The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA. The result of the discussion was Withdrawn by operator.

Operator: DannyS712 (talk · contribs · SUL · edit count · logs · page moves · block log · rights log · ANI search)

Time filed: 17:46, Sunday, January 6, 2019 (UTC)

Function overview: Go through Category:Good articles with AWB; skip if in Category:Articles with short description. If not skipped, add to maintenance category (doesn't currently exist) Category:Good articles lacking short descriptions for easier finding of good articles needing short descriptions (I found a couple by randomly checking, but this would be a lot easier).

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Automatic

Programming language(s): AWB

Source code available: AWB

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): One time run (likely split into multiple chunks)

Estimated number of pages affected: Less that 29,034, the current size of the GA category.

Namespace(s): Mainspace

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): yes (AWB default)

Function details:

• Disable gen fixes
• Make a list in AWB from the category Category:Good articles
• Preparse to remove pages in Category:Articles with short description
• Save list
• Start working through list

• For each article, add Category:Good articles lacking short descriptions to pages using AWB's "Categories" functionality (seen at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/User manual#More...)

Discussion[edit]

This is my first attempt at a bot. It would also require getting approval to use AWB for the bot --DannyS712 (talk) 17:46, 6 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There are almost 26000 articles that fit this description. Is there a consensus or general agreement to undertake this sort of task? Primefac (talk) 18:04, 6 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Primefac: Wikipedia:WikiProject Short descriptions#Which articles can I work on? notes that All articles need a short description, Featured, Good, A and B class could be prioritised. Currently, about 673k articles have short descriptions (Category:Articles with short description), but, as you see, almost 26k good articles, which should be prioritized, are lacking them. This would not create descriptions, but merely track which articles still need them. --DannyS712 (talk) 18:12, 6 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Well, at least I've saved you the trouble of doing the first 4 steps of your process (which, in case you hadn't noticed, uses PetScan to generate pages in multiple category trees). ((BotTrial|edits=50)). Primefac (talk) 18:14, 6 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Primefac: 2 questions - how can I save that list to use it in AWB, and can you approve my bot account as "confirmed" and add it to the AWB check-page? Also, should these edits be made from my main account or the bot? --DannyS712 (talk) 18:22, 6 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

On the "Output" tab there are a lot of options. I've always found it easiest to use the "Wiki" option, copy it into a sandbox, and then use AWB's "all links on page" option.

To get access to AWB you need to request access. Given that this bot run might not happen, I'd wait on that for a bit. If you'd like your main account to get access, the page for that is at WP:PERM/AWB, though I'd suggest not doing this specific task with it (26k edits is a lot!). Primefac (talk) 02:09, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Primefac: I already have AWB on my main account, but I won't do anything related to this. What I meant, when you approved me for a trial, was would you be willing to add me to the check page and mark the bot account confirmed? Obviously this doesn't matter now, but if you want to do those now I promise I wouldn't use the bot account for anything until its approved. --DannyS712 (talk) 02:47, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) This definitely needs consensus first. The linked project's points (which is not a guideline or policy) is not consensus to add a maintenance category. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 18:29, 6 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Hellknowz: Well I can't use AWB yet, and I have an event to go to for a few hours, so I won't start the trial now. I look forward to seeing the discussion when I return --DannyS712 (talk) 18:32, 6 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, and I don't see the necessity. The Petscan list would seem to work well enough for most if not all purposes, and that category would go out of date quite quickly unless continuously maintained, especially considering that automatic short descriptions (from infoboxes) could easily cause hundreds of GAs to gain short descriptions. Galobtter (pingó mió) 18:36, 6 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• In light of the above concerns, I have rescinded the bot trial until further discussion can take place. Primefac (talk) 23:55, 6 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  @Primefac: I have posted a neutrally worded note on the talk page of the wikiproject, saying "please see" this BRFA. Hopefully we'll get some comments and see what people think about this. --DannyS712 (talk) 06:30, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Summoned fronm the short description wikiproject talk page. This is a helpful list to have, but this can be better implemented as a simple list in userspace that people can go through in a similar manner to what we did with the Neelix redirects. This will save 1 or 2 edits to each affected article. Such a list can be regenerated reasonably quickly if needed.Tazerdadog (talk) 09:45, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  The problem with the simple list in user space, such as User:RexxS/sandbox/Good articles without short descriptions, is that it takes the server almost 30 seconds to render it, so it will take about the same amount of time each time an editor removes an item from the list after adding a short description to that item. I think the category idea has some merit after all, as an editor writing a short description could easily also remove the Category:Good articles without short descriptions template much quicker than updating the simple list in user space. --RexxS (talk) 18:45, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  Why have editors manually remove items from the list (or a category)? Just regenerate it every day/week (could be easily done by bot if that is necessary) Galobtter (pingó mió) 18:51, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  Normally, in a multi-user environment, the workflow for updating items from a list involves marking the items as updated in real time because that ensures that users don't conflict with each other. However, if you feel that the chance of conflict given a day's or week's lag is small enough, then there's no need to mark the list. I should add that the list I created involved turning the table produced by Petscan's 'wiki' output option into a simple list, as that more than halved the page size making it manageable, if still unwieldy. Of course, you would then want a bot to regenerate the list daily/weekly from Petscan's output, so I'm not sure what we gain from not pursuing the idea of a bot creating a maintenance category as first suggested. --RexxS (talk) 19:09, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  There's 26000 GAs at this point, pretty unlikely to be conflicts; a maintenance category bot involves far more edits and more importantly watchlist annoyance than a bot that updates a list daily (or even hourly). Galobtter (pingó mió) 19:13, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  The snag with using the size of the list as a means of reducing conflicts is that humans will tend to work from one end of the list or the other, no matter how large it is, cf. NPP and RCP. Nevertheless your point about watchlist annoyance is well made, especially as GAs are more likely to be on larger numbers of watchlist anyway. --RexxS (talk) 19:40, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  @Galobtter: I was envisioning a "task 2" - weekly, go through the category of GA missing short descriptions, and remove the category if there is a short description. That way if people don't remove the tag themselves, it will still get updated. --DannyS712 (talk) 20:18, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  That still results in a lot of watchlist hits and will be more outdated than a list updated daily would be. Galobtter (pingó mió) 20:20, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  @Galobtter: The run could be daily, not weekly, and, if flagged as a bot, a lot of watchlists wouldn't include the edit --DannyS712 (talk) 20:24, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  Regardless of watchlist hits (and many people do not hide bot edits), I don't think you've given an explanation though, for why this would be better than a list. Galobtter (pingó mió) 20:25, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  @Galobtter: I simply think that a list is more unwieldy. As RexxS pointed out above, The snag with using the size of the list as a means of reducing conflicts is that humans will tend to work from one end of the list or the other, no matter how large it is. Furthermore, to remove items from a list of 26000 links would mean loading that huge page in the editor each time. Even if it was split into 26 sections of 1000 each, thats still a lot of strain to remove 1 line. I would be easier to have a category that can be removed in the same edit as adding the short description itself. And, for maintenance, the bot would be making up to 2 edits per GA: adding the category, and later removing it. For people watchlisting the page, seeing that the tag has been added may be a good thing, since they could then add a short description themselves. --DannyS712 (talk) 00:00, 8 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• I have gone ahead and split the list into 5 sectioned lists. 1 2 3 4 5. These lists use the basic techniques we learned from the Neelix cleanup to make load times manageable. I can remove an item from one of these lists in a couple of seconds. We have already demonstrated using the Neelix cleanup that this is a viable workflow. Let me know if there are any questions or concerns. Tazerdadog (talk) 01:06, 8 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  @Tazerdadog: Nevermind then. How do I withdraw a brfa? --DannyS712 (talk) 01:12, 8 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  @Tazerdadog: Actually, I have a different question about maintnance. If people don't know about the list, they may just add short descriptions without removing the entries from your pages. Wouldn't it be easier to maintain if it were a category? --DannyS712 (talk) 01:15, 8 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  @DannyS712: It is easy enough to manually regenerate these lists from the petscan link if we ever find that they're getting out of sync. I don't think that will happen often, but it's no trouble at all for me to do that if it does. Tazerdadog (talk) 01:22, 8 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  @Tazerdadog: Okay. Well, it looks like this bot isn't needed, so  Request withdrawn. --DannyS712 (talk) 01:24, 8 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA.