Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/123Hedgebot456

The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA. The result of the discussion was

Denied.

123Hedgebot456

Operator: 123Hedgehog456 (talk · contribs)

Time filed: 14:23, Sunday August 21, 2011 (UTC)

Automatic or Manual: Automatic unsupervised (to an extent, because I will probably check on a few of the bot's contribs, but I won't for all of them and the bot won't stop itself or present them to me)

Programming language(s): Python

Source code available: Standard pywikipedia

Function overview: the purpose of this bot will be to replace templates that are now a redirect to a new template with a transclusion to the new template to avoid backwards compatibility issues caused by parameters being changed on the new template but now the old one.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): One time run when I find an old template that is prominently used and requires replacement to prevent backwards compatibility parameter issues.

Estimated number of pages affected: On its first run around 1000, from a single set of template transclusions.

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): N

Already has a bot flag (Y/N):

Function details: Based on the Pywikipediabot framework, my bot will replace redirected template transclusions with a transclusion of the redirected template to give editors the freedom to change new templates without worrying about backwards compatibility issues. The bot will mainly work on redirected FUR templates as they pop up, and he will work on one template at a time. At default he has an edit seconds threshold of 10. I have said that he is not exclusion compliant because an editor has told me that Pywikipediabot is not exclusion compliant. I submitted this because using AWB was a pain when I had lists of around 1000. --123 Ħeðŋeħøŋ 456 14:23, 21 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Do you have an example of such templates with redirects needing to be fixed? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 14:24, 21 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Vgboxart fur it has been redirected, so if the new template is changed then a thousand images' FURs may be affected for the worse. --123 Ħeðŋeħøŋ 456 14:27, 21 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really see how exactly that would cause a problem... Both the redirect and the "true" template use the same parameters. If there's an update that breaks backwards compatibility, it would break it regardless of the redirect, because the parameters would be the problem, not the redirect. Unless there's something I'm missing? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:02, 21 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think you're missing something: if say, Template:foo uses the bar= parameter as its main parameter, essential to the entire template, and it gets redirected to Template:bar, which used to use bar= but now uses foo= as its essential parameter, every page using

will be crippled with a big red error. That's a possibility with all templates that have been moved and redirected. --123Ħeðŋeħøŋ456 18:19, 21 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think you don't understand how templates work. If {{foobar}} is redirected to {{barfoo}}, and this causes problems, these problems would not be fixed by bypassing the redirect. The problems would only be fixed by updating the parameters of {{foobar}} to those of {{barfoo}}. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:27, 21 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well yes, I'm sure there is a rational reason about the parameters, because I had it in my head last night, but as Sfan00_IMG did say, the bot will help with template standardisation. I have a theory: if redirected templates are phased out now, then there will be more unity, and editors won't have to pander to users of the old template when making new parameters that are affected by the redirect. Of course, I may be wrong. --123 Ħeðŋeħøŋ 456 19:11, 21 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

{{Vgboxart fur}} uses identical syntax to {{Non-free use rationale video game cover}}, fixing the redirects allows ultimately for the older name to be retired, in line with a move to 'standardise' rationale template naming.

I've left a note of the other 'fur' named templates which were redirected to 'Non-free use rationale' types on the AWB tasks page. As such the template synatx for the types is identical. The synatx between the old and new named version is also identical.

Ideally, there should be a bot that fixes up ALL simple template renames, but I don't think that's what Hedgehog is proposing yet. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 18:48, 21 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Denied. There's nothing wrong with template redirects, and that is indeed covered by WP:NOTBROKEN. In a nutshell, as far as bots and semi-automated editing are concerned, bypassing redirects shouldn't be done on its own, but it's fine as long as its done with some other meaningful edit. Since there's no such meaningful edit here, I'm declining.Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:21, 21 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA.