long Beach State Beach men's basketball seasons
- Category:Sacramento State Hornets football seasons
- Category:Sacramento State Hornets women's basketball seasons
- Category:Sacramento State Hornets men's basketball seasons
- Category:San Diego State Aztecs football seasons
- Category:San Diego State Aztecs women's basketball seasons
- Category:San Diego State Aztecs men's basketball seasons
- Category:San Jose State Spartans women's basketball seasons
- Category:San Jose State Spartans men's basketball seasons
- Category:San Jose State Spartans football seasons
SammySpartan (talk) 17:32, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
- With ~800 pages to deal with, this might be worth an AWBTASKS request, but that's mainly because by the time someone other than me puts through a BRFA it could probably be done there (not saying this isn't worth a bot task, just thinking about timing). Primefac (talk) 18:13, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
Doing... with JWB (non-bot). — Frostly (talk) 16:36, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
Currently has 1,000 entries. {{Soft redirect with Wikidata item}} (or its redirect {{Wikidata item}}) or {{R with Wikidata item}} should be removed from each of them because it's untrue. * Pppery * it has begun... 02:46, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
- I'm about to submit a BRFA as soon as possible. – DreamRimmer (talk) 03:28, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
- I don't know if just removing the template from each member of this category is ideal - I've worked through this backlog before, and (if I remember correctly) quite a number of the redirects in this category were intended to be linked to a Wikidata item, but for whatever reason weren't. My understanding of the point of this tracking category was to allow editors to go through and remove the rcat where there isn't a Wikidata item to link to, and to connect an item to the page where there is -- in at least some cases that I recall, the Q-identifier had already been passed as a parameter to the template, but the page just hadn't been properly linked to the Wikidata item. To take a random example from that category,
{{Wikidata redirect|Q78588304}}
was added to Hester Ford in this edit; but that redirect currently appears in the tracking category, as this connection was never made on Wikidata itself. Simply removing all the templates and losing this information isn't the best thing to do here, in my opinion. All the best, —a smart kitten[meow] 16:12, 21 April 2024 (UTC)- You have a point if there is a QID that it may require manual review, but Wikidata redirect with no QID on an unlinked item has no useful information so can safely be removed. And I genuinely have no idea why i.e -ous should be linked to Wikidata - I couldn't find an item on it at all, so the tracking is useless. * Pppery * it has begun... 16:18, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
- Regarding templates with no QIDs passed, there's the possibility that an editor found a matching item but didn't properly link it; in which case a redirect appearing in this category would signify that there may be an item that can be linked - albeit limited information, but info which an interested editor could use to search for an item on Wikidata with a potentially higher likelihood of success than if they'd just chosen an unlinked redirect at random. However, there's also the possibility that a bot on Wikidata created an item for a non-d:WD:N-passing soft redirect, a {{Wikidata redirect}} template was added during an AWB run on enwiki, and the Wikidata item was eventually deleted (resulting in the page appearing within this category); as I speculate may have happened with -ous. I don't have the capacity right now to look that deeply into these scenarios, though, so I'll stick with no formal opinion on the removal of templates without a QID. All the best, —a smart kitten[meow] 16:35, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
- Having thought about it some more, I'm feeling at least slightly opposed to removing QID-less templates - as, otherwise, an unnoticed vandal on Wikidata could disconnect an item and a redirect; and we'd be removing the flag on enwiki that could (in practice) be saying 'this page should be linked to an item on Wikidata, please reconnect it!'. There is a large backlog in this category (which, as with all backlogs, is less than ideal), but my thoughts are that the best course of action to clear that backlog wouldn't be to remove the rcat template from all the category's members; which might just have the result of keeping the same amount of work needed overall, but artificially reducing the backlog size. This seems like a maintenance category where manual review for each item is needed - on that note, I'll try and work through this category a bit myself today. All the best, —a smart kitten[meow] 10:56, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
- Is there any way to see what Wikidata item a Wikipedia page used to be connected to? I know that some Wikidata changes show up in the logs here, but I'm not finding "connection/disconnection" in particular. jlwoodwa (talk) 06:41, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- Having thought about it some more, I'm feeling at least slightly opposed to removing QID-less templates - as, otherwise, an unnoticed vandal on Wikidata could disconnect an item and a redirect; and we'd be removing the flag on enwiki that could (in practice) be saying 'this page should be linked to an item on Wikidata, please reconnect it!'. There is a large backlog in this category (which, as with all backlogs, is less than ideal), but my thoughts are that the best course of action to clear that backlog wouldn't be to remove the rcat template from all the category's members; which might just have the result of keeping the same amount of work needed overall, but artificially reducing the backlog size. This seems like a maintenance category where manual review for each item is needed - on that note, I'll try and work through this category a bit myself today. All the best, —a smart kitten[meow] 10:56, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
- Regarding templates with no QIDs passed, there's the possibility that an editor found a matching item but didn't properly link it; in which case a redirect appearing in this category would signify that there may be an item that can be linked - albeit limited information, but info which an interested editor could use to search for an item on Wikidata with a potentially higher likelihood of success than if they'd just chosen an unlinked redirect at random. However, there's also the possibility that a bot on Wikidata created an item for a non-d:WD:N-passing soft redirect, a {{Wikidata redirect}} template was added during an AWB run on enwiki, and the Wikidata item was eventually deleted (resulting in the page appearing within this category); as I speculate may have happened with -ous. I don't have the capacity right now to look that deeply into these scenarios, though, so I'll stick with no formal opinion on the removal of templates without a QID. All the best, —a smart kitten[meow] 16:35, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
- You have a point if there is a QID that it may require manual review, but Wikidata redirect with no QID on an unlinked item has no useful information so can safely be removed. And I genuinely have no idea why i.e -ous should be linked to Wikidata - I couldn't find an item on it at all, so the tracking is useless. * Pppery * it has begun... 16:18, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
- I have a similar request: in all redirects connected to Wikidata, please add the QID to the template if it is not already present. This will simplify things in the future if someone removes this redirect from the Wikidata item or moves it to another item. Vandervalp (talk) 11:16, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
Fixing stub tag placement on new articles
Since correct placement of stub tags is impossible using the VisualEditor, I've seen a tendency for articles created using VE to exhibit a jumbled mess of stub templates, categories and reference tags at the bottom. This is actually already an AWB genfix, but I wonder if it would be appropriate to have a bot routinely monitor VE edits and implement just this fix, which shouldn't need human supervision. --Paul_012 (talk) 09:39, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
Not a good task for a bot.. Visually speaking there is no difference if a stub tag is placed before or after the categories, making it a cosmetic edit and a rather trivial one at that given that the wikitext is at the very bottom of the page. Primefac (talk) 11:14, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- The visible difference is that stub tags placed before categories will lead to stub categories appearing first, before the content categories. That's the only reason WP:LAYOUT puts them last. --Paul_012 (talk) 14:28, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- WP:LAYOUT is general guidance, enforcing that specific provision about stub template order is rather futile. Fine as part of other edits, but simply reordering the categories on its own serve very little purpose. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:17, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
- To be fair to Paul_012, properly placed & spaced stub tags do render differently vs. improperly placed & spaced tags above the categories (assuming VE places < 2 blank lines above the stub templates; an example VE stub-edit would be useful), so edits fixing them are not cosmetic (though they're very minor if done in isolation). Per WP:STUBSPACING, "
Leave two blank lines between the first stub template and whatever precedes it. (One blank line leaves the stub category notice butted up against any preceding navigation template; it takes two blank lines in the edited text to produce one blank line in the displayed text.)
". ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 08:10, 16 July 2024 (UTC)
- To be fair to Paul_012, properly placed & spaced stub tags do render differently vs. improperly placed & spaced tags above the categories (assuming VE places < 2 blank lines above the stub templates; an example VE stub-edit would be useful), so edits fixing them are not cosmetic (though they're very minor if done in isolation). Per WP:STUBSPACING, "
- WP:LAYOUT is general guidance, enforcing that specific provision about stub template order is rather futile. Fine as part of other edits, but simply reordering the categories on its own serve very little purpose. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:17, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
- The visible difference is that stub tags placed before categories will lead to stub categories appearing first, before the content categories. That's the only reason WP:LAYOUT puts them last. --Paul_012 (talk) 14:28, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
Bot to change citations to list defined references
I'm writing this from the perspective of a new editor. I've been struggling a lot with the way citations are commonly inserted into articles, and I think it would be a good idea to automatically convert all articles to the list defined references citation standard.
As far as I understand this is only relevant for editors using the source edit mode (?). Here's my perspective: There's two main problems with the inline citation style. 1) It's very difficult to read the text and find the relevant positions in the article, since citations - especially several citations in a row - will create long breaks in the text. 2) The even bigger problem (especially for new editors) is that inserting an already existing citation (or citing something twice) becomes unnecessarily complicated. Finding the original citation in the text, inserting a name-tag, and then using that name-tag in the new citation is confusing and tedious. List-defined-references would alleviate all these problems and make the page source codes more readable and understandable.
I understand that while editing it can be tedious to go down to the ref list, edit that, and then go back to the position in the text. That's why I think a bot would be a good solution, that can clean up articles later without affecting the editors workflow. Apoptheosis (talk) 16:50, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
Not a good task for a bot. Touching references is one of the most contentious areas on Wikipedia, and changing the manner and style in which citation are done is both a violation of WP:CITEVAR and will never have consensus as as task. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:56, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks, I should have figured this out earlier. Apoptheosis (talk) 17:44, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
Adding Facility IDs to AM/FM/LPFM station data
Hi! Would someone be able to help implement Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2024 May 26#Template:AMQ and Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2024 May 26#Template:FMQ? In a nutshell, this would entail finding {{AMQ|<callsign>}}
and replacing it with {{FCC-LMS-Facility|<Facility ID>|<callsign>}}
and friends. There is also Category:Pages using AM station data without facility ID, Category:Pages using FM station data without facility ID, and Category:Pages using LPFM station data without facility ID, which have a similar problem which need a similar solution: replacing e.g. {{AM station data|<callsign>}}
with {{AM station data|<Facility ID>|<callsign>}}
.
Luckily, Wikidata has the facility IDs, so it should be a (relatively) simple job. Thanks, HouseBlaster (talk · he/they) 02:27, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- @HouseBlaster: -
Coding... - I'll try and pop something together over the next few days. I'm assuming the Wikidata IDs are to be relied on? Looking at some articles (such as d:Q6325806 and KBFL (AM), I'm wondering if it's worth a parallel task to sync the callsigns with Wikidata as well? (although having them as page titles may make this redundant Mdann52 (talk) 06:06, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- Mdann52, I don't love relying on Wikidata, but the few that I spot-checked were okay and I doubt anyone will systematically check the thousands of transclusions. I will note that some articles use the templates with a parameter other than the page title. Up to you if you want to work on the parallel task. Thank you so much for taking this on! — HouseBlaster (talk · he/they) 16:36, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- @HouseBlaster: I did spot the Wikidata entries, however the FCC (suprisingly) seems to have a decent API that I can query by callsign, so I can probably get up-to-date data from there to base the callsigns off... this will take slightly longer to code, however this should avoid me having to rely on Wikidata. Give me a few weeks and I'll spin something up, unless this is super urgent, when I can just use WD. Mdann52 (talk) 16:44, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- Mdann52, not urgent at all. I am shocked that the FCC has an API. If we can use that, I am all for it. Thank you so much :) — HouseBlaster (talk · he/they) 16:45, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- @HouseBlaster: - that new template will not work for Mexican stations (and some Canadian ones, as noted on the TfD), as the FCC has removed them from the database. I'm happy to remove the template from pages without FCC data, if this is inline with the deletion database?
- The Mexican IFT have a similar database here, but this doesn't look like it's as easy to link through and the API is not published (it exists, but it's very difficult to use compared to the FCC one!), so that may be a future task. Mdann52 (talk) 05:48, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
- Mdann52, not urgent at all. I am shocked that the FCC has an API. If we can use that, I am all for it. Thank you so much :) — HouseBlaster (talk · he/they) 16:45, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- @HouseBlaster: I did spot the Wikidata entries, however the FCC (suprisingly) seems to have a decent API that I can query by callsign, so I can probably get up-to-date data from there to base the callsigns off... this will take slightly longer to code, however this should avoid me having to rely on Wikidata. Give me a few weeks and I'll spin something up, unless this is super urgent, when I can just use WD. Mdann52 (talk) 16:44, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- Mdann52, could you ping me when done so I can export the data to Wikidata? — Qwerfjkltalk 18:18, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Qwerfjkl: - I was actually debating uploading the data to wikidata as I go, especially as I'll be getting it from the source directly and there's a lot of fields in there that won't appear on enwiki... but if you prefer to sort afterwards I can cope with that! Mdann52 (talk) 19:29, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
- Mdann52, feel free to do it on your end if you want. I was going to use this tool for transferring the data. — Qwerfjkltalk 14:29, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
BRFA filed Mdann52 (talk) 09:27, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Houseblaster: - FYI, BRFA is approved. There's an issue with about 25% of the data (translators and low-power transmitters) which will require a more manual intervention to fetch the data, but I'm dealing with sourcing the data for this. Mdann52 (talk) 12:36, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
Tagging women's basketball article talk pages with project tags
I am requesting assistance tagging the talk pages of women's basketball articles with {{WikiProject Basketball|women=yes}}
and {{WikiProject Women's sport|basketball=yes}}
if not already tagged.
<removed long list of subcats, see history> Hmlarson (talk) 16:47, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Hmlarson: that's a lot of categories... Can the list be shortened and subcategories removed? Mdann52 (talk) 17:32, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Mdann52: What's the estimated # of categories that would be considered doable? Hmlarson (talk) 17:48, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- Well, 200K of categories isn't going to be considered likely... but is this list just the subcategories of Category:Women's basketball? The ones I've dip sampled all appear to be a member of it. If so, please just say so and spare someone a lot of work! This will likely be a good WP:AWBTASKS however, if it's a straightforward addition of WP articles. If you clarify the cats I'll do some queries to work out exactly how many pages this will likely affect. Mdann52 (talk) 18:05, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, subcats of Category:Women's basketball. Thank you @Mdann52:. Hmlarson (talk) 18:14, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Hmlarson: Looks like around 11k pages in those categories, including pages already in those taskforces. Can you just drop a curtosy message onto the Wikiproject talk pages and make sure they are happy with the articles being tagged, if you haven't checked with them already, just due to the amount of edits needed? Thanks, Mdann52 (talk) 19:15, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yes. Already done. Hmlarson (talk) 19:17, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Hmlarson: I might be able to do that. I will look into it in a couple of days, and I will let you know. —usernamekiran (talk) 20:15, 29 June 2024 (UTC)
- Usernamekiran, I have some code for this back from Task 26 that's pretty good at handling edge cases when it comes to managing talk pages (it did, after all, run on several million of them). That might help? — Qwerfjkltalk 21:03, 29 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Hmlarson: I might be able to do that. I will look into it in a couple of days, and I will let you know. —usernamekiran (talk) 20:15, 29 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yes. Already done. Hmlarson (talk) 19:17, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Hmlarson: Looks like around 11k pages in those categories, including pages already in those taskforces. Can you just drop a curtosy message onto the Wikiproject talk pages and make sure they are happy with the articles being tagged, if you haven't checked with them already, just due to the amount of edits needed? Thanks, Mdann52 (talk) 19:15, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, subcats of Category:Women's basketball. Thank you @Mdann52:. Hmlarson (talk) 18:14, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- Well, 200K of categories isn't going to be considered likely... but is this list just the subcategories of Category:Women's basketball? The ones I've dip sampled all appear to be a member of it. If so, please just say so and spare someone a lot of work! This will likely be a good WP:AWBTASKS however, if it's a straightforward addition of WP articles. If you clarify the cats I'll do some queries to work out exactly how many pages this will likely affect. Mdann52 (talk) 18:05, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Mdann52: What's the estimated # of categories that would be considered doable? Hmlarson (talk) 17:48, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
- {{BOTREQ}} @Hmlarson: I created a rudimentary code, I will soon test it, and file BRfA. @Qwerfjkl: yes, I had thought about using your code, but I got a little confused with it
so I created my own from scratch. —usernamekiran (talk) 12:05, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
BRFA filed —usernamekiran (talk) 23:53, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
- @Hmlarson: Hi. Should only the article talkpages be tagged, or should the talkpages of images, categories, and templates be tagged as well? —usernamekiran (talk) 15:48, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
- Good question. If it's not a headache to add categories and templates, it would be appreciated. If it's a lot more work for you, skip it. Thank you @Usernamekiran! Hmlarson (talk) 19:02, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
- @Hmlarson: not difficult at all, all I've to do is add a few words to an existing line, along with the numbers of the namespaces that we want to edit. In our case 1, 7, 11, and 15. —usernamekiran (talk) 17:10, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
- That's great. Thanks! Hmlarson (talk) 17:13, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
- @Hmlarson: not difficult at all, all I've to do is add a few words to an existing line, along with the numbers of the namespaces that we want to edit. In our case 1, 7, 11, and 15. —usernamekiran (talk) 17:10, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
- Good question. If it's not a headache to add categories and templates, it would be appreciated. If it's a lot more work for you, skip it. Thank you @Usernamekiran! Hmlarson (talk) 19:02, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
Friendly support for Draft categories – feedback request
A bot currently removes categories from Drafts per WP:NODRAFTCAT, but there is a proposal to handle this in a more user-friendly way. Your feedback would be appreciated at User talk:DannyS712 bot#Task 3 – Draft categories. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 19:40, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
Redundant (ironically, for the bot). Mdann52 (talk) 19:47, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
Adding links to previous TFDs
Unfortunately Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/PearBOT 14 has expired as the operator is taking something of an indefinite hiatus from editing. Would anyone be interested in taking on this project? Primefac (talk) 00:24, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'll take a look at this, but in the meantime anyone should know that they can take it up if they want to Rusty4321 talk contribs 04:26, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
- I've also got time over the next few days to get this sorted - however I'll probably take a different approach to the previous BRFA to do this! Rusty, I'll drop you an email but if you're happy to give this a go, I'll hold off! Mdann52 (talk) 18:57, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Mdann52: Thanks for your email -- I'd be happy to give this a go and get some experience with pwb. I'd appreciate it if you'd point me in the right direction on coding a new approach to coding the bot. Rusty talk contribs 02:21, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Mdann52: Just curious, what approach(es) would you take to coding the bot? I have some ideas but I'm not quite sure what would be best. Rusty talk contribs 20:59, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I don't like the use of the dictionary to read/write data into, and a database is probably a better way to store/manage the data. Thirdly, I wouldn't have a continuous edit mode, and just have a scan every 24 hours or so to pick up the new boxes. I haven't dived into the logs too deeply to pick up all the differences however, so I can't get any more particular on other changes I would make to how they are parsing things! Mdann52 (talk) 09:22, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Mdann52, out of curiosity, why would you use a daily scan instead of monitoring the live event stream? — Qwerfjkltalk 18:02, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Qwerfjkl: partially personal preference (this isn't an urgent task, it doesn't really have an impact on anyone if there's a short delay, so I can't see the need for the extra resources that come out of scanning the RC feed), and the lack of changes. Yes, you could scan the page after each edit, but the majority of these won't be closes, and also it means that any malformed closes have time to be fixed before the next run.
- However, my day job is in a field where I need to worry about performance, scheduling and resources, which isn't as much as a priority here! Mdann52 (talk)
- Mdann52, out of curiosity, why would you use a daily scan instead of monitoring the live event stream? — Qwerfjkltalk 18:02, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- I don't like the use of the dictionary to read/write data into, and a database is probably a better way to store/manage the data. Thirdly, I wouldn't have a continuous edit mode, and just have a scan every 24 hours or so to pick up the new boxes. I haven't dived into the logs too deeply to pick up all the differences however, so I can't get any more particular on other changes I would make to how they are parsing things! Mdann52 (talk) 09:22, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
Bot that condenses identical references
Sometimes a user generates citations that point to the same source, but in a separate ref tag (Statement 1<ref>Me!</ref> Statement 2! <ref>Me!</ref>
), rather than using <ref name=me>Me!</ref>
for the first call, and <ref name=me/>
for subsequent ones. This results in a separate entry for each citation.
The easy case is to detect and fix exact copy-paste duplicates.
If you want to see how bad it can get, check out Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing (perma: [2]). That one generates the same citation in different ways.
I'd be happy with a bot that only fixes the first type, however, I'd be overjoyed with something that fixes both.
Acebulf (talk | contribs) 03:46, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
- I'm actually going to give this a spin myself.
Coding... Acebulf (talk | contribs) 00:04, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Acebulf: WP:GENFIXES does at least some of this. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 00:21, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Genfixes does this on the condition that named refs are used in the article. Doing it on a mass scale when named refs are not used might ruffle some feathers. Then again, it might not. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:34, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- I suspect that the condition reflected a time before the Visual Editor was a thing. On copy-pasting a reference, the visual editor already adds named references with the name being something like ":0". Acebulf (talk | contribs) 02:12, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Genfixes does this on the condition that named refs are used in the article. Doing it on a mass scale when named refs are not used might ruffle some feathers. Then again, it might not. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:34, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- How will you know which pages to target? Also, dup refs may already have names, possibly different names. -- GreenC 01:07, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- So far I've been trying it with random articles, and duplicate references are present on about 2% of all pages with the easy case. At an edit per minute, that's roughly 3 months to do the entire encyclopedia. The scanning is getting me a few matches per minute, so this seems sustainable. Acebulf (talk | contribs) 02:36, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- OK. That's probably the only way. 2% is a lot, like over 100,000 pages. That many edits without a WP:BRFA will probably get noticed. By the time scanning/logging is done it could be approved. -- GreenC 15:21, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah, I'll file it soon. Thanks for the help! Acebulf (talk | contribs) 03:07, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Acebulf: I wrote User:Polygnotus/DuplicateReferences (see https://i.imgur.com/20zXZ5O.png), to make spotting them easier. I scraped the dump to find duplicate references. I have 30955 articles with refs that are exact duplicates (there are far far more that are not exact duplicates but could be merged without loss of data) loaded into AWB (with a little module that fixes them and creates a name based on the domain, because the genfix only works in very specific conditions). Here are manual 100 test edits. I have also written some code that knows how and when to merge templates in more complicated cases (e.g. with
|page=
and|pages=
, see Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Citing_multiple_pages_of_the_same_source). - I think the question is: "Are these edits significant enough on their own, or should they be combined with another improvement?".
- I am not sure writing a bot would be the best approach; AWB can already partially do this task (e.g.
DuplicateNamedReferences()
andDuplicateUnnamedReferences()
in/WikiFunctions/Parse/References.cs
), probably better to just improve that. - AWB code says:
Where an unnamed reference is a duplicate of another named reference, set the unnamed one to use the named ref
- But, in addition to that it probably should check if 2 or more references are referencing the same URL(s), and then merge them if possible without human intervention (some template parameters can be merged like the name of the author, others cannot like a
|quote=
), and if not put them on a list. - I also just noticed that
DuplicateUnnamedReferences()
contains a comment that says:On en-wiki AWB is asked not to add named references to an article if there are none currently, as some users feel this is a change of citation style, so is against the WP:CITE "don't change established style" guidelines
so we should probably get consensus to change that. Polygnotus (talk) 10:51, 17 July 2024 (UTC) - I think the list of todoes would be:
- Get at least one of AWB devs (listed in infobox at WP:AWB) involved
- Figure out how to deal with duplicated references.
- Start RFC asking permission to deduplicate references
- Write code for AWB and unit tests
- Write documentation, update WP:DUPCITE
- Release AWB update
- Did I miss something? Polygnotus (talk) 12:30, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
- @Acebulf: I wrote User:Polygnotus/DuplicateReferences (see https://i.imgur.com/20zXZ5O.png), to make spotting them easier. I scraped the dump to find duplicate references. I have 30955 articles with refs that are exact duplicates (there are far far more that are not exact duplicates but could be merged without loss of data) loaded into AWB (with a little module that fixes them and creates a name based on the domain, because the genfix only works in very specific conditions). Here are manual 100 test edits. I have also written some code that knows how and when to merge templates in more complicated cases (e.g. with
- Yeah, I'll file it soon. Thanks for the help! Acebulf (talk | contribs) 03:07, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- OK. That's probably the only way. 2% is a lot, like over 100,000 pages. That many edits without a WP:BRFA will probably get noticed. By the time scanning/logging is done it could be approved. -- GreenC 15:21, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- So far I've been trying it with random articles, and duplicate references are present on about 2% of all pages with the easy case. At an edit per minute, that's roughly 3 months to do the entire encyclopedia. The scanning is getting me a few matches per minute, so this seems sustainable. Acebulf (talk | contribs) 02:36, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Acebulf: WP:GENFIXES does at least some of this. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 00:21, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
Convert external links within {{Music ratings}} to refs
A bot that looks through articles that contain {{music ratings}} to look for direct links and converts them into a basic citation. This could be very crude, perhaps put into a temporary category to run WP:CITEBOT on. (Example diff, and yes this was a long time ago) – The Sharpest Lives (💬•✏️•ℹ️) 02:31, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
- I can possibly do this following the footballbox task above. Unfortunately I've got 2 BRFAs open, so won't want to take anymore on until those are closed. Mdann52 (talk) 10:11, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
Stat.kg ---> Stat.gov.kg
The URL scheme of the National Statistical Comitee of the Kyrgyz Republic changed from stat.kg to stat.gov.kg, everything else stayed the same. The website is often used as a reference, but the links to it don't work anymore (e.g. in Chaek: all the links lead to 404 not found) Is it possible that someone migrates the links? MarcelloIV (talk) 09:10, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
- You should make this request at WP:URLREQ. – DreamRimmer (talk) 09:21, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
Add constituency numbers to Indian assembly constituency boxes
I currently have the bot User:C1MM-bot which already adds image maps of assembly constituencies (previously uploaded) to Indian state assembly constituency page infoboxes. I would like to extend this to adding constituency numbers to those pages which don't have them in infoboxes already. Numbers are in the filename of the uploaded images and are from a reliable source, namely the eci.gov.in website. I would also like to add the total number of electors for the constituency with source. The bot is run one state at a time. C1MM (talk) 13:47, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
- You would need consensus to do so and a new BRFA. Primefac (talk) 00:27, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
- I just put in a BRFA request. If you have anything to say could you comment on it? C1MM (talk) 03:59, 25 June 2024 (UTC)