Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Bot1058 2

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

Withdrawn by operator.

Bot1058 2

Operator: Wbm1058 (talk · contribs · SUL · edit count · logs · page moves · block log · rights log · ANI search)

Time filed: 14:02, Friday, January 30, 2015 (UTC)

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Automatic

Programming language(s): AutoWikiBrowser

Source code available: AWB

Function overview: Substitute a template, when called for at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Holding cell § To substitute. The current task I wish to automate is to substitute {{Infobox university chancellor}}, but as you can see, there are/will be other template substitution tasks, and I would like blanket approval to do any task listed at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Holding cell § To substitute in the future.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): As needed

Estimated number of pages affected: Varies, the current task to subst:Infobox university chancellor affects 480 pages

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes

Already has a bot flag (Yes/No): Yes

Function details: The source for "make list" is "What transcludes page" <the template to be substituted>, in this case Template:Infobox university chancellor. "Find & Replace" "{{<template name>" with "{{subst:<template name>" – in this case ""{{Infobox university chancellor" with "{{subst:Infobox university chancellor". I've already set this up and done it manually for a few of these to confirm it's working correctly. At this point, I would like to save my settings, then log into my bot account and use the saved settings to automate the updating of these 480 pages.

Discussion

It seems that you could also use the functionality at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects to do this task. GoingBatty (talk) 15:32, 31 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No, that AWB feature is for bypassing template redirects. The task is not to bypass Template:Infobox university chancellor, but rather to substitute it. This request is for automated updates to orphan that template ASAP, rather than as a "general fix" to be performed when someone happens to use AWB to edit a page for some other reason. Wbm1058 (talk) 17:12, 31 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I would like Frietjes opinion on this task. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:21, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well now I am having second thoughts about this. Personally I don't think having a "wrapper" template for this purpose is a bad idea. I was just wanting to help clear a backlog, and it looked like this had already been vetted. Now I look back at the pages where I substituted the template to test, and see a problem that I didn't catch:

special:diff/644839376 - it seems that the comment  doesn't effect transclusion, but broke substitution. Then with the next edit Magioladitis removed the subst: but left just a single { so it didn't transclude. The next edit restored the transclusion. As this fixed something that was arguably !not broken I am considering withdrawing this request as it's looking trickier than it did before. Wbm1058 (talk) 03:41, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

My other tests seemed to work OK, though I just did a few. Example here... a side effect is to add a bunch of unused parameters, something I'm not keen about if those parameters will never be used. Keep it simple. Wbm1058 (talk) 04:00, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

substituting this wrapper is a bad idea, since it will silently remove any parameter misspellings (example of a bad edit here), and fails to properly decompose the "office" into "order" and "title" (example of a proper replacement). Frietjes (talk) 15:09, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The changes you made after my AWB edit nicely show some of the issues involved. Here we have an article using {{Infobox university chancellor}} and trying to force (unsuccessfully) Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities into that infobox. This clearly calls for replacement with the more generic {{Infobox officeholder}}. Question is whether we have a bot that's intelligent enough to do that properly, or nearly 500 uses will need to be dealt with manually. Only those who held other offices besides university chancellor need to be fixed, but I suspect that this may not be that unusual. Wbm1058 (talk) 16:20, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

would like to hear from Plastikspork since SporkBot already approved to do this. Frietjes (talk) 15:11, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I see: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SporkBot. "It appears AWB is not well suited to this task" Wbm1058 (talk) 16:04, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

there were so few that I just did them by manually, using a script to convert them without substituting them, checking each conversion (most of the related edits). Frietjes (talk) 18:16, 14 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well you're the master editor! Someday maybe I'll learn how to do that. Thanks for getting it done. Wbm1058 (talk) 21:08, 14 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Withdrawn by operator. Wbm1058 (talk) 21:08, 14 February 2015 (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.