Wikipedia:Bot requests

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This is a page for requesting tasks to be done by bots per the bot policy. This is an appropriate place to put ideas for uncontroversial bot tasks, to get early feedback on ideas for bot tasks (controversial or not), and to seek bot operators for bot tasks. Consensus-building discussions requiring large community input (such as request for comments) should normally be held at WP:VPPROP or other relevant pages (such as a WikiProject's talk page).

You can check the "Commonly Requested Bots" box above to see if a suitable bot already exists for the task you have in mind. If you have a question about a particular bot, contact the bot operator directly via their talk page or the bot's talk page. If a bot is acting improperly, follow the guidance outlined in WP:BOTISSUE. For broader issues and general discussion about bots, see the bot noticeboard.

Before making a request, please see the list of frequently denied bots, either because they are too complicated to program, or do not have consensus from the Wikipedia community. If you are requesting that a template (such as a WikiProject banner) is added to all pages in a particular category, please be careful to check the category tree for any unwanted subcategories. It is best to give a complete list of categories that should be worked through individually, rather than one category to be analyzed recursively (see example difference).

Alternatives to bot requests

• WP:AWBREQ, for simple tasks that involve a handful of articles and/or only needs to be done once (e.g. adding a category to a few articles).
• WP:URLREQ, for tasks involving changing or updating URLs to prevent link rot (specialized bots deal with this).
• WP:SQLREQ, for tasks which might be solved with an SQL query (e.g. compiling a list of articles according to certain criteria).
• WP:TEMPREQ, to request a new template written in wiki code or Lua.
• WP:SCRIPTREQ, to request a new user script. Many useful scripts already exist, see Wikipedia:User scripts/List.
• WP:CITEBOTREQ, to request a new feature for WP:Citation bot, a user-initiated bot that fixes citations.

Note to bot operators: The {{BOTREQ}} template can be used to give common responses, and make it easier to keep track of the task's current status. If you complete a request, note that you did with {{BOTREQ|done}}, and archive the request after a few days (WP:1CA is useful here).

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#	Title	Replies	Last editor	Date/Time	Last botop editor	Date/Time
1	Make section headings unique in year articles	21	Primefac	2021-02-17, 11:35	Primefac	2021-02-17, 11:35
2	A bot for adding missing date format tags	2	Sdkb	2021-02-16, 05:43	GoingBatty	2021-02-16, 04:11
3	Minor fix in Persian village articles	6	Goszei	2021-03-01, 17:58	None	N/A
4	Maintain a list of articles that are possibly wrongly marked stub	1	GoingBatty	2021-02-19, 23:45	GoingBatty	2021-02-19, 23:45
5	Double bolding	7	Primefac	2021-02-22, 13:57	Primefac	2021-02-22, 13:57
6	Category sorting for Thai names	14	Kanashimi	2021-04-14, 10:07	None	N/A
7	Clean up Infobox music genre templates	2	Primefac	2021-03-12, 15:11	Primefac	2021-03-12, 15:11
8	Auto add bare URL inline template behind bare URL	1	GreenC	2021-03-11, 16:58	None	N/A
9	Replace template-space transclusions of Template:Doc with Template:Documentation	10	Dinoguy1000	2021-03-15, 08:21	ProcrastinatingReader	2021-03-14, 01:29
10	Accept pending changes made by autoconfirmed users where they should have been automatically accepted	10	Firefly	2021-03-15, 17:33	The Earwig	2021-03-14, 02:33
11	Replace dead links	7	GreenC	2021-04-04, 04:36	Primefac	2021-03-19, 14:37
12	Remove dead links from book and journal citation templates with identifiers	1	Ajpolino	2021-03-31, 07:57	None	N/A
13	A WP:LAYOUT bot	1	Certes	2021-04-01, 10:52	None	N/A
14	Bot to repair broken peer review links	0	Tom (LT)	2021-04-02, 09:45	None	N/A
15	Request for bot called "BCuzwhynot bot"	0	Headbomb	2021-04-10, 15:26	Headbomb	2021-04-10, 15:26
16	Changing talk page project templates	3	GoingBatty	2021-04-16, 05:09	GoingBatty	2021-04-16, 05:09
17	Reassign DRN Clerk Bot Task	0	Robert McClenon	2021-04-13, 16:21	None	N/A
18	Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine	2	Biosthmors	2021-04-16, 16:24	Headbomb	2021-04-16, 14:04
19	Bot to update from imdb	1	ProcrastinatingReader	2021-04-16, 15:59	ProcrastinatingReader	2021-04-16, 15:59

Make section headings unique in year articles

Sections with the names of the months of the year are repeated twice or thrice, in "Events", "Births", and "Deaths". To make section headings unique, I propose the following changes be made:

replace regex

(\w)( ?)===

with

$1 {{none|births}}$2===

or

$1 {{none|deaths}}$2===

depending on the section. JsfasdF252 (talk) 17:31, 5 February 2021 (UTC); updated 17:38, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Before writing a bot, WT:WikiProject Years might be interested in discussing that idea. Certes (talk) 17:44, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Per my usual request - how wide-spread of an issue are we talking about? Tens, hundreds, or thousands of potential pages? Primefac (talk) 17:47, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

There are 2,700+ years in Category:Years, but doing a bit of sampling indicates that the individual month repetitions only starts around 1900, so that precise problem only arises on less than a couple of hundred pages. However, looking at the span from around 1500 onwards, the sections are usually headed "January–June" and "July–December", with a gradual shift to four subsections, "January–March". etc. Replacing those when they are third level with "... births" or "... deaths" respectively wouldn't cause any problem, though, apart from the pedants who will quote MOS:SECTIONSTYLE ("should not refer to a higher-level heading"). Including those from 1500 on would obviously involve a few hundred more year articles. --RexxS (talk) 21:33, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

What's the purpose? 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 22:03, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Bot for 5 month notices to draft page creators

Hello, I was hoping that a new bot could be created to do what Hasteur Bot used to do which was to notify editors that their drafts were coming up on their 6 month period of no activity when they could be deleted as stale drafts (CSD G13). These notices were sent out after a draft had been unedited for 5 months. We have been missing this since the summer which has resulted in what I think is a higher number of draft deletions and a high volume of requests for restoration at WP:REFUND. I think oftentimes, editors forget that they have started a draft (especially those editors who start a lot of drafts simultaneously), and these reminder notices are very useful for page creators as well as for editors and admins who regularly patrol stale draft reports.

Would it be possible for a bot creator to just reuse code from Hasteur Bot? But I'm just looking for a bot that will do exactly what it used to before it was disabled due to the bot creator's passing. See Special:Contributions/HasteurBot for examples of what I'm looking for. Thank you. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:18, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

I see that MDanielsBot 7 was approved to take over from HasteurBot, but it seems to be disabled at the moment. Pinging operator Mdaniels5757. — The Earwig ⟨talk⟩ 00:22, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

They're AFK for about a fortnight, and have already stated that they do not plan on continuing this task. Primefac (talk) 00:25, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

In that case, I don't mind taking a look into this, though it might be a little while before I can get it done and someone else is free to grab it from me. — The Earwig ⟨talk⟩ 00:31, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

If it makes it easier, the code is available (it's what Mdaniels was using). Primefac (talk) 00:42, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Yep, I'm actually part of the Toolforge project, and apparently have been for several years, though I mostly forgot about it. Will probably move it elsewhere though. — The Earwig��⟨talk⟩ 00:57, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Hah! I kinda figured, just meant that it's not always obvious what is and isn't available (for example, I'm reminded that I told someone I'd upload my Task 30 AWB module...). Primefac (talk) 00:59, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

I believe that MDanielsBot had some strange opt-in aspect of it which would not make it effective since many draft creators are not regular editors. They do often have settings to receive email messages when someone posts a notice on their talk page so that's why a talk page notice is very useful. Hasteur Bot has been inactive since July 2020 so while this new bot is greatly needed, it is not urgent. If this task could just make it on someone's To Do list, I would be happy! Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:20, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

It's on my to-do list now. I've run bots in the past, and given the source is available it's like playing on easy(ish) mode! Heh. If The Earwig gets there first, no biggie, at least then we'd have two people willing to run the thing. ƒirefly ( t · c ) 11:13, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Turns out my bot still has an approved BRFA for doing this, so I can restart the task immediately. I'd completely forgotten about that! ƒirefly ( t · c )

@Liz: - now running. I'm also going to revive the BRFA for the actual CSD G13 tagging, as that is 100% a job for a bot and not humans. ƒirefly ( t · c ) 17:26, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

@Firefly: Thanks for taking this on, but the bot is sending messages with edits marked as minor edit + bot edit, which means users will NOT get the "you have new messages" or email notifications. Please turn off the minor edit flag as people may miss the message otherwise. – SD0001 (talk) 19:30, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Strange, it’s running the exact same code as it was before. I’ll fix it. ƒirefly ( t · c ) 19:35, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Now fixed! Thanks for the bug report! ƒirefly ( t · c ) 22:16, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't have the knowhow to take this on myself, but throwing out some quick support, it should definitely be done.

I wish that tasks like this alerted us when they stopped working, as there is a lot of damage being done while they are inoperable. How many notable pages have we lost because the creator only got notified of the deletion and gave up rather than go through the hurdle of a refund? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:19, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Per its BRFA, SDZeroBot 9 will eventually be able to monitor the activity of other bots, but it's currently stalled. Vahurzpu (talk) 04:26, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the relevant portion of the task (keeping the list updated) has actually been approved. Primefac (talk) 11:35, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

A bot for adding missing date format tags

There appear to be many many thousands of articles that are missing {{use mdy dates}} or {{use dmy dates}}, but which are linked to information that is sufficient to determine which tag should be used. For instance, I think we can safely assume that an untagged page for a high school in a subcategory of Category:High schools in the United States (or with country (P17) = United States of America (Q30) on Wikidata) ought to be using MDY, or that an untagged British biography page not in any categories for expatriates or dual nationality ought to be using DMY. The 3500 pages that use {{American English}} but have no tag seem like an even easier call.

I'd like to see a bot that goes through old pages and adds the appropriate tags where it can make a firm determination. It would then operate periodically to add DMY or MDY tags to new pages as they are created (but would not override any pages tagged manually). This would help reduce the incidence of the ugly 2021-02-15 dates, and save some amount of editor work. It would be very low-risk, as even if there's some unforeseen circumstance that causes the bot to occasionally mess up, there's very little damage done (e.g. Americans can still understand DMY fine, likewise for Brits with MDY, and most would probably prefer either to YYYY-MM-DD) and correction would be easy.

Does anyone want to take this on? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:27, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

@Sdkb: How would a bot be able to determine when the current format (even if it's "the ugly 2021-02-15 dates") should be retained per MOS:DATERET?) GoingBatty (talk) 04:11, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

GoingBatty, MOS:DATERET carves out an exception for switches based on strong national ties to the topic, which would be the case for the categories here. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 05:43, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Minor fix in Persian village articles

Based on this search, there appears to be around 50,000+ articles (mostly on populated places in Iran) created by User:Carlossuarez46 that use the incorrect capitalization of "romanized".

The word is capitalized when it means "to make something Roman in character", and lowercase when it means "convert to Latin script", as it does in these cases. This distinction is reflected across all of our articles (Category:Romanization), and is supported by dictionaries [1], encyclopedias [2][3][4], etc.

If a bot task were made to fix this, it would also probably be prudent to retarget the wikilinks like so: [[Romanization of Persian|romanized]], which is a better target. — Goszei (talk) 23:56, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

• Whether to capitalize "Romanize" seems to not be uniformly agreed: The Chicago Manual of Style uses both capitalized and uncapitalized versions. (see, e.g., section 11.95 (16th edition): Italics versus roman for transliterated terms: "Usually Transliterated (or Romanized), Italics versus roman for transliterated term" and elsewhere it is used uncapitalized (e.g., section 11.106 discussing transliteration of Japanese). If that's something you think is best, a bot should be able to do that. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 00:08, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

I looked at that part of the CMS 16th, and "Romanized" is only capitalized in that instance because it is in the title of a subsection (e.g. Languages Usually Transliterated (or Romanized)). The title of the previous section, for example, is written as Languages Using the Latin Alphabet.

The first sentence inside the section (and all other uses in the manual) have the lowercase usage: In nonspecialized works it is customary to transliterate—that is, convert to the Latin alphabet, or romanize—words or phrases from languages that do not use the Latin alphabet. — Goszei (talk) 00:31, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

I believe that this is a good change. Problem, however — are we sure that this never appears at the start of a sentence, or anywhere else that it should be capitalised? I'm afraid that some fringe cases will be a CONTEXTBOT issue. Maybe it could be required to search for "Romanized" only when it's in a parenthetical phrase consisting of (Romanized as [one or more words in Farsi script]) to reduce the risk of false positives. Nyttend (talk) 15:21, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

@Nyttend: I don't understand your point. Goszei's search query was looking for instances of "also Romanized as" – in which case would this need to be kept capitalised? 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 22:06, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Oh, so the request is that we ignore anything in which "also" doesn't precede "Romanized"? I interpreted it as "hey look, this search shows that there are lots of Romanized articles, so let's fix all appearances of Romanized". If the request really means "let's fix everything that reads 'Also Romanized'", sure, go ahead. Nyttend (talk) 15:42, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Regarding my "romanization of Persian" suggestion above, it occurred to me that the {{lang-fa|بابصفحه}} part of the article text could be detected to ensure that the context is correct. I'm no good at regex, but the string {{lang-fa|anything goes here}}, also Romanized as" would be the target for making the two changes (decapitalization of romanization, and changing the link target). There may be some cases left over, but likely a reasonable amount that is fit for an AWB pass (i.e. with human review) instead of a bot run. — Goszei (talk) 17:58, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Maintain a list of articles that are possibly wrongly marked stub

I'd say more than a few articles are marked stubs but assessed differently by Wikiprojects. Is it a good idea to maintain a (possibly cached) list of these for maintenance purposes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5a5ha seven (talk • contribs) 23:17, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

@5a5ha seven: Seems like a reasonable report if a WikiProject was willing to resolve the items on the report. Maybe a WikiProject member could request this on Wikipedia:Database reports? (Please remember to sign your posts on talk pages by typing four keyboard tildes like this: ~~~~.) GoingBatty (talk) 23:45, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Double bolding

Per MOS:BOLD, "boldface is applied automatically [in] [t]able headers. Manually added boldface markup in such cases would be redundant and is to be avoided.". Special:Search/insource:/\|\+ *'''/ currently returns over 17,000 results. I suggest replacing

\|\+( *)'''([^'\|]+)'''\|

by

|+$1$2|

in all of the occurrences. 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 22:13, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Not a good task for a bot. Has no substantive impact so fails WP:COSMETICBOT. ƒirefly ( t · c ) 22:21, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Good application for WP:COSDAY. -- GreenC 22:28, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Could also be made part of WP:GENFIXes. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:28, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

"It will end up making double-bold (900 weight) fonts that are excessive." This really does look ugly. Given that CBD is supposed to be pretty soon though, I'll be okay with it being done then. 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 23:40, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

I haven't seen double bold fonts in an eternity on Firefox, which was one of the primary affected browsers. A gen fix for this might be a good idea. --Izno (talk) 00:11, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Doing this either on WP:COSDAY or through GENFIXes sounds sensible to me. ƒirefly ( t · c ) 09:35, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Adding it to the AWB genfixes is definitely a good way to deal with this. Primefac (talk) 13:57, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Category sorting for Thai names

Hi. I'm looking to revive a request previously made in 2018, which was discussed (to a considerable extent) here and here. Back then, TheSandDoctor originally offered to help, but due to other circumstances was unable to devote time to the task, and suggested that I ask here again. I've left it for quite some time, but better late than never I guess.

Briefly, names should be sorted by given name (i.e. as they appear) in Thailand-related categories. A Thai biography footer should as such contain the following:

{{DEFAULTSORT:Surname, Forename}}
[[Category:International people]]
[[Category:Thai people|Forename Surname]]

Currently, compliance is all over the place, with the Thai order being placed in the DEFAULTSORT value in some articles, and the Thai sort keys missing in others. A bot is needed to: (1) perform a one-time task of checking DEFAULTSORT values in Thailand-related biographies (a list with correct values to be manually supplied), and replacing the values if incorrect, and (2) do periodical maintenance by going through a specified list of categories (probably via a tracking template placed on category pages) and adding the Thai name order as sort keys to those categories' calls in each member article that is a biography. In most cases, the Thai name order would be the page title, but there are several exceptions, which I will later elaborate upon. This had been advertised and some details of the task ironed out back then, but since it's been three years there may be need to reaffirm consensus. I would like to see first, though, whether any bot operators are interested in such a project. --Paul_012 (talk) 00:13, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

@Paul 012:Well, I think I will do this:

1. For pages in Category:Thai people, all sub-pages of categories transcluding {{Thai people category}}:
2. Add / modify DEFAULTSORT as {{DEFAULTSORT:Surname, Given name}}
3. + Category:International people
4. Modify sort key of Category:Thai people and categories transcluding {{Thai people category}}, as [[Category:Category name|Given name Surname]]

Do I miss anything? --Kanashimi (talk) 08:36, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Kanashimi, the "Category:Thai people" and "Category:International people" in the example were meant as placeholders for all categories in and outside the pre-defined set, not literal categories with those names (so skip No. 3); sorry if this wasn't clear. The set of categories could be tracked by {{Thai people category}} (the template will need to be added), though this isn't set in stone. There are also names which are not in the Given-name Surname format; a list of these will probably need to be compiled by hand, so that's also something to consider. --Paul_012 (talk) 20:43, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

I misunderstood the discuss. Is this right?

1. For categories transcluding {{Thai people category}} and their subcategories, call it Thai_CATEGORY_LIST. For articles in all Thai_CATEGORY_LIST, call it Thai_ARTICLE_LIST. And we will do this for all Thai_ARTICLE_LIST:
2. If the article is in Template:Thai people category/doc#Sort keys of biographical articles added to categories with this template:
   1. Modify sort key of categories in Thai_CATEGORY_LIST, as [[Category:Category name|Category Sort key specified]]
3. Else:
   1. Add / modify DEFAULTSORT as {{DEFAULTSORT:Surname, Given name}}
   2. Modify sort key of categories in Thai_CATEGORY_LIST, as [[Category:Category name|Given name Surname]]

And I have a question: Are the surnames of Thai peoples in English always just one-word so I can split the given name and surname via article title easily; it is always in a pattern of "given given given ... surname"? --Kanashimi (talk) 22:26, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Maybe I should provide a bit more background first. The short answer your last question would be, "No." To get the long answer, I went through the about 4,000 Thai people articles to identify the following patterns:

I guess all this is to say it's probably far too complicated for the defaultsort value to be automatically processed; reading off a manually compiled list would be more practical. I'm still tweaking the list but see for example an earlier (outdated) version at Special:Permalink/829756891.

I think the process should be something more like:

1. For categories transcluding {{Thai people category}}, call it Thai_CATEGORY_LIST. For articles in all Thai_CATEGORY_LIST, call it Thai_ARTICLE_LIST. And we will do this for all Thai_ARTICLE_LIST:
2. If the article is a personal biography, proceed with the following:
   1. If the article is in DEFAULTSORT_UPDATE_LIST:
      1. Add / modify DEFAULTSORT according to the value in DEFAULTSORT_UPDATE_LIST
      2. If so instructed by DEFAULTSORT_UPDATE_LIST:
         1. Add {{Thai sort same as defaultsort}} to the article
      3. Else:
         1. Modify sort key of categories in Thai_CATEGORY_LIST, as [[Category:Category name|PAGENAME]] (though format the page name to exclude parenthetical disambiguators)

The above applies to the bot's initial run. There should also be periodical update runs, where 2.1 would be:

2. 1. If DEFAULTSORT exists and is different from article title (excluding commas and parenthetical disambiguators), and {{Thai sort same as defaultsort}} is not found in the article:
      1. Modify sort key of categories in Thai_CATEGORY_LIST, as [[Category:Category name|PAGENAME]] (though format the page name to exclude parenthetical disambiguators)

Category recursion is tricky and can lead to unexpected problems, so {{Thai people category}} should probably be placed directly on all applicable category pages. (That may also be a bot task.) I'm working off this preliminary list: Special:Permalink/1011801926, but some further tweaks my still be needed.

Since the Thai sort key will be the same as either the article title (for regular names) or the DEFAULTSORT value (for royalty, etc.), the DEFAULTSORT_UPDATE_LIST can note which case applies to each article, and this can be tracked in the article source. I think this would be preferable in the long run, as a central list will be hard to keep updated while a tracking template can be added to new articles as they are created. {{Thai sort same as defaultsort}} wouldn't need to generate any visible output (except maybe a tracking category if useful).

Does this more or less make sense? --Paul_012 (talk) 23:15, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

In the process above, we will ignore all articles that is not in DEFAULTSORT_UPDATE_LIST, even if the article is in Thai_ARTICLE_LIST. I think we may detect given name and surname automatically (for example, list up common surnames), only list up special cases in another list. This will greatly reduce the workload for human and bot both. And, is {{Thai sort same as defaultsort}} should appears in this way: {{Thai sort same as defaultsort}}{{DEFAULTSORT:Surname, Given name}} (nothing between the template and DEFAULTSORT)? --Kanashimi (talk) 01:26, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Oops, should have been more like this:

2. If the article is a personal biography, proceed with the following:
   1. If the article is in DEFAULTSORT_UPDATE_LIST:
      1. Add / modify DEFAULTSORT according to the value in DEFAULTSORT_UPDATE_LIST
      2. If so instructed by DEFAULTSORT_UPDATE_LIST:
         1. Add {{Thai sort same as defaultsort}} to the article
         2. Skip to next article
   2. Modify sort key of categories in Thai_CATEGORY_LIST, as [[Category:Category name|PAGENAME]] (though format the page name to exclude parenthetical disambiguators)

I don't quite see a practical set of instructions that would allow automatic name identification, given the intricacies involved. The human workload isn't a problem, as I'm mostly done with the names already (just needs a second check). I imagine the placement of the Thai sort same as defaultsort template the way you described. It's a preliminary suggestion though; if we agree to proceed with the method I'll post at the MOS talk page for community approval. --Paul_012 (talk) 07:18, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Ok. I get a rough idea of what you mean. I think DEFAULTSORT_UPDATE_LIST should include PAGENAME, surnames, and given names; at least three columns. By the way, how do we maintain new Thai people articles? They will not in DEFAULTSORT_UPDATE_LIST. --Kanashimi (talk) 07:51, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

I expect DEFAULTSORT_UPDATE_LIST to be referred to only once, to check currently existing articles. The practice of specifying Given-name Surname as the DEFAULTSORT (which the bot will need to correct) is quite old (mostly found in articles from over a decade ago I think). New articles today will likely have DEFAULTSORT values in the Surname, Given-name format, so will only need PAGENAME sort keys added. The minority of articles which require specific formatting and tagging can be handled by patrollers following WikiProject Thailand's potential new articles feed as they are created. --Paul_012 (talk) 09:13, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Ok. It seems possible for bot to do this. --Kanashimi (talk) 10:58, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses, Kanashimi. Do you plan to take on the task? If so, I'll notify the relevant projects and discussion pages. --Paul_012 (talk) 14:05, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes, but I still need your help. I don't speak Thai. 😓 And please split the name to surname, and given name. I think this will be useful. --Kanashimi (talk) 21:54, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

I've opened a discussion requesting community input at Wikipedia talk:Categorization of people#Bot for Thai name category sorting. I've now also listed the categories and articles at Wikipedia:WikiProject Thailand/Thai name categories and Wikipedia:WikiProject Thailand/Thai name sort keys. --Paul_012 (talk) 18:54, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Kanashimi, there hasn't been further comment, but given the lack of opposition, I think it should be safe to go ahead based on the previous consensus, when you have time. (I might not be very active for some time, so please leave me a talk page message if I don't respond to pings.) --Paul_012 (talk) 09:25, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

@Paul 012: BRFA filed --Kanashimi (talk) 10:07, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Clean up Infobox music genre templates

The goal is to remove "color =" and "popularity=" parameters from {{Infobox music genre}}. Color parameter was suppressed in January 2019 [5], while popularity was removed in 2013 [6], but they are still present in ~900 and ~300 templates respectively [7]. It would be great if we could clean up these templates. Solidest (talk) 17:06, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

@Primefac: Would this be a good job for your bot? GoingBatty (talk) 02:06, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

I'd have to look further, but likely sure. Primefac (talk) 15:11, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Auto add bare URL inline template behind bare URL

I want a robot to be able to add {{Bare URL inline|{{subst:DATE}}}}to the end of all bare URLs.--Alcremie (talk) 09:54, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

There are so many bare URLs it would be millions of articles, it would require significant consensus. Suggest find and work on bare URLs with the bare URL bot at Template:Cleanup bare URLs/bot. -- GreenC 16:58, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Replace template-space transclusions of Template:Doc with Template:Documentation

This is a request specifically to benefit external wikis who import Wikipedia templates for their own use. Currently, the redirect {{Doc}} is transcluded onto over 3000 templates. This means that any wiki which imports one of these templates will also get a template-space redirect that they may not want, or at least a redlink that they then have to fix (if they happen to care about that). I don't think this is explicitly covered by any of the points at WP:NOTBROKEN, but it feels to me at least to be within the spirit of the second-to-last "good reasons" point:

In other namespaces, particularly the template and portal namespaces in which subpages are common, any link or transclusion to a former page title that has become a redirect following a page move or merge should be updated to the new title for naming consistency.

If the community here decides (or has decided) that reuse on external wikis isn't a major enough concern to justify this type of change, that's fine. I personally think it's worth changing this, though as a reuser at one of those external wikis, I'm obviously biased here. =) 「ディノ奴千？！」^{☎ Dinoguy1000} 07:01, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Isn't this the same as changing every redirect for a template to its main name? Which the community appears to generally be quite strongly against when done as a standalone task without any overriding reason, I believe. In any case, this falls under WP:COSMETICBOT and I can't see an overriding purpose that would allow for its approval. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 07:06, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

I had that thought while writing this request, but felt that the fact that {{Documentation}} is transcluded on near-every template on Wikipedia would make this worth pursuing as its own thing (since you might run into a transclusion through a redirect on any template, as opposed to any random template with limited template-space usage).

I wasn't aware of the prior consensus on this topic, though it doesn't surprise me; is there any chance you have links to some of those discussions handy?

Your COSMETICBOT point is noted, though I don't really have any response to it. If the other objections can be resolved, I suppose the best I could offer is a suggestion of submitting this for Cosmetic Bot Day? 「ディノ奴千？！」^{☎ Dinoguy1000} 07:30, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

I had to do some digging to find this, but I'll point out that I nominated a swathe of template-space redirects for deletion in 2010, for similar reasons to this proposal, and (at the time) it was uncontested. Of course, consensus may have changed in the intervening decade-plus, but this at least illustrates that the community (at one time) tolerated edits of this nature. 「ディノ奴千？！」^{☎ Dinoguy1000} 07:45, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

I don’t have any specific links handy, but that’s just my understanding. It could be eligible for CBD. I’d have said to bundle it into genfixes, but genfix-edits won’t really run on templates so that won’t work. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:16, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

If you get an RfD passed that’s a different thing and then wouldn’t fall under CBOT. But I’m not sure an RfD for doc would pass. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:17, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

I am sympathetic. I do not think changing one template for another is sufficient cause to edit high-use templates. I don't see a large issue with AWBing these away and a link to some rationale like provided here for low-use templates, or high-use template sandboxes (to be synced at a later date). Explain that it's for i18n/external wikis to have an easier time of things. Don't revert if reverted.

The other direction would be to ship the redirect to RFD with same rationale.

I do agree with Reader when he says there are many templates where this is an issue and it's not like those are different (well, maybe they are, since doc is basically only used for templates which we generally avoid editing with AWB which could/would probably take care of this with template redirect fixes). --Izno (talk) 19:22, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

This is not a task that would normally be approved as a bot request, since it is purely cosmetic. It may be easier to create redirects at other WP instances pointing {{doc}} to their version of the documentation template. That is what we do here for many templates that are commonly copied from WPs in languages other than English. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:48, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

This request isn't just about other-language WPs, or even about other WMF wikis, but also third-party wikis (to the extent that I "represent" anything, I represent such a wiki in this request). Of course, the argument that creating redirects there is simpler than changing templates here is valid regardless of whether "there" is "other WMF wikis" or "third-party wikis", but other wikis will (presumably) never stop being created, whereas these redirects will (ideally) never be significantly used beyond where they already are; this would suggest that in the long run, it would be better to update them here than to expect reusing wikis to continue creating the redirects in perpetuity. There's also a difference between expecting a wiki to create a redirect from the local name of a template, versus expecting them to create a redirect from a name that is locally, also a redirect (within reason, of course; see below for a counterexample).

If the advice here is to raise this issue at RFD instead, I'll do so, but I hesitate to do it now because it feels an awful lot like I'd just be shopping around for the answer I want to hear. In addition, I'm not after this redirect's deletion; it seems like a reasonable shorthand for linking.

As for the "other templates also have this issue" concern, this is obviously anecdotal, but in my own importing I haven't actually noticed this popping up much. The main offenders I've noticed recently are the {{tl*}} redirects, due to that family of templates recently being renamed to expanded names, and in those cases the redirects make a lot of sense to preserve for external wikis (and always will) since the templates' whole purpose is to simplify linking to templates anyways (so less typing is a good thing). 「ディノ奴千？！」^{☎ Dinoguy1000} 09:48, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Isn't this the same argument for having to copy over dependency templates? I mean, if you want to copy over a template into a new wiki, you not only have to copy over that template but every template it depends on, recursively (eg {{if}} etc). I don't think creating a {{doc}} redirect, or adjusting the name, is too much more to ask for given that. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:29, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Not really... Dependency templates are generally needed for the correct functioning of the template being copied, to the point that removing that dependency would require a more-or-less involved rewrite of the calling template; template redirects, on the other hand, only require changing the template's name in the template call (unless the calling template is calling them in a convoluted way, but that type of pattern is pretty rare). 「ディノ奴千？！」^{☎ Dinoguy1000} 08:21, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Accept pending changes made by autoconfirmed users where they should have been automatically accepted

On articles protected by pending changes, if there are no pending edits to an article, then autoconfirmed users should be able to have their changes automatically accepted. There is currently a rather frustrating bug that causes some edits by autoconfirmed users to be erroneously held back for review: please see Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Pending Changes again and various phab tickets [8][9]. Apparently, the flagged revisions/pending changes codebase is completely abandoned (no active developers who understand the code), and currently no timely fix to this issue is anticipated. As an interim stopgap measure while we attempt to find developers to fix the underlying software, would it be possible to create a bot that automatically accepts pending changes made by autoconfirmed users where they should have been automatically accepted by the software? Thanks, Mz7 (talk) 23:41, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Someone wrote code for a bot task in a phab task somewhere related to this issue. I don't have the link handy though. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:54, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

In the first phab ticket, there is toolforge:mbh/patrol.txt, for ruwiki. There's not much going on here, and some design questions, so I would suggest a clean-room implementation for enwiki. Do we have consensus for this? It's troubling we've ended up in this situation. Would time be better spent reviewing the FlaggedRevisions code to fix the issue, even if we can't get a new maintainer for it? I mean, given the underlying situation, we don't have many options beyond more aggressively finding a maintainer or turning pending changes off. — The Earwig (talk) 00:16, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

All good questions. The way I see it, this bot would merely be a technical means to return to the status quo, enforcing the already established consensus on how pending changes is supposed to work. My understanding is that it would be easier to build this bot because at least here we know what we're doing, whereas when debugging FlaggedRevisions, I don't think we even know where to start. As I mentioned at the village pump, in the long run if we can't ensure the reliability of this software, then I agree that we do need to think about whether we should have this software running at all. Mz7 (talk) 03:28, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm happy to write & run this bot if a consensus exists (develops?), but I have to agree with Earwig that if these bugs do not get fixed we might need to look at the viability of continuning to run this extension... ƒirefly ( t · c ) — Preceding undated comment added 12:08, 13 March 2021 (UTC)‎

As far as consensus goes, what do you think is needed? As I explained above, I think that because the purpose of this bot would be to enforce a preexisting consensus (i.e. how pending changes is supposed to work), we don't need to go to great lengths to start an RfC or something like that. Mz7 (talk) 01:15, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

This particular task is just enforcing a preexisting consensus and normal desirable behaviour, as you say, so as I see it the focus in a BRFA would be evaluating technical soundness (and I'd personally approve on that basis). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:27, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Reasonable enough; that was my feeling too, but I tend to err on the side of caution for consensus about bots. I certainly don't think we need to waste everyone's time with an RfC, and the VPT discussion clearly establishes a problem in need of fixing. In that case, firefly, can I assume you'll work on this? — The Earwig (talk) 02:33, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

@The Earwig: Coding... - I've put in a request at PERM for +reviewer so I can experiment with the relevant API calls. The bot account this task runs under will obviously need this eventually as well, but that's for after the BRFA of course. ƒirefly ( t · c ) 11:03, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Granted. Anarchyte (talk • work) 11:17, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

BRFA filed ƒirefly ( t · c ) 17:33, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Replace dead links

Please could someone replace ELs of the form

• https://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/lighthouse/bhs.htm (a dead link)

with

• {{Cite rowlett|bhs}}

which produces

• Rowlett, Russ. "Lighthouses of the Bahamas". The Lighthouse Directory. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Thanks — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 05:38, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

What sort of scale of edits are we talking (tens, hundreds, thousands)? Primefac (talk) 14:37, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Special:LinkSearch says 1054 for "https://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/lighthouse" and 483 for the "http://" variant. DMacks (talk) 14:43, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

But spot-checking, it's a mix of {{cite web}}, plain links, and links with piped text, and with/without additional plain bibliographic notes. For example, 165 of the https:// form are in a "url=..." context. I think there are too many variations to do automatically. DMacks (talk) 15:06, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Thread copied to Wikipedia:Link_rot/URL_change_requests#unc.edu please follow up there thanks. -- GreenC 17:56, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

The correct venue for this sort of request is WP:URLREQ * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:26, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Thread copied to Wikipedia:Link_rot/URL_change_requests#unc.edu follow up there thanks. -- GreenC 17:56, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

hey guys see my comments about internet archive- below in this forum about bots—there is a not called preppery that is run by cyberpower that can clean up many dead links~<04:36, 4 April 2021 (UTC)~i am an IP

SEE Wikipedia bot requests #internet archive. A guy replied about the bot preppery. Tell that bot owner to come here and look at this conversation

Remove dead links from book and journal citation templates with identifiers

The March 2021 cleanup backlog for the Medicine WikiProject is currently dead links on articles that start with the letter A. About a quarter/third or so of the list was dead links in "cite journal" and "cite book" templates (Template:Cite journal and Template:Cite book) that contain identifiers such as ISBN, DOI, or PMID. A URL is not necessary in these references because identifiers are used. Using the March backlog as a sample and considering the size of the dead link category for the Medicine WikiProject as a whole (currently around two thousand), there are potentially thousands of dead links site-wide that fall into this type of dead link. Removing a single one of these dead links is simple but finding all of them and making a large number of tedious edits is very time-consuming, so this seems like a task a bot could do. Note that |access-date and other URL-related parameters would also be removed. An example of what the bot edits would look like. Velayinosu (talk) 04:09, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Just to add another voice to this and try to gin up some interest here, the task would be to go through each page in Category:All articles with dead external links (251,000 pages have 1+ dead EL!). If the dead link is a URL within {{Cite journal}} or {{Cite book}}, and that template already includes a stable identifier (I think any of the ~26 parameters in Template:Cite_journal#Identifiers will do?), then we don't actually need to fix the dead URL since a stable identifier is pointing to the correct location. So the dead URL and the maintenance tag can be safely removed. This will help us prioritize our time to address dead links that require human intervention. Also the brave bot-operator to take this task up will probably be responsible for the largest drop in articles-with-dead-links of all time. Certainly worth bragging rights at Wikipedia talk:Backlog. Happy to address questions or concerns. Ajpolino (talk) 07:57, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

A WP:LAYOUT bot

Hi, I have seen many articles that seem to get WP:LAYOUT wrong. For example, placing 'See also' after 'References', 'External links' placed before 'References'. I think it is easy for bots to read the layout and correct them. Perhaps, an existing bot can be programmed to do that. Regards--Chanaka L (talk) 10:42, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

AWB's genfixes do some of that, but there will be many pages it never visits. Certes (talk) 10:52, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Bot to repair broken peer review links

Summary of problem

• Over time, links from old peer reviews have become broken. They are contained within this category: Category:Pages using Template:Old peer review with broken archive link ( 702 )
• This is because previously, the link to old peer reviews was based on the current wikipedia article title, even if the article had moved since the review was made (thus creating a broken review link).

Summary of bot request

• There is now a way to provide the artice title of the page when it was reviewed (e.g. Special:Diff/986964116)
• I would like help with a bot to go through the 700 or so reviews with broken links to provide this information and fix the link
• User:AWMBot by BJackJS was created for this (Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/AWMBot ) but unfortunately the editor is on a long wikibreak and this occurred during the bot approval process. There is one remaining problem that stopped the bot from being approved, which is that for some reason the link is duplicated when the bot runs through some articles. (see also Special:Diff/986964116)
• I am hopeful finishing this request may be as simple as picking up User:AWMBot's code and making some small fixes.

Hopefully once a bot has gone through those articles, there may only be a few additional cases that I can manually fix. Unfortunately 700 is too much for me to do manually :(. Thanks I hope! --Tom (LT) (talk) 09:45, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Request for bot called "BCuzwhynot bot"

I'm very busy in real life, and I need a bot to do the editing for me, he will use AutoWikiBrowser and help with vandalism, edit warring, and other problems and situtations. This will not be my only bot, I am also requesting to have 3 bots. He will have a user page, although I do not have one. This will be a good faith bot. If he malfunctions Press the emergency shutoff button. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BCuzwhynot (talk • contribs)

@BCuzwhynot: If you have a specific bot, with well-defined logic, written, you can request approval through WP:BRFA. But given you are a relatively new editor, your first step is to gain familiarity with Wikipedia and how it works, because edit warring, vandalism, etc... are not suitable for bot tasks or AWB bots. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:26, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Changing talk page project templates

Is it possible for a bot to change the following project talkpage templates?:

• {{WikiProject Floods}} to {{WikiProject Weather|floods-task-force=yes}}
• {{WikiProject Weather Data and Instrumentation}} to {{WikiProject Weather|met-data-task-force=yes}}
• {{WikiProject Droughts and Fire Events}} to {{WikiProject Weather|droughts-and-wildfires-task-force=yes}}

It would be rather time-consuming to change all of these by hand and the templates dont exactly agree with the changes I made to avoid changing the talkpage templates. Noah^Talk 22:48, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Hurricane Noah, I have a bot task that can do this kind of thing following consensus at WP:TfD if you want to go that route. --Trialpears (talk) 23:00, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

@Trialpears: Okay... I put up a request and explicitly state they need to be corrected by bot. Noah^Talk 23:26, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

@Trialpears and Hurricane Noah: Would this also cover redirects such as {{Flood}} and {{Weather-data}}? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 05:09, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Reassign DRN Clerk Bot Task

The Dispute Resolution Noticeboard has had a bot-maintained table of the status of cases for several years, and this table can be transcluded onto user pages, and onto the main status page of DRN. This table should be updated a few times a day. This task was previously done by User:HasteurBot, but that bot has been retired from service because its operator is no longer in this world. This task was, until about ten days ago, done by User:MDanielsBot, but that bot has stopped doing that task. It is doing other tasks, but not that task. Its bot operator is on extended wikibreak and did not respond to email. I have spoken to one bot operator who is looking into this task. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:21, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine

The Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine used to be free and open, but now it is free with registration. Can a bot be modified to make edits like this, where I removed things like the | doi-access = free parameter and I added the | url-access= registration parameter? I imagine a complicating factor might be having the bot generate urls. This is my first bot request from memory so my apologies if you feel I'm wasting your time by making this request. Thank you. Biosthmors (talk) 06:58, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

The issue mostly is that this will likely be a case-by-case situation. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:04, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

I was afraid of that but thank you for taking a look Headbomb. Biosthmors (talk) 16:24, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Bot to update from imdb

Hi there,

I am looking to for a bot to update a company page ^[1] with shows that are released as per the corresponding imdb page ^[2], is this possible? I apologise if this is not the place for this kind of request, I am new to using bots.

Many thanks

MonkeyProdCo (talk) 15:48, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

IMDb isn't considered a reliable source on here, so this probably won't be possible. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:59, 16 April 2021 (UTC)