Wikipedia:Bot requests

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This is a page for requesting tasks to be done by bots per the bot policy. This is an appropriate place to put ideas for uncontroversial bot tasks, to get early feedback on ideas for bot tasks (controversial or not), and to seek bot operators for bot tasks. Consensus-building discussions requiring large community input (such as request for comments) should normally be held at WP:VPPROP or other relevant pages (such as a WikiProject's talk page).

You can check the "Commonly Requested Bots" box above to see if a suitable bot already exists for the task you have in mind. If you have a question about a particular bot, contact the bot operator directly via their talk page or the bot's talk page. If a bot is acting improperly, follow the guidance outlined in WP:BOTISSUE. For broader issues and general discussion about bots, see the bot noticeboard.

Before making a request, please see the list of frequently denied bots, either because they are too complicated to program, or do not have consensus from the Wikipedia community. If you are requesting that a template (such as a WikiProject banner) is added to all pages in a particular category, please be careful to check the category tree for any unwanted subcategories. It is best to give a complete list of categories that should be worked through individually, rather than one category to be analyzed recursively (see example difference).

Alternatives to bot requests

• WP:AWBREQ, for simple tasks that involve a handful of articles and/or only needs to be done once (e.g. adding a category to a few articles).
• WP:URLREQ, for tasks involving changing or updating URLs to prevent link rot (specialized bots deal with this).
• WP:USURPREQ, for reporting a domain be usurped eg. |url-status=usurped
• WP:SQLREQ, for tasks which might be solved with an SQL query (e.g. compiling a list of articles according to certain criteria).
• WP:TEMPREQ, to request a new template written in wiki code or Lua.
• WP:SCRIPTREQ, to request a new user script. Many useful scripts already exist, see Wikipedia:User scripts/List.
• WP:CITEBOTREQ, to request a new feature for WP:Citation bot, a user-initiated bot that fixes citations.

Note to bot operators: The {{BOTREQ}} template can be used to give common responses, and make it easier to keep track of the task's current status. If you complete a request, note that you did with {{BOTREQ|done}}, and archive the request after a few days (WP:1CA is useful here).

#	Bot request	Status	💬	👥	🙋 Last editor	🕒 (UTC)	🤖 Last botop editor	🕒 (UTC)
1	Bot to remove template from articles it doesn't belong on?		4	4	Wikiwerner	2024-09-28 17:28	Primefac	2024-07-24 20:15
2	Removing redundant FURs on file pages		5	3	Wikiwerner	2024-09-28 17:28	Anomie	2024-08-09 14:15
3	Discussion alert bot		6	4	Headbomb	2024-09-08 12:29	Headbomb	2024-09-08 12:29
4	Regularly removing coords missing if coordinates are present	BRFA filed	11	2	Usernamekiran	2024-09-07 13:19	Usernamekiran	2024-09-07 13:19
5	Latex: move punctuation to go inside templates		3	2	Yodo9000	2024-09-07 18:59	Anomie	2024-09-07 03:38
6	de-AMP bot	BRFA filed	13	7	Usernamekiran	2024-09-24 16:04	Usernamekiran	2024-09-24 16:04
7	Articles about years: redirects and categories	BRFA filed	7	3	DreamRimmer	2024-09-16 01:18	DreamRimmer	2024-09-16 01:18
8	WikiProject ratings change	BRFA filed	3	2	DreamRimmer	2024-09-15 11:43	DreamRimmer	2024-09-15 11:43
9	QIDs in Infobox person/Wikidata	BRFA filed	11	4	Tom.Reding	2024-10-06 14:23	Tom.Reding	2024-10-06 14:23
10	Remove outdated "Image requested" templates		3	2	7804j	2024-09-21 11:26	DreamRimmer	2024-09-19 18:53
11	"Was" in TV articles		5	3	Primefac	2024-09-29 19:34	Primefac	2024-09-29 19:34
12	Films by director	done	9	4	Usernamekiran	2024-10-03 13:30	Usernamekiran	2024-10-03 13:30
13	altering certain tags on protected pages?		10	5	Primefac	2024-10-20 14:47	Primefac	2024-10-20 14:47
14	Request for Bot to Remove ARWU_NU Parameter from Articles Using Infobox US University Ranking Template		4	2	Primefac	2024-10-13 12:50	Primefac	2024-10-13 12:50
15	Removal of two external link templates per TfD result		6	4	Primefac	2024-10-14 13:48	Primefac	2024-10-14 13:48
16	Replace merged WikiProject template with parent project + parameter	Done	7	3	Primefac	2024-10-21 10:04	Primefac	2024-10-21 10:04
17	Bot Request to Add Vezina Trophy Winners Navbox to Relevant Player Pages		3	3	Primefac	2024-10-19 12:23	Primefac	2024-10-19 12:23
18	Replace standalone BLP templates	Done	7	3	MSGJ	2024-10-30 19:37	Tom.Reding	2024-10-29 16:04
19	Assess set index and WikiProject Lists based on category as lists		13	5	Mrfoogles	2024-10-31 23:53	Tom.Reding	2024-10-31 21:44

It's a principle of navbox templates that their primary purpose is to link the specific things in the navbox to each other, and that if a page isn't linked inside the navbox then it shouldn't have that navbox on it — the purpose of a navbox is to provide two-way "X to Y and Y to X" navigation within a defined group, not to create an all-purpose portal into that group from all over God's green acre.

Accordingly, {{Film lists by country}} is for navigating between the base lists that are linked inside that template; although some countries have their base lists split up by decade or individual year due to a large number of films, those spinoff lists aren't linked in that template, which serves to navigate between the base lists and is not meant as "portal" to that set from other articles not linked back to in that set. However, some editors have been indiscriminately adding it to essentially every single list of films that has a country name in it at all regardless of whether it's warranted there or not.

For example, List of Canadian films of 2023 has justified navbox templates for {{2023 films}} and {{Cinema of Canada}}, because it's important for a reader to be able to one-click from there to equivalent sublists for the same year or the same country, such as List of American films of 2023 and List of Australian films of 2023 and List of Canadian films of 2024 — but a reader does not need to be able to one-click from List of Canadian films of 2023 to base lists like List of Azerbaijani films or List of Latvian films, so it doesn't need the "base lists" navbox on it alongside the other two navboxes.

Basically, the navbox should only be on pages that are also listed in the navbox, so that I can navigate in both directions. If I can click on a link in the navbox to navigate away from List of Canadian films of 2023, then once I'm on that other page I have to also be able to navigate my way back to List of Canadian films of 2023 by clicking on its link in the same navbox — and if it doesn't have a link inside that navbox, then it shouldn't have that navbox on it at all.

But on a list comparison in AWB, I found that the number of articles that the template is on without needing to be there is into the thousands, which is a much bigger job than I'm prepared to gnome my way through. So I wanted to ask if there's a bot that can go through all transclusions of {{Film lists by country}} (as well as the redirects from {{Filmsbycountry}} and {{Films by country}}) to remove that navbox from any article that isn't also a link inside the navbox? Bearcat (talk) 20:07, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll have a think about this, but in the meantime posting [1] as the transclusion count and mismatch (looks like ~2k transclusions that aren't in the navbox itself). Primefac (talk) 20:15, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Before blindly removing the template, you first need to check whether it actually links via a redirect (in which case the template needs to be updated) and whether the template should link to that article. For example a navbox template for Rivers in Foo should include a link to the Rivers in Foo/List of rivers in Foo/List of longest rivers in Foo/Rivers in Foo by discharge/etc article(s). Thryduulf (talk) 10:22, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That can be checked by bot too. Wikiwerner (talk) 17:28, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Each uses of non-free files need a separate fair use rationale (FUR) which explains why the usage of the file in that article is according to the policy. When someone removes a file from a page the user very rarely also remove the FUR which then just stays there and collects dust and take up unnecessary space, leading to pages like File:SciFi channel.svg which has 11 FURs yet is only used on one page, hence 10 of the FURs need to be removed. Most cases would probably only remove one or two FURs though.

I hence request that a bot remove these unnecessary FURs. To not make it too complicated I suggest only removing the FURs using the template {{Non-free use rationale}} (or any redirect of it) or another template that transcludes it, for example {{Logo fur}}. I guess the bot would check the Article parameter and remove the template if the file isn't used there. Jonteemil (talk) 22:29, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

How would this requested bot avoid a scenario like this?

1. Vandal removes an image as part of their vandalism.
2. Bot removes the FUR.
3. Vandal is reverted.
4. Well-meaning editor removes the image again due to lack of a FUR.

It seems to me that human review may be useful to determine whether the FUR really is obsolete or the image really should be used in the article. Anomie⚔ 14:03, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I mean it would be hard to avoid that but I guess it's no different from B-bot when it marks a file {{Di-orphaned non-free use}} after a vandal removed the file from a page. If human review is required then the human can simple remove the FUR themself. No need for a bot then. I think it would be worth having this as a task even if a small number of FURs are wrongly removed because of vandals. Jonteemil (talk) 20:26, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

One could create a report too, so that a human can check whether the FUR may be removed. Wikiwerner (talk) 17:28, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Regarding that specific example, it looks like most went away when the channel changed logos. Some that kept the historical logo have switched to File:Sci Fi 2002.svg, which the one remaining use probably should do as well. And I have no idea what happened in Special:Diff/842057982. Anomie⚔ 14:15, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Could there be a bot created to address the following need? Many editors, including myself, mostly contribute to pages related to specific countries and/or certain topics and discussions about these topics/countries often appear on various noticeboards (e.g.WP:RSN, WP:COIN: WP:BLPN: WP:RFC and so on) and can be missed if they are not added to our watchlists. The proposed bot would crawl these noticeboards and notify interested editors if a discussion related to their country or specified topics is started. editors should be able to set preferences for notifications based on countries, topics, or search terms they are interested in. This would greatly enhance our ability to stay informed and engaged with relevant discussions. — Saqib (talk I contribs) 14:41, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Saqib, how do you propose a bot detect if the section is related to a particular topic or country? — Qwerfjkltalk 17:32, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Qwerfjkl, Maybe based on keywords in the section title? — Saqib (talk I contribs) 06:42, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

there would be lots of false positives, and misses with this method. Unless, the tags are added to the post while creating it, like RfCs. —usernamekiran (talk) 07:56, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. — Qwerfjkltalk 08:18, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There's WP:AALERTS that will track discussions related to pages within a WikiProject. It's not exactly what you want, but it'll cover some of those. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:29, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've just gone through over 500 articles using AWB in order to remove the {{coords missing}} template from articles that do have coordinates (in the form of {{coord}}). Since this is a not-uncommon issue, it might be a good idea to have a bot do this every month or so, instead of needing an editor to go through it manually. Suntooooth, it/he (talk/contribs) 00:22, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Suntooooth: on it. —usernamekiran (talk) 12:04, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Suntooooth: Hi. In this edit you removed the "coords missing" template, but the articles infobox has {{coord|display=title,inline}}. shouldnt there be any value? would this be considered acceptable on a mass scale and/or by a bot? —usernamekiran (talk) 12:17, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

for this particular example, the co-ordinates are being pulled from wikidata. what if some other city/item on wikidata does not have co-ordinates, and an editor here adds {{coord|display=title,inline}}? —usernamekiran (talk) 12:25, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My PetScan search was probably a bit flawed, I didn't realise there was an article in there that had the coords template but not any actual value on it (it's not a very common occurrence). I guess the bot should check that there's an actual value assigned to the coords template. Suntooooth, it/he (talk/contribs) 15:20, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Suntooooth: is there a possibility that your petscan as well received the coordinates value from the wikidata item? I can configure the bot to check that there's an actual value assigned to the coords template. But I do not know how to to check the wikidata (in case it has the coordinates like in the instance of Zeta Municipality). I wil look into that, and will let you know in couple of days. —usernamekiran (talk) 17:04, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No, my petscan search just looked for articles in Category:Articles missing coordinates with coordinates on Wikidata that had a {{coord}} template somewhere on the page (query here). I don't quite understand why you have to see if there's coordinates on Wikidata (surely if there's a coords template without any number values, just leave that for manual review? There's not going to be many of those) but if that is required, User:Jeeputer/coordInserter's code might be useful. Suntooooth, it/he (talk/contribs) 17:12, 5 September 2024 (UTC

@Suntooooth: I mean, in the link I provided above, the coords template does not have any values, but that template is getting accurate coordinates values from wikidata. Under these circumstances, removal of coords missing was appropriate. In case the wikidata did not have the coordinates, then it should not have been removed. I am thinking about the bot's workflow as follows:

1. go through articles, check for coord template.
2. if coord template has values, remove the "missing" template, move on to next article.
3. if coord template doesn't have values:
   1. go to wikidata, check coordinates values there.
   2. if values are missing, move on.
   3. if values are present, then remove the "missing" template, move on.

if we are going to make it run on a regular basis, then we should make the bot ready for as many scenarios as possible. —usernamekiran (talk) 17:38, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

maybe we can add one more function: if coordinates are present on wikidata, then add it to enwiki article? —usernamekiran (talk) 17:49, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Up to you - it would make things a little less confusing in the future. Suntooooth, it/he (talk/contribs) 19:09, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

BRFA filed —usernamekiran (talk) 13:19, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is mainly an issue when the Wikipedia pages are viewed on narrow screens: the latex equations are rendered as images, and any punctuation placed next to them can spill over to the next (or previous) line. I think the following punctuation marks can be moved without problems: ; , ., with an edge case for ellipses (I'm not sure when you would use then after an equation though). Yodo9000 (talk) 20:45, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Having the punctuation formatted as part of the equation seems like it would be incorrect if it's not actually part of the equation. If it's really a problem for some equation, probably better would be to use {{nowrap}}. Anomie⚔ 03:38, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

{{nowrap}} also works. I hadn't heard of it yet. Including punctuation in equations is common when writing documents fully in Latex; equations are almost always also a part of a sentence. Final value theorem had a lot of problems that I fixed yesterday. Yodo9000 (talk) 18:59, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

{{resolved}} AMP url's are privacy-violating, among other concerns, and, imho and have little benefits to Wikipedia users.

I used https://www.amputatorbot.com to make this edit, for example, so I know it is at least doable. Would be cool if we can name it AmputatorBot but that needs owners permission. Osalbahr (talk) 21:56, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Osalbahr, this is already being done by Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DoggoBot 10; see Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 84#Accelerated Mobile Pages link eradicator needed. — Qwerfjkltalk 09:43, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, @Qwerfjkl! I agree, my request is redundant and is already part of Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/DoggoBot_10. Should I delete this section or keep it? You are also free to delete it if you want. Osalbahr (talk) 00:45, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Generally speaking, one should not remove talk page discussions that are resolved. Here, I have tagged the discussion with {{resolved}} to indicate that it has reached a conclusion. Using {{atop}}/{{abot}} is also another option. Primefac (talk) 16:01, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that BRFA is 1.5 years old. At this point, this task should be considered up for grabs if any botop is interested. – SD0001 (talk) 14:44, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@SD0001: I'm interested, but I think we should notify Frostly —usernamekiran (talk) 20:36, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I had a conversation with the owner of the AmputatorBot API a few days ago. They aren't accepting public requests at the moment, which is causing rate limit issues for everyone, but they are ready to add our user-agent to the allowlist. – DreamRimmer (talk) 01:30, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Given that the AmputatorBot API is open source, why not have a version hosted on Toolforge? – robertsky (talk) 08:44, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I went through their code at github. most of the functions of the bot are not necessary for an enwiki bot. the only one function seemed to be useful, but not important. In short, botop has created a database of thousands of AMP links and their canonical URLs for caching and faster performance. In our case that seems unnecessary too, as it would consume resources, and maintaining it would be another thing. I have come up with a rudimentary script. Is there any (maintenance/hidden) category where we can get articles with AMP links? —usernamekiran (talk) 13:27, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You might need to request the maintenance category to be added through the citation templates? WT:CS1 – robertsky (talk) 14:23, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You can test your script on this list; all these pages include AMP urls. – DreamRimmer (talk) 15:47, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@DreamRimmer: thanks. —usernamekiran (talk) 15:51, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• BRFA filed but instead of forking the amputatorbot, I created the program from scratch. courtesy pings to @Frostly, Osalbahr, Robertsky, and SD0001: —usernamekiran (talk) 16:04, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For each AD year where we have an article named in the format AD 99, please create redirects from (e.g.) AD99, 99 AD and 99AD, if no such article or redirect already exists.

To each of those articles (not redirects) please apply Category:Years AD.

For each BC year where we have an article named in the format 100 BC, please create redirects from (e.g.) 100BC, BC100 and BC 100, if no such article or redirect already exists.

(BC years seem to be adequately categorised already). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:55, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sure! I'll take a look at this. Rusty 🐈 14:08, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Rusty Cat, are you planning to do this task? – DreamRimmer (talk) 18:40, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@DreamRimmer: Yes. Rusty 🐈 18:50, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pigsonthewing, can you please provide more information about this task? Are only the years that have AD and BC in the title included, or are other AD and BC years that do not have these in the title also included? I see you mentioned formats, but I just want to confirm. – DreamRimmer (talk) 16:50, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The request was as stated, but if someone wants to do the same for years in formats like 1918 I've no objection. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:56, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

BRFA filed by Rusty Cat – DreamRimmer (talk) 01:18, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

User:WP 1.0 bot/Tables/Project/Medicine says that there are 442 "mid-priority" and 816 "low-priority" redirects in Category:Redirect-Class medicine articles. All redirects for Template:WikiProject Medicine should be tagged as "NA" priority per Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Assessment#Quality assessment. It used to be automatic, but apparently the template behavior has changed since then, possibly when they started autodetecting redirects. Could someone send a bot through to correct these? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:14, 15 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Doing... – DreamRimmer (talk) 02:43, 15 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@WhatamIdoing, BRFA filed – DreamRimmer (talk) 11:43, 15 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For each entry in Category:Infobox person Wikidata using qid, please:

1. Check that the |qid= value matches the QID of the article's matched Wikidata item
2. if so, delete the entire |qid= line, as in this edit
3. Add a note of any that do not match to a log page (the talk page of the category should be fine) for manual checking and resolution.

It's possible that this might be required to be re-run on a regular basis, and could be added to a scheduled cleanup task. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:18, 15 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Pigsonthewing: Hi. I already have a code which can perform the first two steps (for the task described in the thread above "Regularly removing coords missing if coordinates are present"). Can you give me an example wording) of the line that you are expecting for the third step? —usernamekiran (talk) 20:27, 15 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. A simple list of links to the articles, under the heading "QID in template does not match Wikidata" would be fine. OTOH, if you want to make a separate edit for each occurrence, then a link to the article followed by "QID in template does not match Wikidata". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:12, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Andy actually, only the removal of QID line would fall under WP:COSMETICBOT. We can create a list of mismatches like you suggested on the category talkpage, or some new/dedicated WP page. The ones that have correct QID can be removed with AWB if some other changes are made as well. So we will have to create two separate lists (on the same page, or separate). Let me know what you think. —usernamekiran (talk) 17:02, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It is not "cosmetic": it prevents the link breaking if the article is subsequently found to be more correctly associated with another item. As such, it satisfies the "administration of the encyclopedia" criterion. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:13, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

usernamekiran: Making a corrective edit that removes a maintenance category is not a cosmetic edit. There is at least one approved bot that removes unsupported infobox template parameters (which do not render anything in the infobox) that emit a maintenance category. – Jonesey95 (talk) 10:31, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• {{BOTREQ}} @Jonesey95 and Pigsonthewing: the cosmetic bot always confuses me —usernamekiran (talk) 11:20, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• BRFA filed —usernamekiran (talk) 16:03, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• @Pigsonthewing and Jonesey95: Hello. I transcluded the list of mismatches on Category talk:Infobox person Wikidata using qid#mismatched QIDs. Kindly let me know what you think. —usernamekiran (talk) 16:11, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Thank you. I fixed and removed two, where Wikidata items had been merged. The other three are "Bonnie and Clyde" cases where one Wikipedia article is about two people. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:56, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• This should probably be done automatically via the module/template, with actionable pages put into 1 or more tracking categories describing how to fix them.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  14:23, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There are currently over 170k pages that have the image requested template on their Talk page, and 106k pages with the photo requested template. However, from a quick sampling, most of them are outdated as the image was added in the meantime but the template not removed. This high ratio of false positive means that the template cannot be effectively used by volunteers to identify pages that actually require an image.

Sometimes, the request is very specific, such as in El Paso County, Texas, where the template asks specifically for a photo of "The El Paso County Courthouse" (using the "of" parameter). However, most templates only specify a vague location (using the "in" parameter), or no details at all.

While this issue cannot be solved entirely with a bot, I expect a bot could handle >80% of the cases, and then categorize the remaining 20% to make human review easier. I don't know how difficult it is to implement and what approvals would be required, but I think the following logic could be useful:

1) Remove the template from all pages that already have an image and whose template either specify no parameter, or specify only the "in" parameter. I expect this would not lead to many false negatives, but options could include excluding templates that were either recently added, or that were added after the image was added.

2) For the remaining articles (that don't meet the "in" parameter restriction), generate a list of all pages with such a template and where the article has an image, for human reviewers to go through.

On 2), I actually manage a non-profit (OKA) who would be able to help with the manual review process, but we wouldn't be able to manually go through over 200k pages hence we'd need to trim that down with a bit first. 7804j (talk) 18:30, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There are many WikiProject templates on talk pages that have needs-image parameter, and in many articles, it is set to yes even though the article already has an image. For instance, the B virus article has images, but on its talk page, three WikiProject templates have the needs-image parameter set to yes. – DreamRimmer (talk) 18:53, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Are you saying that this bot would potentially need to also expand its scope to other templates, such as the ones you mentioned? If yes, I agree that this bot could also help resolve these following the same logic. I expect that the "needs-image" parameter in most cases was added before the article received an image, and not removed afterwards 7804j (talk) 11:26, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm still finding a lot of TV show articles following the format "Name of show was" even though MOS:TV has dictated "Name of show is" for ages. Could a bot be made that can find cases where "was" is still being used? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 19:13, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@TenPoundHammer: in theory, yes. A lot of variations of the sentence would have to be considered, but it is possible. A few rare false positives may occur if the show's name was changed. This would make it borderline WP:CONTEXTBOT though. But if we make the bot good enough, then we may be able to run it. —usernamekiran (talk) 21:07, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have context concerns as well. This might be better for a database report, if only to see the scale/scope of the issue. Primefac (talk) 13:40, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Primefac: can we do that then? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 18:02, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I mean, I am not personally going to do it, but "we" as a whole/community can certainly do that. Primefac (talk) 19:34, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There was formerly a consensus that Category:Films by director had to be all-inclusive, such that it had to directly contain every "Films by [Specific Director]" category even if it was already otherwise in subcategories by director nationality or film genre. Due to the sheer daunting size of the category, however, that's since been deprecated, but there's been only minimal effort expended on actually cleaning it up — somebody else already emptied out A and B (and, partially but not completely, C), while I voluntarily went through the Canadian categories (as my own primary area of expertise) and a few other countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Finland, Iceland, Syria) with a small and manageable number of director categories to sweep through as an AWB batch, but I'd be at it for days and days if I tried to tackle countries like France, Italy, Japan, India, Britain, Germany or the United States, with hundreds or thousands of director categories, myself.

So I wanted to ask if there's a bot that could be programmed to go through the Category:Films by director nationality subcategory (not the main category, as there may be a few directors in there whose categories aren't otherwise in a nationality subcat) to remove Category:Films by director from the categories that are already under the nationality category. Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 17:24, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Bearcat: I did not understand your request exactly. But I had run a similar task (I think) for KiranBOT task 7. Would you kindly share 3-4 diffs? —usernamekiran (talk) 19:04, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Diffs of what? I'm asking for bot help in removing extraneous duplicate categorization, what's there to show diffs of? Bearcat (talk) 00:07, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Bearcat: Hi. I meant something like this, and that. But Tom has handled all the categories now. —usernamekiran (talk) 13:30, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This can easily be done with WP:Cat-a-lot, with only up to ~120 followup edits, depending on how careful you want to be, since the overlap is ~98%.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  19:29, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

According to Cat-a-lot I already have the gadget installed, yet absolutely none of the followup steps listed on that page are showing me any evidence whatsoever that I have it installed — the "post-it window" that I'm supposed to see if I have it installed isn't there. That said, I see that it's already been done, because the only stuff left in the parent category anymore is the stuff that's only in the parent category and would thus have to have been manually corrected anyway, so thanks to whoever looked after that — but I still could never have done it by myself, because Catalot isn't working for me the way it's supposedly meant to. Bearcat (talk) 00:07, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You're not missing much... It took longer than expected to use & wasn't reliable, only processing 140~150 cats at a time, randomly out of my selection of 190~200 each time. Carefully deselecting cats that should stay in Category:Films by director, sometimes up to a dozen times, became too tedious so I just bulk moved 200 150 at a time and put back what needed to be put back afterwards. At any rate...  done!   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  00:32, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also, {{Category works by person}} will need tweaking to remove Films directed by Peter Ramsey.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  00:37, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The template does not need tweaking. The doc explains that if you want a nationality sub-category, then just use the parameter. Gonnym (talk) 11:07, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I recently read a comment from someone regarding them seeing the {{expand}} tag in an article, and wanting to go ahead and work on the section, only to discover that it was protected and they could not do so. Their feeling, which is understandable, is that it was discouraging to reply to a request for help, only to find that their help was not welcome. There is of course usually a lock icon on the page but not everyone knows to look for that or what it means.

I note that User:MusikBot II removes templates from pages where protection has just expired, and is an adminbot and can therefore also edit protected pages. I'm curious if it seems feasible/wise to have it (or some other bot) make some sort of modification to the expand template, and perhaps other similar templates, to reflect the current protection level and suggest using the talk page to propose edits? And of course it would undo those edits upon the expiration of protection. (as always with the caveat that I know nothing about bot coding) Pinging @MusikAnimal: as bot maintainer, but any and all feedback is of course welcome. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 22:25, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Just Step Sideways: Another way would be to have the {{expand}} tag automatically detect the protection level (which I know is possible, but I wouldn't know how to implement it) and alter its message. Rusty 🐈 22:37, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, altering the template would be better; templates like {{rcat shell}} already have this functionality using magic words. I'll paste the relevant code below if someone wants to sandbox something. Obviously it will be different to make it inline but the general gist of using the #switch will be the same. For example, a #switch in {{Expand section}} could change the text from "You can help by adding to it" to "You can make an edit request to improve it". Primefac (talk) 10:30, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

{{if IP}}, {{if autoconfirmed}}, and {{if extended confirmed}} should also be useful here. jlwoodwa (talk) 03:36, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

{{#switch: {{PROTECTIONLEVEL:edit}}
   |sysop={{pp-protected|small=yes}}{{R fully-protected|embed=yes}}
   |templateeditor={{pp-protected|small=yes}}{{R template protected|embed=yes}}
   |extendedconfirmed={{pp-protected|small=yes}}{{R extended-protected|embed=yes}}
   |autoconfirmed={{pp-protected|small=yes}}{{R semi-protected|embed=yes}}
   | <!--Not protected, or only semi-move-protected-->
}}

I agree automating this without the bot is preferable. The bot can and does add protection templates to pages like this, but I believe it didn't here because this template was protected long before the bot was introduced. — MusikAnimal ^talk 15:35, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• This is why I ask instead of actually trying to do these things. I'm a bit nervous about editing templates that are in use on thousands of pages, that's really not my thing, but if this could be implemented that would be awesome. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 21:19, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  We could do something like this (see code), which only covers the cases of semi and extended protection, but that would probably work well enough for articles. Rusty 🐈 13:32, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  JSS, I'm happy to code something up, if you have one or two templates that would be "best" to add this functionality to I can see about implementing it; just noting there are a dozen or so similar templates which may need to be updated, so I'd rather do a trial on the more widely-used ones to see how well it works. Primefac (talk) 15:55, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  {{Expand section}} and {{Missing information}} seem like good candidates. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 20:35, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Done, I ended up creating {{Protected page maintenance message}} to allow for easier coding across multiple pages; feel free to tweak things as I was just throwing stuff together quick before I head out for a bit. Primefac (talk) 14:47, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not an issue for Bot requests. Referred elsewhere

 – More appropriate for WP:AWB/TASKS due to small size.

Hello! I would like to request a bot to assist with removing the `ARWU_NU` parameter from articles using the **Infobox US university ranking** template. This parameter is now deprecated and is causing undefined reference errors across many articles, particularly for universities in North America.

The bot should:

1. Search for instances of the `ARWU_NU` parameter within articles that use the **Infobox US university ranking** template.

2. Remove the line where `ARWU_NU` appears, which is typically formatted like this with a number following:

| ARWU_NU = [ranking number]

or

| ARWU_NU = 1

This cleanup is needed across many pages, and automating the process would greatly reduce the time required to fix this issue manually.

Thank you for your help, and please let me know if further clarification is needed! Mikecurry1 (talk) 20:51, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Was there consensus for this removal? If so we can set up a tracking category and I can probably deal with this. I will also note mikeblas seems to have fixed the reference errors. Primefac (talk) 21:01, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, there was a consensus between two editors on this issue, and it was raised independently by both as a concern with the template over several years. There were no opposing votes. The core issue is that the ARWU_NU parameter reflects a refractory ranking, which is not considered a legitimate or widely accepted metric. Of the big three global rankings—THE, QS, and ARWU—only ARWU uses a refractory ranking, which is less reliable for North American universities. If all three rankings included a refractory ranking, it could make more sense to include it. However, with only ARWU listing a refractory ranking, such rankings are generally discouraged under Wikipedia policy.

This issue has persisted for several years and was discussed twice during that time, both times with a consensus to remove the parameter. Given the lack of objections and the support of both editors, we both believe removing it is the right approach, especially to avoid listing only one refractory ranking while excluding the others.

Thank you again for your assistance with this matter! Mikecurry1 (talk) 21:21, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Tracking cat only shows about 200 pages; too small for a bot run, so I've cross-posted at AWB to get assistance. Primefac (talk) 12:50, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Curlie and Template:FootballDatabase.eu should both be removed from articles per their TfDs. Since they both have over 5k transclusions, the removal is more suited to a bot. Any help is appreciated. Gonnym (talk) 09:10, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I will file a BRFA soon. – DreamRimmer (talk) 09:36, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Holding cell#Tools lists several bots that are already approved for implementing TFD results. Anomie⚔ 11:17, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Since Template:Curlie was almost a month listed with no progress, I took it as a sign that the bot operator's had other things they were doing. Gonnym (talk) 11:22, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If any approved bot wants to handle this, that's fine with me. If they don't have the time, I am happy to help. Let's wait a few more hours. – DreamRimmer (talk) 11:47, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I can probably handle it, TFDH has been on my rotation of things to get to but I had an even larger backlog of perm pages to deal with this weekend so I couldn't manage it then. Primefac (talk) 13:48, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Reference works has been merged as a task force of WikiProject books. The referencework= parameter has been added to the Template:WikiProject Books banner template to indicate if it applies to the task force, so now all usages of the former Template:WikiProject Reference works need to be replaced with the books template with the task force parameter. When something similar was done with a previous project, it was done by bot (though I forgot what bot), could this be done again? Or is there another efficient way to do this? Also, there will be some duplicates, since some are tagged with both. The books project doesn't use importance and many articles tagged with ref works don't have it so the importance parameter on the old banner should be discarded not transferred. Thanks! PARAKANYAA (talk) 16:58, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I can help with this. – DreamRimmer (talk) 14:09, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Same; my bot is set up to handle these, and I thought it was TheSandBot that actually had a specific task for this but maybe it was actually Kiranbot... Looks like ~1500 pages where it will need to be folded into the Books banner, after which it can just be converted into a wrapper and autosubst by AnomieBOT. Primefac (talk) 16:00, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the info. Please feel free to handle this. As there wasn't a response in a reasonable time, I thought I should step in to help. – DreamRimmer (talk) 16:29, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Primefac Your bot did the job perfectly, thank you! Sorry for the annoyance, but could you do the same with another merged-into-task force project? WP:TERROR was mostly inactive, and the very few active editors reached a consensus to merge, see this discussion. {{WikiProject Terrorism}} should be folded into the

{{WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography}} banner (I added the task force and importance parameters to the crime banner). WP:TERROR has importance parameters, but the attention= and infobox= parameters were never maintained and most of the articles tagged with them have had their issues addressed so those can probably be discarded as the crime banner doesn't have them. I promise this is the last one hahaha. PARAKANYAA (talk) 19:46, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll put it on my list. Primefac (talk) 20:58, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Done. Primefac (talk) 10:04, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Moot

I would like to request a bot to automatically add the {{Vezina Trophy Winners}} template to all player pages that are currently listed in the Category:Vezina Trophy winners.

The template is already created and can be found at: Template:Vezina Trophy Winners.

Details:

1. The bot should check all pages within Category:Vezina Trophy winners.

2. For each page, if the {{Vezina Trophy Winners}} template is not already present, the bot should add it to the bottom of the page.

3. The template should be placed in the Navboxes section (before any categories or external links) on each player’s page.

Rationale:

This will ensure consistency and streamline the process of displaying the relevant information across all Vezina Trophy winners’ pages without having to manually add the template to each page. This will also make it easier to update the navbox in the future without needing to edit each individual page.

Please let me know if more information or clarification is needed. Thank you! 108.51.96.36 (talk) 23:46, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose this request as per consensus at WP:NHL not to have such navboxes. Please consider discussing at the WikiProject. Flibirigit (talk) 00:15, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Just noting that the template has been deleted. Primefac (talk) 12:23, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The templates {{BLP}}, {{BLP others}} and {{Active politician}} should not be called directly, but are triggered via the banner shell template in the following ways:

• |blp=yes produces {{BLP}}
• |blp=other produces {{BLP others}}
• |blp=activepol produces {{Active politician}}

This is a request for the standalone templates to be replaced by the parameter in {{WikiProject banner shell}}. Example: [2]. If the parameter is already present, then the template can simply be removed. Pages can be tracked in Category:Talk pages using standalone BLP templates (0). Thank you — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:59, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I can help with this. – DreamRimmer (talk) 15:11, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I already have some of the code to do this safely. Less than 1k pages so far so it shouldn't cause much fuss. Anyone doing this needs to be mindful of the activepol > yes > other > no priority.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  20:25, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Tom.Reding, please feel free to take on this task if you already have the code available. – DreamRimmer (talk) 09:29, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Done. Remaining 83 pages need manual attention: BLP/blp, BLP/blpo, BLPO/blp conflicts/mismatches, archives, stray text in one of the templates, etc. Will check periodically for a few days to see if any more pages filter in.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  16:04, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Great, thank you. I'll look through the 0 ... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:47, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Tom.Reding  Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:37, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I was trying to assess some of the articles in WikiProject Chemicals, because I noticed there were only 400 chemicals articles that weren't assessed, and I noticed that most of the unassessed ones are just set index articles (there are a lot of these for ambiguous chemical names) for which no one had set the assessment to lists.

It seems to me like this wouldn't be that complicated to do with a bot: detecting templates in articles might be somewhat difficult due to the need for parsing due to the existence of nowiki brackets, but it could also be done by just assessing every page in the categories, Category:All set index articles and Category:WikiProject Lists articles as List-class. The "All set index articles" also includes a bunch of surname articles, but the templates listed all say in strong language that they are only to be used on set index articles, so I think it's fine.

Alternatively, all the various sub-categories of Category:Set index articles could also be included but that would probably be laborious.

Anyway, if this got done, it would eliminate most of the WikiProject Chemicals unassessed articles, and likely a significant number in other projects as well. There's ~3,000 unassessed list articles and at the least a few hundred unassessed set index articles, but probably more. Mrfoogles (talk) 17:41, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

AWB would probably be better for this given the relatively low number of pages; if you don't have access or don't want to deal with it yourself, feel free to ask at WP:AWB/TASKS. Primefac (talk) 18:19, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Didn't think 3,000 was low; I'll ask there. Doesn't that require someone to click through 3,000 times in order to update all the articles, though? I feel like it somewhat defeats the purpose of having a bot do it. I'm not sure how many set index articles are properly assessed but there are ~100,000 of them total, so if even 1 in 1000 are unassessed that leave 1,000 articles, and more otherwise. Mrfoogles (talk) 18:31, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You said there were only 400 that weren't assessed, where did 3000 come from? Primefac (talk) 18:37, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

sigh ignore me. I somehow managed to only parse about half of your paragraph. Primefac (talk) 18:39, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, letting this request stand then. Mrfoogles (talk) 19:29, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We can automatically assess SIAs as List-class if that works for every project. I did suggest this at Module talk:WikiProject banner once but didn't get much response. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:46, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's probably easier than making 3k edits to talk pages. Primefac (talk) 09:58, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support this also. Wikipedia:Set index articles says in the first sentence A set index article (SIA) is a list article, so this is also supported by the guideline itself. Gonnym (talk) 10:18, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So we have two ways of doing this: force all SIAs to have List-class (ignore any other value in |class=) or just default to List-class if |class= is blank/invalid — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:29, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say ignore |class= values for SIAs per Primefac & Gonnym. My guess is that any non-list |class= values are either mistakes or out of date.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  21:44, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Some set index articles are classed as disambiguations, I think, so allowing other values would then require a large cleanup effort to fix those. I would say it's better not to. Mrfoogles (talk) 23:48, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Linking Module_talk:WikiProject_banner/Archive_14#More page types for posterity. Looks like one person opposed it, but not very committedly, so it's probably fine. Wouldn't we want to change Module:Banner shell, though, or does the shell use the Wikiproject banner module? Mrfoogles (talk) 23:53, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]