The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. The result of the discussion was Approved.

CataBotTsirel[edit]

Operator: Boris Tsirelson (talk)

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic

Programming Language(s): Python (Pywikipedia)

Function Overview: Help maintaining Catalog of articles in probability theory.

Edit period(s): One time run, probably once a week or so, operated by me (for now).


Function Details: Reads source text from "Talk:Catalog_of_articles_in_probability_theory/Source" organized like User:Tsirel/Catalog source, formats it and rewrite the "Catalog of articles in probability theory" page.

Discussion[edit]

If this only needs to be done once per week, it is only updating a single page, and you will be starting it manually every time, I don't see why you need a separate account. You could just output to a temporary file, and update the page under your own account as a script-assisted edit. Perhaps, after several updates and all the bugs are worked out you could safely run it as an automated process and request approval for a bot task. Wronkiew (talk) 22:23, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but this is just what I did already. (I did it mostly on my "private" copy first, User:Tsirel/Catalog) Boris Tsirelson (talk) 06:25, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I see that the example page cited is up for merger to the standard list format. Is there consensus somewhere for this sort of listing of category catalogs? MBisanz talk 11:03, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Surely no consensus; it is rather an experiment. The merge was proposed once in December, but nothing happened. After that, 3 editors (G716, Ptrf and Michael Hardy) did small changes to that page. It seems clear to me that this new experimental format has some advantages (at least in this case); however, it has an important drawback: it is computer-assisted, thus, it should not be edited manually. My current request is (I hope) a step toward the ultimate solution: a CGI script callable by anyone, similarly to the "mathbot" by Oleg Alexandrov, instrumental for both lists of probability articles, "traditional" and experimental. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 11:52, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
See also my exchange with Oleg Alexandrov User_talk:Oleg_Alexandrov#Another_bot_needed.3F. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 11:56, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm willing to trial it for this one category, but before I approve it for this category, could you leave a note at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics. If you wanted to apply it to other categories, you would need to leave a note at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) in order to ensure it has consensus per Wikipedia:BOT#Bot_requirements #4. MBisanz talk 07:34, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I did (for this category), see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics#Catalog_of_articles_in_probability_theory_versus_List_of_probability_topics.

Works for me Approved for trial (7 days). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. MBisanz talk 08:46, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 17:07, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Trial complete. See the log at User talk:CataBotTsirel. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 07:05, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I encountered a minor problem on the first run of the bot; namely, I did not bother about categories indicated on the bottom of the "Catalog"; they got lost, and I was forced to undo the edit made by my bot. I modified the code accordingly. After that, all went to plan. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 19:38, 24 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 20:14, 24 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Trial complete. All went to plan. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 12:32, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

 Approved. – Quadell (talk) 12:43, 8 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
Category