Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Hazard-Bot 10

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Withdrawn by operator.

Hazard-Bot (10)

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

Time filed: 23:50, Monday May 7, 2012 (UTC)

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Automatic

Programming language(s): Python

Source code available: Standard Pywikipedia

Function overview: Replacing {{mdash}} with {{spaced mdash}}

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Similar to this task, but requested here upon consensus here.

Edit period(s): One time run

Estimated number of pages affected: 2999

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes

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

Function details: The bot will replace all transclusions of {{mdash}} with {{spaced mdash}}.

Discussion

This appears to be a WP:COSMETICBOT which is not allowed per policy. The consensus page you provided was consensus to have the template be moved. Nowhere did I find, templates need to be renamed in article space which still work fine even after the move. Feel free to argue about this with me.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 00:01, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I understand your concerns, but also point out that an almost exact task was approved on April 1 (unless the approval was a joke). Hazard-SJ ✈ 01:22, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know what went on that day but your bot will be making edits that do not affect the outcome of the article, thereby violating WP:COSMETICBOT.—cyberpower ^Chat_Offline 02:03, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The approval wasn't a joke at all. Further, the changes are not "just" cosmetic. The name was changed as the template was being used incorrectly and so was confusing if left in the article under its existing name. The template was changed to a different one with spaces. This template likely won't be any different, i.e. {{mdash}}, which currently has spaces (via a redirect), would, after the replacements, become a template without spaces. It is assumed that most people that have used the {{mdash}} template in articles and haven't left spaces both sides have intended for there to be spaces created by the template, and so suddenly changing the template source to remove spaces would affect the aformentioned articles. In my BRfA, to make sure that the spaces added by the template were intended, the template was only replaced if it had no spaces either side (e.g. word{{mdash}}word) or a space on the right (e.g. word{{mdash}} word (this was the recommended usage, as the space on the right would not cause 2 spaces due to the way that HTML is parsed - multiple spaces are treated as one)). The others (with spaces on both sides) are left so that when {{mdash}} becomes a template itself (an mdash with no spaces on both sides) nothing needs changing back. S D 5 02:49, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

After reading through all of the discussions, the rationale for this task appears clear and supported by consensus (that {{mdash}} should produce nothing but an em dash, and {{spaced mdash}} should do what {{mdash}} is doing right now). It's a cosmetic change now but corrects for what will be a breaking change later (which is better than the alternative: making the breaking change then having a bot clean up the broken articles). However, in articles, is accommodating spaced em dashes the right thing to do? It appears from the Manual of Style that unlike spaced en dashes, there's not a valid use case for spaced em dashes. Many, if not all, instances of spaced em dashes in articles are theoretically incorrect. Should this task therefore be removing space around {{mdash}} instances in articles and converting to {{spaced mdash}} in other namespaces (where there may be layout considerations)? — madman 14:35, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Any comments on this? If there's a valid use case for {{spaced mdash}}, then I'd be happy to approve this task for trial; otherwise, I think we should consider revising the task. — madman 04:11, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not the bot op, but as long as Hazard says it's code-able, your suggestion sounds good to me (I also can't think of when {{spaced mdash}} can be validly used in article space). Jenks24 (talk) 09:01, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My feeling is that there is no clear guideline where to use {{mdash}}, {{spaced mdash}}, {{ndash}}, or similar templates, or just substitute templates with ASCII, as some scripts do (see also the comment by David Göthberg here). I think such substitutions should be done manually unless there is an eminent danger that the template will break down. Materialscientist (talk) 06:50, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the template has arguably broken down by making a breaking change. Haven't heard anything from the bot operator in a while, though; the request may be expired shortly. {{OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} — madman 04:46, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've been awaiting the decision as to whether or not the task would be revised, as you considered above. I, however, agree with Materialscientist, and far as reading the source of a page is concerned, it would appear jumbled. Maybe we should have a discussion about just getting rid of these "spaced" templates, or even having them substituted (I'd prefer the first)? Hazard-SJ ✈ 01:38, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, well, the decision as to whether or not the task would be revised was yours. Regarding Materialscientist's and your question, perhaps a discussion should be started at a village pump or the templates' talk pages, but I think there is some value in using the templates to control lines breaking; the alternative is to remember two or three HTML entities. — madman 02:36, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be better if we had the discussion first, because otherwise we might end up having to undo over a few thousand edits. Comments? Hazard-SJ ✈ 04:20, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. You may want to raise it at a village pump, though, as unfortunately the broader community doesn't tend to review and contribute to BRFAs. More people watch the village pumps and/or the talk pages of the relevant MoS pages. — madman 17:12, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'd suggest WT:MOS, that's where you'll probably find the most people who are interested in dashes. Jenks24 (talk) 01:02, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I left a note at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Spaced mdash and ndash vs unspaced (templated). Hazard-SJ ✈ 01:47, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Errr ... spaced em dashes are proscribed on WP. Both existing and proposed templates should be deleted. Tony (talk) 03:58, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Now that we are finally certain of that, I believe I'll change the task to replacing foo( |)?{{spaced mdash}}( |)?bar with either foo{{spaced ndash}} bar or foo{{mdash}}bar. The question is, which should be used? Also, would it be better to just use the actual character rather than the template in these replacements? The move will have to be reverted at some point. Hazard-SJ ✈ 02:01, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Neither should be used. Suggestion: we need a bot to remove all instances of these templates, replacing them with the plain –. Then we can delete the templates. Tony (talk) 03:36, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So how about my bot replacing (\b)?{{spaced mdash}}\b with \b–\b (en dash). Would that be the appropriate change? Hazard-SJ ✈ 04:31, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What about pages that use a spaced em dash as a leading bullet? You are allowed to use a spaced em dash as a leading bullet. I don't see why you'd want to convert them to spaced en dashes there. For the same reason that {{ndash}} was renamed to {{spaced ndash}} (so people would stop using {{ndash}} incorrectly as a substitute for the non-spaced HTML entity –), the {{mdash}} template should probably be renamed to something. It should only be used for a leading bullet though. So maybe {{spaced mdash bullet}} makes sense. Then people will just have to manually convert stray {{spaced mdash bullet}}s based on the context. I see no good way of automating that change, but such a long template name should make it disappear quite quickly as wikipedia pages get edited. —TedPavlic (talk/contrib/@) 05:37, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Because of the multiple problems associated, I'm considering withdrawing and letting this being done manually. Any comments before I do so? Hazard-SJ ✈ 21:34, 9 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Withdrawn by operator. I find this too risky. Hazard-SJ ✈ 03:40, 13 June 2012 (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.