Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/RefSpaceBot

The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. The result of the discussion was

Denied.

RefSpaceBot

Operator: J Milburn (talk)

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic

Programming Language(s): AWB

Function Summary: Per our guidelines on citations, cites should look like this-

Fact.<ref>cite</ref>

Rather than-

Fact. <ref>cite</ref>

This bot is simply meant to remove the spaces in front of citations, while also applying general fixes (although I'm happy to drop the general fixes element if it is deemed that general fixes require a human to check them).

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): Whenever I turn it on- probably quite a lot over the next few weeks.

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): No, though I can run it through my existing bot- J Milburn Bot (talk · contribs)- if that would be preferred. However, as this bot would probably only ever have this one task, I thought a descriptive name would be better.

Function Details: The bot would be just using AWB's find-and-replace to find " <ref" and replace with "<ref", as well as having them with several spaces. "<ref" is useful as it picks up both "<ref>" and "<ref=". The general fixes options I would have ticked would be autotag, general fixes and unicodify, though I would be skipping any articles where a find-and-replace change was not made, so that the bot could focus on its main purpose. I have been doing this for a little while manually through my main account and have not come across any false-positives, and would be running through categories pretty much at random to find articles to edit.

Discussion

I oppose a bot going through with AWB's Autofixes applied. Autofixes were designed for a human to review every edit. Not for it to run automatically. I also don't see how a bot that does nothing but change a single space is useful. While the guidelines may say that the ref tag is supposed to come directly after a period it doesn't do any harm to have a space there and I don't see the need to make thousands of edits just to change whitespace (I'm pretty sure that is mentionged in Wikipedia:BOT). --Nn123645 (talk) 17:14, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I personally think the spaces before references make articles look very unprofessional and sometimes difficult to read- I always change them if I see them. Obviously, I respect your thoughts. J Milburn (talk) 18:10, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Again, i don't see how it is useful. Maybe it could be added to AWB general fixes? -- maelgwn - talk 03:44, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have to side with the two comments above. A bot that changes a single space is a serious waste of resources. I'm sure brion or tim would agree. Q ^{T C} 03:46, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree, reference formatting is something effects the appearance of articles, which is more than most bots that get approved. With that said, this bot isn't doing all possible reference formatting which is a waste of edits and running with a bot with general fixes is a Bad Idea. BJ^Talk 06:25, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to work on a bot that would move punctuation to before references, but the relevant guideline actually says that both [fact][punct][ref] and [fact][ref][punct] are acceptable, as some publications do actually use the latter method. I would support the idea of adding the space fixing to AWB general fixes- that didn't occur to me. J Milburn (talk) 10:27, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think this may be getting into "more than AWB can handle" territory but if the bot could count the usage of both styles and only change it to [fact][punct][ref] if [fact][ref][punct] isn't being used consistently. BJ^Talk 20:06, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think I would be able to do that, but I would very much support a bot that could- inconsistent referencing like that bugs me. J Milburn (talk) 20:36, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

AWB's documentation specifically warns against making changes that cause confusing diffs or are very minor changes. This bot task could probably be linked as an example of such behavior. If the bot is concurrently making other productive edits, it's fine. But to only change whitespace is patently absurd. I would recommend putting this into AWB's general fixes (though I imagine it already is) and denying this bot task. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:51, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Denied. Consensus is ref formatting should be added to AWB, I'll nudge Reedy. BJ^Talk 05:02, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.