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 Approved.

Taxobot 6[edit]

Operator: Smith609 (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted:Automatic

Programming language(s): PHP

Source code available: Will be available at Google Code, which currently hosts code for existing tasks.

Function overview: Populates |authority= fields in taxoboxes if empty.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): n/a

Edit period(s): Continuous, when needed

Estimated number of pages affected: Thousands, as back-end templates are created

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Yes

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

Function details: Populates |authority= field in taxoboxes if empty.

The data source is the Global Names Database (see Patterson, D. J.; Cooper, J.; Kirk, P. M.; Pyle, R. L.; Remsen, D. P. (2010). "Names are key to the big new biology". Trends in Ecology & Evolution. 25 (12): 686. doi:10.1016/j.tree.2010.09.004.); where there is ambiguity, a list of possible names will be set in a hidden comment, with a categorization to invite human disambiguation. Data will only be added when it is absent; existing data will not be modified.

Edits using this data source in a different context can be seen at [1] and [2].

Discussion[edit]

Could you please shortly explain this task to users unfamiliar with the taxoboxes (i.e. me)? So the |authority= is basically the source of the classification with which the article deals directly? And what you do is add this information (i.e. who classified it?) from the "Global Names Database"? Previously, instead of bare text, you would create and add a template? But now the request is simply adding bare text? Can you perhaps provide one or two manual edits of what this task does.

Also, does Kevmin still have objections? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:55, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The authority of a taxon is the person(s) who established the taxon, and the date of this publication. Since taxonomic definitions are sometimes modified (or have the same name as other taxa), the authority makes it clear which definition is being used. The request is for the bot to automatically add the information to Automatic taxoboxes (where the data is unambiguous in the Names Database, and absent in the article); previously, this would have been achieved by modifying a template in template-space, and it was this templating issue to which Kevmin objected. Template:Automatic taxobox now exclusively uses the same way of specifying an authority as Template:Taxobox (that is, though a parameter in the taxobox code in an article), and I've updated this bot request to reflect this. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:04, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Since you didn't provide a human-edit example, final clarification. So the edit is basically adding some text to the parameter? Not a transcluded template or anything. Like "Smith (2000)" (but according to the established syntax, of course) or similar. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 15:33, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it will add the text "|authority=Smith, 2000" within the scope "((automatic taxobox|other parameters=)). For an example of the output (manually generated with wikilinks, which the bot won't add) see Stauroteuthis. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 16:03, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Seems everything is good. Approved for trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Would prefer to see some 2-3 different taxa runs; not, for example, 50 families of the same sub-order :) —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:16, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Great, thanks! If you wouldn't mind taking a look at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Taxobot_3, if this could be closed then I'll be able to use that account for the trial, so that it's easier to see the requisite edits. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 16:31, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Both approvals are for User:Taxobot. I'm not sure what you mean. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 17:22, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
At the moment, Taxobot's last 20 edits are the trial edits for task 3. This makes it very easy to find and check the trial edits, so as to assess whether to approve task 3. It'll be harder to find these edits once I make test edits pertaining to task 6. Not the end of the world, but might save a little confusion later on. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 20:02, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, here's a permalink to those 20 edits. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 21:21, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Just the job! Thanks! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 22:09, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Trial complete.. It only managed 42 edits, but it's added all the authorities that it's able to to the 883 mainspace instances of the template. A couple of quirks (with unnamed parameters) were fixed in r71. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 22:24, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You should not be re-capitalizing template names: ((automatic -> ((Automatic taxobox. There is definitely no consensus for this and it's under "editor preference" list. Enough bots have been discussed/blocked for this. Otherwise, looks good. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:35, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I've added a line of code to determine the existing capitalization and retain this, as you can see with this re-done edit. I've made a couple more edits to bring the total to the 50 permitted. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 23:02, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
 Approved. MBisanz talk 02:37, 3 January 2011 (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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