Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/YpnBot

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.

YpnBot

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

Time filed: 02:27, Wednesday November 20, 2013 (UTC)

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Automatic

Programming language(s): Python (PyWikiBot)

Source code available: User:YpnBot/Vital article talk pages/source

Function overview: Place {{Vital article}} on talk pages of articles listed on Wikipedia:Vital articles and its subpages.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): No real discussions, but here the issue was raised, and this is a Bot Request that no one objected to. In general, adding these kinds of banners tends to be uncontroversial, but if you think prior consensus is really necessary, I guess I can open a discussion.

Edit period(s): One high-edit run, followed by occasional (weekly to monthly) subsequent runs

Estimated number of pages affected: about 10,000 on the first run, a few dozen on each subsequent run (depending on how fast discussions on WT:Vital articles etc go)

Exclusion compliant: Yes

Already has a bot flag: No

Function details: Goes through the talk pages of all article listed on Wikipedia:Vital articles (for level 3) and its subpages (for levels 1 and 2, and eleven more for level 4). If either {{Vital article}} or {{VA}} is on the talk page, it's skipped. Otherwise, {{Vital article}} is added, along with |level= |topic= and |class=, where possible.

Note: This is my first attempt at writing in Python, so go gentle :-)

Discussion

I see you've populated the level parameter, but not topic or class. Why not?Josh Parris 02:32, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Neither topic nor class can be done with precision: class for obvious reasons, and topic because the groupings of articles the WP:VA pages don't always correspond to the choice of topics. For cases where it is possible, it could be added if you want, but then the program would lose most of its simplicity ;-) – Ypnypn (talk) 03:16, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keeping your program simple isn't one of my priorities. Sorry.

You can extract Class from any existing wikiproject boxes. If there are none, obviously it's beyond a bot to determine.

Topic can be determined from which of the Wikipedia:Vital articles/Expanded/ subpages the article appears on. Josh Parris 04:08, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, the bot can now add the Class and Topic parameters. – Ypnypn (talk) 14:29, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

How are you going to avoid tagging a level 2 article as level 3, if a vandal comes in and removes the template? Josh Parris 02:59, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is only an issue if the vandalism occurs during the short time of bot's operation. Given that talk page vandalism is rare, I'm not sure if this is a major problem.

(I do intend to one day expand the functionality to correcting the templates already present, but that's for another time.) – 03:16, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree, talk vandalism is rare. The problem with bots is, everyone trusts them. It's not hard to hold a list of all the level 1, 2 and 3 articles and confirm that you're marking the article correctly.

What is "correcting the templates already present"? Josh Parris 04:08, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Making sure all pages with the template have are actually VAs and have the correct parameters. – Ypnypn (talk) 14:29, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds like an extension that you'll need, given your WikiProject's propensity to change its mind about what's vital. I encourage you to start work on that. Bear in mind you don't have to load the page text to see if the template is - or is not - on a page. You can just query the category, which is much quicker and easier on the WMF servers. Josh Parris 22:34, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Where does the bot place the template exactly in relation to other talk page templates -- notices, banners, history, etc.? — HELLKNOWZ ▎TALK 22:38, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I know the answer to that one. At the very top, because the template is vital. That's just obvious really. @Ypnypn: do you think that's an universally appropriate place? Josh Parris 22:54, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've updated the source code: the bot now puts it above any WikiProject banners if present, otherwise at the very top. – Ypnypn (talk) 23:22, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps if there are no banners, below the {{talk page header}}? — HELLKNOWZ ▎TALK 17:05, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's hypothetical, since WikiProject tags are usually added long before {{talk page header}}-style templates. Ypnypn (talk) 02:23, 25 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've been a frequent VA participant. We need this bot, but I would appreciate it if it filled in the template (with the topic from WP:VA/E and the assessment from the WikiProjects on the page) rather than just tagging it with the template. p b p 00:03, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Trial

At this point I'm inclined to proceed to a trial. Any objections? Josh Parris 22:34, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good to me. Template is already used by tons of pages and this completes the list so no consensus objections. Also no technical issue questions except one above. — HELLKNOWZ ▎TALK 22:38, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I note that the operator appears to be in good standing. Josh Parris 22:54, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Approved for trial (5 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. try not to break the Internet. You have a mechanism to ensure only five edits occur, I trust? Josh Parris 23:26, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Trial complete. Internet not broken. [1] was an error caused by a the page linked being a redirect; this was fixed in the code and reverted on the wiki. [2] [3] [4] [5] worked as expected.– Ypnypn (talk) 01:27, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, so what are you doing about redirects in the future?

[6] I expected the bot would look "computer" up in those subpages and populated Topic. When reading your code, it appears it only populates Topic for level 4 articles. There's a number of ways you can find out if a given page is linked to from another page, so I'll leave it up to you to decide how. But you'll be saving everyone a bunch of effort if YpnBot can populate this field for level 1,2 and 3s. Josh Parris 05:59, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The bot now follows redirects considers the page it leads to.

It now checks levels 2 and 3 as well. – Ypnypn (talk) 15:39, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Approved for trial (5 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. on level 1, 2 or 3 articles; nothing from level 4 at this time. Josh Parris 19:40, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Trial complete. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] – Ypnypn (talk) 00:23, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

For [12] and [13], why was that particular class chosen? Josh Parris 11:58, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It chose the highest class assigned by a WikiProject. The reason is that most articles tend to rise in class over time, so it's likely that Modernism (eg) was originally a Start-class, then a C-class, and is now a B-class, but most of the WikiProjects never updated. – Ypnypn (talk) 15:54, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've eyeballed your code and can see a problem: when you do level 3 Soybean, you're not gonna know what Topic it is, yet it's on the Wikipedia:Vital articles/Expanded/Biology and health sciences page, which presumably bubbles up to "Science" in the broad scheme of things. That doesn't seem optimal. You could load all the Expanded/xxx pages into memory and check against that as one way to figure out what Soybean is in the classification scheme. Josh Parris 12:07, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Code updated. – Ypnypn (talk) 15:54, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Third trial

Approved for trial (5 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. on Soyabean, a couple of level 1, 2 or 3 articles and a couple of level 4s. How does {{WP1.0}} relate to {{Vital article}}? Josh Parris 03:57, 25 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Trial complete. soybean [14] [15] [16] [17]. I accidentally ran the program twice, so all of these are from level-3. (I had meant to also do two from level-4.) There are no more untagged Level-1 and -2 articles.

{{WP1.0}} is a separate enterprise. It evaluates articles based on many criteria, one of which is whether it's vital. Unfortunately, that means there actually two separate, partly redundant category trees, for {{WP1.0}} and {{VA}}. In any case, I'm not familiar enough with WP:1.0 to try to reconcile them. – Ypnypn (talk) 18:17, 25 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, this is where my mind starts screaming "Stop!"

It's lovely that WikiProject V1.0 and WikiProject VA both exist. And then there's Portal:Contents/Outlines, but I think we can ignore that.

Is the article list of V1.0 a subset of VA? If not, why not - how do they differ? Josh Parris 07:18, 26 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've asked in two places; judging from the activity levels of those pages, I'm not confident about receiving a reply. Ypnypn (talk) 14:14, 26 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It appears we'll never find out. Josh Parris 07:36, 5 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The bot appears to function correctly, the operator appears to be an editor in good standing, the task has precedents and is uncontroversial. Approved. Josh Parris 07:36, 5 December 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.