Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 41

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Wikipedia:Requested articles (Alphabetical Sorting Bot)

Requesting a bot that does an "alphabetical" listing sort order of all subpages within Wikipedia:Requested articles (WP:RA). Current articles sort per 3 days or weekly, due to the vast amount of submission of newcomers with lack of introduction to wikipedia. --120.127.93.243 (talk) 06:59, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Requesting The Orphaning Of Template:Cleanup-jargon Into Template:Technical

[1]

The debate was passed for: "MERGE TEMPLATE:CLEANUP-JARGON INTO TEMPLATE:TECHNICAL"

I am requesting a bot to orphan template:cleanup-jargon and replace all instances into template:technical.

The relevant entries in Wikipedia:Template_messages/Cleanup#Style_of_writing will need to be amended.Curb Chain (talk) 23:24, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Or you could just redirect {{Cleanup-jargon}} to {{Technical}}. --Σ _☭^★ 23:34, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Is that the best course of action? The debate did not discuss redirection, just merger.Curb Chain (talk) 23:37, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I'll redirect it and wait for someone to object. --Σ _☭^★ 23:39, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

If there are objections, the transclusion count of cleanup-jargon is 294. User:Sandbox4 should be able to do the find/replace task for this if necessary, just let me know if needed. :) The Helpful One 00:19, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I've done the final details of the merger. Would it be a good idea to ask for a deletion for template:cleanup-jargon?Curb Chain (talk) 00:25, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I'd put it on TfD or leave it as a redirect. Is a BRFA necessary for such a trivial task? --Σ _☭^★ 00:27, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Well a rfd right? More of a redirect now, no?Curb Chain (talk) 00:31, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, it's a template that redirects... Pick the one you think fits more. --Σ _☭^★ 00:35, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I just submitted it at rfd but it was speedily closed. Do I submit it at templates for discussion?Curb Chain (talk) 03:58, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Don't resubmit it at all; it's a redirect, and, albeit an orphan, it works. --Σ _☭^★ 04:19, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

When one template is merged into another, the standard procedure is to simply redirect the former to the latter. That's implied in a TfD decision to "merge." (Otherwise, the decision would be to "delete.")
The {{cleanup-jargon}} transclusions were perfectly functional and didn't require replacement (nor can they be removed from historical page revisions, which is one of the reasons why deletion is undesirable). Orphaning this redirect was a waste of time and resources (albeit a relatively minor one). —David Levy 04:30, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Whoops. Well, on the bright side, it got my edit count up. --Σ _☭^★ 04:34, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

It's no big deal.  :)

There simply isn't a problem to solve; the redirect is helpful and non-harmful. —David Levy 04:49, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

External links

I still run into articles where the "External links" section is not the last section, per the MoS. It would seem that a bot could automate checking to make sure that a second level "External links" section always follows any second level "References", "Notes", "Footnotes", "Further reading" or "See also" sections. Regards, RJH (talk) 22:09, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

It's not a requirement that External links sections be the last section, though (although, I personally think that it should be). See Wikipedia:Layout and Wikipedia:External links. I don't think that a bot task for this would be uncontroversial, unfortunately.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 02:39, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

There might be exceptions where things should be done differently, but I don't have a specific example. A bot-generated list of articles with that problem (which may or may not be a problem) that can then be hand-checked might be better as a start, to see what kind of problems turns up. —Кузьма^討論 13:24, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

A bot generating a list of such articles is not a problem, a bot specifically to "correct" such articles is unnecessary overkill though. Having the external links before the further reading section is probably one of the least important things one can change, and no resources shouldn't be wasted in "correcting" this on its own. If it can be included in a larger task, it may be useful. Fram (talk) 14:38, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. It might also be useful to list those articles that have the "longest" external links sections. (Say, the top 100 by bytes or bullets.) Some may be excessively long, perhaps indicating a spam attractor. Regards, RJH (talk) 15:38, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

How many pages are there? I find the task useful for people printing our articles. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:43, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Not sure what you're asking, exactly... there are 6,915,709 content pages, currently.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:37, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

How many pages with External links section in the wrong place... -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:41, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

• I searched through the latest database dump and found 105,860 pages where the External Links section was followed by another ==Level 2 header==. I have the list if anyone is interested. —SW— ^talk 15:33, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

See http://toolserver.org/~snottywong/elviol.html for the list (very big html file, give it time to load). —SW— ^converse 17:08, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Text replacement by bots using   {{nowrap}} {{nowraplinks}}

(I've searched in WP:NS4 pages and talk archives etc. but not found anything relating to this yet. Maybe I've missed something.) It can be the case where it's desirable for a frequently used term (in a series of related articles) to use the above to prevent word wraps. Some examples in the computing field could be Windows 7, Mac OS X, RISC OS and there must be many others within various subject areas. This would be to ensure consistency within individual articles and across a range of related articles. Editors can of course include such features manually as they edit but either may not know about them, or simply forget. Does anyone know if there's a suitable bot around which could accomplish this (as either a current or proposed task)? I think (but please correct me if I'm wrong) it would be handy if such a bot considered the following:

• not touch any existing {{nowrap}} or {{nowraplinks}} usage
• replace with   / {{nowrap}} / {{nowraplinks}} (perhaps   would be the simplest, subject to future discussion at WP:NOWRAP), according to
  • an article category (perhaps being within scope of a specified WikiProject)
  • specified text
  • deal with partial instances of   within the specified text, e.g. to correct J. R. R. Tolkien where an editor has accidentally missed one out.)

So, my questions are:

1. Is this already discussed elsewhere?
2. If not, is there a bot (and operator) willing and able to consider the task?
3. If so, I think it would preferably not be a one-off task, in order to amend edits subsequently carried out by editors not using the features.

All thoughts welcome. Thanks very much for reading. --Trevj (talk) 03:31, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Unpolluting Category:Living people

Super-low priority task but I also suppose it's a pretty trivial thing to do for a bot. I'm trying to remove userspace pages that appear in Category:Living people (see Wikipedia:Database reports/Polluted categories). I'm searching for these pages by hand which is pretty inefficient since the density is maybe 1/800 so I'd be grateful if someone can automatically create a list. Pichpich (talk) 16:01, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

[2] (takes a minute or two) —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:07, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. (and why did I not think of that?) Pichpich (talk) 16:32, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

This is much faster. :) Tim1357 ^talk 04:15, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Category:Football biography using deprecated parameters

Hi guys, a long term aim of WP:FOOTBALL will be to empty Category:Football biography using deprecated parameters by converting a multitude of old infoboxes into the correct code found at {{Infobox football biography}}. However, with nearly 50,000 infoboxes to be converted, this will take a helluva long time - would it be possible for a bot to do this instead? Regards, GiantSnowman 18:28, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes Petrb (talk) 18:30, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

If that task doesn't need consensus I can start it soon. Petrb (talk) 18:31, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks - Magioladitis (talk · contribs) over at WP:BON says he has already prepared for this task, so you may want to liase with him. Regards, GiantSnowman 20:38, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi. It turned out I can't do it with my bot. I am OK with Petrb doing it. Thanks! -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:42, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SporkBot 3. I filed a bot request over a month ago. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 14:11, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Alteration of a template from "Wikisource1911Enc Citation" to "Cite EB1911"

I have need of a bot to make changes to about 1,000 pages. There is currently a template called {{Wikisource1911Enc Citation}} it needs converting to {{Cite EB1911|wstitle= for those entries with a parameter and {{Cite EB1911|wstitle={{subst:PAGENAME}}}} for those instances of the template without a parameter. -- PBS (talk) 14:29, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Have there been any discussions to form a consensus on whether these changes are needed/wanted? —SW— ^babble 17:01, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

{{Wikisource1911Enc Citation}} has been a redirect since August 2010 -- until recently to {{1911}}. But as after a discussion at Template talk:Cite EB1911, Template talk:Cite DNB#Unnamed parameter and Template talk:1911 it now redirects to {{Cite EB1911}}, all this changes is that articles that use the redirect "Wikisource1911Enc Citation" will in future be using the target of the redirect ({{Cite EB1911}}) directly with the correct parameters. So from the point of view of the readers of the article, the article will look identical. What it does is fix some of the errors reported in the hidden categories (and repairs the no parameter case that defaults to the article name that is currently not working correctly). -- PBS (talk) 09:17, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Ok if snotty wasn't about to do that I could, just let me know if it's still needed Petrb (talk) 13:34, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

If you already have a bot approved for this task, Petrb, go for it. Otherwise I can submit a BRFA. —SW— ^chatter 15:57, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I was told that I have to re send BRFA for every task, so I do Petrb (talk) 16:11, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

How long will it take to get approval and is anyone seeking such approval? -- PBS (talk) 12:24, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

BRFA filled so wait Petrb (talk) 11:05, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

The request: BRFA Petan-Bot task8 -- PBS (talk) 11:18, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Articles containing links to the user space

Wikipedia:Database reports/Articles containing links to the user space remains populated, and judging from a spot-check of the formerly-listed articles, there is no bot removing these links. It may be that this is a task better suited to another mechanism (semi-automation), or that there are problems I have not foreseen, but I thought I'd raise the issue here as the existence of these links is an ongoing embarrassment and threat to the encyclopedia's integrity. Thoughts? Skomorokh 06:00, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

That list is updated weekly, I reprocess it into this list and manually remove them. tedder (talk) 09:30, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

In that case let me express my thanks, but isn't that laborious work for a human? Skomorokh 16:04, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Renaming of Category:Primera División de México seasons articles

I would like to have every article in this category that does not have the years in the front to have the years in the front as per the naming conventions for competitions. Thanks in advance. Digirami (talk) 20:31, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Is there some concensus for this? Petrb (talk) 07:43, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes. A conversation from two years ago at the appropriate wikiproject. The articles in this category are actually one of the few (if any) league competition seasons hasn't changed to the year-in-front format. Digirami (talk) 21:34, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

It's not the first time I request a bot for the same purpose. See Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 36#Renaming Primera Division Argentina season articles. Digirami (talk) 21:47, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Checking users' contributions history

Hi all, I want a bot which can check the others bots or users' contributions . and give me list of the pages that

• users made it empty
• changed the redirect command to text
• changed page content to redirect
• find pages that specific user added some text or links (for example: www.sample.com ) to pages.

would you please help me for developing this bot.(if you can only develop the history checker part. I will do other parts).

I want this bot for

• users who adds some links in pages in long period and other users can't find s/he produces some spams
• bots that they changes many pages. and some of their changes aren't correct.

thank youReza1615 (talk) 11:20, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Why? —SW— ^prattle 15:15, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

(I was asked about this by Reza1615 on my own talk page)

I do not understand what you want to do. Please explain why this would help Wikipedia. We already have mechanisms to deal with empty pages and redirects amended (via the edit filter and other means). It sounds like you are trying to reinvent the wheel.

Please tell us what you want to do, instead of how to do it.  Chzz  ►  16:10, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

This may fall under the same umbrella as edit counter with additional info, such as breakdown by time/day, frequent articles/topics, etc.; that is, become a privacy concern. That's why it is an opt-in service. If you can provide a specific concern you have, then that's different. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 17:17, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Database reports/Unused non-free files backlog

Given the backlog at Wikipedia:Database reports/Unused non-free files, I'm asking for someone to: A) re-start the work that was being done by BetacommandBot (I think) for this -or- B) if someone would help me set up and get this started, I'd be happy to "adopt" this task. Skier Dude (talk) 04:02, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

What was the bot doing before? Can't find it's BRFA Noom _talk ^stalk 19:31, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Repairing named references without description

What happened to Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 17#Removal of data for a named reference? The suggestion was basically "We should have a bot that check for the removal of named refs and if that removal leaves any <ref name="aname" /> tags that subsequently break with "Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named facts_and_figures".". Mikael Häggström (talk) 15:19, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

There is a bot that does that, I cannot remember the name of it at the moment but it starts with A. ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 15:20, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, we do have a bot for that. Can't remember what it start with but ends with "nomieBot". —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 15:50, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for completing the puzzle Mikael Häggström (talk) 17:49, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Empty Category tagging

There is a report here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_reports/Empty_categories which lists empty categories.

I feel this would be a perfect task for bot automated tagging.

Any thoughts?

On a related issue, a bot to automatically generate WP:TFD requests for unused templates (older than a month) could perhaps also be considered?

Sfan00 IMG (talk) 15:21, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

"Fixing" about 2600 redirects

Hi. If someone has a minute, can you run a bot to "fix" (normalize) these redirects? They're redirects in the form of #REDIRECT [[Foo|Bar]], which while valid, are rather silly and confusing. It should be a completely trivial bot task. The only thing you'd have to make sure of is that you don't clobber any section anchors. AWB might be sanest here, dunno. Anyway, if someone can fix these, that'd be awesome. Otherwise, I'll do it at some point. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:16, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I'd do it, but I'm sure somebody would bitch that they are simply "cosmetic changes" and get angry at me. --Closedmouth (talk) 04:25, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Could you generate the list again? I think most of them are now done. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 05:08, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

This thing with people complaining on "cosmetic changes" is becoming disruptive. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:40, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree. It is far too easy for habitual complainers to derail legitimate bot requests. —SW— ^squeal 15:39, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

But "fixing" these pages is no substitute for correcting the redirect parsing code that MZ is using. Somebody will always labeling redirects. — Dispenser 20:20, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

It's somewhat debatable whether the current behavior is a feature or a bug. I took a different approach to the problem and just excluded redirects/fragments that contain "|" from being listed in the database report. That way I can still output a list of redirects that could... be improved (i.e., normalized). Ideally MediaWiki would have a sane input UI that would never allow this kind of thing (a create a redirect Special page or something), but until then, I think being able to periodically find and normalize these redirects is better than the alternative. --MZMcBride (talk) 07:39, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I need to remember to regenerate this list. I think I need to wait until a new dump is available, though. No idea when that will be.... --MZMcBride (talk) 07:39, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Template usage

Would it be possible for a bot to go through all pages that transclude {{RailGauge}} and redirects {{Railgauge}} and {{gauge}} (about 8000 pages) and generate a list of how the template is used in each case? I'm looking for a report in a format like

• Andorra - {{RailGauge|1435mm}}; {{RailGauge|1668mm}}
• Albania - {{RailGauge|1435}}

etc.

Or is there already a tool or similar that can do this? —  Tivedshambo  (t/c) 20:10, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Done. Will give you a link to the results on your talk page. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 05:19, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

TemplateTiger is useful once you figure out how to work it. The data is somewhat dated since it based on dumps and according to the documentation doesn't handle nested templates. — Dispenser 06:54, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Automate submissions for Autopatrol right

Per this discussion at VPP, we'd like a bot to submit candidates to WP:RFP/A for the autopatrol right to help reduce the workload at WP:NPP. See also, this dicussion at VPP and this discussion at WT:DBR.

Svick has much of the work completed with his python script autopatrol_eligibles.py, which creates a list of potential users at Editors eligible for Autopatrol privilege on the 24th of each month. What is needed now is a bot to A) trim down the list using criteria below and B) submit the remaining users to WP:RFP/A.

Trimming list

Only users that would easily qualify should be submitted to WP:RFP/A, so users would be checked against these criteria and removed from the list. This may require several bots due to complexity.

• Remove users that are currently blocked — check Special:Blocklist/{{{username}}}
• Remove users that are retired — check for the strings {{retired}} or {{not around}} at user:{{{username}}} and user talk:{{{username}}}
• Remove users that have been denied in the last 60 days — check subdirectories of Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Denied for the string "Autopatrolled" and {{{username}}} on the same line
• Remove users with copyright violation warnings in their talk page histories in the last 60 days — check for the string "Notifying user of possible copyvio" from CorenSearchBot at {{fullurl:User_talk:{{{username}}}|limit=500&action=history}}
• Remove users with unsourced BLP warnings in their talk page histories in the last 60 days — check for the string "Automated Message: Unreferenced BLPs" from DASHBot at {{fullurl:User_talk:{{{username}}}|limit=500&action=history}}
• Remove users that have deleted articles in the last 60 days — check Special:DeletedContributions/{{{username}}} — this would require a WP:ADMINBOT this part is optional so I'm striking it. - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 12:50, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

This bot or bots will run once a month on the 25th after the new month's report is generated.

Submitting candidates

Once the list at Editors eligible for Autopatrol privilege has been trimmed down, a bot would submit the remaning users to Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Autopatrolled with a note mentioning the number of article created and that it is a bot submission. Something like this {{subst:rfp|{{{username}}}|user has created # artciles. This is a bot submission}}. If the list is long, the bot may need to submitt a few users per day rather than all at once.

Is anybody willing to work on this? - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 02:26, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

No responses in almost a week. Do you require a Adminbot for this or will a normal one suffice? Noom _talk ^stalk 18:47, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

This should in no case be an adminbot. Human review is still required to give the flag out, the bot is designed only to bring the eligible candidates to admin attention. Courcelles 09:32, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I've been watching this request, I can write the (admin) bot, but it would have to be in my free time, so could take a while for me to get around to. The idea of having an admin bot is so that it can look at the users deleted contribs, not so it can automatically grant the right. I don't see it as being essential to check the deleted contribs however, and would prefer if someone else did the task (mostly because I don't really have the time to do it myself) - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 09:56, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

┌────────────────────┘
@Noom, a normal bot is fine. The adminbot part is optional, so I struck it.
@Courcelles, I've struck the adminbot part.
@Kingpin, thanks for archiving all those old permission requests. I struck the adminbot part, but if you want to work on it later, don't let me stop you.

I think having individual bots for each task would make this whole thing a lot easier. I'd say the most important part is removing users from the list if they have copyvio notices and/or removing users that have been recently denied. I can do the other stuff manually, including submitting the users to WP:RFP/A. Thanks. - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 12:50, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

If Kingpin would prefer, I've got some free time and can pick this task up. Noom _talk ^stalk 15:10, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely, please don't let me stop you from writing it up. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 15:20, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

That would be great, Noom. Thank you very much. - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 18:14, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Do you want the bot to overwrite the untrimmed list with the new one? Also, if the list exceeds 5 users, how does a rate of 1 user per hour for submission rate? Noom _talk ^stalk 20:41, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, please, write the new/trimmed list over the existing/untrimmed list. Submitting one user per hour sounds great. Thanks very much for your help with this. - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 22:00, 6 May 2011 (UTC) struck this requiremet - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 23:07, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

There seem to be some holes in the criteria listed above. What about false positives from bots (e.g., CorenSearchBot tagging a DAB page), or users who haven't been caught by a bot but have manual blp prod or copyvio warnings or speedy deletion warnings? VernoWhitney (talk) 22:12, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Since these suggestions are just based on numbers, it's not 100% accurate. Administrators and other users are still free to give/nominate another user for autopatrol, these are just guesses at who may be a good candidate for autopatrolled. I could check for manual warnings on a users talk page along with the bot warning check, if wanted. Noom _talk ^stalk 22:55, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

@Verno, you are correct, there are a lot of holes in the process. We've been manually going through about 3,500 candidates based soley on number of articles created. Since these were not requests by users, it was decided that only super-good-users would be granted the right by the reviewing admins. This was to streamline the process and make it easier on the reviewing admins. So only about 40% of the users reviewed have been getting the right this way. We felt that granting the autopatrol right only to the very best users was the best and safest way to reduce the workload at WP:NPP. We are slowly starting to automate the process using what we've learned by doing it manually. We'll be tweaking the process as time goes on, so any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

@Noom, thanks very much for your help with this. Any type of automation will be a great help, so the bot doesn't have to do everything right away. Any task(s) the bot does will be very helpful. Thanks. - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 07:18, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

BRFA filed - Thanks very much, Noom. I appreciate the help. - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 15:14, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I've struck the request to overwrite the existing file per MZMcBride's comment. Added this to the coversation so it gets archived with the discussion. - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 23:07, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Strong oppose: There are several points that give me pause. As part of my on-going concern with the situation at New Page Patrol I have an occasional stab at according autopatrolled rights. This bot is going to create flood of extra work for admins who will still need to do manual checks. Already, for example, one editor, makes large numbers of requests (in GF) for users, but without apparently making sufficient research, and a significant number have to be declined. This is not good for the morale of the editors who quite wrongly regard 'autopatrolled' as a promotion or an award for good service to Wikipedia.

Although the selection criteria for this botinclude all the checks that I personally make, I do not see any safeguards against users who mass create short stubs. Admins who check the applications daily for 'autopatrolled' will assume that the bot has done good work, and because of the sheer volume that will be produced by the bot, they may not carry out the manual checks that they should be doing. I am not entirely convinced that 'autopatrolled' actually makes much impact towards reducing the load on NPP. How many of the hundreds of daily new pages are created by accounts with autopatrolled rights, and how many of the ones that are patrolled are created by authors who are reasonable candidates for autoptrolled rights?

Rather than mass according autopatrolled rights, 'New Page Patroller' should be made a right, and accorded to editors who are sufficiently educated into getting it right.

However, if there is anything in these bot proposals that I have missed, I am quite open to criticisms of my concerns. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:42, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Change all instances of "an historic" to "a historic"

It appears that Wikipedia has thousands upon thousands of articles that have the grammatically-incorrect phrase "an historic" instead of "a historic". It would take forever to change them all by hand and we need a bot for this task. "An historic" is simply incorrect because the "h" in "historic" is not silent, or if it is, it's only in minority dialects. Even A_and_an#Discrimination_between_a_and_an claims this is incorrect. Please make a bot to fix this! It should only be fixed in unquoted, non-title text, and only in article-space. Note that "an Historic" should still usually be changed because the indefinite article "an" is not part of a title. --Wykypydya (talk) 01:20, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

The article you linked to shows that both are acceptable: "Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage allows 'both a and an are used in writing a historic an historic'." – anna 01:41, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

The Oxford English Dictionary says that it should be "a historic" - with a very good explanation as to why. Also, if this is relatively simple as a find/replace task, my bot should be able to help out (I'm not sure if it can ignore titles - but should be able to). Perhaps we need a way of finding all pages with instances of "an historic"? My guess would be database report or something similar querying the DB? The Helpful One 01:45, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

This should be done, but by all means should not be done by a bot, for the same reasons typo-fixing bots are usually declined. This doesn't account for usage of "an historic" in quotations (and perhaps also debates about "a historic" vs. "an historic")! This should be done in AutoWikiBrowser rather than by a bot. — Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 01:52, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

People have made arguments that "an" before a non-silent "h" or a weak "h" should be acceptable but it shouldn't be -- it looks and sounds ridiculous. I did a Google search and there are articles with these instances as far as the eye can see. Can a bot change only first-hand article text (that is not a quote or a title)? --Wykypydya (talk) 01:58, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

"An historic" is an ENGVAR issue; many educated speakers use it. For them, "historic" is simply an exception to the rule to use 'a' before an aspirated 'h' (assuming they have an aspirated 'h' in the word). The usage of 'an historic' is still around 25% for the 'an' version (on google); it's not at all rare. We don't need to have bots going around second-guessing ENGVAR issues. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:02, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Also, this particular disagreement dates back to at least 1884 [3]. No chance we are going to settle it here. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:04, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

• In reply to Wykypydya, bots can't detect whether or not text is quoted. But you can still fix this manually using AutoWikiBrowser, which will let you search for all instances of "an historic" in Wikipedia article space and fix them if they turn out not to be from quoted text.— Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 02:09, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Using AWB to go around changing lots of articles from one English variant to another would certainly violate WP:ENGVAR. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:14, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
    • Okay, I see your point there. In my variation of English, the use of "an historic" is considered a grammatically incorrect. But since it is considered grammatically correct in other variations of English, it shouldn't be changed if it's grammatically correct in the variation of English the article's written in — Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 07:06, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
      • Even in American English, the use of "an historic" is well established, although not the majority usage. The ratios on the corpus of contemporary American English [4] are close to the ratios we see on google. There's nothing grammatically incorrect about it in that dialect as a whole, unless you simply choose "correct" at whim. This is just another example where there is a natural variation in a language among educated speakers. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:43, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

I do not think that this is not a job for a bot (or AWB). That there are "thousands upon thousands of articles" suggests that "An historic" is used by many editors, and so is a matter for consensus on the talk pages of the article involved. -- PBS (talk) 02:12, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Australian English uses an historic, so the bot will need to leave alone all articles written so, or it will create a real nuisance Crusoe8181 (talk) 04:27, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Citation needed. I'm a native speaker of Australian English and I don't believe that "an historic" is ever correct. - Richard Cavell (talk) 04:31, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

I fully support this task and this bot proposal. My only caveat is that it should have a blacklist of articles that will not be edited, specifically those that might deliberately use the incorrect form (articles about grammar, A and an, etc.) - Richard Cavell (talk) 04:31, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

• But how would the bot account for quotations and WP:ENGVAR? — Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 07:06, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

• Spelling bots are not allowed due to false positives. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 08:46, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
• Echo the above: definitely not a grammatical error. Even the BBC uses it. It's an WP:ENGVAR issue, and not one to be changed willy-nilly, let alone be addressed by a bot or AWB. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:03, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

• It has become clear from the remarks above having authoritative citations (as opposed to personal preference or opinion) that this is an WP:ENGVAR issue and seems inappropriate as the subject of a bot or a crusade. Don't we all have better things to do? hulmem (talk) 02:25, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

At the request of Richard Cavell (see above 04:31, 1 May), I've done some Googling. Like elsewhere usage in Australia is split. A Google search of Australian Government websites returns "About 196,000 results for "an historic" and About 235,000 results for "a historic". "an historic" usage [sic] in about 45% of pages. Here are two Australian examples from the web (on the first page of a Google search of the au domain) where the phrase "An historic" is used in the title:

• An Historic Opportunity, by NSWALC, March 29, 2011
• Lt Cdr Henry Stoker -- an Historic Journey by Dr Ian Chambers.
• In comparison A Google search of the UK government websites returns About 125,000 results for "An historic" and About 358,000 results for "a historic" ("an historic" is used in about 26% of pages).
• US government websites returns About 370,000 results for "an historic" and About 1,190,000 results "a historic" ("an historic" is used in about 24% of pages)

If anything "a historic" is over represented as a ratio on Wikiepdia About 7,960 results for "an historic" and About 34,800 results for "a historic" (an internal search of articles returns 5,070 for "An historic" and 22,424 for "A historic") so "an historic" is used in about 18% of article pages.-- PBS (talk) 09:04, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for all the opinions everyone! Thanks to Cymru.lass for mentioning AutoWikiBrowser; I have gone to that page and added a request to be able to use it for this purpose. (See Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage.) --Wykypydya (talk) 20:05, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

You cannot use AWB to go around violating WP:ENGVAR. That would be a violation of the AWB rules of use. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:20, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Wykypydya, you just demonstrated that 'an historic' is not grammatically incorrect, that it is used in Australia, the USA, as well as the UK. So on what grounds are you trying to eliminate the construction by automated means? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 05:59, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Concur with Ohconfucius. Surely there are more pressing issues than finding solutions to problems that don't exist. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:58, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Category:Infobox person using deprecated parameters

In the frame of infobox person standardisation, WOSlinker added tracking categories to several infoboxes. Yobot started running to update/fix infobox parameters. This procedure enabled us to simplify the source code for several infoboxes and successfully merge some of them. Standardisation has the big benefit that everyone can add basic parameters to an infobox without having to consult the manual. This standardisation procedure has been discussed in Template_talk:Infobox_person/birth_death_params. Unfortunately, Yobot has been blocked since the task was considered by unapproved because Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 15 mentions only requests in this page. Would be OK to resume the task since I posted it here? -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:12, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I support this task. Having consistent field names is a definite benefit to WP. Once you are done with this one, you should look into the whole coordinates (latd, lat_d, lat_deg, lat_degrees, ...) soup. However, it looks like you will be busy for some time. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 00:12, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Seem fine to me - assuming that (as per my View in the discussion) no edits are made to replace deprecated parameters alone (without some substantive edit combined). Rd232 ^talk 02:46, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

My understanding is that Magioladitis indeed seeks the go-head to for a bot run comprising standalone edits serving this purpose alone. He's already been told that it's okay to combine them with visible changes, but he regards this as insufficient.

To be clear, I take no position on the matter other than stressing that this would constitute a special exception to the normal rules and therefore requires explicit consensus within the community. —David Levy 03:20, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, well, I would oppose that, and I don't see any basis from the infobox discussion for community support for it. What's the rush? As I said there, standardise the parameters in the templates and documentation, leaving old parameters functioning but deprecated, and then use AWB and bots (combining with other edits) to slowly standardise parameter use. Rd232 ^talk 03:34, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I tried this approach with other stuff and the result is that the job was tripled for various reasons. For example editors not checking the manual but copying infoboxes from other pages (This is result of parameters not being easy to remember). One more thing is that I would like to avoid adding code in AWB that will be removed in some months or even worse remain there for years and then nobody will remember why is there. Hardcoding this stuff should be avoided. Another solution will be to add the extra code only to the bot but I am afraid we will end up to something like SmackBot's code which it does a lot of stuff (probably everything) but it turned to be very difficult to maintain or modify. If we just do it straightforward we will finish in a few days. I have general fixes turned on anyway so most probably other stuff will be done on the same time. So far, there were only problems with double runs because I haven't loaded the whole list of deprecated parameters or because some infoboxes had wrong parameters (for example infobox supports "birth_date" and "birthdate" and someone added "born") which maybe an editor's mistake or the result of a renaming between infoboxes with not compatible parameters. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:16, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Hm, OK. Can you estimate how many edits will be required, and how many of those might be "just the infobox" edits? There's also the issue that if we go down this road, we surely need to fully complete infobox standardisation first, to ensure that all parameters that might need changing get changed in one "big bang". OK, we don't need to standardise all infoboxes, but at least those for each type (eg people, places, other broad categories within which the standardisation is going to be done). Rd232 ^talk 20:30, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Also, a possible compromise would be to limit bot activity (in terms of infobox-only edits) to new articles, where an infobox might be copied wrongly, and the article won't be on many watchlists yet and anyway will be undergoing editing. Rd232 ^talk 20:36, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

OK. I think I can perform a dry run (i.e. without saving) and get this information. I wasn't planning to do all infoboxes! Only the those for persons and there aren't that many. I also didn't want to touch those for footballers since we still don't have a stable consensus. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:50, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

So far the discussion seemed to be about birth/death dates.Surely there's other things that need standardising too (even leaving aside footballers, if they're tricky for some reason). Rd232 ^talk 20:56, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I did a partial dry run on Category:Infobox person using deprecated parameters. Out of the 1,600 first pages, 1,200 need some kind of general fix (I had skip if only whitespace, only casing changed turned on). This is a good proportion. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:43, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

OK. That's still about 9k edits (for 35k pages in that category) for just the infobox update. I guess I can live with that. I'd prefer knowing that future standardisation won't require more such edits, but I'm guesstimating that the number of edits which could be saved by waiting for a "big bang" approach wouldn't be all that high. So, might as well get it done. Rd232 ^talk 13:14, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

We are already changed the code in lot of the infoboxes to transclude Infobox person, this means we won't to make changes on them anymore. WOSlinker and me already worked on updating most of the infoboxes semi-automatically anyway. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:44, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

OK, good (and thanks to both of you for all your work on this). I'm not entirely sure though that such transclusion ensures the parameters are already standardised as far as possible - does it? Rd232 ^talk 14:47, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

• Support. This is very helpful and needful. Thank you. Barong 10:51, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

On footballer infoboxes

User:Petan-Bot started some days ago to clean-up footballer infoboxes. This clean=up doesn't include the parameters we are discussing here. We could ask the owner to expand their work. The only problem I sense is that some people working on footballers had some disagrement on the "playername" to "name" change. We should first ask which parameters could be fixed in this case. Merging "cityofbirth" and "countryofbirth" to "birth_place" (same for "death_place") seems a good task for the particular infoboxes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:39, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

At Template talk:Infobox person/birth death params, it was only two people discussing this. They also weren't keen on merging city/countryofbirth into one field. We really need more input from others on these issues. -- WOSlinker (talk) 07:11, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

It's no problem for me to extend task of bot to do also this if people wouldn't complain that this task isn't welcome, but bot would probably have to walk through all the completed ones since it almost finished the task. Petrb (talk) 14:52, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Can you please leave a message to template's talk page warning for the changes? -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:49, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Template:Talk header

This request is a more limited follow-up to this one several months ago. The usage instructions for Template:Talk header indicate:

In accordance with Wikipedia:Talk page layout, this template should not be added to otherwise empty talk pages.

In spite of this, there are about 3,000 pages (according to Catscan) which contain no content other than {{Talk header}} or one of its redirects. So, could a bot delete all talk-namespace pages (except user talk pages) which contain no content other than {{Talk header}} and have only one revision in the page history (the second criterion ensures that potentially useful page history is not deleted)? Thank you, -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 23:55, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

What about using the list of such pages to simultaneously tag the articles for wikiprojects whilst removing talkheader? If the page is empty but for talkheader, it clearly lacks project tags. (That would be an AWB task, not bot.) Rd232 ^talk 02:00, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

That would, without a doubt, be a better approach, but is there an automated or semi-automated way of determining which WikiProject tag(s) to add to a particular page (I have been doing this type of replacement manually in those cases where the WikiProject is readily identifiable, but it is not always immediately clear)? -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 03:15, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I would think experienced editors like us would usually be able to figure out one or more relevant projects manually, with the entire project list (link not to hand but not hard to find) kept handy for reference. And if not, in some cases, well then just strip talkheader and don't worry about it. A lot slower process though than just stripping talkheader... PS in terms of automation, Category:Living people -> WPBIO springs to mind; beyond that, you'd have to start constructing a complex tree of category-> wikiproject (and that gets tricky with unexpected subcategories that don't really belong, as I found out once via Xenobot tagging I had to partially undo). That's possibly a worthwhile thing itself, to improve wikiproject tagging, but an undertaking so massive it may not be feasible. Rd232 ^talk 04:08, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

If anyone's feeling particularly delete happy, I've got a list of empty talk pages only edited by a human once (remember they're empty). — Dispenser 05:15, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I feel! -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:06, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

No, I'm not happy. That generate blue links that should be red ones. I often look on talkpages and am disappointed because there is/was no discussion - only projects and sometimes only a talkheader... mabdul 20:45, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

project-banner-only talk pages are now so common that your disappointment must be limited, surely. I do recall being annoyed by this sometimes when it was less common, but that ship has sailed... Rd232 ^talk 01:50, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Comment: I tell you what, doing some examples from the list, it strikes me that you could vastly reduce the count by deleting talk pages (with just talk-header on) of redirects. (I don't think there's any particular reason to keep such pages in terms of maintaining page history or something - is there?) The rest would then be a much more manageable proposition to tackle manually. Rd232 ^talk 02:00, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I think this is potentially contentious (sorry) - plus, I can't see a point to it. Just because a guideline says do't add it to blank pages, does not mean that, if it has been added, it should be taken away.

Redirects can have useful talks.

And even talks with only the one revision and no history could be there for a reason.

Example - I know I've made some, occasionally, for a new user who is struggling to get the idea of talk pages - if their newly-minted-new-article talk is non-existent, it's that little bit more complicated for them to figure out - so, I might create a talk with just the header, after instructing the new user, and hope they'd post to it - maybe in a week, maybe in a month, who knows.

Similar, if I'm trying to defuse an edit was - I just want to say "Please discuss it [[Talk:Whatever|on the talk page]] - and I don't want to mess around and complicate things with a red link.

So unless there are some good reasons to delete them (which I've not heard), I recommend just leaving 'em alone.  Chzz  ►  15:03, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Template:Music

Perhaps (where appropriate), a bot could get music symbols to use {{music}} all the time? This would really help with the great list of articles with "Eb" and other stuff. (The list is longer than you might think...!) Lanthanum-138 (talk) 11:39, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Can you give a list of the pages? I don't quite understand the task required - you want a bot to find/replace uses of some symbols with the music template instead? The Helpful One 21:51, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure about what pages they are, but generally here's the accidentals should be corrected in such articles:

• G# --> G♯
• Eb --> E♭
• n2, nat2 --> ♮2
• Fx --> F
• Bbb --> B
• Ad --> A
• Ft --> F
• Edb --> E
• C#t --> C

The characters that are not replaced by the template will differ according to the situation, naturally! I propose this because "Eb", "G#" are incorrect and are only used when the correct characters "E♭", "G♯" are missing, which is not the case here. Nevertheless #, b, n, x, bb misrepresentations are more common than d, t, db, #t. Lanthanum-138 (talk) 09:39, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Do note that A#, C#, and F# are also programming languages, where changing '#' to '♯' would not follow normal usage. Db, Cd, Gd, and At are also chemical elements (and "At" is a very common English word, too). This replacement would probably have to be manually assisted so a human could ensure that the changes make sense in context. Anomie⚔ 10:40, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Ah, missed those. Unfortunately there seem to be a lot of these annoying things...perhaps get a bot to automatically convert those that cannot mean anything else (e.g. Fdb, G#t), and make a list of those that might mean something else for humans to look through?? Lanthanum-138 (talk) 13:28, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Or perhaps only convert #, b, n, x, bb, because those are the most common errors (the others really practically never arise). That would probably dramatically cut down false positives (and maybe give a list of articles which the bot shouldn't correct). Lanthanum-138 (talk) 13:31, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Why not creating a list by searching these terms and looking if they are in any music cat (and otherwise ignore them)? mabdul 13:56, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Great idea! First search the terms, check for music cats, then change if appropriate! (An override may be needed for "At".) Lanthanum-138 (talk) 07:33, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Feedback navigation links

Regarding Wikipedia:Requests for feedback/navigation, which is transcluded on WP:FEED,

Could someone possibly make a bot which automatically adds links each month, as I did manually here?

If you need more info, give me a shout. Cheers!  Chzz  ►  14:10, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Reposted, because this was archived with no response.  Chzz  ►  19:54, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Would this be done monthly or daily? LegoK^ontribsT^alkM 02:18, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I think monthly would be fine; the redlinks do no harm. Maybe add the next month just a couple of days before end-of-month.  Chzz  ►  03:42, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Femto Bot has a task like this. I could expand it a little. Rich Farmbrough, 20:52, 2 March 2011 (UTC).

Er, yes, please. Or whoever. I'm sorry; not sure if you need input from me at this stage, but...of course - my intention in posting here was asking if anyone could do it - because, I try to remember but sometimes forget. So, yes of course; if someone can arrange this - please do. Chzz  ►  06:45, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

BUMP Chzz  ►  06:22, 14 March 2011 (UTC) Rescued from the archive again  Chzz  ►  06:37, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

My bot can do it Petrb (talk) 07:50, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Has any progress been made on this? ^Avic_ennasis @ 05:02, 2 Nisan 5771 / 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Next month; bot wouldn't reinsert april again Petrb (talk) 06:10, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

OK. I've restored this from the archive (again), so we can see if it happens. Petrb, will it happen a few days before end-of-month, or bang on midnight, or what? Cheers,  Chzz  ►  22:51, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

When it's best? day before? Petrb (talk) 17:16, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Erp, sorry, didn't see this for a couple of days. Yes - today would be ideal, I think. And in general...well, a few days (3?) before the end of the month would do no harm, and possibly give a chance to spot/fix a problem. Thanks again,  Chzz  ►  12:06, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Great, it happened [5].

One small problem though - May has 31 days, not 30.  Chzz  ►  02:56, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Restored from archive for the third time [6], because it still needs sorting out, as noted above. Future timestamping to end of month, to prevent archiving until it's seen to be working.  Chzz  ►  06:10, 9 May 2011 (UTC) fake timestamp; this message left on 9 May (de-faked timestamp)

Trial has passed so now I am waiting for BAG, I hope that issue was fixed although it's not easy to prove it. Petrb (talk) 17:10, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I've marked it approved, there's a couple of issues, but a month should provide enough time to make sure everything is fine, and as I mentioned on the request page they won't cause any major harm (see here and here for details). - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 17:34, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

ibid

I'm removing ibid and other deprecated methods of citing sources atm. Is there a possibility (a bot or maybe a database scan?) to get the links/data when these ibids have been added? It takes rather a long period to find and replace these ibids. The most tiome consuming factor is to find in which edit these ibids were added. Replacing them correctly is not a big task, but there should any possibility to find them. Can create a bot or whatever such a database scan and give me the revisions in a list? mabdul 11:57, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I can make a database scan and then tag these pages with {{Ibid}} using my bot. Probably in some hours. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:02, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

There are already nearly 2400 pages tagged. That is not the problem. I need the dates WHEN they were added. Isn't there any possibility to scan the database of the history of the tagged articles? mabdul 12:16, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I presume you're aware of the WikiBlame tool? Not sure how feasible it is to automate that approach. Rd232 ^talk 13:45, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, no. I'm not aware of the existing of such a cool tool... I have to "bookmark this on my user page. Is it possible to automate now? mabdul 15:50, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Un-cache arXiv links

Simple (I think) request: change links like

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1002/1002.0442v1.pdf

to

http://arxiv.org/abs/1002.0442/

where the replacements are something like

s|(?:www\.)arxiv.org/PS[-_]cache/arxiv/pdf/\d{4}/(\d{4}\.\d{4})(?:v\d+)?\.pdf|arxiv.org/abs/$1/|gi

s|(?:www\.)arxiv.org/([-a-z]+)/pdf/\d{4}/(\d{7})\.pdf|arxiv.org/abs/$1/$2/|gi

This way people can read the archive rather than download a file, and if they want to download the whole paper they can choose the format they prefer rather than that preferred by the person leaving the link.

It seems that there are somewhat over 2000 of these links, so I think a robot would be (1) faster and (2) less error-prone than a human.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 00:10, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

BTW, there's already a few bots/people (like Rjwilmsi, Citation bot, and myself) and doing conversion from bare links such as http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1002/1002.0442v1.pdf to something like arXiv:1002.0442 or Pierre Dusari (2010). "Estimates of Some Functions Over Primes without R.H.". arXiv:1002.0442 [math.NT].. However there's no bot which focuses solely on arXiv links, and some of these bots are on hold, so it might be time for a dedicated bot for the arXiv links. I'll do some number-crunching once the newest database dump is available. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 00:24, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. This is why I go to the experts rather than try to hack something together myself -- I never know what's already in progress and what's already been discussed. Yes, {{arXiv}} would be preferable but I think converting bare links to bare links would still be better than the current situation. Good luck with citations; formats differ significantly enough that I'd be impressed if you managed more than 80% proper conversion. (I'd love to be impressed. :p)

CRGreathouse (t | c) 02:57, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Within citation templates there are about 500 journal cites with an arxiv URL, which would be better converted to |arxiv=. However, only about 25 of those seem to be the cached links you describe. I've not got data on bare links. Rjwilmsi 17:18, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I figure that someone willing and able to use citation templates is probably able to use the correct arXiv URI. But there are many cached barelinks throughout Wikipedia -- I found the one I used as an example in an article I watch and I thought I should try to fix the underlying issue rather than just one link in one article. CRGreathouse (t | c) 23:35, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely, I agree. I was just providing info on the data I have. I've quite often seen a citation template followed by the arxiv link for it as a bare link, so there are probably three scenarios to handle. I'll do the ones in citation templates in the next few days. Rjwilmsi 06:48, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

file names

I have another new request and / or a question: Is there any automatic possibility to tag images for file move if they have only numbers in (this would cause some falsepositives) maybe with an prefix? mabdul 21:40, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Jamesbreadth

May we please have a bot that detects the insertion of the phrase "Jamesbreadth" into an article, and then reports the editor who inserted the phrase to WP:AIV. Various socks of banned Swamilive (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) are in the habit of inserting this phrase into articles. Mjroots (talk) 15:27, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Just to follow up on this...it would be a waste of time to ban the phrase Jamesbreadth. I'll simply create another hybrid word and start using it. And repeat. The Garrison Stans (talk) 15:44, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

In any case, you're looking for the WP:Edit filter combined with User:Mr.Z-bot#Task_6 - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 16:17, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Interwiki warnfile

Please update an interwiki warnfile for is.wiki, or build a new one if it does not exist.Snaevar (talk) 00:43, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

SImple statistics about pages deleted at XfD

There is a proposal and the start of discussion at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#Verifying G4 for a simple list of statistics (size, number of links, number of categories, number of images) about articles deleted at AfD (and possibly other XfDs) to be posted on the talk page of the relevant discussion by a bot. In order to progress this discussion it would be helpful for someone with knowledge of the capabilities and practicalities of bots to share their knowledge there. Thryduulf (talk) 06:37, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Template:Infobox election

To implement a new parameter for Template:Infobox election, I would like a bot to search pages using the infobox for the text "# seats _ needed for a majority". Then remove the line break, and the sentence, and add the parameter majority_seats with the number, (example). Thanks, 117Avenue (talk) 05:17, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

If I were to type "The number of seats which were necessary for the majority was 132581", would the bot have to catch that? --43?9enter ^★_☭ 06:21, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I believe that all the cases were added by the same guy, so they should all be in the same format. 117Avenue (talk) 12:51, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I think I can use replace.py to find every page that transcludes Template:Infobox election, search for
\d seats needed for a majority, and replace that with |majority_seats = \d

Someone who is professional at bots, does that work? --43?9enter ^★_☭ 01:31, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Requesting help from someone who's good with bots Actually if I used replace.py to find "seats were needed for a majority", removed that, and pinned "|majority_seats =" 4 spaces before that, would that work? --43?9enter ^★_☭ 02:15, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Help! --Σ _☭^★ 00:16, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Assuming replace.py is just a search/replace script, and all cases of majority seats are written the same, then it should work. Noom _talk ^stalk 02:08, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Or I could replace the <br> with a |majority_seats = and simultaneously replace "seats were needed for a majority" with "". Would that work too? --Σ _☭^★ 01:20, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm just going to do this manually with find+replace... --Σ _☭^★ 06:41, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Correcting links to redirected article

The article about the company/products Louis Vuitton has been moved to Louis Vuitton (brand). The vast majority of mainspace articles linking to the original namespace (except Louis Vuitton itself) now need to be changed to the new namespace (piped), because mentions refer to the company/product and not the man. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:35, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi, I was looking to do this fully automated but then a user mentioned to me that people might have linked to the article for the man, not the brand - do you know which pages link to the man (or if they link to a different article name) so that it can be done automated? Otherwise I can AWB the 790 pages in all namespaces or 512 in article namespaces semi-automatically to fix it. The Helpful One 21:37, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

So far, I have just scanned the pages linked to the original namespace. For those that refer to the man, I have already put a colon inside the square brackets of these, so tasks set to unlink the traditionally formed direct link ought not to be affected. However, your comment has led me to a second thought: if Louis Vuitton the brand is the more common usage, perhaps it should stay in the original namespace, or the original could become a dab page, and the biography should be moved to Louis Vuitton (1821–1892) instead? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:19, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

I think this is a pretty clearcut case of the WP:COMMONNAME being the brand and not the biography, so the brand should be at Louis Vuitton and the biography at Louis Vuitton (designer) or Louis Vuitton (entrepreneur). It's better to have a word disambiguation which people might be able to guess, than a jumble of dates that they need a biography of LV to know.... In fact there's a good case for the two articles just being merged, it's a common approach for articles on eponymous fashion brands and there's lots of duplication between the two.Le Deluge (talk) 11:34, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Someone clearly thought the biography did not belong... My article creation was a response to a person who deleted the biography from the brand article. Maybe I should have reverted instead of creating a new article. What to do now? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:18, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Deferred Given that it's a major and debatable change to one of our most-read articles, I would have reverted the edit and set up a discussion on the talk page about splitting and potential names for the daughter articles. Particularly since the edit you refer to is that editor's one and only edit. However, we are where we are. I'd suggest this is no longer a matter for a bot request, it needs to be taken to Talk:Louis Vuitton and sorted out there. I've already started a discussion there and invited comment from WP:FASHION, I'm no expert on the subject but my gut feel is that the biography should be reunited with the brand. Le Deluge (talk) 16:18, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks for the advice. I have had the company article moved back by MSGJ (talk · contribs); the biography now resides at Louis Vuitton (designer). Case closed. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:53, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Walibi Holland

Walibi World changed their name to Walibi Holland and I see that there are many pages which show the old name. If someone with AWB access could change this, it'll be great (I can do this too, but I do not have AWB access). Thanks in advance, TBloemink (talk) 11:46, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Pending the processing of the backlog at Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage, I expect to receive AWB access, and should be able to perform the name changes at that time. Chester Markel (talk) 05:31, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

The administrator reviewing the requests for AWB access has created a new, undocumented requirement, which I currently do not meet. I've opened Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/MarkelBot instead. Chester Markel (talk) 15:21, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

User:FlBot replacement

Can we get someone to take over User:FlBot's tasks updating the Wikipedia:Community portal/Opentask page? It seems the owner has retired. -- œ^™ 16:47, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

I can hit this up with a lot smaller operable code too. Should be able to get something running before the end of this week. -- DQ (t) (e) 18:44, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

You da man ;) Thanks. -- œ^™ 23:07, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Removal of redundant parameters from {{ThisDateInRecentYears}} on date articles

{{ThisDateInRecentYears}} has been revamped. It no longer needs parameters on date articles. I have removed them by hand for 1, 2 & 3 January. Would someone please get a bot to go the rest of the way to 31 December? JIMp _talk·cont 00:32, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Attempting to try right now. --Σ _☭^★ 01:10, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Done. Results --Σ _☭^★ 01:12, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Removal of the pipes can be done if I put |something instead of just something. --Σ _☭^★ 01:14, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Requesting BAG person help! New result, should I make a BRFA? --Σ _☭^★ 03:59, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it looks like your bot could be approved if you create a BRFA. Chester Markel (talk) 05:28, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Never mind... --Σ _☭^★ 05:51, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Moving out links to external links away from Infobox adult biography

In the past we formed a consensus to move links to IMDB away from infobox for Infobox TV series, Infobox episode, Infobox film, etc. There is still one infobox that has external links to its code. This is Template:Infobox adult biography.

I posted a message in March in Template_talk:Infobox_adult_biography#Links_to_external_links and there are no disagreements for moving on and moving |iafd=, |egafd=, |bgafd=, |imdb=, |afdb= away from the infobox to the external links section.

A bot has done that in the past for the other infoboxes. Can someone please do it? -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:11, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I'll have a look. Anomie⚔ 10:40, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

After you move them to the external links section, remove them from the infobox too please. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:44, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Of course. Did you intentionally omit |eurobabeindex= and |homepage=? Also, I see {{iafd name}} and {{afdb name}} and {{IMDb name}}; are there templates for any of these other sites? Anomie⚔ 23:51, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I just forgot them. |eurobabeindex= and |homepage= must be moved too. I don't think the others have any template but if we have many of them we could create one. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:13, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

|homepage= should probably stay alothogh may want to rename to |website= to match other infoboxes. -- WOSlinker (talk) 20:28, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Agree. You are right. Most of the infoboxes have an entry for official websites. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:37, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

OTOH, when this same task was done for Template:Infobox Film and Template:Infobox Television film the |website= was removed. But Template:Infobox television did keep it. I don't care much either way. Anomie⚔ 22:13, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Let's go ahead and keep it for now, since {{Infobox person}} has it, and conversion to that infobox is probably the eventual fate of this infobox (per the discussion on the talk page). Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 22:27, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

We can also remove |gender=. All other infoboxes don't use it as obvious or not important to be in the infobox. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:43, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

You'll have to hold a consensus discussion for that, before I could have the bot do it. I note that at the moment the parameter is just used for linking and for the infobox title color, it isn't displayed anywhere. Anomie⚔ 14:24, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

OK. Let's do the rest. I left a message to the template talk's page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:48, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Per discussion in the template's talk page we have consensus to remove "measurements" and "measureispenis". -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:55, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

The bot was already done by the time you posted this. See User:AnomieBOT/TemplateReplacer16 log/2 for a list of articles that might need human attention. Anomie⚔ 00:50, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I started a bot run which will remove the deprecated parameters. I also started checking your log for possible mistakes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:40, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I opened a similar discussion in Template_talk:Infobox_college_football_player#Links to external links. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:41, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Let me know if consensus goes for it. Anomie⚔ 21:48, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Message to all wikiprojects

Could someone deliver this message (User:Headbomb/Sandbox4) on all WikiProjects and Taskforces' talk pages, on behalf of WikiProject Wikipedia-Books? I've asked Noomos (who coded the bot) and Sven Manguard from WikiProject Wikipedia-Books to check/review the message and they are both fine with it. If would really help us get the word out about book reports. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 01:58, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure that all the projects should be spammed like that. Maybe just the active ones. I don't see the need to add a message to the talk page of a project that is inactive or defunct. --Kumioko (talk) 02:51, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Projects can be rebooted, so I'd rather have them messaged as well, although I won't cry if they aren't messaged (assuming there's a way to ensure that no active projects aren't missed). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:55, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Kumioko that this doesn't really seem like a good idea. I'd suggest you use Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council instead. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 06:34, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

No one watches that page (~218 people, vs. 1500+ WikiProjects / Taskforces) and the WikiProject Council cannot be relied upon to transmit the messages to all active WikiProjects. If it's only posted there, I doubt that more than 10 Projects will hear of it. Sending messages to all WikiProjects has been done in the past (even inactive ones, see this and BRFA/Addbot 19) and was never really seen as controversial . I don't really see what would be different this time than when Article Alerts came out. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 09:36, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I am afraid to say that I currently have none of my original bot code. Also I am currently lacking in time to be able to attempt to perform this task. I will say this to whoever does, its rather easy :P. ·Add§hore· ^{Talk To Me!} 12:19, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Anyone else? This would really help us at WP:WBOOKS. If the "non-active" Wikiproject is the holdup, just don't message them (although I'd rather have them messaged as well). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 06:59, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Headbomb, you can try asking one of the news delivery bots to do this. User:MessageDeliveryBot in particular has an online submission form . — Ganeshk (talk) 13:00, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

That's where I initially looked, but as far as I can tell, these bots seem to only deliver messages to users and not WikiProjects. Likewise for MessageDeliveryBot whose submission form only supports users (it was the first one that came to mind, having used it in the past). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:25, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Although I am still not sure it should be done because some projects will scream as they have done in the past you could try setting up a "Newsletter" group on a page under WikiProject Council for use in contacting all the Projects so that they can opt out if they want. Then you could turn the bot on. You may need to create a page list of the projects under the WikiProject Council page for the Bot to read but I have most on a list if you want them. I could add them in if needed. I have about 1500 out of 1700 and most of the ones left are inactive or just started. Take a look [7] if you need an example if how I started the Newsletter for WPUS before I got fed up and quite editing. --Kumioko (talk) 21:40, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I've had 3-4 messages delivered to all WikiProjects in the past and no one screamed about them before. If the WikiProject Council (whatever it is they actually do) wants to set up an opt-out newsletter, that's they prerogative, but I suspect many projects would opt-out of that newsletter because WPC is rather irrelevant to everyday life in WikiProjects, and many who unsubscribe would still like to get notices like these. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:58, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Feedback navigation links

Regarding Wikipedia:Requests for feedback/navigation, which is transcluded on WP:FEED,

Could someone possibly make a bot which automatically adds links each month, as I did manually here?

If you need more info, give me a shout. Cheers!  Chzz  ►  14:10, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Reposted, because this was archived with no response.  Chzz  ►  19:54, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Would this be done monthly or daily? LegoK^ontribsT^alkM 02:18, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I think monthly would be fine; the redlinks do no harm. Maybe add the next month just a couple of days before end-of-month.  Chzz  ►  03:42, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Femto Bot has a task like this. I could expand it a little. Rich Farmbrough, 20:52, 2 March 2011 (UTC).

Er, yes, please. Or whoever. I'm sorry; not sure if you need input from me at this stage, but...of course - my intention in posting here was asking if anyone could do it - because, I try to remember but sometimes forget. So, yes of course; if someone can arrange this - please do. Chzz  ►  06:45, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

URL replacement of www.kentrail.co.uk --> www.kentrail.org.uk

We've 132 links to www.kentrail.co.uk which need to be replaced with www.kentrail.org.uk - apart from the domain name change, the path names seem to be the same. Le Deluge (talk) 11:04, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Comments;

• I only see 84 pages [8]...but maybe you were talking about links, and some have several
• On CLASP_(British_Rail), it has http://www.kentrail.co.uk/Kidbrooke.htm (marked as a deadlink), but changing to http://www.kentrail.org.uk/Kidbrooke.htm still results in a 404
• It does seem to apply on others though, e.g. I just updated Gravesend West Line with this edit and Charing railway station with this. (I had checked to see if the new URL worked, so it seemed silly not to just not make the change while I was there)
• Are we sure this is a reliable source?  Chzz  ►  16:26, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

---

Actually, don't worry too much about the above. Having checked quite a few more (and changed them), I think the 'CLASP' one is the exception. A few are marked as "dead links", so those need a bit of checking. As for the 'reliable source' issue...well, that is really Somebody Else's Problem - some are marked as 'verify credibility' and so on, but that's fine.

I think I'll just make these changes using AWB; it's not a massive amount. I hope that is OK.  Doing...  Chzz  ►  17:16, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Cheers. I looked at the Kidbrooke one and by going via the main index I found that it was a simple capitalisation issue, it's kidbrooke.htm. Someone might have a way of checking the rest for 404's easily? It's not my field, I just happened to notice a station article whose coordinates missed the railway and investigated from there, but I would guess that it's probably fine as a source. There's quite a community interested in British industrial heritage and the sites like that tend to be real labours of love whose facts tend to be a sight more reliable than the average newspaper article. But that's just a general impression of that kind of site, I don't know about kentrail in particular. Le Deluge (talk) 23:46, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

They're all done; I didn't check the link on every single one, but I checked at least 25% of them, and I checked any that looked "suspcious"! Pretty confident they're fine - and if the odd one fails, then it'd have failed before, anyway. Cheers,  Chzz  ►  15:15, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done

British Listed Buildings

Hi. I was wondering if you could help me organize a bot to draw up lists of listed buildings in the UK from http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/. We are missing a massive amount of content and I think we should have at least lists like the lists of National Registry US places for the British equivalent.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:26, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Hm sounds interesting.... Rich Farmbrough, 20:51, 2 March 2011 (UTC).

Reasonable idea, but the list should be restricted to Grade I and Grade II* listed buildings (about 9% of all listed buildings). These are generally going to be notable enough to sustain articles, although some smaller structures may not be. With Grade II listed buildings, notability is not inherent. Some structures may be notable enough to sustain an article, others will not be. Mjroots (talk) 18:47, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd agree with that, a good idea Dr Blofeld. Malleus Fatuorum 18:56, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

OK by me, but I'm not sure what I could contribute. Agree with Mjroots that it should be limited to Grades I and II*. For Grade II buildings, we can always argue notability, but not all such buildings merit a separate article IMO. --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 19:06, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps for some of the places which have just a few Grade II listed buildings without much info on them it would be better for articles like Grade II listed buildings in Bournemouth or something.I think that alist of all listed buildings would be very useful as a reference point, even if many of the Grade II listed buildings ar enot notable noeugh for separate articles. I think tabled lists which intiially have location and geo coordinates would prove pretty valuable. What I'd suggest is that such tabled lists would eventually be developed to have a summary of the buildings, much like Hassocks has done with Brighton landmarks and that if there is enough info then create separate articles. So what I'm proposing is that we have a full lists of Graded buildings of all types just like Grade I listed buildings in Brighton and Hove, Grade II* listed buildings in Brighton and Hove and Grade II listed buildings in Brighton and Hove: A–B. I'd say quite a lot of Grade II listed buildings might deserve a brief summary even if not notable for a full article and would be very encyclopedic and comprehensive if it was to list them like this. So initially the bot would create the lists with name and coordinates and like the rest of wikipedia count on them being developed with information summaries over time. The problem though as said above is that some Grade II listed buildings are nothing more than small residential cottages... I suppose one could argue that being officially listed would make it notable enough for a brief mention in a list, even if many grade II listed buildings will never have enough info for a separate article.I think Hassocks work on Brighton buildings is the ideal of what we want for everywhere in the UK... I'd say for a starting point though we get a bot to list all Grade I and Grade II* listed buildings in the UK.♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:08, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

A very good idea, I think - it will help us figure out what we have and what we're missing. Support. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 21:54, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Some grade II listed building are things like cannons used as bollards, gravestones, telephone boxes etc, etc. Mjroots (talk) 22:04, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Well I've seen barns in the middle of Iowa with full articles, so what the heck eh!!♦ Dr. Blofeld 22:24, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm playing with code for this. Is the idea is to create a table-style list like this? Should it be at the county level or split like it is now, where some are at the county and some are at the locality? How much information to fetch? If someone could use this as an example to create the article(s), it'd give me an idea of what the bot should be doing. tedder (talk) 05:07, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd say that the lists are going to need to be at district council level. Those lists for Unitaritan Authorities may get long and need subdivision, but that bridge can be crossed later. Mjroots (talk) 06:21, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I apologize (apologise) for my Americanness, but district council is the level smaller than county, right? tedder (talk) 06:22, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes. In the case of West Sussex, my home county, for example, there are seven local authorities of various types (two boroughs and five districts). I will make more extensive comments on this proposal (which I fully support) in a few hours. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 09:01, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello again; here are my thoughts/comments, based on work I have already done with listed buildings of all grades:

• I recommend the use of Heritage Gateway (HG) rather than British Listed Buildings (BLB). HG is English Heritage's own definitive site for listed buildings; BLB merely mirrors the information from it and takes commercial advertising. A building's ID number, which would presumably be used by the proposed bot when it compiles its lists, is the same on both HG and BLB, but the format of HG URLs is more consistent: so, for example, www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=481395&resourceID=5 takes you to the Pelham Institute, while www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-481395-pelham-institute-brighton is the equivalent on BLB. Simply changing the six-digit number in the HG URL will work.
• Lists should certainly include Grades I and II*, per Mjroots; lists of Grade II-listed buildings, per Dr B, would be desirable as well (but would not need to have articles for many, or even any, of the structures listed therein). From the start, I took the view that Grade II structures can justifiably have at least a sentence written about them in a "Notes" column, even if the HG ref is the only published reference to it, so I agree with Dr B's comment that "I suppose one could argue that being officially listed would make it notable enough for a brief mention in a list, even if many grade II listed buildings will never have enough info for a separate article".
• Whether lists should be at county, local authority (district/borough) or even parish level, and which grades should be included, needs to be as flexible as possible because of the wildly differing lengths. To take some Sussex examples, Crawley has three Grade I buildings, 12 Grade II*s and 85 Grade IIs, so the best choice was to create a single list. Meanwhile, as mentioned by Dr B, I split Brighton and Hove into Grade I, Grade II* and ten Grade II lists (seven are under preparation) because there are more than 1,200 overall. Somewhere like Hastings, which has only one Grade I building but >500 Grade IIs, would be very awkward to split.
• As Dr B says, a useful starting point would be to grab the name, the coordinates or grid reference (coordinates can be worked out from that, and HG gives ten-digit grid refs which give a high degree of precision), the grade and the HG reference number, ideally formatted into a WP-suitable reference if possible.
• To Tedder: a table looking something like the Los Angeles example would be good. The format that has generally been used for British listed buildings is similar: the examples listed above, and others such as Listed buildings in Poulton-le-Fylde, give an idea of the layout.

Cheers, Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 13:44, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi. Yes, the information at HG is much saner and it's basically the source. I like that. On the other hand, I can't see how to browse it. How do I see all buildings? I think I can semi-intelligently decide how large to make the tables (choose groupings at the parish/district/county levels). tedder (talk) 02:11, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

moving articles

Seeing if I can get a bot to move XXXX (computer game) to XXXX (video game) and YYYY (computer gaming) to YYYY (video gaming) to comply with Naming conventions (video games). I would do this myself with AWB, but i'm not an admin and even then it can be time consuming using AWB considering the number and lack of automated moving naming schemes (for said admins).陣内_Jinnai 03:52, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Also relevant discussion: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Video_games/Archive_85#Video_gaming_or_Video_game_for_disambiguating. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:12, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I've compiled a list of these moves at User:Avicennasis/sandbox6. :) What would you suggest to be done if the new title already exists, such as Avenger (computer game) and Avenger (video game)? ^Avic_ennasis @ 15:44, 27 Adar I 5771 / 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Heh, beat me to it! Yep, there's nine such cases, which would have to be looked at individually;

I just thought I'd post that bit, as I already had it. The other moves look easy and non-controversial; just a few redirs to zap along the way. I'll leave you to it, Avicennasis; if you do want me to do anything, poke me. Cheers,  Chzz  ►  16:38, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Very handy, thanks. :) Do you think we should leave redirects behind at all? ^Avic_ennasis @ 17:10, 27 Adar I 5771 / 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I think redirects should be left. They're cheap.

One more thing to note though - of the existing redirects (that would be overwritten), there are some that point to different articles - so we'd need to check those for incoming links etc, before removing/overwriting them. I noted them on User:Chzz/cvg#Redirects_to_different_articles.  Chzz  ►  17:52, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Ah. Now I get what you meant by "zap redirects". :) Thanks again for all the help. Sorry to duplicate the work - I didn't know you were also working on this. I've corrected those links and tagged the pages {{db-move}} for this. Should be completed shortly. ^Avic_ennasis @ 18:40, 27 Adar I 5771 / 3 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done ^Avic_ennasis @ 00:49, 29 Adar I 5771 / 5 March 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Intelligence

I would like for a bot to automatically assess pages in the WikiProject Intelligence Gabesta449 ^{edits ♦ chat} 13:04, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

What do you mean by "assess"? I assume you mean assess quality based on existing project (parent project) banners? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:13, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes I do. Gabesta449 ^{edits ♦ chat} 21:12, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

You need to show proof from the project that there is consensus first. Other members of the project may not agree with using the assessment from another project. --Kumioko (talk) 21:15, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Adopt-a-user Bot

There was a discussion on the Adopt-a-user talk page some months back and there was sufficient support from active project participants for a bot to be created :

"A bot, similar to the one used at SPI to keep track of cases, the one used at Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits, and the one used at WP:MEDCAB could be useful for this project too. The bot would check the list of editor's edits and update a centralized adoption tracking page so we will know how each pair is moving and how long they've been in the program. For example, it could be set to run every other night on the list of adopters and those in any of the program's categories and create a unified list with information on their last edit date and whether or not the user is blocked. An immediate benefit would be cleaning up Category:Wikipedians adopted in Adopt-a-user so we can actually know how many users are active. I propose we apply for such a bot." (taken from Netalarm's proposal)

Discussion for the proposal here: Wikipedia talk:Adopt-a-user#Bot to track progress and pairs

—Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 9:46am • 22:46, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject UK Railways

Please could the following message be placed on the talk page of all articles that are tagged as part of the Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Railways (they have the {{TrainsWikiProject}} template with the "UK" parameter set to "yes") and which include the exact phrase "British Rail Class" or "British Rail Classes" (if any such exist) in the article title. An example article is Talk:British Rail Class 37.

Message:

==Possible change to the title of this article==

This article is currently named in accordance the Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Railways naming conventions for British rolling stock allocated a TOPS number. A proposal to change this convention and/or its scope is being discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways#Naming convention, where your comments would be welcome.

Please could you also note at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways#Notification when this has been done.

Thanks, Thryduulf (talk) 15:42, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done ^Avic_ennasis @ 18:50, 4 Adar II 5771 / 10 March 2011 (UTC)

URL replacement of www.kentrail.co.uk --> www.kentrail.org.uk

We've 132 links to www.kentrail.co.uk which need to be replaced with www.kentrail.org.uk - apart from the domain name change, the path names seem to be the same. Le Deluge (talk) 11:04, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Comments;

• I only see 84 pages [9]...but maybe you were talking about links, and some have several
• On CLASP_(British_Rail), it has http://www.kentrail.co.uk/Kidbrooke.htm (marked as a deadlink), but changing to http://www.kentrail.org.uk/Kidbrooke.htm still results in a 404
• It does seem to apply on others though, e.g. I just updated Gravesend West Line with this edit and Charing railway station with this. (I had checked to see if the new URL worked, so it seemed silly not to just not make the change while I was there)
• Are we sure this is a reliable source?  Chzz  ►  16:26, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

---

Actually, don't worry too much about the above. Having checked quite a few more (and changed them), I think the 'CLASP' one is the exception. A few are marked as "dead links", so those need a bit of checking. As for the 'reliable source' issue...well, that is really Somebody Else's Problem - some are marked as 'verify credibility' and so on, but that's fine.

I think I'll just make these changes using AWB; it's not a massive amount. I hope that is OK.  Doing...  Chzz  ►  17:16, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Cheers. I looked at the Kidbrooke one and by going via the main index I found that it was a simple capitalisation issue, it's kidbrooke.htm. Someone might have a way of checking the rest for 404's easily? It's not my field, I just happened to notice a station article whose coordinates missed the railway and investigated from there, but I would guess that it's probably fine as a source. There's quite a community interested in British industrial heritage and the sites like that tend to be real labours of love whose facts tend to be a sight more reliable than the average newspaper article. But that's just a general impression of that kind of site, I don't know about kentrail in particular. Le Deluge (talk) 23:46, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

They're all done; I didn't check the link on every single one, but I checked at least 25% of them, and I checked any that looked "suspcious"! Pretty confident they're fine - and if the odd one fails, then it'd have failed before, anyway. Cheers,  Chzz  ►  15:15, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done

WikiProject Intelligence

I would like for a bot to automatically assess pages in the WikiProject Intelligence Gabesta449 ^{edits ♦ chat} 13:04, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

What do you mean by "assess"? I assume you mean assess quality based on existing project (parent project) banners? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:13, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes I do. Gabesta449 ^{edits ♦ chat} 21:12, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

You need to show proof from the project that there is consensus first. Other members of the project may not agree with using the assessment from another project. --Kumioko (talk) 21:15, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

moving articles

Seeing if I can get a bot to move XXXX (computer game) to XXXX (video game) and YYYY (computer gaming) to YYYY (video gaming) to comply with Naming conventions (video games). I would do this myself with AWB, but i'm not an admin and even then it can be time consuming using AWB considering the number and lack of automated moving naming schemes (for said admins).陣内_Jinnai 03:52, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Also relevant discussion: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Video_games/Archive_85#Video_gaming_or_Video_game_for_disambiguating. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:12, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I've compiled a list of these moves at User:Avicennasis/sandbox6. :) What would you suggest to be done if the new title already exists, such as Avenger (computer game) and Avenger (video game)? ^Avic_ennasis @ 15:44, 27 Adar I 5771 / 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Heh, beat me to it! Yep, there's nine such cases, which would have to be looked at individually;

I just thought I'd post that bit, as I already had it. The other moves look easy and non-controversial; just a few redirs to zap along the way. I'll leave you to it, Avicennasis; if you do want me to do anything, poke me. Cheers,  Chzz  ►  16:38, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Very handy, thanks. :) Do you think we should leave redirects behind at all? ^Avic_ennasis @ 17:10, 27 Adar I 5771 / 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I think redirects should be left. They're cheap.

One more thing to note though - of the existing redirects (that would be overwritten), there are some that point to different articles - so we'd need to check those for incoming links etc, before removing/overwriting them. I noted them on User:Chzz/cvg#Redirects_to_different_articles.  Chzz  ►  17:52, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Ah. Now I get what you meant by "zap redirects". :) Thanks again for all the help. Sorry to duplicate the work - I didn't know you were also working on this. I've corrected those links and tagged the pages {{db-move}} for this. Should be completed shortly. ^Avic_ennasis @ 18:40, 27 Adar I 5771 / 3 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done ^Avic_ennasis @ 00:49, 29 Adar I 5771 / 5 March 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject UK Railways

Please could the following message be placed on the talk page of all articles that are tagged as part of the Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Railways (they have the {{TrainsWikiProject}} template with the "UK" parameter set to "yes") and which include the exact phrase "British Rail Class" or "British Rail Classes" (if any such exist) in the article title. An example article is Talk:British Rail Class 37.

Message:

==Possible change to the title of this article==

This article is currently named in accordance the Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Railways naming conventions for British rolling stock allocated a TOPS number. A proposal to change this convention and/or its scope is being discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways#Naming convention, where your comments would be welcome.

Please could you also note at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways#Notification when this has been done.

Thanks, Thryduulf (talk) 15:42, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done ^Avic_ennasis @ 18:50, 4 Adar II 5771 / 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. Thryduulf (talk) 00:41, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

World proven oil reserves

Hello! I'm here to request some bot-related work to be done. We have an article at Wikipedia List of countries by proven oil reserves, which is outdated. It needs to be updated according to CIA Factbook. It's not so hard to do it manually but there are some difficulties in calculating total reserves and then calculating each country's percentage in total reserves. I think it'd rather be done by bot. If the table was simply updated I'd put back all 'more information' links.--RoadTrain (talk) 14:47, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

British Listed Buildings

Hi. I was wondering if you could help me organize a bot to draw up lists of listed buildings in the UK from http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/. We are missing a massive amount of content and I think we should have at least lists like the lists of National Registry US places for the British equivalent.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:26, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Hm sounds interesting.... Rich Farmbrough, 20:51, 2 March 2011 (UTC).

Reasonable idea, but the list should be restricted to Grade I and Grade II* listed buildings (about 9% of all listed buildings). These are generally going to be notable enough to sustain articles, although some smaller structures may not be. With Grade II listed buildings, notability is not inherent. Some structures may be notable enough to sustain an article, others will not be. Mjroots (talk) 18:47, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd agree with that, a good idea Dr Blofeld. Malleus Fatuorum 18:56, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

OK by me, but I'm not sure what I could contribute. Agree with Mjroots that it should be limited to Grades I and II*. For Grade II buildings, we can always argue notability, but not all such buildings merit a separate article IMO. --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 19:06, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps for some of the places which have just a few Grade II listed buildings without much info on them it would be better for articles like Grade II listed buildings in Bournemouth or something.I think that alist of all listed buildings would be very useful as a reference point, even if many of the Grade II listed buildings ar enot notable noeugh for separate articles. I think tabled lists which intiially have location and geo coordinates would prove pretty valuable. What I'd suggest is that such tabled lists would eventually be developed to have a summary of the buildings, much like Hassocks has done with Brighton landmarks and that if there is enough info then create separate articles. So what I'm proposing is that we have a full lists of Graded buildings of all types just like Grade I listed buildings in Brighton and Hove, Grade II* listed buildings in Brighton and Hove and Grade II listed buildings in Brighton and Hove: A–B. I'd say quite a lot of Grade II listed buildings might deserve a brief summary even if not notable for a full article and would be very encyclopedic and comprehensive if it was to list them like this. So initially the bot would create the lists with name and coordinates and like the rest of wikipedia count on them being developed with information summaries over time. The problem though as said above is that some Grade II listed buildings are nothing more than small residential cottages... I suppose one could argue that being officially listed would make it notable enough for a brief mention in a list, even if many grade II listed buildings will never have enough info for a separate article.I think Hassocks work on Brighton buildings is the ideal of what we want for everywhere in the UK... I'd say for a starting point though we get a bot to list all Grade I and Grade II* listed buildings in the UK.♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:08, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

A very good idea, I think - it will help us figure out what we have and what we're missing. Support. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 21:54, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Some grade II listed building are things like cannons used as bollards, gravestones, telephone boxes etc, etc. Mjroots (talk) 22:04, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Well I've seen barns in the middle of Iowa with full articles, so what the heck eh!!♦ Dr. Blofeld 22:24, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm playing with code for this. Is the idea is to create a table-style list like this? Should it be at the county level or split like it is now, where some are at the county and some are at the locality? How much information to fetch? If someone could use this as an example to create the article(s), it'd give me an idea of what the bot should be doing. tedder (talk) 05:07, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd say that the lists are going to need to be at district council level. Those lists for Unitaritan Authorities may get long and need subdivision, but that bridge can be crossed later. Mjroots (talk) 06:21, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I apologize (apologise) for my Americanness, but district council is the level smaller than county, right? tedder (talk) 06:22, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes. In the case of West Sussex, my home county, for example, there are seven local authorities of various types (two boroughs and five districts). I will make more extensive comments on this proposal (which I fully support) in a few hours. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 09:01, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello again; here are my thoughts/comments, based on work I have already done with listed buildings of all grades:

• I recommend the use of Heritage Gateway (HG) rather than British Listed Buildings (BLB). HG is English Heritage's own definitive site for listed buildings; BLB merely mirrors the information from it and takes commercial advertising. A building's ID number, which would presumably be used by the proposed bot when it compiles its lists, is the same on both HG and BLB, but the format of HG URLs is more consistent: so, for example, www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=481395&resourceID=5 takes you to the Pelham Institute, while www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-481395-pelham-institute-brighton is the equivalent on BLB. Simply changing the six-digit number in the HG URL will work.
• Lists should certainly include Grades I and II*, per Mjroots; lists of Grade II-listed buildings, per Dr B, would be desirable as well (but would not need to have articles for many, or even any, of the structures listed therein). From the start, I took the view that Grade II structures can justifiably have at least a sentence written about them in a "Notes" column, even if the HG ref is the only published reference to it, so I agree with Dr B's comment that "I suppose one could argue that being officially listed would make it notable enough for a brief mention in a list, even if many grade II listed buildings will never have enough info for a separate article".
• Whether lists should be at county, local authority (district/borough) or even parish level, and which grades should be included, needs to be as flexible as possible because of the wildly differing lengths. To take some Sussex examples, Crawley has three Grade I buildings, 12 Grade II*s and 85 Grade IIs, so the best choice was to create a single list. Meanwhile, as mentioned by Dr B, I split Brighton and Hove into Grade I, Grade II* and ten Grade II lists (seven are under preparation) because there are more than 1,200 overall. Somewhere like Hastings, which has only one Grade I building but >500 Grade IIs, would be very awkward to split.
• As Dr B says, a useful starting point would be to grab the name, the coordinates or grid reference (coordinates can be worked out from that, and HG gives ten-digit grid refs which give a high degree of precision), the grade and the HG reference number, ideally formatted into a WP-suitable reference if possible.
• To Tedder: a table looking something like the Los Angeles example would be good. The format that has generally been used for British listed buildings is similar: the examples listed above, and others such as Listed buildings in Poulton-le-Fylde, give an idea of the layout.

Cheers, Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 13:44, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi. Yes, the information at HG is much saner and it's basically the source. I like that. On the other hand, I can't see how to browse it. How do I see all buildings? I think I can semi-intelligently decide how large to make the tables (choose groupings at the parish/district/county levels). tedder (talk) 02:11, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

• Please proceed with caution, both databases contain lots of errors. this temple is actually in Hampton not Teddington. I suggest a bot would be inappropriate as the source is not sufficiently accurate. ϢereSpielChequers 22:13, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment/questions from across the pond I whole-heartedly support the idea of using a bot or some other programming approach plus editors making manual edits, to create usable lists of Listed buildings. Doing similarly in the U.S. for National Register of Historic Places (NRHP)-listed places has worked out well, in creating tables during 2009-2010 that are included in county- and city-organized NRHP lists indexed from List of RHPs. These list-articles have developed nicely, further, since. With a copy of the National Register's NRIS database, editor User:Elkman programmed a "table-generator" and made output available at an off-wiki website; I and other editors cut-and-pasted it over into the relevant Wikipedia pages. Would the process here work similarly? Is the English Heritage database downloadable, or could it be obtained and given to a programmer?

Also, the U.S. initiative also covered development of corresponding disambiguation pages. Editor Elkman generated a generator to draft text for disambiguation pages, where there were more than one NRHP-listed building having exactly the same name. I programmed a different version of such a generator, too. All of these results have been used to start or expand disambiguation pages covering NRHP listed places. Probably same should be done for Listed buildings, too. There are multiple buildings having exactly the same name, within the English Heritage database, correct? --doncram 20:13, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Conflict of interest usernames

While patrolling the user creation log, I frequently come across usernames that are obvious conflicts of interest accounts, in violation of Wikipedia:Username_policy#Company.2Fgroup_names. Some of these are not readily discernible, but many are easy to determine. For example; User:Risingtidecapital (www.risingtidecapital.org), and User:Carpetdyesticks (www.carpetdyesticks.com). Sometimes, I run into usernames with spaces in the name, but which resolve to a URL ultimately. For example; User:BVB Productions (www.bvbproductions.com).

I'm thinking that a bot could do this work. In particular, the bot would:

1. Routinely scan the user creation log
2. Check new usernames without spaces against a list of registered URLs (not sure where to access such a list of the billions of addresses out there)
3. Check new usernames with spaces by stripping spaces and doing as in #2.
4. If positive hit from either (2) or (3), place "{{uw-coi-username}} (domain name) --botsig" on the editor's userpage.

This would place the accounts in Category:Wikipedian usernames editors have expressed concern over, allowing later administrator attention as needed. Thoughts? --Hammersoft (talk) 16:37, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Has there been any discussion showing consensus for this? Remember that this is a prime area for newbies to be bitten, and that most common English words are probably a registered domain name somewhere. Anomie⚔ 19:09, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

• You could easily check for single words against a dictionary list. This isn't really after that anyway. As to discussion, I don't know. I haven't seen any. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:11, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

• You would've been warned by such a bot: http://hammersoft.com/ –xeno^talk 19:14, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

• Ten point for xeno; I laughed out loud. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 20:19, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I believe Soxbot at UAA used to (may still) look up the domains for some usernames, but only if the name was suspicious anyway (e.g. containing "corporation" or "ltd"). There is also an abuse filter for users who create pages with a similar name to their username, which catches a lot of these usernames - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 19:17, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

• I'm quite aware of that url. Of course, I've never created the Hammersoft article, nor conducted any edits adding links to Hammersoft. Adding uw-coi-username doesn't block a person; it notifies them of the potential for conflict of interest. The point is to advise an editor of the potential for conflict of interest, not to say "get lost". It doesn't even tell a person not to edit. The work I'm doing in this arena is repetitive and ongoing. A bot would be quite useful to take it over. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:21, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

But Risingtidecapital and Carpetdyesticks haven't created articles either. And if they did, then they'd almost certainly get flagged up by the edit filter, which is better suited to this task. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 19:24, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

• My concern is that users who receive uw-coi-username usually get blocked a short time later by administrators who do not give them a chance to heed the warning or to request a username change (or who block them even as they are are waiting the processing of their username change request), and who do not offer any non-templated advice on appropriate editing - even in cases where the editor was making edits in good faith. I fear that this would just further fuel the WP:BITE culture that permeates WP:UAA. –xeno^talk 19:26, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

• So you're saying we should deprecate uw-coi-username? --Hammersoft (talk) 19:36, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

• No, but I don't see why it needs to be applied to users who have never made a single edit. –xeno^talk 19:40, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

• Fair enough. I do. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:47, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

• May I ask why? –xeno^talk 20:20, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

You could instead make a non-intrusive list somewhere for manual review? You know, like "User:Yahoo Sales is possibly COI with www.yahoosales.com"; made 5 edits to: 3x Yahoo 2x Best web-sites" —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 20:19, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Conversion to date templates

A great many infoboxes already emit microformats, and have for months, or even years. However, in some articles, these are incomplete, because the dates which form part of them do not use an appropriate sub-template, in order to emit the date in the correct metadata format. A bot (or bots - this task could be subdivided) is required, to complete the task of converting opening-, release-, first shown-, incident- and such dates from plain text to use {{Start date}}, as seen in this example edit for a year, and this one for a full date and as described in the various infoboxes' documentation. Note that {{start date}} allows for YYYY, YYYY-MM, YYYY-MM-DD and in a few cases YYY-M-DD:HH:MM formats. Note that Smackbot was approved to do this, and started, but failed to complete the task. A list of affected templates is available. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 15:17, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Urgent message for project.

At MOTD, when we are normally running low on mottos I send a message to members encouraging participation. We are in that situation at the moment. There are lots of members at MOTD. This time I have been too busy to do the message so could one be sent on behalf of my main account Simply south and Motto of the Day? The members can be found at Wikipedia:Motto of the day/Participants and Category:Wikipedians who contribute to Motto of the day. Difficultly north (talk) 00:52, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

oh and the link to the pages required is Wikipedia:Motto of the day/Nominations. Difficultly north (talk) 09:44, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Adopt-a-user Bot

There was a discussion on the Adopt-a-user talk page some months back and there was sufficient support from active project participants for a bot to be created :

"A bot, similar to the one used at SPI to keep track of cases, the one used at Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits, and the one used at WP:MEDCAB could be useful for this project too. The bot would check the list of editor's edits and update a centralized adoption tracking page so we will know how each pair is moving and how long they've been in the program. For example, it could be set to run every other night on the list of adopters and those in any of the program's categories and create a unified list with information on their last edit date and whether or not the user is blocked. An immediate benefit would be cleaning up Category:Wikipedians adopted in Adopt-a-user so we can actually know how many users are active. I propose we apply for such a bot." (taken from Netalarm's proposal)

Discussion for the proposal here: Wikipedia talk:Adopt-a-user#Bot to track progress and pairs

—Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 9:46am • 22:46, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I’ll work on this. I’ve written a similar script for the German Wikipedia Adopt-a-user sister project that I’ll adapt to run on the English Wikipedia. – Giftpflanze (talk) 22:20, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Remove template

Hi, I request your help to remove those templates: {{Nicole}} and {{Nicole (Chilean singer)}}, to date is suppressed. Thanks, --DO IT THE CHILEAN WAY!!! (talk) 05:59, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

PD: Those templates will be replaced by another:

Why remove them? I believe you just want to create the template instead, and there is no need for a bot, since there are only about 5 articles. I have restored the template, so your problem should be solved. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 20:41, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

{{Nicole}} was deleted. 1 problem less. -- Magioladitis (talk) 03:43, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Drugbank Link bot

Drugbank has been updated to v 3.0, but the links on wikipedia still use the old nomenclature eg. Procaine as the link for APRD00650, which should be changed to DB00721.

It would be great if someone could please update those links. Drugbank is also downloadable in XML format if that makes it any easier to get lists of names.

Thank you!

Message to all wikiprojects

Could someone deliver this message (User:Headbomb/Sandbox4) on all WikiProjects and Taskforces' talk pages, on behalf of WikiProject Wikipedia-Books? I've asked Noomos (who coded the bot) and Sven Manguard from WikiProject Wikipedia-Books to check/review the message and they are both fine with it. If would really help us get the word out about book reports. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 01:58, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure that all the projects should be spammed like that. Maybe just the active ones. I don't see the need to add a message to the talk page of a project that is inactive or defunct. --Kumioko (talk) 02:51, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Projects can be rebooted, so I'd rather have them messaged as well, although I won't cry if they aren't messaged (assuming there's a way to ensure that no active projects aren't missed). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:55, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Kumioko that this doesn't really seem like a good idea. I'd suggest you use Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council instead. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 06:34, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

No one watches that page (~218 people, vs. 1500+ WikiProjects / Taskforces) and the WikiProject Council cannot be relied upon to transmit the messages to all active WikiProjects. If it's only posted there, I doubt that more than 10 Projects will hear of it. Sending messages to all WikiProjects has been done in the past (even inactive ones, see this and BRFA/Addbot 19) and was never really seen as controversial . I don't really see what would be different this time than when Article Alerts came out. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 09:36, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I am afraid to say that I currently have none of my original bot code. Also I am currently lacking in time to be able to attempt to perform this task. I will say this to whoever does, its rather easy :P. ·Add§hore· ^{Talk To Me!} 12:19, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Anyone else? This would really help us at WP:WBOOKS. If the "non-active" Wikiproject is the holdup, just don't message them (although I'd rather have them messaged as well). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 06:59, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Headbomb, you can try asking one of the news delivery bots to do this. User:MessageDeliveryBot in particular has an online submission form . — Ganeshk (talk) 13:00, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

That's where I initially looked, but as far as I can tell, these bots seem to only deliver messages to users and not WikiProjects. Likewise for MessageDeliveryBot whose submission form only supports users (it was the first one that came to mind, having used it in the past). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:25, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Although I am still not sure it should be done because some projects will scream as they have done in the past you could try setting up a "Newsletter" group on a page under WikiProject Council for use in contacting all the Projects so that they can opt out if they want. Then you could turn the bot on. You may need to create a page list of the projects under the WikiProject Council page for the Bot to read but I have most on a list if you want them. I could add them in if needed. I have about 1500 out of 1700 and most of the ones left are inactive or just started. Take a look [10] if you need an example if how I started the Newsletter for WPUS before I got fed up and quite editing. --Kumioko (talk) 21:40, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I've had 3-4 messages delivered to all WikiProjects in the past and no one screamed about them before. If the WikiProject Council (whatever it is they actually do) wants to set up an opt-out newsletter, that's they prerogative, but I suspect many projects would opt-out of that newsletter because WPC is rather irrelevant to everyday life in WikiProjects, and many who unsubscribe would still like to get notices like these. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:58, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Unarchived, this still needs to be done. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:29, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Wildbot notice

I know that wildbot was shut down. Can a bot remove the unnecessary notices from that pages. The toolserver says that there are 8568 pages that using the template. Going through all would be really time-consuming. I will / would check the rest and correct the links. (I'm doing some already!) mabdul 17:38, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

We know which ones are obsolete. BTW, this is the fifth request, perhaps we should disallow bot from spamming talk page? — Dispenser 19:08, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Then I don't understand two problems: first why not removing the pages if we "know" which are obsolete and second why not removing all wildbot messages since these are nearly a year old? I mean why not sending out a bot that removes (without testing links) the messages? I read somewhere in the archives that anybody want to rewrite wildbot and set "him" online... mabdul 22:25, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Yobot removes them regularly. I am sorry but I cant run this task daily. I think other tasks have higher priority. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:35, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh ok. I read that Yobot do this task, after I posted this request. The "FAQ" of WildBot is not so clear... mabdul 10:31, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject templates

Could someone add "{{WikiProject Estonia}}" to all talk pages that start with "Wikipedia:WikiProject Estonia/" and "Portal:Estonia/"? Thanks! Pelmeen10 (talk) 18:01, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I assume you mean all the pages listed here and here? They aren't all talk pages (I opeed one of the first list at random, Wikipedia:WikiProject Estonia/Missing articles, and it isn't a talk page!) or do you mean the talk pages of all these pages (i.e since Portal:Estonia/Selected article/11 is on the list, then create Portal talk:Estonia/Selected article/11)? Or do you mean only the existing talk pages of these? עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 11:30, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I meant their talk pages that dont exist yet (red links). Like Portal talk:Estonia/Selected article/11. Pelmeen10 (talk) 11:35, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Anybody? Should be quite easy. Pelmeen10 (talk) 01:08, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Tere! :) This is now  Done If you need anything else, let me know. ^Avic_ennasis @ 01:30, 13 Adar II 5771 / 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks :) Pelmeen10 (talk) 02:03, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Orphaned WikiProject proposal, peer review, etc. pages

Wikipedia:WikiProject pages usually have subpage request/proposal pages. Those subpage proposal pages typically require the request to be transcluded or otherwise linked to a parent page (so that the WikiProject members can be made aware of the page and the request). I'm working WP:NPP Wikipedia: namespace pages and just found Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Battle of the Wilderness and Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Engineering Education. Neither proposal was completed, which I discovered by looking at "What links here". Please create a bot that checks the "What links here" for all the subpages of the pages listed User:Uzma Gamal/WikiProject. If a page (i) lacks any links to it and (ii) has had only one contributor, post a link to the page at User:Uzma Gamal/WikiProject/nolink. Once the bot is finished posting to User:Uzma Gamal/WikiProject/nolink, please post a note on my talk page to let me know that was done. I'll then patrol the pages at User:Uzma Gamal/WikiProject/nolink individually to see what, if anything, needs to be done to make others aware of the orphaned page. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 15:58, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Typo Bot?

Searching on google for typos in wikipedia, I find it very time-consuming to have to search for a commonly misspelled word, replacing it with the correct word, and then saving the page. However, a bot could very easily do this, in that it could automatically explain and save the change, and requiring far less work than an actual human. --M. Schneider [Schneider anc] (talk • contribs) 08:38, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Please see the frequently denied bots page linked to from the top of this page. Spell checking is not a good task for bots, as they are not typically suited to these context sensitive changes. However, it is possible to use semi automated methods (where a human checks every edit) to spell check, which is easier than using Google searches (see WP:AWB). - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 08:48, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Context-sensitive, you say? Perhaps, you would drop by Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Rewording of "Spell-checking" into "Context-sensitive changes"?</shameless plug>

Applicable policy part – WP:SPELLBOT. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 08:51, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Copyright tool, not bot; can somebody help anyway?

Hi. I need a copyright tool, not a bot. I've asked a few independent tool developers, but they have either lacked know-how or time. I'm hoping somebody here can help out, because it would be HUGELY beneficial in copyright work. Like on par with inventing the cotton gin; no foolin'!

We have bots and tools that can compare the text in an article to the results of search engine tests. Earwig's copyvio detector is far and away the most useful tool in my work. I really, really could also use a tool that allows me to compare two specific pages. Often, somebody will tag Article Fu as a copy of [http://Random website], but give no guidance on where on the target page the text is drawn. I spend a lot of time scanning through documents trying to find these alleged text matches so that I can close out listings at WP:CP. If anybody could make a tool that would allow me to have two pages compared with results listed ala Earwig, I would then be able to find the exact text matches on the suspected source so that I can see how extensive the problem is, or if it even exists.

In my dream world, this tool could also evaluate PDFs, because the absolute worst cases I've encountered were documents hundreds of pages long. It would also be great if the tool could, as the once-planned "URL Intersection Tool" would have done, compare versions of Wikipedia articles via permanent diffs. (This lets us see if copyvios entered by WP:CCI subjects have been completely overwritten.) I don't know if this dream world tool is possible, but I'd be ecstatic just to get a tool that could compare a Wikipedia article with a website.

Can anybody help me? Wikipedia:Proposed tools doesn't really seem to have flown. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:32, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I guess it's my fault that that page didn't work out :-S I've been putting this off but now I have a good opportunity to do it, and getting an initial version with limited functionality (no statistical ranking) running is easy enough that I can do it right away, and I'm doing so. I'll post the URL shortly. Dcoetzee 13:15, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I've got a very basic tool up, but it works - see [11]. Demonstration: [12]. Dcoetzee 14:49, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Bot School

I posted a Bot school request here. The school would be in need of someone to develop code for very simple bots that can be used as a template on how to write a bot to take a very simple action. Any takers? -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 03:19, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Date conversion

Is there a bot that will change all dates in an article from British to American style or vice-versa?--Bbb23 (talk) 18:17, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

You should try asking Ohconfucius, who is working on such scripts. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 21:00, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion, I left a TB template on Ohconfucious's Talk page pointing to here.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:18, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

• You're welcome to try my script out. I've tried to make the script and documentation as comprehensive as possible. The doc is at User:Ohconfucius/MOSNUM dates. If you have any questions or bug reports, please don't hesitate... --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:40, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, when I have time and am less tired, I'll try it and let you know how it works for me.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:58, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Feedback. I installed the script and used it on a section of Enrico Caruso. As far as I could tell, it worked perfectly. The use of the script is here. Thanks for the help.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:51, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

• Lots of dates on the page; nothing complicated. Let me know if you come across other issues with it in future. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:36, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Taxobox cleanup

A little history first: This was proposed awhile back with very little warning to affected parties, and it was also ironically begun rather quickly as well but not halted once a user voiced concern with the task. The controversial situation found its way to the administrator's noticeboard quickly in response to the two suspicious events.

It turns out the reason the edits were opposed was due to the speedy bot request with no RfC first. Since then, an RfC has been carried out for it to gain consensus. I will ask that in the event of any controversy the task be halted immediately. No need to have the same dispute all over again.

Bot request:

Approximately 21.6 K articles are listed at Category:Taxoboxes employing both unranked familia and superfamilia. Due to a miscoding in the {{taxobox}} template, editors have been forced to use the |unranked_familia= and |superfamilia= parameters incorrectly. A recent complaint about this has prompted us to fix this problem. Before we can modify the template, however, all affected articles must be corrected in such a manner that they will not be rendered incorrect by the modification.

The articles listed in the aforementioned category need to have the following operations performed:

• Replace the parameters |unranked_familia= and |unranked_familia_authority= with the parameters |unranked_superfamilia= and |unranked_superfamilia_authority=, respectively.

No exceptions are anticipated, since the |unranked_superfamilia= and |unranked_superfamilia_authority= parameters were just added to the template. The category should be deleted once it is emptied.

Thanks in advance! Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:38, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

I would be delighted to help you by offering my bot's services. My bot is written in C. I can't offer an opinion as to whether the change is a good idea or not - that's for the project members to decide. But from a technical point of view, my bot can do it. - Richard Cavell (talk) 10:07, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks; I'm not currently aware of any opposition except for a single user who left Wikipedia during that state of controversy that I mentioned above; she was upset with me for debugging templates without carrying out RfCs first. I deeply regret that, but her concerns regarding the proposal have all been addressed at the RfC, and she has been given nearly two months to respond, but has not. I wasn't sure where to take it from here, really, so two weeks ago I put out a request for any remaining concerns, but none have arisen since then. I'm at a loss for gauging the current consensus, considering the only member who seems to affect the consensus adversely won't show, but then, if you choose not to show, then does your opinion count? As you can see I'm really quite puzzled about how to handle what was supposed to have been a minor cleanup task. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 03:23, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Just wondering what the status is on this, Richard. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 05:00, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

• It would seem this task is still unclaimed. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 14:20, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Should |unranked_familia= and |unranked_familia_authority= be replaced with |unranked_superfamilia= and |unranked_superfamilia_authority= even if the parameters aren't empty? Noom _talk ^contribs 14:35, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes; those are precisely the articles requiring cleanup. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:22, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Coding... Noom _talk ^contribs 17:12, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I've put in a non-blocking automatic shutdown function, in case anyone voices concern whilst it is running. Noom _talk ^contribs 19:08, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Perfect! I've posted the emergency stop button at WT:TOL#Taxobox maintenance. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 23:58, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Looking for a bot task

Hi, everyone. I have coded a bot framework and currently I'm looking for a suitable task with which to put the bot to work. I have plenty of complicated ideas for my bot, but for now I want to start off with something simple owing to the fact that the bot framework is new. I'm happy to write custom code. If you have a task that you need a bot for, let me know on my talk page. - Richard Cavell (talk) 08:51, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Your best bet is to just watch this page, this is the central location for people to post bot requests. You could also look through the recent archives to see if there is anything that didn't get taken up. Anomie⚔ 15:38, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I have possibility but it needs some more discussion first. There are several active discussions about how to update Census information on the arficles that contain it. The consensus is that it coudl be done via bot but knowone has a good technical solution. I'm not sure if this is something that you would be able to do but I thought it was worth bringing up anyway. If this sounds like something you might be interested in I can give you some more details. --Kumioko (talk) 15:51, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

As long as you can express it as a simple algorithm, I can do it. I'm a little confused as to what some of these bot requests are actually asking the bot to do. - Richard Cavell (talk) 01:46, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

people who can write algorithms would probably be able to write their own bots ;-) --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:31, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Hey, it's sufficient if people can express the task in plain English. The problem is, I read these task requests and I don't understand what the person needs the bot to actually do. - Richard Cavell (talk) 11:22, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I read most tasks and they seems pretty well-explained or rather straightfoward. If you don't understand a request, just ask for clarification. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:54, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

hyphenation of ship classes

Category:ship classes and its sub-categories (to one level) include 1500 articles which should have hyphens in their names. At ship class, they get around some of the problem w link coding, e.g. with [[County class cruiser|County-class cruiser]]. The correction should be made for all phrases "X class Y", where X is the class and Y the type of ship. Or an en dash if the X is two words, such as Hikawa Maru class ocean liner (< 200 articles). (Trafalgar class submarine is incorrect in lacking a hyphen in the title but also in having a hyphen in the bold phrase of the lede, where the name is not attributive—that is, where there is no "Y".) This doesn't just follow our MOS, but also the sources and external links of these articles, such as here. — kwami (talk) 06:53, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

It looks like just about all of the articles (and categories) don't have hyphens. Has there been any consensus reached with the relevant wikiproject that the mass-addition of hyphens to the titles is appropriate? Any bot request made to perform this task will require some evidence of centralized discussion and consensus for the task. —SW— ^{spill the beans} 21:45, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Won't hyphenation just end up in a dash-war, with articles and categories bouncing around being hyphenated and endashed, when various different users move stuff about wily-nily? 65.93.12.101 (talk) 06:30, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't see any evidence of an edit war to remove hyphens in the articles. I'll see about a central location to discuss. — kwami (talk) 07:48, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that hyphenated articles/categories end up in edit wars over MOS:DASH applications. Since these are not hyphenated, they may not have yet experienced the never ending edit war. 65.93.12.101 (talk) 07:56, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Few of them would even be eligible for ENDASH. For the other 90%, there would be no problem. — kwami (talk) 07:59, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

There has been consensus for hyphens in all ship class articles at WP:NC-SHIPS, but no one ever implemented it. I've never seen anything about en dashes, and I see no reason to use them. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 08:10, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

See WP:ENDASH. A Hikawa Maru-class ocean liner would be Maru class, not Hikawa Maru class, just as a British County-class cruiser is County class, not British County class. The en dash shows that it isn't just the word "Maru" that defines its class. — kwami (talk) 12:00, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I would certainly prefer to see further discussion before any bulk changes were made. It may be that the consensus at WP:NC-SHIPS isn't actually very strong. The Land (talk) 11:58, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

It's been the consensus for eight years.[13]

It's also normal English usage, and is used in our sources. — kwami (talk) 12:00, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

• I can create this bot if there is consensus for it. To be clear, it sounds like the bot would be intended to do the following:

1. Find ship class articles in the form of "X class Y" and change them to "X-class Y" (hyphen). Example: Trafalgar class submarine → Trafalgar-class submarine
2. Ensure that there is a redirect from "X class Y" to "X-class Y".
3. Find ship class articles in the form of "X Y class Z" and change them to "X Y–class Z" (endash). Example: Hikawa Maru class ocean liner → Hikawa Maru–class ocean liner.
4. Ensure that there is a redirect from "X Y class Z" and "X Y-class Z" (hyphen) to "X Y–class Z" (endash).

I've taken a look through a lot of the article titles and it seems like there will be a lot of exceptions. This could be something that will be difficult for a bot to do correctly 100% of the time. There are ambiguities and special cases with some titles (e.g. S and T class destroyer). I think the best way to proceed would be to have the bot identify all of the articles that need to be changed, and make its best guess at what it should be changed to. It would then list the results in a table that can be checked and corrected by a human. Then, it would use the table as its guide when actually moving articles. This will minimize the shrapnel caused by incorrect moves (which can get quite messy). If a few knowledgeable volunteers would be willing to help proofread the table, I think we could make this happen. —SW— ^babble 16:52, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

"Hikawa Maru-class ocean liner would be Maru class" No, it wouldn't. "Maru" is Japanese for ship...

Changing pagenames from Trafalgar class submarine to Trafalgar-class submarine is wrong, too. A reference to Trafalgar-class boats is not the same as a reference to the Trafalgar class as a group, which is what the pagename is. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 17:05, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I think that would be true if the article title was the noun form; simply Trafalgar class, which it is not. It is the adjective form; Trafalgar-class submarine or Trafalgar-class battleship. WP:NC-SHIPS seems to be a long-standing policy for this, and kwami asserts that most sources use hyphens. Also, there will be redirects from all of the other forms, so it won't break anything. —SW— ^talk 17:17, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

No sources use endashes... I see no need for them to be used in place of hyphens, which is what sources actually use. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 18:47, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not a dash expert, but WP:ENDASH says that endashes should be used "In compounds whose elements themselves contain hyphens or spaces..." I think the distinction is that sources use dashes of some sort (whether hyphens, endashes, or emdashes) in the adjectival form of the term, so we should use dashes. The decision of what type of dash to use, however, should be made according to the standard MOS rules, not according to what type of dashes the sources have used, since they may have been operating under different style guidelines (or no style guidelines). —SW— ^confabulate 18:59, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

If you use a dash that no one uses, that seems to be original research. That's also a big reason why there are edit wars over dashes all the time. Another would be if you use a dash form that is rare, while a more common form would seem to be compliant with the common name policy, resulting in other edit wars. The MOS talk page is filled with arguments about DASH being used to create original forms not seen in RSes, or uncommon forms instead of common forms, or what is and is not a compound, what should be hyphenated versus dashed. 65.93.12.101 (talk) 20:09, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

There are two different concepts going on here, and they're getting inappropriately mixed. The first concept is whether or not hyphens/dashes should be used at all. To determine this, we're analyzing whether or not the common usage (i.e. in sources) is to hyphenate these terms. The second concept is what type of dash to use. This is a completely separate concept and it is independent of what type of dash is commonly used in sources. Each source uses its own style guideline (or lack thereof), and therefore they may not be consistent. Wikipedia has its own style guideline, the MOS, which defines the rules for when hyphens, endashes, and emdashes should be used. Again, all of the different forms (un-hyphenated, endashed) will be redirected to the article, so even if someone searches the term with no hyphens, or with a hyphen instead of an endash, they will automatically end up at the same article. —SW— ^gossip 20:24, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Style isn't an OR issue. Of course, the Ships project could decide to opt out of the MOS on en dashes, but normally we do go by our style guide, just as the EB or a newspaper would follow their style guides. But as SW noted, that's independent of the hyphenation issue.

There are two conventions. The other is to place the class in quotation marks. (That would avoid the whole en-dash thing.) For example, the Illustrated Directory of Warships of the World has County-class cruiser, but the The encyclopedia of weapons of World War II‎ has ‘County’ class cruiser. The former is in keeping with the ship-name site ref'd by our article, and has been in our guideline on ship naming for eight years, but either would be correct.

Oh, here's another: The life that Jack lived: experiences of a Norfolk soldier and policeman uses capitalization: County Class Cruiser. But given our 8 yrs of consensus, I doubt we'd want to change things around like that. It wouldn't be supported by the articles. If people have problems w the dashes, I propose that we go ahead and move all titles to hyphens, and we can decide whether to move the 150 or so to dashes later.

Also, odd titles such as ‘S’ and ‘T’ class could be left for now, pending discussion on their individual pages. (I've seen a pair of quotes and a single hyphen from the T, but that one's a bit iffy.) — kwami (talk) 21:10, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Some statistics:

• Category:Ship classes and its subcategories comprise a total of 13,619 articles.
• Of those 13,619 articles, 2,303 contain the word "class" in their titles. 634 of these are templates, leaving 1,669 articles.
• Of those 1,669 articles, 1,307 have "class" as the second word in the title (i.e. hyphen candidates). The remainder (362 articles) have "class" elsewhere in the title (i.e. endash candidates).

I'll create a table shortly listing the results. —SW— ^chat 22:11, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

The discussion over "what kind of dash to use" is a red herring. It's a hyphen, it's always been a hyphen, and nobody ever suggested it could be anything other than a hyphen. "Trafalgar-class submarine" is hyphenated per the same rule as "blue-eyed girl" or "two-faced bastard" or "time-dependant Schrödinger equation". Dashes never come into play in these.

Also, while we're at it, the bot should italicize page titles when appropriate (Trafalgar-class submarine, but O-class battlecruiser) and otherwise update {{DISPLAYTITLE:}} to include the hyphen. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 22:37, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, you can always use a hyphen in place of an en dash, but the question is whether we exempt these articles from the MOS.

What I've been finding in sources is that they often avoid the issue by calling them 'ships of the Iwo Jima class', though I've also seen 'an Iwo Jima-class ship'. (Or of course "an ‘Iwo Jima’ class ship".)

Perhaps as long as we italicize the class name, there is no need for an en dash to disambiguate? With a "Commerce de Paris-class ships of the line", it should be pretty obvious that it isn't a Paris-class ship.

We accept double hyphenation in Category:Achelous class repair ships converted from LST-491-class ships. That suggests that LST-1 class tank landing ships should be LST-1-class tank-landing ships (hyphenating tank-landing as well, assuming that's what the phrase is supposed to mean).

But many of the phrases in the article names, such as 'landing platform dock ship', should probably be removed altogether, per the naming guideline, rather than hyphenated. (Round Table class landing ship logistics ship? Round Table-class landing-ship-logistics ship?) But that's too much to consider in a mass move.

There are also a few names such as "Type C escort ship" which should be hyphenated.

Occasionally "Class" is capitalized, and probably shouldn't be. But what in the world do we do with Passenger-Only Fast Ferry Class ferry? Passenger-Only Fast Ferry-class ferry? — kwami (talk) 22:47, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps this conversion could/should continue at WT:SHIPNAME or WT:SHIPS? Even if a consensus is reached here, it will be missing parties that follow the ship pages. tedder (talk) 23:21, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

First no you cannot use a hyphen instead of a dash, but that is irrelevant here because these articles warrant hyphens in the first place, not dashes. The italics take care of the rest (see Commerce de Paris-class ship as mentioned above. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 00:10, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I have already notified WT:SHIPS of this discussion. —SW— ^converse 23:24, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I think it would be healthier if the attempt to produce a consensus about these ship article names preceded the request for a bot to change them all. Indeed, I think you might well find there's a consensus in favour of the names as they stand. The Land (talk) 23:35, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

• I have created the full list of articles that would be modified by this bot. See User:Snottywong/Ship classes/Hyphen 1 and User:Snottywong/Ship classes/Hyphen 2 for articles which only have a single word before the word "class". See User:Snottywong/Ship classes/Endash for articles which have multiple words before the word "class". It's likely that the vast majority (if not all) of the "hyphen" articles have been correctly renamed in the table, and it's more likely that the "endash" ones need to be proofread by a human. Feel free to change the table to fix any mistakes you find. —SW— ^converse 23:24, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I think the endashes are important. For instance, it would really be confusing if we used hyphens in Chungmugong Yi Sun-shin class destroyer. Compare Chungmugong Yi Sun-shin-class destroyer with Chungmugong Yi Sun-shin–class destroyer. —SW— ^yak 23:30, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but compare Chungmugong Yi Sun-shin-class destroyer with Chungmugong Yi Sun-shin–class destroyer. I'm in favor of using en dashes in these names, but the italics render them less important. (Though they're still clearer than hyphens.) — kwami (talk) 23:59, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Both the italics and the endashes clear up ambiguities, so why not use both? Once again, the bot will ensure that the appropriate redirects are in place so that the user will end up at the desired page no matter what they search for. It would be easy for the bot to add {{Displaytitle}} to the article (or modify it if it already exists), and italicize everything before the word "class". —SW— ^talk 00:17, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that is my preference.

BTW, I removed a large number of candidates from the en-dash list, where the first word was not part of the class name. — kwami (talk) 00:40, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The intention with the tables was for proofreaders to simply correct the "New name" column rather than delete entries and/or add comments. Then, the bot will actually use those tables to perform the page moves when the time comes. If you remove candidates from the lists, then those pages will not be looked at by the bot (which means it won't update {{Displaytitle}} for that page either. —SW— ^confess 00:56, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I doubt there will be any problems w hyphen1 and hyphen2; if there are, they will be few and easy to fix. IMO we could go ahead and do those. Endash and User:Snottywong/Ship classes/Pre-hyphenated (new) should probably be reviewed some more. — kwami (talk) 07:28, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

This is not a good idea. If it is adopted, we will then get into fine distinctions between hyphens, en-dashes, and em-dashes in article titles. These distinctions do not exist in normal English; though the may exist in the world of type setters. It leads to utterly lame edit wars and disputes (see for example Talk:Mexican-American War#Revisit requested move). It has no advantages.--Toddy1 (talk) 12:54, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose nothing wrong with the current system of not using hyphens, which practically all ship class articles do. Yoenit (talk) 16:49, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The current system uses hyphens. It's just that the article titles don't match the text. — kwami (talk) 20:53, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Section break

Agreed with Toddy. I would like hyphens in page titles, and there is consensus for it, but using endashes in certain situations is not a good idea. By proposing it, you've muddled the issue and made everything more confusing here. Can we get back to the original intent of hyphenating these class articles and forget about dashes? Thanks. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 20:40, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I would support that. We can move all articles to hyphenated titles, and then have a separate discussion on en dashes. Something like that would need to be done regardless, because if we do go for the en dashes, we'd still need redirects from the hyphenated forms. — kwami (talk) 20:52, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

There was consensus in October here. Just to be clear, I've asked again here. — kwami (talk) 21:08, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Just fyi for everyone: getting the italics right would require a person (or people) to review every single one of the ship class articles to see if the lead ship's name is the same as the class name. Most classes are named after the lead ship, hence the italics. However, some were named after a theme, like the River class destroyer or County class cruiser, so they don't get italicized. I got down to "Alexandrit class minesweeper" in about 15 minutes and came up with Admiral class battlecruiser, Admiral class battleship, and Admiralen class destroyer, and Akula class submarine that should not be italicized. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 03:37, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

(Cross-posted from WT:SHIPS)Oppose. Rationale; It isn't broke, don't fix it. The hyphen is desirable in text, as is italicisation (where appropriate) but neither is necessary in article titles. All the existing links go to the existing forms, including the rather important ship class templates. Moving on to talk about any existing consensus, I would definitely prefer to see one centralised discussion on this rather than the current fragmented discussion. The most recent turn around the issue was at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(ships)/Archive_3#Hyphen_question which produced 3 editors in favour of hyphens and 1 against. The articles have been happily sitting at their current names since the dawn of time which is in itself quite a strong indication of a consensus about their titling. Regards, The Land (talk) 09:58, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Tag some pages as WikiProject United States

Sorry to ask to ask this here and I would have done it myself but my access to AWB was revoked by User:CBM and he refuses to do restore it and I'm not about to tag all these pages manually. I suggested he do the work but he brushed it off and told me to come here making more work for you (sorry for my tone but I have little time or patience for people who don't want to do the work themselves or enable others to do so, but then push that work to others). Since I don't feel it's appropriate for someone else to override his decision (however poor I believe it to be) I am forced to come here and ask for someone else to do this simply and non contreversial task.

The attached link contains a list of 517 articles under Portal:United States needing to be tagged as WikiProject United States. All other pages have been marked as such with these pages being added in an effort to get that portal to featured status. Since I was very active and will probably continue to be in the future this is the first of what will be multiple requests for bot action.

The banner should look like {{WikiProject United States|class=portal|importance=NA}}.

Please let me know if you have any questions and thanks again for the help. --Kumioko (talk) 20:23, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

My bot can do that but not sure if this task is approved, you need to ask for approval first. Petrb (talk) 06:42, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, do I need to do a full blown bot request? Do I really need a full blown discussion within the project to tag these since the rest of teh 1000+ pages of the portal are already tagged for the project? --Kumioko (talk) 14:06, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

You only need to get consensus in the project's page. I also feel uncomfortable to just tag empty talk pages which are subpages and I can't understand how the wikiproject will maintain them other than counting them. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:10, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

It also allows the project to see if someone submits them for deletion or discussion for one. All the other pages are already tagged this is just tagging the new ones created for the Anniversary dates so the portal can get Featured portal status. I have no problem submitting it for discussion but what if knowone from the project comments. Is silence consent? The project is still getting going and folks don't always comment.

Also, This is only the first of many requests. I just started with a small and what I thought uncontreversial one. Next week I need to send out the newsletter so I'll be submitting that one too. I am also working on a few more tagging runs including more for WPUS, possibly adding 2 or 3 more US related projects to the WPUS template based on if the projects want to, possibly converting WP seattle to WP Washington for WP Washington because Seattle is now a subproject of Washington, removing the red Wikiproject links from articles where the project has been deleted but left as a red link on the article and a laundry list of others. I expect some will get shot down and it will probably take a lot of time asking questions back and forth to iron out questions and to solicite comments but I have no other choice but to submit them as bot requests and wait two or three months for the process to work in order to maintain and to build up WPUS and the other US related projects. If the bot group wants to tell WikiProject United States that they can't or won't tag the articles then thats up to them but that just means we'll have to do them manually which means that it will take much much longer and will have a much higher chance of error. I am very active in trying to build up US related articles, topics and infrastructure (like WPUS and other projects, Portal United States, the US collaboration, the WPUS newsletter, etc) so I have quite a list of things that could, should or need to be done. I would do these things myself but as you know I don't have access to AWB anymore, CBM refuses to restore it and personally I don't think someone else should undo his decision so that means someone else has to do the work or tell WPUS that they are not going to be supported. --Kumioko (talk) 14:32, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Template:Infobox company

A new field has been added to {{Infobox company}} for stock ticker symbols, per template talk:Infobox company. Often these are inserted in the "type" field. Could someone make a bot to take any of the stock ticker symbol templates found elsewhere in the template, and place it under the "traded as" field? Preferably, the bot would also remove any parenthesis around the templates (if any), and search the article intro for ticker symbols if none are contained in the template itself. Thanks! ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 22:43, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Please let me know if this is unworkable for some reason. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 20:01, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Sounds fairly easy, but need to make sure I understand properly. If the {{Infobox company}} template for an article uses a ticker symbol template in a field other than traded_as, it would be moved there? Noom _talk ^contribs 20:48, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this is a new field created for this purpose and likely no articles use it yet. If no ticker symbol is used in the template, then check the intro. It should be deleted from the other field in the template (along with parenthesis if they were used), but not deleted from the intro. I hope this makes sense. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 21:43, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Coding... Thanks for clarifying. Noom _talk ^contribs 21:57, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Also, some articles may use more than one type of template, because some companies are traded on more than one exchange. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 22:50, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Some don't use stock ticker templates at all. Noom _talk ^contribs 23:47, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

BRFA filed here. Noom _talk ^contribs 01:30, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

The Baseball Cube

See here for further reference. In summation, The Baseball Cube, a reputable site for baseball statistics, moved around their pages the other day, from http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/NAME.shtml to http://www.thebaseballcube.com/profile.asp?P=NAME, but the player name went from "First.initial.of.last.name/First.name-Last.name" to "First.name-Last.name". The Cube set up no redirects.

To temporarily solve this problem, an admin string functions, whereas {{str right|R/babe-ruth|2}} now becomes babe-ruth. We now need a bot that can convert all usages of the old format to the new format where Template:Baseballstats is employed and the input "cube" is used. – Muboshgu (talk) 13:56, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I'll have a go at this, should be nice and easy for a first attempt at a bot. Please comment at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Martin's bot. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:54, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Alan Ball correction

I'd like to request a mass relinking. All incoming links to Alan Ball (footballer) should be replaced with Alan Ball, Jr., as there are multiple footballers by this name. After it is relinked, Alan Ball (footballer) should retarget to Alan Ball disambiguation page. 65.93.12.101 (talk) 06:02, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

See WP:NOTBROKEN. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:56, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Check commons links and fix cases where pages/categories have been moved

Hi all. I've just discovered that a lot of ship-related categories have been renamed on Commons, without leaving redirects behind. This has probably resulted in a lot of broken commonscat links. An example: commons:Category:The Matthew has been moved to commons:Category:Matthew (ship, 1996), but commonscat in Matthew (ship) still points to the (now-deleted) original category. It's easy to fix this in this single instance, but it's much more difficult to do that for all of the affected ships, and there should probably be a bot that checks the commonscat links every so often, and updates them as needed (or adds in commonscat where possible, or if that can't be done automatically then it could flag the article as needing a commonscat link).

Would anyone be interested in putting together such a bot? I'm sure it would be (fairly easily) possible to do... Mike Peel (talk) 12:39, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

I've made a query request at Wikipedia_talk:Database_reports#Commons_cat_redirects.Smallman12q (talk) 11:52, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

This is why we have redirects. Going around with a bot to clean up working links is stupid. commons:Category:The Matthew can and should just redirect to the appropriate location (I fixed this at Commons just now). There's no need to edit the articles using {{commonscat}} to update where the links point unless the target is deleted or something. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:14, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that categories have been deleted here, by the looks of things in a fairly widespread manner. There will always be cases of things not being done quite right, so it's good to be able to check the integrity of the links every so often. It also makes more sense to link directly to the category rather than to a redirect to the category, although this is much less important than checking for broken links... Mike Peel (talk) 07:49, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Bot delivery of message to relevant WikiProject talk pages

I recently added a comment at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philosophy#Request for input in discussion forum inviting input at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/2011 meeting. I would be very appreciative if the message could be copied and delivered by bot to all the talk pages of WikiProjects listed in the philosophy and religion section of the WP:PROJDIR. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 15:43, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Currently have a 'WikiProject Messenger' in the works after a lack of response to Wikipedia:Bot_requests/Archive_41#Message_to_all_wikiprojects. This request could also be handled once its working. Noom _talk ^contribs 15:46, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

True, but this request is kind of time specific, as the meeting is only planned to run in two sections in April and May of this year. The sooner its done, the more likely we are to get response. John Carter (talk) 16:14, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

I will try and get a specific one done for you and have a more general one available for on-request WikiProject messaging. Noom _talk ^contribs 16:20, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Pumping the Days of the Year

Use Template:Death date and age and Template:Birth date to fill in the each namespace dates content in the Template:Months. (explanation: each date's article has a Birth and Death section, as seen in the Table of Contents).

Take note of the parameters spacing

• the first year is no indentation, subsequent years are followed in the MM, DD

*[[1875]] – [[Joe Corbett]], American baseball player (d. 1945)
* 1875 – [[Rainer Maria Rilke]], Austrian poet (d. 1926)
footnote: January, Feb...etc months are not require to be complete.

---

As an additional feature, i think it would nice if bot can include Template:Infobox requested to any biographical article that doesn't contain infoboxeses. I recommend using Category:Categories by nationality to start crawling might be a good place to begin with. Don't forget to crawl Stubs too. Thanks a lot for your help.

If possible statistics of number of assessed and unassessed article entries should be reported in a table statistics on Bot's talk page. (Optional)

There is a consensus that not every bio article needs an infobox...for example Ezra Pound.Smallman12q (talk) 11:52, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Fill the Birth and Death section where? {{Months}} does not have such section. Do you mean individual day articles linked from the template? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:53, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes I refer to each individual day. Thanks. : ) --111.241.72.178 (talk) 09:04, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Templates 'WikiProjectBannerShell' and 'WikiProject Biography'

Per Template:WikiProjectBannerShell#Optional parameters:

1. blp=yes should be specified if the subject of the article is a living person
2. activepol=yes should be specified if the subject of the article is an active politician

Could a bot perform the following tasks:

Task 1

1. Check transclusions of Template:WikiProjectBannerShell (direct transclusions and redirects) that are in the Talk: namespace ({{ns:1}})
2. Check whether the banner shell contains Template:WikiProject Biography (or redirects), and "living=yes", and whether the corresponding article ({{ns:0}}) is in Category:Living people.
3. If blp=yes is not specified, then add blp=yes before the |1= parameter.

Task 2

1. Check Category:Active politicians for transclusions of Template:WikiProjectBannerShell.
2. If activepol=yes is not specified, then add activepol=yes before the |1= parameter.

-- Black Falcon ^(talk) 18:46, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Yobot does it already. If you have a better list which I can run the bot on, I would be glad. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:07, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

LivingBot too, or at least did so at one point. –xeno^talk 19:11, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I just ran my bot through Category:Active politicians. It added the missing tags and moved the banner on the top where needed. Take note that AWB's latest snapshot does all the job as general fixes and I am very proud of it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:23, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! I knew that Yobot handled cleanup of {{WikiProject Biography}} parameters, but I didn't know that it also handled the banner shells (or that AWB included these as genfixes). -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 22:34, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I added some stuff some weeks ago :P We also handle blpo and sir for WikiProject Albums: (rev 7604, rev 7612). IT even fixes the 1= parameter [14]. I wish I could make the plugin work again. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:42, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Bibcode bot

Citation templates now support |bibcode=. While there are current efforts by Rjwilmsi to convert URLs into bibcodes (which gives a partial coverage of citations), and by Smith609 to add bibcodes via citation bot (which is very slow), the systematic way bibcodes are made should allow for a quick and easy update of several {{citation}} and {{cite journal}} referring to the most cited astronomy journals.

Bibcode format is in YYYYJJJJJVVVVMPPPPA

• YYYY is the 4-digit code for the year
• JJJJJ is the 5-letter code for the journal. The complete list of code/journal is given at User:Headbomb/Bibcode bot (based on [15]), but should not be necessary for this task.
• VVVV is the 4-digit code for volumes. Volume 45 is ..45 Volume 1 is ...1
• PPPP is the 4-digit code for the starting page. Page 34 is ..34 Page 1 is ...1 For pages greater than 9999, the M column (see below) is used.
• M is the section-letter. Certain sections have their dedicated journal code (JJJJJ=PhRvL for Physical Review Letters, with M=.), others do not (Astrophysical Journal Letters has JJJJJ=ApJ.., with M=L)
• A is the first letter of the first author's last name. For a paper written by John Smith, this is S. For a paper written by John Adams and William Shatner, this is A.

This basically means that from an existing citation, you can determine the bibcode without too much fancy pants logic.

A bot can check for a citation such a

• Heintz, W. D. (1974). "Astrometric study of four visual binaries". Astronomical Journal. 79: 819–825. doi:10.1086/111614.

And determine the bibcode from the details. In this case,

YYYYJJJJJVVVVMPPPPA
1974AJ.....79..819H

If Bibcode:1974AJ.....79..819H works, which can be tested via this link, then the bot can add |bibcode=1974AJ.....79..819H to the citation.

Correspondence between |journal= and JJJJJ codes for the top astronomy journals

Bibcodes	possible |journal= (case insensitive)	possible M value
ApJ..	The Astrophysical Journal Astrophysical Journal Astrophys. J. Astrophys J Astro. J. Astro J Ap J. Ap J ApJ The Astrophysical Journal Letters Astrophysical Journal Letters Astrophys. J. Lett. Astrophys J Lett Astro. J. Lett. Astro J Lett Ap JL ApJL	Note Some existing citations have something like |journal=Astrophysical Journal |page=L51. The L in the pages tells you this is a reference to Astrophysical Journal Letters rather than Astrophysical Journal L = Astrophysical Journal Letters
ApJS.	The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series The Astrophysical Journal Supplements The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series Astrophysical Journal Supplements Astrophysical Journal Supplement Astrophys. J. Suppl. Astrophys J Suppl Astro. J. Suppl. Astro J Suppl ApJS
AJ...	The Astronomical Journal Astronomical Journal Astron. J. Astron J AJ
A&A..	Astronomy & Astrophysics Astronomy and Astrophysics Astron. Astrophys. Astron Astrophys A. & A. A & A A.&A. A&A Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters Astronomy and Astrophysics Letters Astron. Astrophys. Lett. Astron Astrophys Lett A. & A. L. A & A L A.&A.L. A&AL	Note Some existing citations have something like |journal=Astronomy & Astrophysics |page=L51. The L in the pages tells you this is a reference to Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters rather than Astronomy & Astrophysics L = Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters
A&AS.	Astronomy & Astrophysics Supplements Astronomy & Astrophysics Supplement Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplements Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. Astron Astrophys Suppl A. & A. S. A & A S A.&A.S. A&AS
MNRAS	Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Monthly Notices of the R. A. S. Monthly Notices of the R.A.S. Monthly Notices of the RAS Mon. Not. R. Ast. Soc. Mon.Not.R.Ast.Soc. MonNotRAstSoc MNRAS Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters Monthly Notices of the R. A. S. Letters Monthly Notices of the R.A.S. Letters Monthly Notices of the RAS Letters Mon. Not. R. Ast. Soc. Lett. Mon.Not.R.Ast.Soc.Let. MonNotRAstSocLet MNRASL	Note Some existing citations have something like |journal=Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society |page=L51. The L in the pages tells you this is a reference to Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters rather than Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society L = Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters
PASP.	Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific Publ. Astron. Soc. Pac. Publ Astron Soc Pac P. A. S. P. P A S P P.A.S.P. PASP
PASA.	Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Australia Publ. Astron. Soc. Aust. Publ Astron Soc Aust P. A. S. A. P A S A P.A.S.A. PASA
PASJ.	Proceedings of the Astronomical Society of the Japan Proc. Astron. Soc. Jpn. Proc Astron Soc Jpn P. A. S. J. P A S J P.A.S.J PASJ
PhRv.	Physical Review Phys. Rev. Phys Rev
PhRvA	Physical Review A Phys. Rev. A Phys Rev A PRA
PhRvB	Physical Review B Phys. Rev. B Phys Rev B PRB
PhRvC	Physical Review C Phys. Rev. C Phys Rev C PRC
PhRvD	Physical Review D Phys. Rev. D Phys Rev D PRD
PhRvE	Physical Review E Phys. Rev. E Phys Rev E PRE
PhRvL	Physical Review Letters Phys. Rev. Lett. Phys Rev Lett PRL..
PhL..	Physics Letters Phys. Lett. Phys Lett
PhLA.	Physics Letters A Phys. Lett. A Phys Lett A
PhLB.	Physics Letters B Phys. Lett. B Phys Lett B
PhLC.	Physics Letters C Phys. Lett. C Phys Lett C

So if a bot could go through the database, and build/test bibcodes on citations with these |journal= parameters, that would be really, really awesome. There might be a problem with parsing | to find the last name of the first author, so maybe restrict the bot to citations with |last=/|last1=. Or maybe try 1974AJ.....79..819A, 1974AJ.....79..819B, 1974AJ.....79..819C... until there is a match in the ADSABS database. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:57, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

User:Δ coded most of it (in python), only minor tweaks need to be done to the code before it can be tried and BRFA'd. Would anyone be willing to take over? I have the source. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:01, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I can give it a whirl. You can email me the source if you like. —SW— ^yak 13:21, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

The source can be found here http://pastebin.com/AuMAYTNZ. I'll leave a message on your user page with further details. If you log on IRC, that would be the best thing #wikipedia-bag in freenode, but talk page messages work fine too. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 04:01, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Ampersands

Maybe this has been addressed (maybe many times!) but it would seem sensible to make a bot that finds all the articles with "and" in their name-- like Set and setting-- & then creates redirects on all the (blank) pages for the same title, only with the ampersand (like Set & setting). mordicai. (talk) 11:23, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done Per a database scan, there are less than 2000 articles with " and " in the title. I created all the redirects using an ampersand in place of the word "and". ^Avic_ennasis @ 05:01, 2 Nisan 5771 / 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia_talk:Redirect. - Richard Cavell (talk) 03:58, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

External link for virusses conversion to SIB

I would like a (simplistic) bot to replace manual ViralZone entries to the SIB-template ({{SIB|xx|Virusname}}, which points to the academic non-for-profit databank of the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics. ViralZone is part of this institute, but the many entries on Wikipedia should be more professionally 'templated'. For example, replace:

• Viralzone: Gammaretrovirus

Code: [http://www.expasy.org/viralzone/all_by_species/67.html '''Viralzone''': Gammaretrovirus]

with:

• Gammaretrovirus on ExPASy Proteomics from the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics

Code: {{SIB|67|3=Gammaretrovirus}}

(See also info on the SIB template page)

Thanks! Dr. F.C. Turner - [USERPAGE|USERTALK] - 13:02, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I'm happy to help with the bot side of things. Can you show that there is consensus for this change by those Wikipedians who are interested in viruses? - Richard Cavell (talk) 08:14, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Replace dead links with archive.org equivalents

Is there an active bot that can replace dead links with their equivalents on archive.org? The domain northvegr.org once belonged to the Northvegr Foundation, a private educational foundation focused on publishing texts from northern European pre-Christian history. The foundation is defunct, the domain is now owned by an unrelated entity, and their web site is completely different.

Wikipedia has over 700 links to the original site — links that are now dead, but preserved on archive.org. Is there a bot that can help out replacing them? Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see any active bots with this capability in the bot list. ~Amatulić (talk) 00:56, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

The bot list is really outdated and not maintained. There are a couple, but they're inactive. A couple more are in works. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 08:15, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

|quality= to |class= on WP templates

Could someone change "|quality=" to "|class=" on WikiProject templates. It doesn't work with "quality". Talked about it here. Pelmeen10 (talk) 18:09, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

There are 279 such pages. This edit will make "quality" work as well, though this is perhaps a sub-optimal hack. –xeno^talk 18:20, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Frankly that few number of records isn't worth the effort of a bot request. I could do them by hand in a couple hours and using AWB in less than 10 minutes (although thats not an issue for me anymore). I already did a few of these and I'll hack away at some more later. --Kumioko (talk) 19:48, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

So only WP:Volleyball had this kind of problem? Thanks. Pelmeen10 (talk) 11:41, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

 Doing... using the list xeno created. -- Magioladitis (talk) 03:41, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

More projects have this mistake. -- Magioladitis (talk) 03:53, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done Someone who has a database scan of talk pages could probably give us more results. -- Magioladitis (talk) 03:57, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

"|priority=" to "|importance=" on WP templates

In some WikiProjects, there is "|priority=" instead of "|importance=". Could someone check? Pelmeen10 (talk) 16:28, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Atleast for Wikipedia:WikiProject Electronic music it makes mistakes. Pelmeen10 (talk) 16:34, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

This one can be fixed also, right? Pelmeen10 (talk) 12:23, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Garbage out of talkpages

Oh, and many WikiProjects have "|attention=", "|comments=", "|needs-infobox=", "|needs-photo=" etc in talk pages, but it's not icluded in the main WP template. Pelmeen10 (talk) 16:44, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

OK. You should make a to-do list then. I can't work the problems like this. Moreover, some people may disagree that invalid parameters need removal. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:17, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

I'll vouch for that. I don't agree with it but there are definately some editors out there that will react violently against anyone that tries to remove trash from an article. --Kumioko (talk) 19:45, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Why would they disagree? Pelmeen10 (talk) 05:46, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Maybe this won't need a bot, but should be discussed somewhere. Pelmeen10 (talk) 19:50, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Its been discussed a couple times already but feel free to start it up again. I would recommend the village pump. Maybe if it comes up often enough the handful of editors blocking it will allow it. --Kumioko (talk) 01:28, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Basically the reason that some don't like it is because they believe its a waste of system resources to remove garbage from a talk page that doesn't render any changes to the page and its better to leave it there. I do not and believe that it should be deleted but thats a different story. --Kumioko (talk) 14:31, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Okay, understood. But maybe we should add those parameters to main template to avoid trash on talkpages / or remove the "pointless stuff" from main template's documentation instead? Pelmeen10 (talk) 14:47, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I see no point to ad support to |needs-infobox=, etc. if the wikiproject doesn't use them. I like the idea of mass talk page cleanup but we have to convince the community. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:44, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I also think a mass cleanup would be a good idea and would be a good general housecleaning task. --Kumioko (talk) 20:25, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

List of my edits to Spain

Browsing the various tools available on the toolserver, I've found that I've contributed more edits to Spain than any other mainspace page. However, I can't remember what these were (they were probably therefore several years ago). Would it be possible for a bot owner to satisfy my idle curiosity and put links to all my edits on the Spain article at User:Thryduulf/Spain, or point to a tool that I can use to get this list myself (I've had a look for one without success, but I've a poor track record when it comes to finding what is available on the toolserver). What I'm after would ideally look like a standard history page, but filtered to show only my edits.

This is a very low priority request.

Cheers, Thryduulf (talk) 14:55, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I think the API can do this for you - I betcha someone will tell us how shortly... You could also try http://toolserver.org/~dcoetzee/contributionsurveyor/index.php (but it might die because of your substantial edit count) –xeno^talk 14:57, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

This query looks approximately what's wanted. Rjwilmsi 16:34, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Subject matter for my wiki

Hello, I have set up a wiki and its very empty. I need a few pages so it serves a purpose lol.

   Example Page title/Content:

-C++ programming:
tutorials
source code
examples

^all in link format with a few details about the site the link points to kind of like how google displays search results.

I can supply the links and edit the output, but I would have to do this for many pages each having a different subject and a bot would be very useful.
Could someone here create a bot that, upon editing a config file for each page and logging in, would format and post the page content for me?
Or possibly I could enter a topic into the config file or script and it would make a page with neatly formatted revelant info about the topic so I have consistant page content and it takes a little bit off my workload?

Thank you, Nick - The forum — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stickynicky1411 (talk • contribs)

Hi, Nick! This is a bot requests page for specific tasks for English Wikipedia, and not other wikis. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 10:18, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

asking a solution for interwiki problem

Hi All, I made 2500 articles in Fa.Wiki (one of them is this fa:کاوانیشی، هیوگو) and I added en.Wiki interwiki inside the articles but after 5 days none of our Interwiki bots couldn't detect interwiki and adding another wiki's links and had confect's error so they didn't add the other wiki's links. what should i do? If I prepare the list of our articles that they have one side interwiki, Would you please add farsi interwiki links to related english articles? also we have this problem for other articles.yoursReza1615 (talk) 20:24, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Welcome Bot?

I am on the Wikipedia Welcoming Committe who's goal it is to welcome all new users. However, there are currently less than 20 of us and there is no way we can welcome all new users. I was wondering if ther was a bot that could welcome new users for us? Oddbodz (talk) 12:19, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Bots/Frequently denied bots#Welcome bot and Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Use a bot to welcome new users. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 12:29, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Holocaust nav box/Creating a bot to link articles to matching nav boxes

I have noticed that many of the articles that the Holocaust nav box links to do not have the nav box listed on it. In fact, I've noticed this with lots of nav boxes on Wikipedia. Is there a way to have a robot automatically do all of the linking of nav boxes on the articles that it links to? If not, can't Wikipedia create a robot to do stuff like that? This seems like the exact type of task that could be programmed into a bot. It would save a ton of tedious work and time for people.Hoops gza (talk) 06:39, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

There are a few reasons why some editors would chose to leave out a certain template. Other times, if a template were used, it wouldn't necessary go in the same spot on every article. Looking at the example you posted - Template:The Holocaust (end) - You can see this template posted at the bottom of such article as Auschwitz concentration camp. However, the same template also links to Pogrom, which also has significant content unrelated to the Holocaust, and thus this template doesn't belong there. I hope that makes sense. ^Avic_ennasis @ 21:58, 11 Nisan 5771 / 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Stand-in for Xenobot Mk V (WikiProject tagging and autoassessment bot)

I've found that my time available for operating my WikiProject tagging and auto-assessment bot has greatly reduced.

I am looking for a replacement operator who can deal with the requests at User:Xenobot/R and any subsequent requests that may be left there. There are at least five pending requests.

Any replacement needs to be able to mirror Xenobot's autoassessment process, outlined at User:Xenobot/A. I have some AWB settings that achieve this, and also a Python script written by User:EdoDodo (still developmental and with some known issues), both of which I can provide on request.

(Note: some projects also request custom work such as the open request for SEATTLE.)

Thanks in advance, –xeno^talk 14:57, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Anyone? –xeno^talk 13:56, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I try it ;-) Petrb (talk) 17:48, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

FFD and PUF page creation

We need to get a new bot to take up the work prepping each day's pages for Files for Deletion and Possibly Unfree Files. This involved making edits like this and like this, just setting up the pages for FFD and PUF discussions ahead of people who will actually be using them.

This task was previously done by Zorglbot, until said bot was blocked for malfunctioning on March 26, and has not since been unblocked. Thus we need a bot to pick up this task of Zorglbot's. SchuminWeb (Talk) 01:41, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Filing a BRFA, easy task. Noom _talk ^stalk 13:46, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Bot's running at 00:00 every day. Noom _talk ^stalk 21:22, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Google video

Resolved

 – Smallman12q (talk) 21:08, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Google video will be closing at the end of april, should a bot redirect the links to an archive service?Smallman12q (talk) 13:36, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Does any archive service exist at this point? There seems to be a team working on it, but I'm not sure if it's possible yet to automatically generate URL's to an archived version of an arbitrary Google Video. —SW— ^squeal 16:59, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

FYI - I spoke to some of the people working on the archiving effort on IRC. I gave them a list of all of the links used on wikipedia, and they added that to the list of URL's that they will be archiving. They haven't figured out what the archive URL scheme will be just yet, so we will have to wait until that happens before a bot can make any changes. There are about 6000 pages with links to google.video.com in all namespaces, roughly 3800 in the article namespace. —SW— ^spout 18:27, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Here's what Google just said: "we are eliminating the April 29 deadline. We will be working to automatically migrate your Google Videos to YouTube... [the content] will remain accessible on the web and existing links to Google Videos will remain accessible". tedder (talk) 22:45, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Replace png image with better svg version

Resolved

Hi all, I need a bot that will replace all the occurrence of "File:Stub_femminismo.png" with "File:Womanpower logo.svg. I am doing this in all the other projects. Thanks. --Lucas (talk) 15:36, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Makes sense. I can do that with AWB. Please hold on.  Doing...  Chzz  ►  22:53, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

 Done except 2 protected pages I cannot do: User talk:BrownHairedGirl/Archive/Archive 020 and User talk:Alison/Archive 40 - ask those users, if necessary.  Chzz  ►  01:20, 26 April 2011 (UTC)