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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  Approved.

QEDKbot

[edit]

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

Time filed: 17:04, Saturday, February 8, 2020 (UTC)

Function overview: Deleting and nominating empty categories under WP:CSD#C1.

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Automatic

Programming language(s): Python (mostly Pywikibot and mwAPI)

Source code available: Not yet, will release on GitHub once deployed

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): See Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/AnkitAWB 2, a previous version of this task run using AWB but tagged for deletion instead of deleting. Test runs were succesful, with one out of all nominated categories not being deleted (not due to a bot error). Advertised on WP:AN: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive317#Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/QEDKbot

Edit period(s): Twice daily (deletion), every 4 days (tagging)

Estimated number of pages affected: ~90k (<140k) (excludes hiddencats and includes all other categories with 0 members, even category redirects and possibly empty categories)

Namespace(s): Categories

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes

Adminbot (Yes/No): Yes

Function details:
General:

  • The bot will go over all categories with no members.
    • If the category does not exist, it will skip the page (this is necessary due to a lag in DB replicas).
      • If it exists, it will check that the category has 0 members.

Tagging:

  • If the category is a category redirect, it will check for backlinks.
    • If it has a talkpage and 1 backlink or if it has no talkpage and 0 backlinks, it adds the category Category:Empty categories with no backlinks, which can be assessed for CSD#G6 by other editors. A lot of these cat-redirects of these nature are implausible typos (which if in the article namespace would be eligible for R3) or meant for utility where this is none.
  • If the category is tagged with {{Db-c1}}, {{Possibly empty category}}, {{Disambiguation category}}, {{Cfd full}} (Cf* to be accurate) or its redirecting templates, it will skip the page.
  • If the category is not any of the above, it will nominate it for deletion under CSD#C1.

Deletion:

  • It will check the Category:Empty categories awaiting deletion category.
  • If the latest revision is from 7 days ago, and does not meet any above criteria (of being possibly empty or a redirect category), it will delete the page. If the category has a talk page, it will delete it under CSD#G8.

If possible, I'd like a split trial where we nominate a fixed number of categories and delete a fixed number of categories.

Discussion

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  • I'm currently the admin who deals with empty categories the most frequently (that is, every day) and UnitedStatesian is the primary editor who tags empty categories for deletion. The current system works fine and it's unclear to me how this bot would assist the daily work that we do. I don't see what problem this is solving. Does this bot conflict with BernsteinBot that is run by MZMcBride that we currently rely on? I don't know why MZMcBride is not included in this discussion or any of the editors and admins who work with categories, especially empty categories.
The primary problem we currently have is maintenance categories (normally categories organized by day) that do not appear on the Empty Category list because they are now excluded. This was a decision made by MZMcBride that I don't agree with but without this exclusion, empty categories for future dates were appearing on the list. Now, it is much more time-consuming for me and other admins to go through these maintenance categories, category by category, looking for empty categories from days that have passed. In general, we have a problem with categories tagged G6 that don't appear in deletion categories. This has been brought up on the Technical Village Pump multiple times and we've been told that WMF has been working on this issue for years but it is a low priority. if you could resolve this problem, your bot would be a welcome addition. Liz Read! Talk! 04:08, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Liz: The bot does not even edit in the same namespace as BernsteinBot, so I doubt a conflict would occur (unsure what kind of conflict you're referring to, I'm guessing the kind where they edit in the same areas)? BernsteinBot pulls a very specific set of empty categories for database reports, mine does not, it pulls all categories which have no members, checks if they exist and have no members and filters them in if they do not have any backlinks. Now, coming to deletion, the bot automatically determines when the cats were included and filters them out if they do not meet C1 criteria, that bot also automatically detects if the category meets the said C1 criteria and deletes them after an appropriate amount of time passes, every aspect is automated. This bot does not use database reports, but rather fetches all categories with 0 members via the API, this includes the maintanence categories you stated above, however if said maintanence categories are tagged with {{Pec}}, it will skip it, since that bot cannot determine if it should be a maintanence category that should exist. Now, coming to the final aspect, there is a new tracking category which is Category:Empty categories with no backlinks, this category is basically to track categories that basically have no utility and now editors can choose to trawl through them and identify categories no longer needed and tag/delete them. --qedk (t 桜 c) 10:15, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Maxim: Could you reflag this bot for purposes of testing (and because I don't want to flood RecentChanges), I requested a self-removal (with no issues), so I hope it's not an issue now. But, just for the sake of confirmation, this bot will only edit in its own userspace, so you needn't be worried about fallout. --qedk (t 桜 c) 10:22, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    QEDK, done. Maxim(talk) 13:52, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • {{BAGAssistanceNeeded}} --qedk (t 桜 c) 19:57, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the source code, "Not yet, will release on GitHub once deployed" is a bit weird.

The categories system is pretty bad overall. The quarter-assed support for category redirects is part of the problem. The distinction between a category description page existing and the category being populated is also part of the problem. The two issues are specific to MediaWiki and should be resolved there, in my opinion. The current practice of having bots auto-creating and auto-deleting maintenance (and non-maintenance) categories constantly is silly and unnecessary. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:25, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@MZMcBride: Production code is a bit different from development code and I don't want to polish it until it's up for trial, most of the what will happen in the trial can be seen at the logs: User:QEDKbot/Catlog, User:QEDKbot/Deletion catlog. I honestly do not know if WMF will fix anything, so this bot is the best I've got. --qedk (t 桜 c) 08:33, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@QEDK: Please begin the log summaries per the standard conventions, like:
[[WP:CSD#G8|G8]]: Talk page of a deleted page ...
to aid scripts often used to parse deletion logs for generating statistics. Also, this bot has performed a lot more than 20 deletions that it was approved for. SD0001 (talk) 18:12, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@SD0001: 20 deletions don't include talk pages of categories, it's the "category deletion" mandate that is being tested, the G8 is merely consequential, as for the number of categories, the bot seems to have performed 21, which is one page above the limit (is that an issue?). And as for the edit summary bit, I will update it on the next run. --qedk (t 愛 c) 21:34, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the clarification. I don't think 1 page above the limit is an issue (though I'm no BAG).
As an enhancement, I'm wondering whether you can also handle monthly maintenance category deletions (probably with a separate BRFA)? Such cats (example Category:Articles_with_dead_external_links_from_October_2010) are automatically G6-nominated by the template when the category is empty. But presently, deletion has to be done by human admins, even though it is a purely mechanical task. SD0001 (talk) 05:07, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@SD0001: I can do it sure, but I don't understand the entire procedure, could you point me to the template and the category where it gets put after that nomination so I can take a look, thanks! --qedk (t 愛 c) 15:20, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Anomie didn't you work on automatically deleting DMCs? I found User:AnomieBOT/source/tasks/DatedCategoryDeleterTest.pm. ‑‑Trialpears (talk) 17:41, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Trialpears: I ran a logging-only task to see if it seemed worthwhile to have AnomieBOT III do those deletions. But (at the time anyway) human admins were getting to them rapidly enough that it didn't seem worth seeking approval. Anomie⚔ 21:18, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, good to know! Perhaps your code will come in handy here then.

Update: following a discussion, specifically this subsection, the bot task has been amended to specify the bot's approved tasks:

  • Tag empty categories with {{db-c1}} if they meet the following criteria:
    • not a category redirect
    • does not have an "exclusion template", such as {{pec}}, as described in the original discussion
    • is not a WikiProject assessment category or other valid maintenance category determined to be potentially empty and not yet exempted via the previous point
  • Delete empty categories tagged with {{db-c1}} that meet the criteria described in the original discussion

The bot has also been rate-limited to no more than 100 {{db-c1}} taggings in a week initially to avoid flooding the C1 category.

Significant concerns about the running of this bot task should be directed to WP:BOTN following the normal procedures. Updates and amendments to this updated task will be indicated here. Primefac (talk) 17:48, 28 August 2020 (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.
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