Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 20

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Redirect bot

Sorry if something like this has already been proposed...

I was wondering if anyone would be interested in making a bot that made redirects to articles that contain capital letters (other than the first letter) or punctuation. The bot would see Xena: Warrior Princess, and automatically make a redirect at Xena warrior princess, Xena: warrior princess, Xena: Warrior princess, etc. Obviously it would only create a redirect where no article currently exists. It could also do the same for currently existing redirects. For example, based on AAFCO, it would make Aafco, which would redirect to the original target (in this case Association of American Feed Control Officials.)

As I do most of my Wikipedia reading on my phone, I go to most articles by typing in the URL. My phone autocompletes the en. URL, and I just edit that last part, which is by far the easiest way for me to access Wikipedia.

I seriously doubt that I am the only one who assumes URLs, and since this bot wouldn't change anything on existing articles, I don't see any potential drawbacks. If, for whatever reason, the redirect is not logical, it can always be changed later by a human editor. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 05:33, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

One potential drawback is the potential for creation of unnecessary redirects that reflect simple mistakes (e.g. typing errors) in article creation or pagemoves, pagemove vandalism, or pagemove disputes. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 05:41, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I certainly agree, it will likely create many unnecessary or unlikely redirects anyways, but I would think the useful ones would heavily outweigh the silly ones. And again, as these would be in unused space anyways a few extra redirects couldn't really hurt. It could also not create a redirect if an article has already been deleted in that same space. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 05:47, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

The search engine already takes care of insensitivity issue (example) so creating a bot to do the same thing seems a bit unnecessary. — Dispenser 17:49, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

DashBot

Could someone create a bot to replace hyphens in numerical ranges with en dashes? I'm too lazy to use the right one myself and people keep hounding me. A bot could easily take care of this. Any takers? --Adoniscik^{(t, c)} 02:19, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Conveniently, the script I wrote to take care of the request immediately above this one could be modified to do this easily. (It also could have been modified to use en dashes instead of hyphens for those articles in the first place had anyone told me, but that's besides the point.) Of course, since it will probably be a much larger bunch of articles (given the innate laziness of people when it comes to naming things properly), I'm not going to want to semi it, and will have to run it through BRFA. I'm going to class now, I'll put the BRFA up when I get back. Hopefully it won't end up taking a week for approval.--Dycedarg ж 18:44, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

To clarify, as it seems I misread the request a bit, I am planning on doing this for numerical ranges that appear in page titles, not numerical ranges that appear in article text. As that is a relatively minor issue, you'd probably do better to ask the operator of SmackBot or some other bot that propagates general fixes to add this, or perhaps get the maintainers of AWB to add it to the general fixes for that.--Dycedarg ж 22:06, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

BRFA is up.--Dycedarg ж 00:04, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I think this is actually subtle. For example ISBNs we don't want to insert en-dashes. Rich Farmbrough, 13:03 29 April 2008 (GMT).

Do you know of any Wikipedia articles on specific IBSN numbers? Happy‑melon 10:49, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

It would be a great thing if these hyphens could be changed to en dashes, as this is a problem in, I daresay, hundreds of articles. However, I believe that some kind of list should be made of the articles, so that the WikiProjects responsible can take notice; the change of the titles should be a good opportunity for the correction of any relevant templates, as well as instances in the text.

I should also like to mention that it is not just date ranges which are problematic. All the tens of articles about bilateral relations should have an en dash; if one of the two parties has a space in its name, then the en dash should be spaced as well. Examples: Canada–Greece relations and Canada – United States relations. This is a wide and pretty much standardised category (x-y relations), so this could perhaps be taken care of automatically as well. Waltham, The Duke of 19:58, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Date ranges were just the first run. In the future, I had every intention of fixing every single instance hyphens are used in place of en dashes in page titles that I could find. I just haven't figured out every type of article name that falls under that little paragraph in the MOS. I intend to ask advice of some people more knowledgeable about these things than I am when I run out of things I can find on my own. Also, if you want me to compile a list of the articles I change and put it somewhere I could, but I'm not going to have enough time to notify wikiprojects (due to the sheer number of them that are affected) on my own. (Oh and by the way, it's not hundreds of articles. It's thousands. There are almost 7000 articles with hyphens in date ranges alone.)--Dycedarg ж 19:45, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Following up on Rich Farmbrough's comment about ISBNs: the usage of en dashes will break the ISBN magic for all ISBNS included in book references which are properly hyphenated. Notice that one of the following ISBNs is not highlighted in blue: ISBN 0-123456-789, ISBN 0–123456–789. The second ISBN is punctuated with en dashes rather than hyphens. Don't do this change! Also think about whether it will modify URLs. EdJohnston (talk) 18:05, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Can we please try to remember that this bot is only working with page titles? Concerns like the ones above, legitimate though they would be if the conversions were applied to page text, are not relevant to this proposal. Happy‑melon 15:59, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, Happy-melon, the original proposal was for this fix to be done in general, not just it titles. I'm specifically dealing with article titles, and any concerns relating to that part of the proposal would be more appropriately expressed on my BRFA. Concerns relating to this replacement being performed in the main text are appropriately expressed here as anyone intending to deal with the rest of the request would do well to take them into account.--Dycedarg ж 18:19, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

And more generally: don't deploy a bot to enforce recommendations in WP:MoS without discussion on WT:MoS first, please. There are likely to be subtleties that are not discussed in WP:MoS, and guidelines are not policy, and changing things when editors are not warned and informed of the changes is likely to result in broken code and confusing failed searches. See WT:MoS#Bot is being developed to convert hyphens to en-dashes for discussion. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:14, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Bot to remove sections from Template:Infobox actor

Currently, Template:Infobox actor is fairly widespread in its usage. Several fields (i.e. "notable roles") have been deleted from the template page, but a very large number of individual infoboxes out there still contain them (i.e. because of their deletion from the template itself, they don't appear on the article itself, but are still there in the coding/html). I don't know if this is the right place to ask, but can a bot be programmed to remove the fields "notable roles", "notable role", "influences", "influenced", "height", "baconnum", "imdb_id", "bgcolour", "children", "parents", "relatives", "restingplace", "restingplace_coordinates", "deathcause" and "nationality" (all of which have long been deleted from the template itself) and replace the field "partner" with "domesticpartner" and the field "location" with "birthplace"? Thanks, All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 05:01, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

It would certainly be very easy to convert the two parameters which have been renamed, but why is it necessary to remove the (now) unused parameters? If the code no longer appears in the template or documentation, then the parameters themselves are completely harmless, and removing them would be a waste of resources. Happy‑melon 18:15, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I suppose. But where, so to speak, can I get a bot to convert the two parameters? All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 18:53, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I've added a maintenance category to {{Infobox actor}} to identify the instances which use these two parameters; and I'm getting a bit worried. Category:Infobox actor templates needing updating currently contains over 4,000 articles, and is growing all the time. That indicates that at least 20% of all instances of {{Infobox actor}} will need updating. Given that the functionality of the infobox is not adversely affected by having these duplicate parameters, are you sure this is really necessary? Happy‑melon 11:29, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

It's now up to 8,000 articles, which is 40% of the total. Once again, how necessary is this change? Happy‑melon 16:00, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

If they aren't using the correct parameters at all (and my random clicking in your category seems to indicate that they aren't), then the information isn't showing up, which is a real problem. They aren't duplicate fields, they're misnamed fields, and in my opinion should be fixed. The rate at which the number is increasing indicates that current users of the infobox are not paying attention to the fact that the parameters have changed, replacing them all could have the effect of alerting people, or at least making it easier to identify who needs to be notified by other means. Doesn't someone have an approved find and replace bot that could do this quickly? In the grand scheme of things, 8000 articles isn't exactly a particularly large number. I'd do it myself if I wasn't already running a bot through a BRFA that's turned relatively annoying.--Dycedarg ж 03:36, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

The |location= field is a duplicate of the |birthplace= field - the two are coupled together in the code; so when people use that field, it displays correctly under "birthplace". The |partner= field is unused, so any data passed to that parameter won't be displayed. My concern is not that it's 8,000 articles (actually 9,000 now), but that that represents 45% of the total. Happy‑melon 08:47, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh. Next time I'll read the template code more carefully before commenting. Considering that, I agree that this is not exactly of pressing importance.--Dycedarg ж 18:10, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

CSV/PRN conversion to Wikitable bot?

Hi. Are there any handy-dandy ways to convert tables in CSV or PRN (comma or tab-separated) into wikitable formatting? Also can Wikitables do any calculations, i.e. percentages? Reason I'm asking is complex census data on a large number of topics/towns. Pls reply on my talkpageSkookum1 (talk) 19:41, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

A couple of possibilities are listed at WP:EIW#Table. Regarding the second question, see Help:Calculation. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:45, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Internal Link Updating

Is there a bot that can go through and automatically update all links to an article if the article has been renamed? I.E. such as changing all instances of Tessaiga to Tetsusaiga? Collectonian (talk) 00:33, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Redirect#Do not "fix" links to redirects that are not broken. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:38, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, though that doesn't quite apply in this case as this was a case of straight name fixing and consensus to only use Tetsusaiga throughout all articles. One reason I'm curious is because Tetsusaiga is now tagged for merge, which would mean future double redirects, but someone already fixed them all, so guess its moot now. :P Collectonian (talk) 00:49, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Tagging PDFs

Images uploaded in the PDF format cannot be displayed in articles, and as a result the vast majority of PDFs hosted here need to be converted into another image format, converted into plain text into an article, or (if the PDF is unencyclopedic) tranwikied or deleted. The template {{BadPDF}} was created to notify people about this problem, but the vast majority of PDF files aren't tagged with it. If a bot could be programmed to add this template to all PDF files we currently have it would be great for people trying to fix this problem. There's an external tool here which can give a list of PDFs - there's about 1500. Hut 8.5 19:48, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

How would we know it's a 'bad PDF'? You would need to show some sort of consensus first also. CWii_{(Talk|Contribs)} 22:12, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

As PDFs can not be embedded in articles, and are thus unusable as either images or text, I believe the point is that all PDFs count as "bad". The name of the template is rather misleading in that regard.--Dycedarg ж 23:43, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I also agree that this isn't a very good idea, If you look through the list many of the pdf's are long reports and things containing many pages. To turn them into .png's would just be confusing. ·Add§hore· ^Talk/_Cont 07:50, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

The template does note that the PDF could be converted to plain text, moved to Wikisource or deleted rather than turned into a PNG. The template can always be renamed. There have been discussions here and here on what to do with PDFs. Hut 8.5 17:08, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Note, I decided to change it to just {{BadFormat}}, noting that it's text in a image or non-image format that could be expressed as plain text, and that can be done with more than just PDF. ViperSnake151 17:34, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

 Doing... I have a brfa up for this at the moment. ·Add§hore· ^Talk/_Cont 16:09, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Feasability question

This question is more or less related to Wikipedia:Highly Active Users. Would there be any way to arrange a "this user is online/offline" template an editor could put on presumably their user page which could automatically be adjusted when a user logged on, possibly with an accompanying category? Also, would it be possible, perhaps, for that same bot to indicate the activity status of the user in question on the above page? I know it's a complicated question, but it might be useful in the future. John Carter (talk) 01:31, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

See User:StatusBot. It's inactive at the moment, but there's a duplicate available, and Soxred93 is trialing a clone. Happy‑melon 18:10, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Tagging images that need to be non-freed

Per this page at Commons, a bunch of images have been identified as copyright of Library and Archives Canada. LAC allows use of these images but they can't be hosted at Commons. This means they will need to be uploaded to each wiki where they're used and given FUR's (if I understand this correctly).

There are two areas where a bot could help:

1. Upload the images to each affected wiki with their current contents. Not sure how GFDL works vis-a-vis the original uploader, I guess they would need a back-credit to the (soon-to-be-deleted) commons image. And in the case of en:wiki at least, they would need a modified {{KeepLocal}} so some other bot wouldn't detect the dupe and remove them.
2. Deliver notices to the affected articles on each wiki so people there would know that uploads and appropriate rationales are needed. Ideally these would be in the appropriate language, but asking for an image-skilled, multi-wiki botop who also knows 20 languages might be pushing it a little far :)
3. And in the case of en:wiki, the article notices wouldn't be required if the images were uploaded by bot, since we already have such effective mechanisms for requesting article FUR's.

The image list is here and I am still working on getting the exact usage info. These are all historical and valuable images, it would be a shame to see them just vanish from so many places, any help is appreciated. Thanks! Franamax (talk) 19:31, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Please note that they can only be uploaded to wiki's with an Exemption Doctrine Policy. --Erwin85 (talk) 21:36, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that link! That will help me narrow down the list, in the event that someone steps forward. In any case, it's one for the bookmark section. Franamax (talk) 23:35, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Note to potential attendees of a Wikipedia meetup

Looking for someone to run a bot to deliver the following note:

As someone who may live or work near Washington D.C., you may be interested - if you've not heard already - about the meetup scheduled for Saturday, May 17th, at Union Station. For details, please see Wikipedia:Meetup/DC 4.

And deliver it to editors listed in the following categories:

• Category:Wikipedians in the District of Columbia

• Category:Wikipedians in Maryland

• Category:Wikipedians in Virginia

Thanks! -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:31, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

 Doing... I have a BRFA up for this at the moment. ·Add§hore· ^Talk/_Cont 16:09, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I can also help out with this, I'm already approved for this type of task. Me and Addshore have agreed to go 50/50 on this task. Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 16:13, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

If you want to split it three ways (since there's three categories), MelonBot can do this too. Let me know if you'd like to share :D. Happy‑melon 18:09, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

You shouldn't really do it by the cat's as there could be the same user in all 3 meaning he would get 3 messages. If I get any reply at all to this then i would be happy to do a 3 way split. Otherwise ill make the 2 lists for you two soon (today/tommorw) ·Add§hore· ^Talk/_Cont 06:29, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

There probably is a certain amount of overlap, but I don't think it's a big deal if 10% of editors get two notes, and a couple get three - this is a one-time thing. I'll be happy to personally apologize if anyone does get upset. What I don't want to do is to have the process slowed down - a week advance notice about an event is cutting things about as close as possible without being totally pointless. (My fault, true, but that's where things are.) So yes, if it's easy to remove the duplication, please do so, but if it takes much work or will delay things, let's just get it done. (Thanks.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 17:43, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

 Doing... Category:Wikipedians in Virginia - seems this request is fairly time-critical. Have code to test for prior instances of the exact text above, so will try and avoid duplicates. Happy‑melon 18:06, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done Category:Wikipedians in Virginia,  Doing... Category:Wikipedians in Maryland. Happy‑melon 18:16, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done Category:Wikipedians in Maryland. How desperate are you to get your share? Because I'm on a roll now :D Happy‑melon 19:05, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Well i had made some lists to go by to make sure noone gets the message twice but i guess thats pointless now. Lists I guess you might as well do them all now... ·Add§hore· ^Talk/_Cont 21:17, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Infact  Doing... i will do Category:Wikipedians in the District of Columbia now as i have 150 trial edits. ·Add§hore· ^Talk/_Cont 21:42, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done That should now be everyone in all of the cats done now. Glad we could help. ·Add§hore· ^Talk/_Cont 21:49, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks muchly! -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:09, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Reference formatting

Would it be possible to use a bot to change the references in such articles as Genomic_imprinting to the inline style, which allows easy flipping between the text and the references. ----Seans Potato Business 15:50, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Not when the MoS, and a past ArbCom ruling, explicitly prohibit unilaterally changing from one reference format to another without prior consensus. For just one article, you would get a better, faster and more accurate result if you did it by hand. Happy‑melon 17:26, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Newsletter delivery Bot needed - Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels

Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Outreach/Newsletter May 2008 needs delivery to all members ASAP. Please see also Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Outreach#Newsletter for options on delivery.

Delivery to all user talk pages on Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels/Members, see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels/Outreach#Instructions. Please contact if something remains unclear. feydey (talk) 20:31, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I got this. β^_command 22:44, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done β^_command 22:51, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

It seems You missed some people again, see User_talk:Feydey#Novels WikiProject Newsletter. Could You please double check Your delivery settings, that it includes all the 280 members from Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Members? Also please add a heading when delivering, like: "The Novels WikiProject Newsletter - Issue XXIII - April 2008" (see here). feydey (talk) 05:49, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

If you would like me to finish the task, I can, my bot is approved to do that task. Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 05:53, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

You are welcome to complete the delivery, if You can figure how and why some members (like User talk:John Carter) got no delivery, while they are on the Members list. feydey (talk) 06:00, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Can I get a list of people who have already received the newsletter? It's a relatively simple delivery to do. Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 06:05, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

 Note: I'll need some clarification on the instructions, there is a list of people who want the newsletter, some who want a link, and some who don't want it at all, is that right? I'll need some clarification here before I can do the task. Thanks. Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 06:25, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

That's right. Delivery to all user talk pages on Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels/Members (By default, we will provide a link to the current issue of the newsletter on your talk page when it comes out) except no delivery to these - Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels/Outreach#No delivery and full contents to these Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels/Outreach#Full contents and also just a link to these - Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels/Outreach#Link Only. Bcommand was unable to deliver to the people on the main list: Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Members (remember to deliver also to the Inactive members), so if You could just do that list (279 + 112 people)? See User_talk:Feydey#The Novels WikiProject Newsletter - Issue XXI - February 2008 for a previous delivery example. Many thanks, feydey (talk) 06:42, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I have a bit of an error, when I check using AWB, there are only 387 members on the member list. What would you like me to do about those who have received a newsletter already? Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 06:46, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

If possible do not deliver to those who have received a newsletter already (I'd guess double posting is not that bad in this case). I hope You took the members list and removed the "no delivery" people - Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels/Outreach#No delivery. Then start delivery of the May newsletter link. feydey (talk) 06:54, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks like the delivery is running smoothly. Thanks, feydey (talk) 08:18, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done All newsletters and links sent. I've saved the config file for these too, so I can deliver these in future. Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 08:34, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Genetics invitation

Could someone make a bot to post an invitation on the talk pages of Wikipedians interested in genetics? Liveste has created a nice invite template here that I think is appropriate: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Genetics/Invite. Thanks! Madeleine ✉ ✍ 14:49, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

 Doing... ·Add§hore· ^Talk/_Cont 15:21, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done ·Add§hore· ^Talk/_Cont 15:35, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Put value from redirect into infobox

• check all redirects from Category:Redirects from UN/LOCODE whether they point to a page that has a Template:Infobox Settlement.
• if yes: put the 5 char value into the Infobox.

e.g. for the redirect UN/LOCODE:USNYC put in template the variable and value like this:
|un_locode = USNYC

UnLoCode (talk) 19:15, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Template:Reqphotoin

Template:Reqphotoin is used as, for example, {{Reqphotoin|France}} to populate Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in France. {{Reqphoto}} has an "in=" parameter that replaces the function of Template:Reqphotoin. Now, such requests are made as {{Reqphoto|in=France}} to populate Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in France. Could you please have a bot change the Reqphotoin tags listed here with Reqphoto? Basically, for example, {{Reqphotoin|France}}, {{Reqphotoin|San Francisco County, California}}, {{Reqphotoin|England|Germany|France}} would be changed by the bot to read {{Reqphoto|in=France}}, {{Reqphoto|in=San Francisco County, California}}, {{Reqphoto|in=England|in2=Germany|in3=France}}. Let's start with the simple situations and hope that takes care of most of the tags. Please change the tags that appear (1) exactly as {{Reqphotoin}} to {{Reqphoto}}, (2) exactly as {{Reqphotoin|}} to {{Reqphoto|in=}}. (3) For those having the pattern of a single location request, such as {{Reqphotoin|France}} and {{Reqphotoin|San Francisco County, California}}, please change them to {{Reqphoto|in=France}} and {{Reqphoto|in=San Francisco County, California}}. For now, skip the Reqphotoin templates having small=yes, those having two or more location requests (e.g. {{Reqphotoin|England|Germany|France}}), and those Reqphotoin tags using the not-so-well working "of" parameter. GregManninLB (talk) 06:19, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

um, why? -- maelgwn - talk 12:45, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Template documentation bot

In my travels, I've noticed that there's a lot of infobox templates that have been created, but are hardly being used because they're so damn difficult to incorporate into an article. For instance, look at the current version of Infobox Dancer, compared to this old version. In the current version, there's some sample code that can be easily copy and pasted into an article, in the former you have to poke around the template code just to figure out what the fields are, as the main Template page only shows the compulsory fields. As a result, noone bothers. It would be great if someone could just send a bot round the infobox templates, just parsing out all the fields (within {{{ }}} brackets) in the template, deduplicating them, then writing them to a /doc page and transcluding it with {{template doc}}. A phase II version might be to layout subheadings where humans could fill in explanations of what the fields mean - {{Infobox Person}} and others do it with a table, {{Infobox Rugby Union biography}} does it with a straight list, I quite like the way {{Infobox Company}} does it with semi-headings. Is there a style guide for template pages? One thing that would be nice would be a demonstration of image format - it's never obvious whether you should use [[Image:image.jpg]] or [[Image:image.jpg|150px]] or just image.jpg, and if you used Image:Replace this image male.svg or Image:Replace this image butterfly.png in the sample code it would have the extra benefit of encouraging casual users to contribute images to Wikipedia. Plus infoboxes just look more "infoboxey" if they have an image, even a dummy image. I'm way too busy to do anything about this myself at the moment, but thought it might make a nice little project for someone? FlagSteward (talk) 14:48, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Archive bot for Wikipedia:Editor review

There are two parts to archiving an editor review, and the order in which they are done is inconsequential.

1. Link to the editor review page in Wikipedia:Editor review/Archive.
2. Untransclude the editor review from the main editor review page.

Previously I have done both tasks myself. I've stopped doing it, and it's apparent that nobody else wants to do it either.

There are a couple of possibilities. One way is to place archive templates, which have not yet been created for this specific purpose, on an expired editor review page. Then a bot sees the archive templates and untranscludes the page and links to it in an archive list. This is similar to the process at Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets. It may be necessary in this scenario to switch to a "by month" format instead of the current "by username" format.

Another way is to have the bot automatically add a link to the archive in Wikipedia:Editor review/Archive as soon as the request is filed, or at a designated time thereafter, e.g. if the bot runs once a week. Then a human untranscludes the editor review page at his or her discretion. This might be better because it's a less drastic change from the current system.

I don't know whether bots can be programmed to archive pages based on the alphabetical order of a subpage title. In other words, will a bot know how to sort Wikipedia:Editor review/WikiMan53 before Wikipedia:Editor review/WikipedianProlific just based on the fact that M comes before p? If yes, that's probably what I want. If not, switching to archiving based on month of the request will preserve some archiving system without requiring undue human intervention. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 18:30, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

either way is doable it is possible to maintain the current method and if you want even archive by last edit timestamp, then sort them to the archive page. β^{_{command 2}} 18:40, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Betacommand. Right now the archive actually uses the first edit timestamp, i.e. when was the page created. I would think you could program that just as easily as the last edit timestamp. Hold off for now while I ask a couple of my friends if they think this is a good idea. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 03:48, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd agree with Shalom, preferring alphabetical order but eschewing it if it's easier to program chronologically. I don't know a lot about programming (only a rudimentary knowledge of TI-BASIC), so it would be up to the programmer. bibliomaniac15 03:56, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I would prefer alphabetical but that doesn't really matter to me. What I do think is important, though, is that the reviews that get archived have a decent amount of reviewing; frequently I won't archive an old review if it only has a few lines. Of course the bot won't be able to tell when someone's gotten a lengthy review but it's all total crap, but having the bot will probably be worth it, and at least a length requirement would be a start. Would this be difficult? delldot talk 05:40, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

you tell me what you want and how, I can normally do it. β^_command 22:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

(Unindent) I think the best way to do this is to create an archive template for editor reviews. That way, a human decides that the page should be archived, and the bot takes care of the rest - same as with WP:SSP. If someone wants me to modify one of the existing archive templates, I'll give it a try. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 02:30, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Replace IrelandProj with WkiProject Ireland

Please could someone replace all instances on article talk pages of {{Irelandproj}} with {{WikiProject Ireland}}. No parameters should be added or changed or removed, just a straightforward replace one template name with another on about 700 pages.

{{Irelandproj}} is a redirect to {{WikiProject Ireland}}, and it was used for tagging at a time when for some reason it existed as a near-clone; I redirected it some time last year.

I know that in general there is no need to bypass redirects, and that the practice is deprecated, However, this redirect is causing problems for WikiProject Ireland's article assessment drive. Several of us are using the User:Outriggr/metadatatest.js script, which not only allows rapid applications of assessment tags, it also displays on the article page the existing assessment, e.g. "Start/Low" or "GA/Mid". Unfortunately, the script doesn't parse redirects, so if it encounters the IrelandProj template it reports that the article has not been assessed using {{WikiProject Ireland}}. The wastes assesors time in adding a duplicate assessment, only to find that it was un-needed.

There replacement is a simple regex, and I would set by BHGbot to do it AWB except that my windows PC is ill, so I have no AWB.

This change has been discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ireland/Assessment#IrelandProj_template, where there is a consensus for the change. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:14, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

My bot can handle that task. So, it's a simple find/replace, no? Also, I'll need the category to find the templates from, or I could do a What links here search in AWB, but a category would help. Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 09:50, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

No need to clarify. I've taken a look, should be a relatively simple task. Will take about 20 minutes for me to get started, then an hour or so to replace all the tags, depending on the talk page size. That OK with you? Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 09:53, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

 Doing... Will need to fix up the redirects, my bot is changing the transclusions. Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 11:32, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Stuck. Having some issues replacing the class and importance bits, needs something with a regex, but I'm stuck on to what that is. Let me know, and I can do it with no issues (feels stupid) Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 11:40, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi steve, Thanks very much for doing this. As I think you guessed, the list is Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Irelandproj, filtered to include only article talk pages.

I think that the regex can be quite simple: s/\{\{Irelandproj/{{WikiProject Ireland/

Does that help? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:06, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, well, I'm trying to do a find/replace version, I was thinking something along the lines of find {{Irelandproj}} replace with {{Wikiproject Ireland}}, but needs a regex, so something like {{Irelandproj|class=|importance=}} replaces with {{Wikiproject Ireland|class=|importance=}}, but to keep the =class and =importance bit in. That bit needs a regex. I get kinda stuck when it comes to regexes. Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 14:21, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

you guys are thinking too much, just find {{Irelandproj and replace it with >{{Wikiproject Ireland make it case insemsitive and non-regex. β^{_{command 2}} 14:38, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Isn't that what I suggested above? You are right that it's non-regex, but since the template name is case-sensitive, wouldn't it be best for the replacement to be case-sensitive? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:44, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

The first character is case-insensitive, so it does make sense ({{Irelandproj}} works just as well as {{irelandproj}}). I usually do use regex, something like

re.sub(r'(?i)\{\{\s*irelandproj\s*([\|\}])',r'{{WikiProject Ireland\1',text)

, just to catch instances where people have put whitespace in the template in wierd places (also stops the regex matching something like {{irelandprojecttemplate (entirely unrelated)}}). But in simple situations like this, non-regex works just as well and can be safer. Happy‑melon 14:50, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm using AWB, and the suggestion BetaCommand is working like a charm. (smiles at Betacommand). Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 14:57, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Heh, Betacommand knows what he's talking about. And it's working. Thanks. Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 14:48, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks like it's all done. Thanks Steve, that was great! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:47, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done. And all errors are fixed. Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 16:49, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

A bot to count pages in a category and update the count on a page to keep track of Adopt-a-user backlog

Resolved

I would like a bot to count the pages in Category:Wikipedians seeking to be adopted in Adopt-a-user and update Template:Adoption backlog/count with that number, daily, or a few times per day if possible. Thanks in advance, xenocidic (talk) 20:51, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Or, how about {{PAGESINCATEGORY:Wikipedians seeking to be adopted in Adopt-a-user}} = 23. :D Happy‑melon 21:09, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah ok you need to wait for the maintenance script to finish compiling the data table for en.wiki, but eventually it'll be a quick and easy way of doing this. Happy‑melon 21:10, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Cool, thanks for the suggestion! xenocidic (talk) 22:07, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

←Since this doesn't seem to work, any takers? xenocidic ( talk ¿ review ) 20:47, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

It does seem to work (now)... just about... it's just a bit slow (and you need to purge the page cache to get an updated value). Happy‑melon 21:19, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks Melon. xenocidic ( talk ¿ review ) 21:53, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Requested redirect migration

Could someone please migrate usages of the redirect {{self2}} to its target, {{self}}? There appears to be several thousand usages. The reason is that this license template is being broken when image pages transcluding it are transferred to the Commons, and the name of the author is being dropped. Kelly ^hi! 20:18, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I now have a BRFA up for this. ·Add§hore· ^Talk/_Cont 20:51, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Note: There are around 12,000 transclusions of {{self2}} to be changed to {{self}} ·Add§hore· ^Talk/_Cont 20:54, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Um, how exactly is this breaking? Commons redirects template:self2 to template:self, too. Gimmetrow 16:46, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for the delayed reply...I don't understand why it's breaking either, but when CommonsHelper is used to transfer images to Commons, the {{self2}} part of the template, and the name of the author, is being dropped and the license is broken into its component pieces. Kelly ^hi! 13:10, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Need bulk text-replacement on about 85 asteroid articles

85-odd asteroid-related articles need minor text-replacement updates. Replace at Siding Spring in the course of the U.K. Schmidt-Caltech Asteroid Survey with at Siding Spring Observatory in the course of the U.K. Schmidt-Caltech Asteroid Survey and replace discovery_site = Siding Spring in the course of the U.K. Schmidt-Caltech Asteroid Survey with discovery_site = Siding Spring Observatory. Yes, I know this will leave a redlink, I was unable to find the topic in an article. See User talk:Davidwr/6227 Alanrubin for details.

 Doing...... CWii_{(Talk|Contribs)} 00:28, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

For some damn reason AWB doesn't like me.  Not done yet. CWii_{(Talk|Contribs)} 20:13, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

 Doing... It's a love-hate relationship. CWii_{(Talk|Contribs)} 20:45, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done. CWii_{(Talk|Contribs)} 21:12, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

BoT Request for WikiProject India / Kerala work group

I am from the Assessment dept of WikiProject India. This is a bot request for Kerala work group.
The banner for the Project is {{WP India|kerala=yes}}

Many of the articles Talk pages doesnt have the importance tag for the workgroup kerala.
My request is to append "|kerala-importance=" to ALL article talk pages with {{WP India|kerala=yes}} and doesnt have |kerala-importance= already.

Can this be done by a bot ??. Thanks in advance -- TinuCherian ^{(Wanna Talk?)} - 06:37, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

What on earth is the point in adding a blank |kerala-importance= parameter by bot if it is going to have to be filled in by human editors anyway? The whole point of having separate importance scales for task forces is that a TF might have assign a different importance to an article than its parent project, so you can't just copy from the main |importance= parameter. Given that you're going to have to do this anyway, why not skip the bot step and go straight to digging through Category:Unknown-importance Kerala articles and adding the |kerala-importance= parameter by hand. Unless I've completely misread the situation, there's nothing that a bot can do to help you here. Happy‑melon 21:27, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

One less step for reviewers. CWii_{(Talk|Contribs)} 21:48, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I thought it will be faster and easier with BOTs -- TinuCherian ^{(Wanna Talk?)} - 07:06, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

 Doing... I've got my alternate AWB account on it now, adding |kerala-importance= to articles in Category:WikiProject Kerala articles that don't already have it. RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 11:44, May 18, 2008 (UTC)

User:Richard0612/stilldoing c.500 pages to go. RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 12:21, May 18, 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot -- TinuCherian ^{(Wanna Talk?)} - 12:41, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Richard0612/stilldoing c.150 pages to go RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 12:43, May 18, 2008 (UTC)

 Done All relevant pages updated with the parameter. 237 pages edited out of 963 pages checked. RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 13:07, May 18, 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot from the Project Team -- TinuCherian ^{(Wanna Talk?)} - 13:11, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Redirect classification

I'm not sure if this is possible or not, but is there a way where I could add {{TelevisionWikiProject|class=Redirect|importance=Low|avatar=yes|avatar-importance=Low}} to the talk page of any page that redirects to the article page of any page on this list. For example, one of the pages on that list is Talk:Appa. So any page that redirects to the article page, Appa, should have the template on its talk page. Some of the pages might already have something on them. Since they are redirect pages, I think just blanking the talk page and adding the template would be OK. — Parent5446 ^{(t n e l)} 14:27, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

 Possible: I'll look into it. It will require generating a long list of pages, and checking to see what redirects to each one, then running a script to add the template. It's certainly doable, but will require a lot of work. I'll see what I can do. RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 14:52, May 18, 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. — Parent5446 ^{(t n e l)} 15:05, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Generating that list now. RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 15:12, May 18, 2008 (UTC)

 Doing... About 300 pages to edit, this will take a while! RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 15:50, May 18, 2008 (UTC)

 Done Pages added to this category automatically by the template. This category therefore is redundant, and discussion should probably be brought up on the relevant project page as to whether to delete it. It is probably easier to keep the new one [which I have categorised appropriately] and delete the old one than to change the template to use the old one, requiring the re-caching of some 300 pages. If you need any more help, please feel free to ask. RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 17:00, May 18, 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for everything. The old category is actually redundant. I will put a CSD tag on it. It was there before the project standardized its category system. — Parent5446 ^{(t n e l)} 18:17, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

cites & reference in-line tags are way too frequently put before a comma or full stop.

Too often I see this. <-- it looks ugly, it should look like this. All we need is a bot that searches for: </ref>. removes the "." and looks for the <ref> that exists just before it, and places the "." in front of that. Many put extra spaces between the ref. also, so that needs to be accounted for, but I'm sure someone could come up with a bot to fix this, it is endemic to Wikipedia right now. 67.5.156.176 (talk) 07:42, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

This applies to all punctuation, so something like

re.sub('<ref([^/]*?)>(.*?)</ref>([.,;!?])','\3<ref\1>\2</ref>',text)

would work in python. I can't think off the top of my head where this would throw false positives (I've excluded all brackets and quotes, as these can be ambiguous). The issue would be finding these errors. They'd probably have to be found from a database dump. Ideally, it would be nice to have a continuously-running MOSbot to check RecentChanges for such simple and easily-fixed violations; when a new feature was added, we'd just have to search the most recent database dump for existing violations and fix them with a one-time script, and thereafter they'd be fixed in real-time. Happy‑melon 08:34, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Please do not do this. I consider it more logical to put the reference immediately after the fact, and that usually means before the punctuation. See Wikipedia:Cite your sources#Ref tags and punctuation, which allows both styles. —AlanBarrett 17:38, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I seem to recall that the MoS says you can put them before or after the punctuation, so long as it is consistent within an article. DuncanHill (talk) 17:40, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Doh! I should have read Alan's comment! DuncanHill (talk) 17:41, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Well if the MoS allows both styles, then this is a fast-track to Special:Blockip. No thankyou! Happy‑melon 21:54, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Two things: 1) we've denied bot proposals for this before, and 2) the regexes to do this properly are a lot more complicated than the above. Gimmetrow 04:29, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

From a strictly academic perspective, how much more complicated? Where would this throw false positives? Happy‑melon 18:12, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Punctuation before and after, to start with.<ref>Something</ref>. Then named/reused refs. Then refs "stacked" back to back.<ref>Something</ref><ref name=two/>. Then spacing and line breaks. Then dealing with quotes of various forms. I have a set of regexes for these situations, but I still know some cases that cause problems. Real language doesn't usually fit nicely into a simple regex. Gimmetrow 21:49, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm... I think that the regex above would work for "named/reused refs", "stacked" refs, and properly skip instances of spacing/linebreaks. However, I have just noticed that it would throw a catastrophic false positive in a page that had an error at the end of a long paragraph (namely, that it would match everything from the first <ref> tag in that paragraph to the misplaced tag), so deploying this 'as-is' is definitely not a good idea :D. Happy‑melon 09:34, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

The regex above does not catch this<ref name=two/>, since the closing ref is part of the match phrase. Yes, it will catch some things, but it only scratches the surface. Like I said, I've developed regexes that catch most of it. Gimmetrow 16:42, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm surprised to see one mention placing something "immediately after the fact" as meaning to jump in front of proper grammar by truncating the punctuation of the sentence structure. i.e. before the fact is finished. I think policy needs to be reviewed in this instance! The latter form I gave is clearly superior in looks and logical structure. 67.5.147.10 (talk) 10:23, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

CanEd

Here is a straightforward one: can someone please replace all uses of {{CanEd}} with {{WikiProject Canada|education=yes}}. The labelling of Canada-related articles is being standardized. Thanks. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 21:44, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Sure. CWii_{(Talk|Contribs)} 21:51, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm already on it, but there are ~300 pages, so collaboration = speed here! RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 21:55, May 22, 2008 (UTC)

Sigh. I was coding something special for this man. Fine! You can do the rest. My bot could do it all in 15 minutes. :| CWii_{(Talk|Contribs)} 22:22, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry! There are still around 120 pages left to do, and I need to go to sleep. Knock yourself out! Sorry again for jumping in. RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 22:30, May 22, 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, yeah. CWii_{(Talk|Contribs)} 22:31, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

 Doing... CWii_{(Talk|Contribs)} 22:47, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done Gee, that was fast :D CWii_{(Talk|Contribs)} 22:54, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I think this should be reverted. Standardization isn't a reason. GreenJoe 23:19, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the objection. -- Ned Scott 05:26, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Me neither. GreenJoe, this is part of an ongoing standardization project. If you have concerns, please engage in discussion rather than reverting the work of others. Skeezix1000 (talk) 11:07, 23 May 2008 (UTC)