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 Denied.

KarlsenBot 6[edit]

Operator: Peter Karlsen (talk · contribs)

Time filed: 18:11, Sunday November 21, 2010 (UTC)

Automatic or Manually assisted: automatic

Programming language(s): AutoWikiBrowser

Source code available: AWB

Function overview: Dating maintenance templates

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: several hundred pages per day

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Yes, native to AWB

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): Yes

Function details: With SmackBot indefinitely blocked for persistently making edits too minor to justify their use of server resources, there's a need for another bot to take over its primary task. Any template which populates a subcategory of Wikipedia maintenance categories sorted by month will be dated through use of ((subst:DATE)). While redirects for the maintenance template being dated will be bypassed in this process, no edits will be made for the sole purpose of redirect replacement. In accordance with current usage, the first letter of the maintenance template will be left in lower case (again, no edits will be made just to change the case of the first letter.)left in upper or lower case as it initially appeared, with case-sensitive replacements for both possibilities used to facilitate this.

Discussion[edit]

What do you mean by "first letter of the maintenance template will be left in lower case"? Will the uppercase name be changed to lowercase when adding dates? Also, what current usage are you referring to? I was unaware there was a documented preference for this, as non-bot editors have used both upper- and lowercases, neither being wrong. The problem with SmackBot was changing the case at all, not its upper/lower preference itself. In any case, just clarifying stuff; and this task is welcome, especially with backlog growing now. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 18:27, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You're right, I've corrected the function so that the case of the first letter of the maintenance template is preserved. Peter Karlsen (talk) 18:33, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I note that SmackBot is now unblocked, although it still hasn't edited for a while. Have you discussed this with Rich? I'm sure he's capable of running this on SmackBot (e.g. using SmackBot for bare maintenance template dating), so this needs some input from him first. Also the edits from the two bots would need to be better coordinated than simply running when SmackBot is blocked. Since SmackBot (used to) perform a number of separate actions on pages when dating them, it could be counter-productive to have this bot just dating the templates. I note that the problem of SmackBot capitalising template names at the same time as dating the template was not a massive issue (although it was still an issue). The real problem was edits which only changed template casing. Sorry for the rambling, bottom line is that you need to speak to Rich about this first. - Kingpin13 (talk) 22:20, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This was in response to Wikipedia:BOTREQ#Undated_Articles as a focused task and redundancy to Smakcy. I would also say there is no actual policy/guideline regarding how a bot's task should relate to others bot's tasks. If an interwiki bot was to also fix redirects, we would not request new interwiki bots to also fix redirects. Rich's bot does so many things, it would be incredibly time-consuming for any bot to try and match all the additional tasks. This is less efficient, but not counter-productive. The way I see it, the bots do not conflict with each other (and should not given they are implemented correctly) and there is no requirement to contact Rich first; rather it would be helpful to get his already compiled/tested list of common dating corrections it is making. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 22:30, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My reasoning was that since this bot would only be doing "half" the edit SmackBot would do, but would then "block" SmackBot from editing the page (because the template is already dated), it could result in only half the edit we would get otherwise (if SmackBot was doing the task). There's no requirement to speak to Rich, but I personally wouldn't consider approving what is basically explained as a replacement without first getting his view. Anyway, the point is moot, per the below and Rich's response. - Kingpin13 (talk) 23:58, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've left a note on Rich Farmbrough's talk page. Peter Karlsen (talk) 23:34, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Great, looks like he's happy with this. Is it possible to get some trial edits done with your set up at the moment? If so Approved for trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. - Kingpin13 (talk) 23:58, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Some things to help the task:

So be sure to use the latest snapshot. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:51, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Btw, I am OK with Peter Karlsen doing the job. I was thinking to ask for the tsk myself since my bot already performs AWB's general fixes in other selective lists which include date tagging but it's better if we split the job to more people. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:57, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Trial complete. [1] is a permanent link to the edits. Peter Karlsen (talk) 03:29, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This looks pretty good! I think the trial would have been better if it was based on a time constraint (maybe like 2 or 3 hours), and it only involved one category (so that it couldn't end up running away and screwing things up for all of the categories). What I'd like to be able to see is this bot's ability to both clear a category quickly and efficiently and be able to pounce on new additions to keep it clear. I'm not saying that we need to do another trial, just that I would have wanted to see this bot run as it would under normal circumstances. --vgmddg (look | talk | do) 22:16, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Although the bot is not changing the capitalisation, I note that in some cases it is still bypassing redirects e.g. Could this also be prevented, or would that be too complicated? - Kingpin13 (talk) 15:26, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The details listed ".. redirects for the maintenance template being dated will be bypassed in this process ..". I though this is valid behaviour? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 15:28, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think this was discussed in WP:REDIRECT and we have consensus for that. All AWB bots have the same behaviour on this. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:37, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Here's the list of all the template redirects: Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects and here's the list with all the templates dated: Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Dated templates. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:40, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Denied. Blocked by ArbCom. - Kingpin13 (talk) 10:31, 8 December 2010 (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.
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