Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BattyBot 52

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.

BattyBot 52

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

Time filed: 00:54, Monday, January 25, 2016 (UTC)

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Automatic

Programming language(s): AutoWikiBrowser

Source code available: AWB

Function overview: Replace dead links to the Ohio Historical Society

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Wikipedia:Bot requests#Deadlink Fixing

Edit period(s): One time run, unless requested otherwise

Estimated number of pages affected: 488 460

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes

Already has a bot flag (Yes/No): Yes

Function details: Replace dead links with {{OHC NRHP}} as follows:

1. Change url=http://ohsweb.ohiohistory.org/ohpo/nr/details.aspx?refnum=XXXXXXXX to url={{OHC NRHP|XXXXXXXX}}
2. Change [http://ohsweb.ohiohistory.org/ohpo/nr/details.aspx?refnum=XXXXXXXX Words] to {{OHC NRHP|XXXXXXXX|Words}}

Perform and AWB general fixes as well. GoingBatty (talk) 00:54, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Discussion

Thanks! For future reference: the Ohio Historical Society changed its URLs some time back, from one systematic format to another, thus breaking all our links to their pages. By replacing the links with {{OHC NRHP}}, the bot will presumably make us largely immune to future activities of this sort: the template transcludes everything of the URL except the unique identifier at the end, so as long as they use URLs that are identical except for this unique identifier, a future URL change will be fixed by a single edit to the template. Nyttend (talk) 01:00, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Since {{OHC NRHP}} doesn't work inside citation templates, I have changed this request to exclude citation templates. GoingBatty (talk) 01:37, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

After checking with GoingBatty, I've replaced the few appearances of these URLs in citation templates. Nyttend (talk) 04:26, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Approved for trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. — Earwig ^talk 07:22, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

@The Earwig: Trial complete. - please see these edits. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 00:24, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Possible genfixes issue here: this undid a bot change (pinging Nyttend); isn't using ndashes for ranges an acceptable change unrelated to WP:CITEVAR? — Earwig ^talk 07:20, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

I checked a random sample of the links and sanity-checked the diffs. No other apparent issues, so we're good when the above is acknowledged. — Earwig ^talk 08:00, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

I write in a cite.php-compliant form of MLA. Ndashes for page ranges are unacceptable in MLA, which uses hyphens; converting to anything else demands awareness of the context. Everything else was great that I could see. Nyttend (talk) 14:02, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T125344

@The Earwig and Nyttend: I have opened an AWB bug report for the page range issue. While that's being sorted out, would you like me to run this task with AWB general fixes turned off? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 17:35, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

That's the only issue that I saw. If you want to run it without general fixes, that's okay, and if you want to run it with general fixes, that's great, and I'll check the edits. You only noticed one change that I undid because there was only one test-run edit that had such an effect: I checked all of them, and none of the others made such a change. All the rest of the general fixes are helpful, as far as I remember, so all-in-all I'd say that not running the general fixes would be less helpful. Confused about the bug report: what about this situation would benefit from developer assistance? I don't understand AWB one bit, so perhaps the answer would be blatantly obvious if I did. Nyttend (talk) 23:21, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

AWB actually uses Phabricator as its own bugtracker. The above ticket is marked as within the "AutoWikiBrowser" project, so it doesn't relate to the usual MediaWiki stuff. — Earwig ^talk 02:01, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Anyway... given your endorsement, I'm comfortable moving forward with this with genfixes on. Since the AWB project is usually quick to fix issues you might want to get the ticket sorted out first, but I don't mind if you go ahead now.  Approved. — Earwig ^talk 02:06, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

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.