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

Operator: SMS ^Talk

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic

Programming Language(s): AWB + Custom Module(C#)

Function Summary: This bot will convert in-text external links into references.

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): Daily

Edit rate requested: 8-9 edits per min

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

Function Details: SMS Bot 2 will convert External links present in the text of an article into references and will also add ((Reflist)) if not present, before the External links section. A sample edit: [1]

Doesn't seem to follow the correct cite web procedure. — Werdna talk 01:08, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, although, I love this task, can you make it use ((cite web))? If you could, however, you may need to think about how to tell when ((cite news)) etc, are appropriate. SQL^{Query me!} 03:11, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well! after reading Citing sources, I got an impression that using citation templates is something controversial. So I avoided use of these templates. --SMS ^Talk 04:21, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're right.. but since when? — Werdna talk 07:54, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Don't know exactly but this discussion might have triggered it. --SMS ^Talk 11:23, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

shrug. Any objections to this bot's task? — Werdna talk 12:05, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• How does it determine which links to convert? Not every in-text external link is a reference. In fact, I'd wager the vast majority of them are not. A link should only be turned into a reference if the link actually is a reference for the provided material. -- JLaTondre (talk) 15:17, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It can't determine whether an external link is a reference or not, just for the purpose of readability it will convert the external link into reference. And as much as I have seen, most of the external links are references or footnotes. Another thing it will convert only unnamed URL. --SMS ^Talk 16:42, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Then it is a bad idea. Take Sales Performance Management (SPM) for an example. The section labeled "Vendors" contains external links to the corporations mentioned. These are not references. They are at best external links that should be replaced with internal links. The links do not establish the vendors as a "best-of-breed" choice for a SPM solutions. This paragraph needs to be re-written (or deleted); making it look like a referenced statement is absolutely the wrong thing. Wikipedia has tons of this type of external linking. It only took me a couple minutes to find this one example. References should only be for real references. -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:00, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can't these external links be taken as footnotes. --SMS ^Talk 17:12, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also ((Reflist)) should not be used but rather <references/> instead. β^{_{command 2}} 15:39, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why <references/> is a better option than ((Reflist))? --SMS ^Talk 16:42, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

many many people dont like the template, I got many complaints when I started adding ref sections to articles that had refs but no ref section. <references/> is the recomended option. β^{_{command 2}} 17:06, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ok! I am changing it. --SMS ^Talk 17:12, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done with this.[2] --SMS ^Talk 19:53, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am still confused regarding use of ((Reflist)) and <references/>, because AWB still converts <references/> to ((Reflist)) in general fixes. --SMS ^Talk 19:42, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with changing any [1] sorts of external links into references for readability. I'm not sure what community consensus is on this, though. — Werdna talk 23:18, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I also agree that this should be the norm for the way external links are used. If MediaWiki did it automatically that'd be even better! §hep • ¡Talk to me! 22:41, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Would there be some way to integrate reflinks.py-like functionality into this bot, or automatically point a bot that does add titles to external links (e.g. User:DumZiBoT) to the articles SMS Bot goes through? Gracenotes^T § 04:22, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, at present there is no such function, but that is a good idea and I think both bots can coordinate with each other if there is a consensus on this issue. --SMS ^Talk 16:15, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How would it handle say a link in a navbox or image thumb? MBisanz ^talk 21:13, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It will do nothing if an external link is in the description of an image or in any transclusion. --SMS ^Talk 15:22, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Inline links should NOT be automatically turned into references. A lot of inline links need removed as spam. this is not a good task for an automated bot to do. β^_command 21:15, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have seen many spam in references and removed them, so I think still they can be removed as external links which are spam are removed. --SMS ^Talk 19:42, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Object to this task—inline links are sometimes used as part of article context, and placing references after words (as opposed to after punctuation) goes against Wikipedia:FOOTNOTE (if I recall correctly! :). I would suggest that discussion at a relevant village pump take place before such a task takes places manually, let alone automatically. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 10:54, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also (again, I haven't looked at FOOTNOTE recently, so I may be off...) <references/> should be used when there are less than 5 unique refs—in other cases, ((reflist)) should be used. I'm fairly sure you can't do that (check which one to use) with AWB. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 10:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think this bot's task is getting more and more controversial. Another thing there is also a script for converting external links into references. I think it is used with AWB. --SMS ^Talk 19:42, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reading the code for that one, I believe it takes stuff already in <ref> tags and ((cite web))s them, which I believe is different to this task request. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 01:18, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Links of the form go [http://web.com here] shouldn't be converted. This would need to exclude anything in the external links section or already inside ref tags, since people often write <ref>Some webpage title [http://web.com]</ref>. Given those exclusions it might work as an assisted script, but I have doubts about automatic operation. Gimmetrow 05:10, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it will only convert external links without any name and which are not enclosed as reference. --SMS ^Talk 18:31, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are we going ahead with this request, or refusing it? Is there consensus, or not? — Werdna talk 10:00, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Still objecting for the reasons I already outlined - not all inline external links should be references. This is a matter for editorial judgement. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 10:09, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't seems to be a consensus though I am still waiting for the expected decision(Not approved ;() and praying at the same time that the decision should be unexpected :). --SMS ^Talk 11:28, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Denied. bots cannot do this task. β^{_{command 2}} 20:22, 11 May 2008 (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.