Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Theo's Little Bot 27

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Withdrawn by operator.

Theo's Little Bot 27

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

Time filed: 00:03, Tuesday August 20, 2013 (UTC)

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Automatic

Programming language(s): Python

Source code available: not coded yet, will be on github

Function overview: Change all links to Hotel California to Hotel California (Eagles album), using pipes as necessary so the text visible to the reader does not change

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Talk:Hotel_California_(Eagles_album)#Requested_move, User_talk:Tariqabjotu#Hotel_California_page_move, Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Automated_help_needed_to_change_links_in_response_to_page_moves

Edit period(s): One time run

Estimated number of pages affected: 120

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): No need

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

Function details: For all pages that link to Hotel California, change the links to [[Hotel California (Eagles album)|Hotel California]] or, if the link is already piped, to [[Hotel California (Eagles album)|*previous text*]]. Fairly simple task, but should be run sooner rather than later to avoid false positives.

Discussion

Should you exclude links to "Hotel California" (with quotation marks), which would indicate it may already be correctly linked to the song article? GoingBatty (talk) 01:15, 20 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds intelligent. Good idea :) Theopolisme (talk) 01:34, 20 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes very good idea and I was going to suggest this at some point. Well done and thanks. --RacerX¹¹ Talk to me^{Stalk me} 02:17, 20 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

FYI - I've manually fixed the links outside article space (excluding talk & user pages, which we wouldn't change anyway). GoingBatty (talk) 01:47, 20 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I oppose this request to make the change to "all pages that link" without human review of every edit. The reason for the original page move that prompted this is that most people want the single, not the album, so the single was moved to the primary page Hotel California as a result of unanimous consensus being achieved on the album talk page [1]. What this implies is that many of the existing links just to Hotel California are really intended to go to the single, not the album. Making all references go to the album would be exactly the opposite of what we know people want and what the page move was intended to deliver: taking people to the single page. Here is what was originally proposed that led to this bot request: "I guess I was one of the first to suggest making the song the primary topic, but do we now have go through and change the link in every case where Hotel California was intended to point to the album, but now points to the song?"[2]. A bot cannot judge intention, only humans can. Thus this is not a suitable task for a bot. Further, there is a complete lack of discussion of this at the talk page for the Hotel California single and consensus there should be sought, particularly given the existing consensus at the album talk page that the single is the dominant meaning and the one that Hotel California should go to. Of course, there really are many links to Hotel California that are intended to go to the album. The problem is determining which those are, a task for humans, not a purely automatic bot. To consider this, I took a look at the start of the list of links to Hotel California. Here's the result of that quick check of the first few:

Electric guitar: is referring to the tour, not the album or the single.
1976: unclear which is intended, probably the album.
Billy Joel: does not appear to contain a link to either.
Paul Simon: does not appear to contain a link to either.
Olivia Newton-John: does not appear to contain a link to either.
Sand Hill Road: the single, in one of the references.
California (disambiguation): the single "Hotel California, a famous song by The Eagles"
Eagles (band): both, but the single links have the (song) suffix so it wouldn't be affected. It's also the one that is most in need of having some links changed to go to the album. I just made those edits to the ones that hadn't been updated already, one had been. I didn't change the song redirect links because if I had, this proposed bot would wrongly change them to links to the album.
Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums: pretty obvious. :)
Carole King: does not appear to contain a link to either.
Glyn Johns: does not appear to contain a link to either, does link to Eagles.
1976 in music: probably the album, is on December 8, but I don't know when the single was released, could have been the same day.
1991 in music: the album. I updated the link.
Timeline of musical events: probably the album. I changed the link.
Hotel California (Eagles album): the single, with (song) suffix. I didn't edit this because if I had, this proposed bot would wrongly change the single links to go to the album.
Grammy Award for Album of the Year: pretty obvious, I updated the link.
Songs in the Key of Life: the album, I updated the links.
List of rock and roll albums: self-evident, I updated the link.
The Long Run (album): the album, also has one link to redirect page Hotel California (album) in the Eagles template. I updated the template.
Talk:We Didn't Start the Fire: the single.

At this point it's clear enough: too many of the references to the bare Hotel California should be going to the single, not the album and automatic conversion of them all is a bad idea. Jamesday (talk) 08:00, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note that some articles have links to "Hotel California" in a navbox template. (e.g. Billy Joel has the link in Template:Grammy Award for Record of the Year 1970s.) Also note that links in italics would indicate the album (e.g. 1976 in music), but links in quotation marks would indicate the song. Looking at the articles, the album was released in December 1976, and the song was released in February 1977. I'll look at this more later. GoingBatty (talk) 15:54, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reverted incorrect addition of Hotel California to California (disambiguation). GoingBatty (talk) 16:21, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've completed this task using AWB with manual review of each edit. Based on the logic above, there were very few links I didn't change. Sand Hill Road and the redirects Welcome to the Hotel California and The Hotel California are some I didn't change. GoingBatty (talk) 01:23, 24 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for handing this, GoingBatty!

Withdrawn by operator. Theopolisme (talk) 01:24, 24 August 2013 (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.