Wikipedia:Bot requests

For the policy on bot requirements, see WP:BOTREQUIRE.

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).

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Please add your bot requests to the bottom of this page.
Make a new request

#	Bot request	Status	💬	👥	🙋 Last editor	🕒 (UTC)	🤖 Last botop editor	🕒 (UTC)
1	Basketball biography infobox request	Needs wider discussion.	8	3	NotAG on AWB	2025-01-04 14:52	Primefac	2024-11-17 20:44
2	Replacing FastilyBot	BRFA filed	30	11	Usernamekiran	2025-01-03 03:59	Usernamekiran	2025-01-03 03:59
3	Deletion of navboxes at Category:Basketball Olympic squad navigational boxes by competition	Working	5	5	MolecularPilot	2025-01-01 04:45	Qwerfjkl	2024-11-20 17:32
4	Bulk remove "link will display the full calendar" from articles about calendar years		6	5	Primefac	2024-12-09 16:31	Primefac	2024-12-09 16:31
5	Province over-capitalization		10	3	Dicklyon	2025-01-01 07:12	Primefac	2024-12-11 22:00
6	Tagging Category:Cinema of Israel	Done	15	2	LDW5432	2025-01-07 20:00	DreamRimmer	2025-01-07 10:27
7	Bot to simplify "ref name" content	Request withdrawn	16	8	BD2412	2025-01-10 04:27	Anomie	2025-01-04 15:10

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Speedy AFC decline bot

A few of us on IRC were chatting about drafts and how much of a pain it can be if someone resubmits a draft without actually changing anything. Could we get a bot that scans through the 0 days ago cat and auto-declines drafts that were resubmitted without any changes? The bot would check to see if the edit immediately preceding a submission was a draft decline (Example). Primefac (talk) 00:45, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Doing... ProgrammingGeek ^talktome 21:10, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

@Primefac: An AfC reviewer gets a review wrong. What happens then? ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 21:47, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Funny how four AFC reviewers can be chatting about it and miss the bleeding obvious. You make a very good and completely valid point. Thanks Rob. Primefac (talk) 23:31, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Pinging ProgrammingGeek. Hopefully this saves you some work. Primefac (talk) 02:36, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Primefac. To be honest I hadn't started yet. ProgrammingGeek ^talktome 12:00, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

@Primefac and ProgrammingGeek: .. I guess this still is a question of how often do you re-decline an unchanged resubmitted AFC vs. one that gets approved after an unchanged resubmittal? I mean, I guess that reviewers get it wrong every now and then, but that is then easier solved by the bot refusing to edit-war (do not auto-decline to 'self'). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:12, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

If you are going for a bot like this, I would suggest the decline template says something like "If you believe the reasons this draft was declined are incorrect, please follow the instructions at X, explaining why. If you resubmit the draft without making any changes it may be speedily rejected by a bot without further human review." (note I am not proposing this exact wording be used). Thryduulf (talk) 16:24, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

More importantly, this needs discussion since it's not uncontroversial. No bot operator could take this up until the community vetted the idea, likely at WT:AFC with a notice at relevant other projects. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 03:11, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

If a bot did this, it would probably need a expanded template message, not just the default AfC one, that explains what the bot did and repeats the previous decline reason. (Just an observation.) Enterprisey (talk!) 21:48, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Convert Template:This is a redirect to Template:Redirect category shell

{{This is a redirect}} was deprecated on October 3, 2016 and replaced with {{Redirect category shell}}. {{This is a redirect}} has over 250,000 transclusions. If we can get a bot to convert {{This is a redirect}} to {{Redirect category shell}}, it would be very helpful. —MRD2014 📞 contribs 02:25, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

@MRD2014 and Paine Ellsworth: wouldn't it be easier to convert {{This is a redirect}} into a wrapper for {{redirect category shell}} and then subst out of existence? It looks like the main difference between the two is one takes multiple named params and the other just takes one. Primefac (talk) 15:53, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

To editors MRD2014 and Primefac: it might help to know that Christian75 has an AWB setup for the conversion. Perhaps there is a need to create a temporary category for {{This is a redirect}} that will hold all of its transclusions in one place?  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  12:36, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Paine Ellsworth, we don't need a category; just use Special:WhatLinksHere or the tools page linked above. Christian75, if you've got the AWB settings I can submit a BRFA using it. Primefac (talk) 12:40, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

The settings I used in AWB was "find and replace - advanced settings". E.g. replace "{{redr|from plural|from move}} with "{{Redirect category shell|{{R from plural}}{{R from move}}}}", or replace "{{Redr|move|nick}}" with "{{Redirect category shell|{{R from move}}{{R from nickname}}}}" (newlines removed here). And then I had 155 of them (just counted) and when I saw a new combination I added that to the list. But I stopped using it, because I was advised to get a bot account before I continued. Christian75 (talk) 13:08, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

You actually went and gave manual find/replace with no regex? A bit wasteful, but it works I guess. I'll see if I can convert (using your model as a template) to a wrapper, but if not I'll submit a BRFA (though they're a little backlogged at the mo). Primefac (talk) 00:16, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

To editors MRD2014, Paine Ellsworth and Christian75: I've wrapped it (basically just safesubsted all the #ifs). I'm going to let it percolate through the system for a bit before getting to the autosubst phase. On that note: Anomie, given that it's going to be substed one way or another, I assume it's not a huge deal if AnomieBOT substs templates on 250k pages? Primefac (talk) 03:20, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

There's also the issue of protected redirects, AnomieBOT's template subster is not running under the adminbot account. – Train2104 (t • c) 03:27, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

The issue here is 250k pages with the template. While I'm just pulling numbers out of thin air, I think leaving a hundred or two for manual cleanup isn't really a huge deal. Primefac (talk) 13:37, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

250k isn't a problem, although I should probably add some code to rotate things so the 250k won't block every other template being substed. Just make sure it substs correctly in all cases before you trigger the bot to start doing it. Anomie⚔ 13:55, 16 April 2017 (UTC) For the record, the bot change was made about an hour after that comment. Anomie⚔ 11:51, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

BD2412 has been doing some of those replacements, but it seems like they haven't been doing it correctly. —MRD2014 📞 contribs 02:02, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm just poking around with it to work out the best process. One snag I have hit: what to do with "This is a redirect" parameters like "e0=Recommend using this as the wikilink when referring to The Guardian in a citation"? For the time being, I have just moved the message outside the template at Ir. Times and Guard., but that seems wrong. bd2412 T 15:37, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

To editor ­bd2412: The new {{Rcat shell}} has an |h= parameter that does the same thing as the |e0= param in the deprecated template. Just be sure to end it with a pipe symbol or the redirect will be sorted to Category:Miscellaneous redirects.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  10:19, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll follow the example in your edit to Ir. Times. Cheers! bd2412 T 13:38, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

I've been fiddling with this. There are also a number of deprecated px parameters still around. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:31, 29 April 2017 (UTC).

I've noted that some diligent workers who are converting these have been converting subject pages but not the associated talk pages. If a bot does all the subject pages and "thinks" it is finished, there will still be thousands of transclusions of the deprecated template on any associated talk pages that exist.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  10:19, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

This is the first I am hearing of a talk page component to the task. It would have been nice to have that included in the request. I'm not sure how to begin to address this, except to ask if someone can generate a list of non-matching talk pages. I can't imagine that there are too many. The vast majority of redirects have no talk page. bd2412 T 15:51, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Don't know about "vast majority", bd2412, since the subject-page redirects I've tagged in the past few years have had existing talk pages about half the time. (1) if the talk page existed as a redirect, then I tagged it with Redr, (2) if the talk page existed as a talk page, then I topped it with the {{Talk page of redirect}} template and any appropriate project banners (sometimes all these had were Old rfd templates or similar), (3) if the talk page was redlinked on the subject page, I didn't go there – in other words, I don't think talk pages should be created just to tag 'em with rcats, project banners or anything else. The exceptions were redirect talk pages with deletion discussion templates and template /doc, /sandbox and maybe /testcases talk pages, the discussions of which needed to be centralized to the main template talk pages (and BTW, many of these are also tagged with the deprecated template).  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  16:21, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Also not using 1=, for example. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 18:00, 30 April 2017 (UTC).

And not honouring the layout in the documentation...

Here is a list of suitable replacements for some of the un-named parameters. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 15:24, 1 May 2017 (UTC).

Rich, I'm a little curious why |1= is necessary when it may be omitted and functionality remains the same, and why "Redirect from..." is used when "R from" will do the job? Again, it's no biggie, just curious if I'm missing something.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  17:23, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

"Redirect from..." is clearer. Obviously it's more typing for manual work. As to the 1= it ensures that the parameter is treated as {{{1}}} even if there is an "=" sign in it, or there is a previous unnamed parameter due to some error, e.g. {{Redirect category shell|XXXX|1=YYY}} will display the YYY.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:20, 1 May 2017 (UTC).

BRFA filed All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:01, 1 May 2017 (UTC).

You are far more experienced than I am, Rich, so this is not meant as argumentative; however, exclusion of |N= in template arguments is a time-honored, traditional shortcut, and the redundancy of "Redirect from" as opposed to that of "R from" seems much less palatable when there are several rcats used to tag a redirect. Just sayin'.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  03:13, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Well if there is consensus to use "R from" we can do that, and I do agree that the meaning of "R" is probably clearer when there is a container than when there isn't. As for the "1=" I am not wedded to it, indeed I can now see a (probably) better way of dealing with in this case, so I will change that from here on. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 07:21, 2 May 2017 (UTC).

I am unclear about the status of this task. Are there portions remaining where manual repair is required? bd2412 T 12:57, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm curious too, since the Redirect category shell's transclusions have risen to more than 241,000, about eight or ten times the number when this began; however, This is a redirect's transclusions have only been reduced to just over 232,000, which is just about 30,000 or so lower than when this began. How is it that the new template's usage has increased so dramatically while the deprecated template's usage has not decreased much? Is the server playing catch-up?  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  17:22, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

That is certainly something that can happen when large numbers of changes are involved. Is it possible that substing is causing pages to still register as both? bd2412 T 01:00, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

There were certainly some that had been substed that showed up in what-links-here. I suspect that the entire thing will be susbsted before there's any chance to use this as an opportunity to make other improvements. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:02, 4 May 2017 (UTC).

Yep. We now have 250k pages like this:

{{redirect category shell|{{R from move}}{{R hatnote}}{{R nick}}{{R p}}}}

Well I tried. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 12:58, 6 May 2017 (UTC).

OK, looks like all is not lost.

One additional question:

What should happens if only one template is contained in {{Redirect category shell}}?

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:47, 6 May 2017 (UTC).

In cases such as {{This is a redirect|from move}} the subst. is the same as for two or more templates, i.e., {{Redirect category shell|{{R from move}}}}. If more rcats are needed, they will be added later.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  07:22, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

If more needs to be done in terms of manual insertions, I'm glad to help. Cheers! bd2412 T 20:51, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

User:Paine Ellsworth - pages such as Chu Chung shing have parameters such as "e2" - what should happen top these? In the hundred thousand or so that have been subst'ed, any such parameters have been thrown away, I think. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:47, 22 May 2017 (UTC).

Thank you, Rich! Of all the |e= parameters, the |e0=, the topnote or hatnote, is probably the most needed. I've been handling these on an individual basis, using some of the e1= through eN= parameters and discarding others. None are critical, and even if an e0 gets omitted, it's not all that bad. The |h= parameter in the new template can take the place of any of them when you think the information should remain on the redirect. Best to you!  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  03:14, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

AnomieBOT took care of a bunch by substing them, but we still have about 57,000 remaining, and a lot of those redirects transcluding {{Redr}} are fully protected, so AnomieBOT cannot edit & substitute those. —MRD2014 talk contribs 23:30, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Redirect talk pages with only banners

Per Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive 139#Redirect_talk_pages_with_only_banners, I'm requesting a bot with the following logic

• If nothing but banners is found on Talk:Barfoo
• and Barfoo redirects to Foobar
• Redirect Talk:Barfoo to Talk:Foobar (but preserve banners)

For an example where this is already done, see WT:NJOURNALS. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:39, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

This is something I have been thinking about for a while. The converse might also be useful. I presume we could also include other standard templates like {{Talk header}}. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:21, 4 May 2017 (UTC).

There is no consensus, nor point, in adding {{talk header}} to redirected talk pages. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:11, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

You misunderstand. I presume we could count such pages as "having only banners". All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:33, 5 May 2017 (UTC).

Oh, my bad then. Yes, that makes sense. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 06:22, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm still a little hazy as to why the Talk header template would be placed on a page where there should never be any discussion. It seems that it may mislead editors to start up discussions on the redirect talk page.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  13:09, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

(Archived discussion, for posterity.) Sounds like a good idea, working on some code that counts how many pages like this exist. Enterprisey (talk!) 22:54, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

@Enterprisey: Any updates on this? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:26, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

None at the moment, although I can get back to you later today with a possible BRFA. Enterprisey (talk!) 15:44, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Fortunately, my existing task 10 also works on talk pages of redirects, so development of this should be a lot easier. Enterprisey (talk!) 02:58, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Headbomb and Rich Farmbrough, I was wondering whether I should put {{Redirect category shell}} on the redirects that the bot creates. I think it would be helpful, but we would probably need to come up with an appropriate redirect-sorting template to avoid putting all the redirects into Category:Miscellaneous redirects. Enterprisey (talk!) 04:03, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Maybe. I'm rather indifferent to it but it's probably not a bad idea. I suppose the best place ask is the redirect category shell talk page. The problem i see is that the redirects are very varied and it would be very hard to determine by bot what type of redirect they are. I don't see what kind of special redirect category could be created for them either.Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 07:44, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

I suspect that Paine Ellsworth (talk · contribs) would have an opinion. Probably it would be useful to identify those that need categorising. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 18:06, 12 July 2017 (UTC).

Thank you for the ping, Rich. Frankly, I see no benefit in changing these talk pages to "hard" redirects, when I've been working diligently to turn them into soft redirects with the {{Talk page of redirect}} template. That template is placed at the TOP of the page above banners and has a link to both the subject page and the talk page of the target. It also has a message that no discussion should take place on that page. I would strongly support a bot project that would place the Talk page of redirect template at the TOP of such talk pages.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  13:23, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Google Books citation bot

There are hundreds of bare-link citations for Google Books in Wikipedia, and I'd like to convert them into proper citations. Would it be possible to automate this task using User:Quadell's Google Books bot? Jarble (talk) 21:07, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

This bot was created several years ago, so I hope it is still being maintained. Jarble (talk) 21:09, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

@Jarble: Looks like the bot hasn't run for several years. I'll look into this tonight if I get chance. Mdann52 (talk) 16:46, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

@Mdann52: Has the bot been repaired yet? Jarble (talk) 18:57, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

@Jarble: Still in progress unfortunately. Having to rewrite from scratch :( Mdann52 (talk) 20:32, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Table formatting fixes for song and album infoboxes

There are some transclusions of {{Infobox album}}, {{Infobox song}}, {{Extra chronology}} and so on, which have infoboxes nested incorrectly and end up displaying incorrectly. Example: Symphony (Clean Bandit song). To fix this, a bot would go through pages in Category:Music infoboxes with malformed table placement and move pairs of brackets around, or add |misc= (for infoboxes song/album), to make the tables display properly.

This should be done after the merger of {{Infobox single}} into {{Infobox song}}, as the category will not fill up for some time and AnomieBOT is going to be substituting basically every page using any of the templates affected after the merger is complete. Some parameters in current use will be deprecated, although this shouldn't affect the bot's operation. Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
to reply to me 16:09, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Actually, per the below example deleting the incorrectly-nested template after substitution, the bot might need to go through every page transcluding the templates mentioned in the category plus {{Infobox single}}, before the templates are added to AnomieBOT's substitution list. This is because the parameters would be replaced automatically in the subst through Module:Unsubst-infobox using a lot of Module:String searches, and this has the potential for data loss if the templates are used incorrectly. Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
to reply to me 16:15, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Examples

One of the most extreme cases of this problem would be having to make this edit (the level of nesting caused template errors). Before | Misc = {{Extra chronology | Artist = [[Zara Larsson]] singles | Type = singles | Last single = "[[So Good (Zara Larsson song)|So Good]]"<br/>(2017) | This single = "'''Symphony'''"<br/>(2017) | Next single = "Don't Let Me Be Yours"<br/>(2017) {{External music video|{{YouTube|aatr_2MstrI|"Symphony"}}}}}} After | Misc = {{Extra chronology | Artist = [[Zara Larsson]] singles | Type = singles | Last single = "[[So Good (Zara Larsson song)|So Good]]"<br/>(2017) | This single = "'''Symphony'''"<br/>(2017) | Next single = "Don't Let Me Be Yours"<br/>(2017) }}{{External music video|{{YouTube|aatr_2MstrI|"Symphony"}}}}

BRFA filed; separate task still required for auxiliary templates nested within each other. Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
to reply to me 08:41, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Fix curly quotes to straight quotes

Per MOS:QUOTEMARKS, all curly quotes (single and double) should be changed to straight quotes. It would be nice if a bot could do that. Llightex (talk) 21:11, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

This would probably be denied per WP:CONTEXTBOT because of ʻOkina and Prime (symbol) and other similar marks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:54, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Llightex, the next best thing is semi-automated. AWB fixes curly quotes through either its typo fixing or general fixes (I can't remember which). The Transhumanist 22:31, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: @The Transhumanist: What about merely replacing double quotes, such as using regular expressions to replace text in quotes such as “ ” to " "? Llightex (talk) 14:34, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Same answer. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:24, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Commons deletion notices

Am looking for someone willing to build a bot that provides notices to Wikiprojects when images used by that Wikiproject are put up for deletion on Commons. Details here. Anyone able to help? Would love to see the output added to here. Best Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:34, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

@Doc James: Changes to Article Alerts isn't really a BOTREQ thing, it's one for Hellknowz (talk · contribs) and/or Headbomb (talk · contribs). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:48, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Okay posted at here Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:58, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

A bot say Hello and inviting to TeaHouse!

I want a bot to fellow persons who joined wikipedia fell welcomed — Preceding unsigned comment added by TalismanOnline (talk • contribs) 09:55, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

N Not done There is already User:HostBot. Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 10:00, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Portal:Indigenous peoples in Canada

There has been a consensual move of Portal:Aboriginal peoples in Canada to Portal:Indigenous peoples in Canada. We are wishing a bot can help us do this non-manually. A request for portal image change has been fulfilled (Template talk:Portal#Portal:Indigenous peoples in Canada).--Moxy (talk) 16:51, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Not a good task for a bot.

Convert protocol relative URLs to http/https

All protocol relative links on Wikipedia should be converted to either http or https. As of June 2015, Wikipedia is 100% HTTPS only and because protocol relative links are relative to where they are hosted it will always render as HTTPS. This means any underlying website that doesn't support HTTPS will break. For example:

[1] (//americanbilliardclub.com/about/history/)

..the http version of this link works. The article American rotation shows it in action, the first three footnotes are broken because they use a protocol relative link to a HTTP only website. But Wikipedia is rendering the link as HTTPS.

More info at WP:PRURL and Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Protocol_relative_URLs. It's probably 10s of thousands of links broken. -- GreenC 21:06, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

This should only be done if the existing link is proven to be broken, and where forcing it to http: conclusively fixes it. Otherwise, if the link is not dead under either protocol, it is WP:COSMETICBOT. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:45, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Well let's ask, what happens if you keep them? It creates a point of failure. If the remote site stops supporting HTTPS then the link immediately breaks. There is no guarantee a bot will return years later and recheck. WP:COSMETICBOT is fine but it shouldn't prevent from removing a protocol that causes indefinite maintenance problems and MediaWiki no longer really supports. By removing it also discourages editors from further usage, which is good. -- GreenC 22:07, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

That reasoning makes no sense. If a bot converts the link to https and the remote site stops supporting HTTPS, then the link immediately breaks then too. Anomie⚔ 00:22, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Different reasoning. IABot forces HTTPS on all PR URLs since Wikipedia does too, when it analyzes the URL. It's erroneously seeing some URLs as dead as a consequence since they don't support SSL. The proposal is to convert all non-functioning PR URLs to HTTP when HTTPS doesn't work.—CYBERPOWER (Message) 02:22, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

@Cyberpower678: The proposal, as specified above by Green Cardamom (talk · contribs) is not to convert all non-functioning PR URLs to HTTP when HTTPS doesn't work, but to convert all PR URLs to either http or https. No exceptions were given, not even those that are presently functioning. This seems to be on the grounds that some are broken. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:06, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Do I want to get rid of PR URLs? I personally think we should because they confuse editors, confuse other bots, ugly and non-standard etc they're an unnecessary complication. If we don't want to get rid of them (all), we still need to the fix broken HTTP links either way. -- GreenC 14:35, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

• As someone who's been strongly involved with URL maintenance over the last 2 years, I think this bot should be run on Wikipedia, and should enforce protocols. It's pushing WP:COSMETICBOT but if the link ends up being broken because only HTTP works, then that will create other issues. The task can be restricted to only converting those not functional with HTTPS, but my first choice is to convert all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cyberpower678 (talk • contribs) 01:38, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Opining as a bot op: I personally don't think this can be read as having community consensus because it's going to create a lot of revisions for which there is no appreciable difference. Yes it would be nice if wikipedia was smart enough to figure out if the relative URL is accessable only via HTTP or can be accessed via https, but the link is clicked in the user's browser and therefore the user doesn't know that the content may be accessable via HTTPS or HTTP. Ideally, users entering relative URLS could be reminded via a bot that it's better to be explicit with what protocol needs to be used to get to the content. The counter is we could set a bot to hunt down all the relative URLS and put a maintanance tag/category in the reference block so that a human set of eyes can evaluate if the content is exclusively available via one route or if the content is the same on both paths.

TLDR: This request explicitly bumps against COSMETICBOT, needs further consensus, and there might be a way to have "maintenance" resolve the issue. Hasteur (talk) 12:38, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Those are all good ideas but too much for me to take on right now. Agree there is no community consensus about changing relative HTTPS links; However existing relative HTTP cases broken in June 2015 should be fixed asap. A bot should be able to do it as any broken-link job without specific community consensus (beyond a BRFA). Broken links should be fixed. That's something I can probably do, unless someone else wants to (I have lots of other work..). Note this fix would not interfere with any larger plans to deal with relative links. -- GreenC 15:26, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Stub Marker Bot

A bot that will mark pages as stubs according to what the guidelines say. 2602:306:34AB:2830:25D6:CB16:249B:3AAE (talk) 02:04, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Although AWB removes stub tags from pages bigger than 500 words, it only adds a stub tag if the article has less than 300 characters - see Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/General_fixes#Tagger (Tagger). Between 300 characters and 500 words it neither adds nor removes a stub tab, leaving it to editorial discretion. -- John of Reading (talk) 05:41, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

• Not a good task for a bot.: AWB does have this facility, but as with all AWB edits, it needs to be checked for applicability before saving; no bot can make such checks. See also WP:CL-RULE. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:49, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Bot to remove redirecting links.

There should be a bot that can change links that go to a redirect page to the actual page as I've recently noticed a lot of redirects and it would be easy for there not to be a need to leave redirect-only pages. 2A00:23C4:9E0A:1400:DDA1:5E75:984:6CD1 (talk) 17:04, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Do you mean soft redirects? They're intentional. All other redirects automatically go to the target page. Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 17:29, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

• N Not done - see WP:NOTBROKEN and WP:COSMETICBOT. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:02, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Bot edit to improve the efficiency of data scraping off of wikipedia

Hello,

This is a generalized bot request based on a more specific request that I posted to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:United_States_presidential_election,_2016

Could someone please consider writing a bot to add extra "–" to indicate "no result available" to the rows in tables missing them? A global replace of "||||" with "||–||" might do the trick.

This would help me and other data scrapers to extract data more quickly and easily.

An example is shown below in the "=== Results by state ===" section of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2016#Results:

old:

| align=left|[[United States presidential election in Alabama, 2016|Alabama]] || WTA ||729,547||34.36%||–||1,318,255||62.08%||9||44,467||2.09%||–||9,391||0.44%||–||||||–|| 21,712 ||1.02%||–||588,708||27.72%||2,123,372||AL||Official<ref>{{cite web|title=State of Alabama: Canvass of Results|url=http://www.alabamavotes.gov/downloads/election/2016/general/2016-Official-General-Election-Results-Certified-2016-11-29.pdf|date=November 29, 2016|accessdate=December 1, 2016}}</ref>

new:

| align=left|[[United States presidential election in Alabama, 2016|Alabama]] || WTA ||729,547||34.36%||–||1,318,255||62.08%||9||44,467||2.09%||–||9,391||0.44%||–||–||–||–|| 21,712 ||1.02%||–||588,708||27.72%||2,123,372||AL||Official<ref>{{cite web|title=State of Alabama: Canvass of Results|url=http://www.alabamavotes.gov/downloads/election/2016/general/2016-Official-General-Election-Results-Certified-2016-11-29.pdf|date=November 29, 2016|accessdate=December 1, 2016}}</ref>

Below is a list of rows in the results by state section that would benefit from the "||||" to "||–||" replacement, as a normal row should have 25 elements:

• # row: 3 row header: Alabama data elements: 23
• # row: 4 row header: Alaska data elements: 23
• # row: 11 row header: District of Columbia data elements: 23
• # row: 12 row header: Florida data elements: 23
• # row: 14 row header: Hawaii data elements: 23
• # row: 17 row header: Indiana data elements: 23
• # row: 23 row header: Maine, 1st data elements: 24
• # row: 24 row header: Maine, 2nd data elements: 24
• # row: 29 row header: Mississippi data elements: 23
• # row: 32 row header: Nebraska (at-lg) data elements: 23
• # row: 33 row header: Nebraska, 1st data elements: 23
• # row: 34 row header: Nebraska, 2nd data elements: 23
• # row: 35 row header: Nebraska, 3rd data elements: 23
• # row: 36 row header: Nevada data elements: 21
• # row: 38 row header: New Jersey data elements: 23
• # row: 41 row header: North Carolina data elements: 23
• # row: 42 row header: North Dakota data elements: 23
• # row: 44 row header: Oklahoma data elements: 21
• # row: 45 row header: Oregon data elements: 23
• # row: 49 row header: South Dakota data elements: 21
• # row: 55 row header: Washington data elements: 23
• # row: 58 row header: Wyoming data elements: 23

Thanks very much for your very valuable work, and please let me know if you have any questions.

Sincerely and gratefully,

-Chris Krenn (democracygps)

PS. Note: I was unable to quickly import the "=== Results by state ===" section of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2016#Results using the google sheets importer. I had more luck with a Wolfram Mathematica importer, but this importer treated "||||" as a single delimiter instead of two. I would be happy to request Mathematica to update their import code, but I would also prefer not to spend another several hundred dollars to benefit from this change.

PPS. I know that 20-16 election data is also available in wikidata, but it would require significantly more time and effort to extract wikidata into a table than it did to use the existing table in wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Democracygps (talk • contribs) 17:42, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Fixing bare URLs

There now are now hundreds of thousands of Wikipedia articles with bare URL citations. There was a previous discussion in 2013 about creating a bot to clean up some of these references, but this task is still unfinished. Would it still be feasible to automate this cleanup process? Jarble (talk) 19:52, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

It's potentially feasible but non trivial. There is now WP:ReFill (formerly Reflinks discussed in 2013). -- GreenC 03:10, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

@Green Cardamom: There are many open-source citation generators that could make it easier to automate this task. Jarble (talk) 22:12, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

I will note IABot does this to an extent to links it tries to archive. But it won't touch them if it's not adding archives to them. To an extent, IABot's tool can be uses and set to add archives to all non-dead references, in which case it will auto convert them.—CYBERPOWER (Message) 01:36, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Military Times Hall of Fame

The site has re-organized its directory/file structure (example is for Bernhard Jetter, fixed):

Old and wrong: http://militarytimes.com/citations-medals-awards/recipient.php?recipientid=277

New and right: http://valor.militarytimes.com/recipient.php?recipientid=277

Is there a bot that can fix this?

--Georgia Army Vet Contribs Talk 00:34, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

 Done. Paul Clemens (United States Army) has a dead link to conflict=49. — JJMC89 (T·C) 03:49, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks.--Georgia Army Vet Contribs Talk 13:31, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Mass importance assessment for WikiProject Thailand

I see several bots are approved for WikiProject tagging, but I'm not sure which ones do assessment, so asking here. (Previously asked Anomie but he's busy.)

This is a request on behalf of WikiProject Thailand that importance parameters be added to the project banner ({{WikiProject Thailand}} or redirects) according to this list. If it's feasible, please also perform auto-stub assessment. Since it's been some time since the list was compiled, please skip any conflicts that are encountered. Discussion and project approval is here. --Paul_012 (talk) 15:53, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

I will have a a look into this and see how feasible it is with the MW API. TheMagikCow (T) (C) 15:24, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Paul 012 It looks very do-able - Coding.... Should have this done soon. TheMagikCow (T) (C) 16:12, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

BRFA filed Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/TheMagikBOT_4 TheMagikCow (T) (C) 10:09, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, TheMagikCow. FYI, I've just removed five red links from the list. Also, I probably should have mentioned—just to make sure—that the bot should follow redirects for this task, as some pages may have been moved since the list was compiled. --Paul_012 (talk) 14:40, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

All  Done! TheMagikCow (T) (C) 18:42, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! --Paul_012 (talk) 21:57, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Tagging article talkpages with WikiProject

Hello,
WikiProject WP:MAFIA has been recently re-activated. I was thinking to get a bot's assistance for tagging the talk pages of articles that fall into the scope of the project. Would that be possible? I would prefer to do it myself if it is possible. Kindly ping me while replying. Thanks.
PS: This was previously requested at User talk:Meno25#Request for bot. Meno25 politely suggested me to post the request here.
—usernamekiran(talk) 23:33, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

@Usernamekiran: The person who codes a bot is almost always the one who runs it. They're the person most familiar with the code, which is needed to debug, etc. If you mean to create your own bot, I'd recommend WP:AWB as a way to do it. If you mean to get someone else to do the task for you within certain parameters (e.g. list of categories, tagging all pages within those categories), then I can do that. I've done WikiProject tagging several times in the past with BU RoBOT. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 23:36, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Hi Rob. I meant, I would like to be kept in the loop lol. :-)
How much time will it take you to start working on the task? —usernamekiran(talk) 23:41, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

@Usernamekiran: It's a task I already have written, essentially. You just need to link me to the WikiProject's template, tell me if you want class auto-assessed (see User:BU RoBOT/autoassess for information on what that means), and give me a list of categories (not defined recursively; I need a list of every single category you want tagged to prevent issues). ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 00:18, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

@BU Rob13: sure. That will take some though. I will contact you on your talkpage for further communication. Thanks a lot again. —usernamekiran(talk) 00:24, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

AfD data collection bot

I was working on collecting some data regarding AfD and realized there is an opportunity for a bot to do some good work in collecting data. The functions of this bot would be to:

• Look at daily AfD pages logged at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log. For each daily log, determine three pieces of data:
  1. The number of AfDs listed
  2. The average number of discernible !votes per AfD
  3. How many AfDs were relisted once, twice, three or more times.
• Output the data into a date sorted table on a page of the bot creator's choosing, looking something like this:

AfD Log Date	Number of AfDs	Average # votes	Relisted	Relisted twice	Relisted > twice
2017 June 1	46	7.2	9	5	2
2017 June 2	67	6.8	17	18	7

I'd like to see the bot run through all the logs dating back forever if possible, but if that is too onerous a couple of years would do. Further, after putting together this data, I'd like to see the bot continue to function, such that on a daily basis it looks for the log file that is one day past the last complete log file (all AfDs closed), determines if all AfDs in that new log file have all been closed, and if so then runs the same numbers for that log file and appends them to the data page. I'm finding an increasing need for data to help evaluate various items of interest to Wikipedia maintenance. Another example of such a data bot output (in this case, at typical backlog areas) can be found at User:EsquivalienceBot/Backlog. I would ask Esquivalience, but that editor has semi-retired and is not very active anymore. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:59, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Correcting redirection

Hi Seasons' Greetings,

I need semi automatic bot support to correct redierections from Legitimacy (law) to Legitimacy (family law). for example [[Legitimacy (law)|bastard son]] link in one of the articles needs to be changed to [[Legitimacy (family law)|bastard son]] or for example [[Legitimacy (law)#History|illegitimate]] needs to be changed to [[Legitimacy (family law)#History|illegitimate]]

You can find pages needing correction at https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Special:WhatLinksHere/Legitimacy_(law)&limit=250&from=0 (those may be around 500). Please do make corrections where you are sure the link is about family law from the context. The remaining I will do manually.

Following pages links are not related to family law so need not be included :

• Head of state
• Law of the Dominican Republic
• Proclamation of Rebellion
• Independence
• Anarchism and anarcho-capitalism
• Yangju highway incident

Thanks for support, and regards

Mahitgar (talk) 04:39, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

A bot won't be able to employ discretion in telling which links should be changed. If human judgment is needed, you'll have to manually compile a list of articles that need changing. Maybe using a tool like AWB to make those edits would be a better way? (In the mean time you could go ahead and convert Legitimacy (law) into a disambiguation page, so that other editors will know that the link should be avoided.) --Paul_012 (talk) 07:20, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Not a good task for a bot. per WP:CONTEXTBOT. — JJMC89 (T·C) 20:20, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

User has started an RfC at Talk:Legitimacy (criminal law)#RfC requesting concensus to move article to Legitimacy (law). To me, it reads like a WP:RM. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:26, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Remove DMOZ comments

A large number of pages include the string , or submit your link to the relevant category at the Open Directory Project (dmoz.org) and link back to that category using the {{dmoz}} template, as part of some boilerplate text. As DMOZ tells us, that is no longer possible. The string should be removed, like this, or like this, please. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:22, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Migrate from deprecated WikiProject Caribbean country task forces

Four of the task forces for WikiProject Caribbean have graduated to full-fledged WikiProjects with their own banner templates, and the task force parameters have been deprecated: {{WikiProject Cuba}}, {{WikiProject Grenada}}, {{WikiProject Haiti}}, and {{WikiProject Trinidad and Tobago}}. We need a bot to go through the existing transclusions of {{WikiProject Caribbean}} and perform the following changes:

• If none of the four task forces above are assigned, leave the {{WikiProject Caribbean}} template as it is.
• If any of the four task forces above are assigned, remove the relevant task force parameters and add the relevant WikiProject banners. If there are no other task force parameters remaining after 1 or more have been migrated, remove the {{WikiProject Caribbean}} template.

Please also migrate the task-force importance parameters if they exist, for example |cuba-importance=. If there isn't a task-force importance parameter, just leave the importance blank. The |class=, |category=, |listas=, and |small= parameters should be copied from {{WikiProject Caribbean}} template if they exist. Kaldari (talk) 18:58, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

@BU Rob13: Any interest in tackling this one? It's slightly different than the WikiProject Central America migration since only four of the task forces have graduated. Kaldari (talk) 19:02, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

@Kaldari: Let's see if someone else bites first. I'm going to be on vacation soon plus I have some important life stuff coming up. Ping me in late August if this still hasn't been done and I'll take a look. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 06:40, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

User:WP 1.0 bot, 2.0

Could someone create a replacement for User:WP 1.0 bot? Neither operator is active (one's last real activity ended two years ago, and the other has made eight edits in the last three and a half years), and as the bot's making some small errors (see [2]) that don't at all justify a block, it would be nice if we had an alternate bot doing the same thing yet run by an operator who could respond to requests for code tweaks. Note that a link to the bot's source code is posted on its userpage, so I suspect that it won't be much work to create a new bot. Nyttend (talk) 23:11, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

There is a statement at User:WP_1.0_bot/Web/Guide#About_the_Wikipedia_Release_Version_tools that "Wikipedia Release Version Tools" will replace 1.0 bot. @CBM: you wrote that in 2009; please could you update it? – Fayenatic London 21:34, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Note to whoever may do an update: please revise the code where it specifies the category containing the assessment categories, from category:Wikipedia 1.0 assessments to Category:WikiProject assessments. (See CFD 2017 Feb 17 and Wikipedia_talk:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Index#Bot_is_down_again.) – Fayenatic London 08:19, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

This bot has been operating erratically for several years now and once again its not functioning correctly as of this post. We've had to beg people to make fixes and its getting very tiring. Many projects depend on this bot to spot incorrect assessments and a multitude of other tasks. The last editors in charge of the bot seemed to have vanished. Brad 00:02, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Template:Album ratings

IPs has been adding extra reviews like this in the template in some articles lately, while the guidelines clearly says only add ten reviews. Can there be a bot revert these edits who add reviews more than ten? TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 02:37, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Is it possible to link to the guidelines so that the specific wording is clear? For a bot to remove these could be controversial, and might require further discussion. We could also have an issue with WP:CONTEXTBOT here, especially as the review added may be from a more important review site and the review to remove - to take the count down to 10 again - should be the least significant review website, which may not be the one added. And if the issue of 10 really is that much of an issue in every case (a bot would remove a template from every case) perhaps it would be better to sort the issue at source, bu programming the template to only show 10 scores. TheMagikCow (T) (C) 17:20, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

@TheMagikCow: You wandering where do it says to only add ten reviews in the template, it says it right here. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 15:29, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

But it also says "but you can add more in exceptional circumstances." so you could not just trim to 10 by a BOT. Keith D (talk) 21:22, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

@Keith D: Maybe not, but my issue is there has been some editors keep adding The Needle Drop in the template because of this video, and it doesn't help that The Needle Drop is not an reliable source (WP:ALBUMAVOID). See here, here and here for example, but I realized that this isn't the place to report this kind of issue here, so sorry if I wasting your time. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 18:18, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Whilst these edits may be unconstructive, it is not to say that a bot would be useful here. The bot would replace all cases where there are over 10 reviews - and as the specific guideline says there are circumstances where more than 10 reviews can be present. A bot can't tell the context (WP:CONTEXTBOT) so would actually do harm to pages. Removing excess reviews from pages where they don't meet policy is good, but not a task for a bot. I think you should talk to the editor and explain the policy of no more than 10 to them. If they continue, a block may be needed as a preventative measure. TheMagikCow (T) (C) 11:20, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

@TheMagikCow: There has been more than one editor who been adding reviews more than 10. If an editor add a review which is not an reliable source, I just revert the edit with an edit summary explaining the edit is not constructive. But sometimes they don't respond. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 07:08, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Bot to add the type of business

In some articles the type of business is provided (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slack_Technologies) but not in others. The info is often provided in the main text. I think there are 3 types of business: Startup; Public; Private.

Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.164.122.167 (talk) 13:08, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Not a good task for a bot. This is a classic case of WP:CONTEXTBOT - a text can mention startup without the business being one, or talking about how it historically was a startup but has expanded and no longer can be considered one. TheMagikCow (T) (C) 11:55, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Another magic links bot

It might be useful after magic links are disabled to inform unaware editors, making edits which would currently result in the generation of magic links, that the use of templates would be required to make ISBN and DOI links; sort of like how users are told to sign with four tildes and not to link to disambiguation pages. Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
to reply to me 14:20, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Magic links are currently created for ISBN, PMID, and RFC (not DOI). FYI. AFAIK. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:10, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

You may want to start a quick village pump discussion to make the eventual BRFA run more smoothly, Jc86035. I imagine you'd get a quick SNOW support. This is obviously helpful. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 00:33, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

@Jonesey95 and BU Rob13: I've started a discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Magic links reminder bot. Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
to reply to me 08:18, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Can a bot fix comma spacing errors?

I have recently undertaken the fixing of comma spacing errors, which are a great annoyance. In most instances in English text (and other Romance languages), a comma has a space after it. What we are supposed to have is:

Smith formed Smithco, Inc., in Provo, Utah.

Instead, we often see spacing errors like:

Smith formed Smithco,Inc., in Provo,Utah.

or:

Smith formed Smithco ,Inc., in Provo ,Utah.

or even:

Smith formed Smithco , Inc. , in Provo , Utah.

On the other hand, there are rare occasions where a comma should not be followed by a space. For example, many URLs contain commas (and would be broken if a space was added), as do some templates or template structures (such as "display=inline,title" and "display=inline,source" statements, or basically anything following "display="). Many filenames also contain bad comma spacing, which ideally should be fixed by renaming the file, but should be skipped by automated means that do not have the capacity to do this, since "fixing" the spacing error will break the link to the file. Finally, large numbers in the thousands and above take a comma (1,000, 1,000,000, etc.), and certain chemical and mathematical formulas intentionally contain a comma not followed by a space. So far as I know, there is never a situation where there is supposed to be a space before a comma. In the course of carrying out my spacing fixes, I have also noticed an unusual number of instances of external link text beginning with a stray comma , like this.

Basically, what I am looking for is a bot smart enough to:

1. fix errant spacing around commas like the examples above, but
2. ignore commas in URLs and as part of template structures (but not in regular text that happens to be in a template)
3. eliminate commas that occur in the space between a URL and the text of a formatted external link
4. ignore commas in large numbers, mathematical and chemical formulas
5. ignore but make a record of commas in filenames.

If this is not possible, the next best thing would be some setup where a list of possible errors meeting these characteristics can be assembled for manual checking and repair. bd2412 T 02:07, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

I don't think that a bot could do this task, but here's an insource search (with a LOT of false positives) that you could start working on. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:58, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, but there are too many errors to be fixed without some kind of automation of some aspect of the task. bd2412 T 03:28, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

I think this would be a perfect job for a bot. It's "Look for pattern X, Y, or Z, and replace it with pattern A". ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 04:09, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

I just don't see how a bot could determine whether adding a space to "a,b" would be a correct action. I suspect, however, that someone could create a regex that said "show me '[a-z],[a-z]' in article space, but not inside of square brackets, curly braces, or tags", do an insource or database search, and create an article list for a discerning human to traverse with AWB. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:57, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

A list would be helpful. I can't help thinking that there must be some portion of the task that a bot could undertake. Suppose we start with instances where there is an extra blank space before the comma? There are no URLs or mathematical formulas that will contain that, nor should there be any template calls affected by it. bd2412 T 14:17, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

You can search for pages like this yourself. Here's an insource search for 'letter space comma letter'. The search times out, but I get only 188 pages (some of which have math formulas, and some of which are templates; go figure). You should be able to fix all of those on your own with a simple regex find and replace script, checking each one before saving, of course. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:14, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

This is some serious WP:CONTEXTBOT territory. I'd be most comfortable with AWB doing something like this. There's no way an operator could consider all edge cases. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:36, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, WP:CONTEXTBOT applies, unless some advanced filtering can be used or something. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:57, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

I'd be glad to do this by AWB if a list could be generated with the high probability fixes, and excluding the issues referenced above. bd2412 T 00:41, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

IMO this seems like a really bad idea WRT WP:COSMETICBOT. Standing aside from that, the rule set for determining what should be fixed feels more like a human eyes-brain task. No objection to a bot adding a maintenance template that applies a hidden category so that editors can sort through the problem. Hasteur (talk) 12:35, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

WP:COSMETICBOT deals with Wikitext changes that are not visible to the reader. Incorrect spacing is glaringly visible to the reader, and diminishes the credibility of the encyclopedia. bd2412 T 12:46, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

BD2412, this is less of an issue with COSMETIC and more of an issue with CONTEXT (I think the above uses of COSMETIC might have been either mistaken or errors). As mentioned previously, there are so many edge cases, rules, and exceptions, that while the majority of rules could be programmed in for AWB use, at the end of the day there should still be a human checking the edit and clicking "save". Primefac (talk) 19:13, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Ok, then - what can we do? If the best we can do is to come up with a list of highly probable errors to be manually checked, let's do that. I'll run the list if someone can make one. bd2412 T 19:25, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

I would say that perhaps an AWB regex search would be the way to go. There is some good information here. TheMagikCow (T) (C) 14:07, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

@BD2412: Yeah, the best search will definitely be using AWB to go through a database dump using a regex search. You'd want to search for three things: a letter, comma, then letter; a space, comma, then letter; and a space, comma, then space. Note you would want to use letters (not all characters) due to commas being valid with no spaces between many numbers. This isn't hard to do with regex, but let me know if you're unfamiliar with it and I can write something up quick. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 22:42, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Is it possible to do a search like that which excludes commas occurring in URLs? That seems to be the biggest source of false positives. bd2412 T 22:45, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Try tacking (?<!https?://[^ \|\{\}\[\]\<\>]*) on the end of your regular expression. That should exclude most urls. -- John of Reading (talk) 05:20, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Isn't there an option to search on visible text only? Then nothing in <ref>...</ref> would matter, and we would have very few false positives, once numbers are excluded. — JFG ^talk 09:10, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Comma spacing errors in references (particularly in book titles) also do need to be fixed, though. Perhaps these can be separated into distinct projects with different approaches. bd2412 T 12:05, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

List Duplicates

Hi all! I was wondering what your thoughts are on a bot removing items that are duplicated in lists (eg aluminium chloride fluoride in Dictionary of chemical formulas). 2 non-blank rows have exactly the same wiki code, and I can't see a situation where that occurs intentionally. I am totally aware that this may be straying into some serious WP:CONTEXTBOT territory, so this may be better suited to the semi-automatic AWB. Has anybody got some thoughts? TheMagikCow (T) (C) 14:05, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Unclosed <!-- comment tags

This might be covered in some sort of database report already; if so, please tell me.

Could someone write a bot to go through everything (presumably via a database dump) and tag for cleanup all pages that have an unclosed comment tag (i.e. an instance of <!-- doesn't have a corresponding -->), and perhaps also all pages that have a closing tag with no opening tag? {{cleanup|reason=Broken comment tagging}} or something of the sort should suffice. This isn't a WP:CONTEXTBOT issue, since the bot won't be deciding where to add the missing tag; it's merely reporting on the problem. The bot should check the code, not the rendered text; it should ignore pages where the coding is visible, perhaps because someone intentionally used the character entity reference (like I did here) or because someone inserted nowiki tags, or zero-width spaces, or something like that in order to prevent the coding from working. Nyttend (talk) 02:26, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Nyttend: Does this report (Wikipedia:WikiProject Check Wikipedia/List of errors #5) meet your needs? – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:45, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes, it does. Thanks! Nyttend (talk) 20:33, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Remove references sections from pages with no references

Would be possible to have a bot do something like this? At least for some cases. Or at least create a list of pages that have references sections and no references and thne treat them manually. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:01, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Possible, I imagine, but not desirable. I sometimes add a reflist template and section to an article with no references when I tag it as unreferenced. That way, when someone adds a reference, it appears in the correct location, with a header. – Jonesey95 (talk) 12:51, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Jonesey95 Do you add an empty section tag too? Since we have bots to add sections when missing, havng a empty references section does not seem to be right though. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:53, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

I add exactly the text that you removed in your diff above, so that the section is in the right place, formatted correctly, and ready for the first reference to be added to the article. Without the section in place, a new reference would appear below the stub template, which is not desirable. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:16, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Jonesey95 OK... -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:17, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Jonesey95 Since it's not clear what to be done, we can discuss it somewhere else. I 've been tagging empty references sections till someone told that it's better to remove them instead. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:33, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Jonesey95 In 2013... T100741 -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:34, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

An empty References section is much different from, and much more useful than, another empty section (e.g. Reception or Early life). – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:48, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

OK. This is your opinion. I have already marked the disciussion here as "not done" since the tasks should be uncontroversial and this is obviously not the case. Thanks for your comments. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:52, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Any empty ref section will hopefully help convince people to add refs. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:26, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

It tends to be newer users who have yet to fully grasp wikisyntax. Often I have seen <ref> tags in a page with no {{reflist}} section. Somebody that does not understand why the refs are not showing at the bottom would, understabably, be frustrated. Why whould we want to make the problem worse? We should not make it harder to create pages with proper referencing - in fact I would advocate putting on a references section with a reflist. TheMagikCow (T) (C) 07:46, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

TheMagikCow In fact the reflist will autoshow when a ref is added and we have bots to add missing references sections. In the "yes references section, no refs" scenario there is an empty section shown at the bottom of a page. No big deal though that's why I cancelled my request. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:27, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

An empty reference section is grossly misleading to readers, especially those with screen readers, as they are told there are reference in the TOC when there are, in fact, none. That is a much graver crime than making life slightly more difficult for editors. If the concern is someone puts a <ref></ref> tags and they wonder were their citation went, that's rather a non-argument given articles will display such references even in the absence of a reference section. They just won't display it in the reference section. The solution to that is to have a bot add missing reference sections when they are found (CW Error #03), not prevent a bot from removing such empty and misleading references sections.Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:17, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

However, I'll add that this is clearly in need of wider input than what can be gained at WP:BOTREQ. If someone is interested in coding this bot, they should take it to WP:VPR to gain consensus first before they start coding. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:24, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Rewriting arguments of template:NFL predraft so they can be used with template:convert

At the moment, template:NFL predraft only displays imperial units. I would like to change it to also display metric units, using template:convert. Please see User:Spike/Sandbox/Template:NFL predraft for my suggested new version of the template. Unfortunately, many arguments of template:NFL predraft are given using fractional values in a format which is not allowed in template:convert: They use template:frac, template:fraction or Unicode characters like "⅞", see, e.g., Eric_Berry#2010_NFL_Draft. So, I would like to request a bot which performs a string substitution on all arguments of template:NFL predraft which use template:frac, template:fraction or Unicode fraction characters such that the arguments obtain the form "x+y/z". E.g., "{{frac|1|3|8}}" should become "1+3/8", "2{{fraction|1|2}}" should become "2+1/2", "5¼" should become "5+1/4", and so on. I have done some searches, see e.g. [3] and [4], and I believe that give or take some false positives, there should be around 700 cases. Spike (talk) 22:54, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Before taking on this bot task, I'd recommend consensus be established for making the change to add {{convert}} in the first place in a discussion that includes members of WP:NFL. You may have an easier time of it if your sandbox version used {{#iferror:}} to avoid displaying errors before articles are updated. Anomie⚔ 12:13, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the iferror suggestion. I have implemented it. Regarding the consensus: I have asked for comments on the template talk page under Template_talk:NFL_predraft#Proposal_to_add_metric_values and on the NFL project talk page under Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_National_Football_League#Proposal_to_add_metric_values_to_Template:NFL_predraft four days ago and I have not received any answers until now. Is there a time frame after which I could interpret zero negative comments as a kind of silent consent? Or does someone have to actively say "do it!"? Spike (talk) 13:13, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Read created articles and insert them to my META userpage

The bot should call the website [5] and insert the articles there to my userpage located at the meta-wiki [6]. --Mathmensch (talk) 13:31, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Automatically replacing {{unreferenced}} with {{refimprove}}

There are several articles with references in Wikipedia that still contain {{unreferenced}} tags. Can we configure one of Wikipedia's bots to automatically replace these tags in articles like this one? Jarble (talk) 19:31, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

It would need to be a bit more complicated than that, for example if someone had adequately referenced an unreferenced article you wouldn't want to simply move to refimprove. ϢereSpielChequers 22:20, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

I think this is what AWB does. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:26, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

I think this is best done semi-automatically with AWB. You can pre-parse the category for {{unreferenced}} to find those that contain ref tags, then go through with genfixes. AWB genfixes by default will change {{unreferenced}} to {{refimprove}} in those cases, but the editor should check whether there's adequate sourcing to remove the tag entirely. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 03:00, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

When Twinkle is used, it automatically changes template unreferenced to refimprove. See Abeer Mehr (talk) 19:02, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Automated Unblock Bot

Could there be a bot that notifies user, who has made unblock request that he is already unblocked. Many cases I have seen occurring that the person who requests unblock is already unblocked or may e autoblocked. Besides providing Note to blocked users, it should be to notify them on their talk pages. Thankyou.Abeer Mehr (talk) 19:01, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Such a bot is possible, but approval would require evidence that such a bot is also wanted by the community and/or by the admins who handle the unblock requests. Anomie⚔ 19:47, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

How often does this occur? Is this something that is causing admins problems? Hasteur (talk) 19:58, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

There was one user whose name I have forgot, and he was requesting unblocked, and he was unknown of fact that he is auto-blocked. What do you think, there should be. Abeer Mehr (talk) 05:14, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

@Anomie:We can also contact community if they need it. Or not?

I'd personally be against a bot responding to such unblock requests instead of admins. Admins want to see these requests because they sometimes indicate sock puppetry. I've caught socks based on auto block unblock requests before. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 05:21, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

If it notifies an admin, will it be all right? I have no any problem with it, Thankyou BU Rob13. Abeer Mehr (talk) 05:34, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

If the bot were to be approved it would need administrative privileges and therefore an Administrator has to run it. I think this is a very bad idea as very few AdminBots get approved and then with a great amount of scrutiny and community consensus. Hasteur (talk) 05:39, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Hasteur, I will take full responsibility so don't care about it. But thing to be thought is that is it great idea? If it's not, kindly explain. Abeer Mehr (talk) 05:45, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

You are not an admin and I would be challenging the Bot Coder and Bot Operator very closely as adminBots have the great potential to be abused and go off the rails. Let's lay out a hypothetical. User A has been causing mischeif on the site to the point that they have been blocked. User A logs out and continues causing mischeif via IP address. User B registered for their account at home, but when they log in to do some spare time editing at work, they become auto-blocked because of User A's antics. User B doesn't have a block on them, but they are caught by the auto-block of User A. Without a lot of work and fuzzy logic, the bot is not going to be able to determine what's going on. When User B makes their request to be unblocked, they don't want a bot to respond to them, they want a human being to help them and try to figure out what's going on. Hasteur (talk) 05:55, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

You mean this is bad idea? User:Hasteur. If not, tell me what should I do? Abeer Mehr (talk) 05:58, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

@Hasteur: I think you're mistaken. Declining an unblock request is an admin action, but it does not require admin tools. This would not need to be an admin bot in the sense of having access to the tools. Having said that, I do think this isn't a good idea, Abeer Mehr. I've continued thinking about this since I last commented and I'm now more concerned about something else. An admin confronted with an unblock request of a long-time editor who is caught in an autoblock knows to grant them the IP block exempt user right, which will allow them to edit through the block. A bot could not do that. For this reason (and my previous thinking, to a lesser extent), I think this idea wouldn't work out well. Either way, thank you for thinking about ideas for automated tools to make lives easier. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 06:38, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

@BU Rob13: Thankyou for replying, I think I have requested an uncommon thing, which was subject to attention. I will consider it as  Not done, but no problem, I will return soon with great ideas. I requested work of adminbots. But thankyou for your assistance. Abeer Mehr (talk) 06:46, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Bot to tell about Bare References

OK. So I am back with another idea. Actually some editors cite sources into articles but often forget to write title, accessdate and this message is often displayed at the References section. If editors be given message that they have missed something then it is the subject what the bot should do. Like DPL Bot tells about disambiguation links, this bot would tell that they have not written title of something. How is the idea? Share. ABEER!!^{(wanna talk?)} 10:44, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

We had a bot at one point which would auto-generate titles of URLs for references with only a bare URL. Maybe that one should simply be rebooted, or a similar bot coded. It's not something we need to tell users about IMO. --Izno (talk) 12:20, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

OK. Waiting for other administrators' reviews. @Izno: You may search about it and if it is no long, let's have together. ABEER!!^{(wanna talk?)} 13:29, 28 July 2017 (UTC)