Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/UsbBot

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

Request Expired.

UsbBot

Operator: Usb10 (talk · contribs)

Time filed: 00:08, Friday December 17, 2010 (UTC)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): pyWikipedia

Source code available: yes

Function overview: Adds a references section with a <references/> tag to articles with inline citations but no references section. similar to task done by the former bot Mobius Bot

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): N/A as this is a task similar to another bot

Edit period(s): continuous

Estimated number of pages affected:

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Y

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): N

Function details: Uses the pyWikipedia script noreferences.py to search for pages with in-line citations but no references section and adds a references section with the references tag to the page. I am going to use to use the -xml option so that it only runs over small XML dumps instead of the entire article namespace.

Discussion

a better solution would be to just use Category:Pages with missing references list and limit that to -namespace:0 ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 00:10, 17 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Are you aware of the discussion at WP:VPR#Recommending columns in reference lists longer than 20 entries, that may end up affecting how this bot would work? Anomie ⚔ 03:30, 17 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You should also be careful about a common cause for missing {{Reflist}} or <references/>. IMHO it appears that most of them are caused by some bad tag closing (usually a missing </ref>). You maybe should also pay attention to this tag : (Tag: references removed) in the history page. This tag denoting that the references section has been dropped or more probably has been made ineffective (see edit made on 17 December by ip address 193.1.104.2 Fti74 (talk) 15:22, 17 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fti74, the noreferences script in pyWikipedia automatically checks to see if the last edit was an IP edit and if so skips the article as the page as probably been vandalized, so that should fix that. ∆, about the Category:Pages with missing references list, that is a better idea but the part that I wonder is that it says the -start and then the category name says that it iterates over every category starting at the category name you put in, which obviously is not going to make that work, and I don't see any other way to do it (they probably is a way, however, that the documentation didn't talk to much about 0_0). Do you know of a way? Usb10 ^Connected? 00:10, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

that would be -cat: not -start:. ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 00:14, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, ∆. Anomie, about this discussion, I understand how they want everybody to set the number of columns to a certain number depending on the number of refs and I do know how this will affect the bot. At this point, since they have established no consensus, it will be okay to run the bot for now, but if they do find a magic rule for columns I will change the script. Usb10 ^Connected? 00:32, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The status quo on columns is 1, i.e., un-specified and set to default value 1. The RfC is mostly on how to use it when using it. This shouldn't stop us adding reference tags because an RfC is about one of it's parameters, not the adding of the tag. Besides, most untagged article won't have enough references anyway to worry about columns.

A more important question is how the bot handles problem cases, which I suspect is where the majority of these articles come from. Like <refrences> <reflist/> <references>/ or whatever other cases one could mistype/misuse. And does the bot respect sections (including misused titles) that should come after references section? — HELLKNOWZ ▎TALK 13:20, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The bot does respect sections and knows that the references section should come before the interwiki links and the categories and below any PersonData and stuff like that. However, it does not look for typos like that, but I do think if it sees the references section itself it skips it, so if the references tag was misspelled but there was a references or notes section then it would skip it. Usb10 ^Connected?

Does it respect navigational templates and ==External links== and ==Further reading== sections that come after ==References==? — HELLKNOWZ ▎TALK 11:57, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Usb10 ^Connected? 00:01, 25 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Approved for trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. — HELLKNOWZ ▎TALK 10:11, 25 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

{{BAGAssistanceNeeded}} Do deleted edits count towards the fifty trial edits? If so, then I have completed the trial. Usb10 ^Connected? 01:01, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Issues noted with the trial:

[1] - The ref was incorrectly placed in the reference section, and the bot put the tag above the reference, which means it didn't actually fix the problem. Ideally it would convert the improperly placed reference into a plain link, but it should at least make sure the tag is below all refs.
[2] The page already had a references section under a different name
[3] Same as above
[4] Like the first one
[5] Again

Also, you should probably put a blank line between the section header and the text above it when you add the section. Mr.Z-man 05:06, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I will take that as a

Trial complete. Going to go ahead and fix the problems Mr. Z-man described above. Usb10 ^{plug me in} 01:01, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

{{BAGAssistanceNeeded}} The problems should be fixed now. Could somebody approve this for extended trial? Thanks. Usb10 ^{plug me in} 00:44, 13 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Approved for extended trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. — HELLKNOWZ ▎TALK 10:46, 13 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} Any progress? Anomie ⚔ 16:58, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, just fixing some bugs. I have been on a bit of a long break, so I didn't get a chance to fix it fully yet. Usb10 ^{plug me in} 23:47, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A user has requested the attention of the operator. Once the operator has seen this message and replied, please deactivate this tag. (user notified) Almost ready? Mr.Z-man 00:27, 12 March 2011 (UTC) A user has requested the attention of the operator. Once the operator has seen this message and replied, please deactivate this tag. (user notified) Anything? MBisanz ^talk 04:18, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(Non-administrator comment) Most recent edit of the bot operator in question was in February. --43?9enter ^★_☭ 05:13, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Request Expired. MBisanz ^talk 02:03, 9 May 2011 (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.