| Revision as of 01:16, 18 July 2023 view sourceTony1 (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers, Template editors276,016 editsm fixed dashes using User:Ohconfucius/dashes.jsTag: Reverted← Previous edit | Revision as of 03:03, 18 July 2023 view source Headbomb (talk | contribs)Edit filter managers, Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, Page movers, File movers, New page reviewers, Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers, Template editors453,938 edits Restored revision 1165794183 by Jonesey95 (talk): This goes well beyond dash fixing, but i'll copy edit someTags: Twinkle UndoNext edit → | ||
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| === ''Article Alerts'' === | === ''Article Alerts'' === | ||
| Ah ] (or ]) |
Ah ] (or ])... this is by far the dearest and closest tool/project to my heart. People who already use it can probably fathom why. Prior to 2008 or so (see ]), if you wanted to know if "Topic X" had ]s, you would have to stroll ], and manually inspect every article out there. Let's say you are interested in dance. For some topic, like the ], you can fairly easily tell that it's unlikely to be related to dance. But ]? Are they a physicist? An athlete? A ballet dancer? A ''Simpsons'' character? You have to read the article to know for sure. This takes time. Repeat that for the dozens of articles PRODed... Congratulations, after 20-30 minutes, now you've compiled a dance-related list of PRODed articles. That no one else has access to. That will be outdated tomorrow. For one workflow/discussion venue. | ||
| And that's the tedium Article Alerts is designed to tackle. ] will cross-check ''all'' the articles (and other pages like templates) in a WikiProject's scope against ''all'' the discussion venues on Misplaced Pages and create a daily report for the WikiProject. ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ]... it covers them all, though projects have a wide-variety of customization option. So if you're curious about dance, head over to ] and look for "Article Alerts", "AALERTS", "News" or similar ]. | And that's the tedium Article Alerts is designed to tackle. ] will cross-check ''all'' the articles (and other pages like templates) in a WikiProject's scope against ''all'' the discussion venues on Misplaced Pages and create a daily report for the WikiProject. ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ]... it covers them all, though projects have a wide-variety of customization option. So if you're curious about dance, head over to ] and look for "Article Alerts", "AALERTS", "News" or similar ]. | ||
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| The same will apply for ]. The full list of Article Alerts subscriptions is available ] if you want to browse things directly. If your project isn't subscribed to ''Article Alerts'', it's ]. Technical help is always available at ], though most people can probably figure things out themselves. | The same will apply for ]. The full list of Article Alerts subscriptions is available ] if you want to browse things directly. If your project isn't subscribed to ''Article Alerts'', it's ]. Technical help is always available at ], though most people can probably figure things out themselves. | ||
| And if your project doesn't advertise its Article Alerts subscriptions on its front page, it's probably a good idea to start a discussion on the talk page to ask what's up with that and if it should be added. And while you can regularly check the mainpage of a WikiProject for the most recent alerts in most cases, putting the ''Misplaced Pages:WikiProject ... |
And if your project doesn't advertise its Article Alerts subscriptions on its front page, it's probably a good idea to start a discussion on the talk page to ask what's up with that and if it should be added. And while you can regularly check the mainpage of a WikiProject for the most recent alerts in most cases, putting the ''Misplaced Pages:WikiProject .../Article alerts'' page on your ] is what most people should do. For WikiProject Dance, that would be ]. Lastly, if your project has a standard shortcut, like ], it's a good idea to create a shortcut like ] so you can easily point to it during discussions, like a talk page message welcoming a newcomer the project. | ||
| Hats off to {{U|Hellknowz}} for coding that bot. | Hats off to {{U|Hellknowz}} for coding that bot. | ||
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| === ''Recognized Content'' === | === ''Recognized Content'' === | ||
| Similar to the |
Similar to the above tool, which focused on finding active discussions, ] (or ]) is all about finding articles that have achieved some kind of recognition somewhere on Misplaced Pages. Want to know if your topic has anything listed at ]? ]? ]? ]? Well, inspired by the success of Article Alerts, I thought it would be nice to have a bot, in this case ], do the hard work of collecting these for you and give you a nicely formatted page with all that information on. Using this time ] as an example: | ||
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| {{collapsed bottom}} | {{collapsed bottom}} | ||
| ⚫ | The full list of customization option is available at ]. If you're not sure how to set it up, just look at a listing that you like, and you can generally copy-paste what they did, changing ''WikiProject Foobar'' to whatever is appropriate. Just like Article Alerts, most WikiProjects advertise these lists of recognized content somewhere on their front page (search for "Recognized content", "Featured content", "Showcase" or similar). If your project has such lists but |
||
| ⚫ | The full list of customization option is available at ]. If you're not sure how to set it up, just look at a listing that you like, and you can generally copy-paste what they did, changing ''WikiProject Foobar'' to whatever is appropriate. Just like Article Alerts above, most WikiProjects advertise these lists of recognized content somewhere on their front page (search for "Recognized content", "Featured content", "Showcase" or similar). If your project has such lists, but aren't advertising them, I suggest starting a discussion on the WikiProject's talk page on how to best address that issue. You can browse ] to find individual listings, which again, you really ought to put on your watchlist. | ||
| ⚫ | |||
| ⚫ | Lastly, just like with Article Alerts above, if your project has a standard shortcut (e.g. ] or ]), it's a good idea to create shortcuts like ] or ] so you can easily point to them during discussions. | ||
| Hats off to {{U|JLaTondre}} for coding that bot. | Hats off to {{U|JLaTondre}} for coding that bot. | ||
| ===''Cleanup listings''=== | ===''Cleanup listings''=== | ||
| This tool I had no part in its development or design. |
This tool I had no part in its development or design. However, like the tools above, ] is designed to collect all cleanup-related information for articles within a WikiProject's scope. This one is ], but luckily most WikiProjects already have been integrated. All you have to do is to browse , and find something that you care about. perhaps? Or maybe ? | ||
| These listings, unlike the two previous tools, cannot be embedded directly on Misplaced Pages. Instead, most WikiProjects use {{tl|WikiProject cleanup listing}} to advertise their cleanup listings on their front page, though ]. You can also put those on your own user page if you want. | These listings, unlike the two previous tools, cannot be embedded directly on Misplaced Pages. Instead, most WikiProjects use {{tl|WikiProject cleanup listing}} to advertise their cleanup listings on their front page, though ]. You can also put those on your own user page if you want. | ||
| Line 66: | Line 67: | ||
| |} | |} | ||
| The listings can be viewed alphabetically by category, downloaded in a .csv file, and the 'History' link shows a graph of the number of cleanup tags over time for the project. The listings are updated weekly on Tuesday, so if you seriously tackle one cleanup category or systematically go through a set of related articles, you can actually see the difference you're making from week to week! | The listings can be viewed alphabetically, by category, downloaded in a .csv file, and the 'History' link shows a graph of the number of cleanup tags over time for the project. The listings are updated weekly on Tuesday, so if you seriously tackle one cleanup category, or systematically go through a set of related articles, you can actually see the difference you're making from week to week! | ||
| If you use the box above you don't need to create new shortcuts for Cleanup Listings. In the case of ], you can just use ] and you will be taken to the section where the box is listed. | If you use the box above, you don't need to create new shortcuts for Cleanup Listings. In the case of ], you can just use ] and you will be taken to the section where the box is listed. | ||
| Hats off to {{U|Bamyers99}} for coding that bot. | Hats off to {{U|Bamyers99}} for coding that bot. | ||
| ===Final thoughts=== | ===Final thoughts=== | ||
| There are many other tools are out there. Some are ]-assisted, like ], ], or ]. Others are ]-based like my own ], ], or ]. I plan to cover those in follow up ''Tips and Tricks'' columns, but there are others tools I |
There are many other tools are out there. Some are ]-assisted, like ], ], or ]. Others are ]-based like my own ], ], or ]. I plan to cover those in follow up ''Tips and Tricks'' columns, but there are others tools I never used or heard of I'm sure! In the comments, I'd like for people to put what tools they use to facilitate WikiProject-wide collaborations or which are otherwise helpful to their editing. Those can be the tools I've already mentioned, so others know they've got widespread endorsement, or tools I never heard of so people can discover them! | ||
| <!--END OF ARTICLE --> | <!--END OF ARTICLE --> | ||
Revision as of 03:03, 18 July 2023
What automation can do for you (and your WikiProject): A summary of various tools designed over the years.
Tips and tricks
What automation can do for you (and your WikiProject)
Contribute — Share this By Headbomb
Over the years, people have designed a variety of tools to save you time and headaches. Most deal with centralizing information in some way so you don't have to look for "all the discussion related to topic X" yourself, but can instead make use of centralized lists. Some are my ideas. Others are from, well, other people. Here is a summary of three of the biggest ones out there.
Article Alerts
Ah Article Alerts (or WP:AALERTS)... this is by far the dearest and closest tool/project to my heart. People who already use it can probably fathom why. Prior to 2008 or so (see previous Signpost coverage), if you wanted to know if "Topic X" had proposed deletions, you would have to stroll Category:Proposed deletion, and manually inspect every article out there. Let's say you are interested in dance. For some topic, like the Miani Sahib Graveyard, you can fairly easily tell that it's unlikely to be related to dance. But Gustave Geffroy? Are they a physicist? An athlete? A ballet dancer? A Simpsons character? You have to read the article to know for sure. This takes time. Repeat that for the dozens of articles PRODed... Congratulations, after 20-30 minutes, now you've compiled a dance-related list of PRODed articles. That no one else has access to. That will be outdated tomorrow. For one workflow/discussion venue.
And that's the tedium Article Alerts is designed to tackle. AAlertBot will cross-check all the articles (and other pages like templates) in a WikiProject's scope against all the discussion venues on Misplaced Pages and create a daily report for the WikiProject. WP:AFC, WP:DYKN, WP:FAC, WP:FAR, WP:GAN, WP:MERGE, WP:PROD, WP:RFC, WP:TFD... it covers them all, though projects have a wide-variety of customization option. So if you're curious about dance, head over to WikiProject Dance and look for "Article Alerts", "AALERTS", "News" or similar somewhere on that page.
| WikiProject Dance's current Article Alerts listings |
|---|
|
Did you know
Articles for deletion
Featured article candidates
Requested moves
Articles to be merged
Articles to be split
Articles for creation
|
The same will apply for any other WikiProject. The full list of Article Alerts subscriptions is available here if you want to browse things directly. If your project isn't subscribed to Article Alerts, it's very easy to do so. Technical help is always available at WT:AALERTS, though most people can probably figure things out themselves.
And if your project doesn't advertise its Article Alerts subscriptions on its front page, it's probably a good idea to start a discussion on the talk page to ask what's up with that and if it should be added. And while you can regularly check the mainpage of a WikiProject for the most recent alerts in most cases, putting the Misplaced Pages:WikiProject .../Article alerts page on your watchlist is what most people should do. For WikiProject Dance, that would be Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Dance/Article alerts. Lastly, if your project has a standard shortcut, like WP:DANCE, it's a good idea to create a shortcut like WP:DANCE/AALERTS so you can easily point to it during discussions, like a talk page message welcoming a newcomer the project.
Hats off to Hellknowz for coding that bot.
Recognized Content
Similar to the above tool, which focused on finding active discussions, Recognized Content (or WP:RECOG) is all about finding articles that have achieved some kind of recognition somewhere on Misplaced Pages. Want to know if your topic has anything listed at WP:FA? WP:FL? WP:GAN? WP:DYK? Well, inspired by the success of Article Alerts, I thought it would be nice to have a bot, in this case JL-Bot, do the hard work of collecting these for you and give you a nicely formatted page with all that information on. Using this time WikiProject Bhutan as an example:
You can also have lists of DYK blurbs, this time using WikiProject Berbers as an example:
| WikiProject Berbers DYK listing | ||
|---|---|---|
Transcluding 10 of 19 total |
The full list of customization option is available at WP:RECOG. If you're not sure how to set it up, just look at a listing that you like, and you can generally copy-paste what they did, changing WikiProject Foobar to whatever is appropriate. Just like Article Alerts above, most WikiProjects advertise these lists of recognized content somewhere on their front page (search for "Recognized content", "Featured content", "Showcase" or similar). If your project has such lists, but aren't advertising them, I suggest starting a discussion on the WikiProject's talk page on how to best address that issue. You can browse Category:Misplaced Pages lists of recognized content to find individual listings, which again, you really ought to put on your watchlist.
Lastly, just like with Article Alerts above, if your project has a standard shortcut (e.g. WP:BHUTAN or WP:BERBERS), it's a good idea to create shortcuts like WP:BHUTRAN/RECOG or WP:BERBERS/DYK so you can easily point to them during discussions.
Hats off to JLaTondre for coding that bot.
Cleanup listings
This tool I had no part in its development or design. However, like the tools above, CleanupWorklistBot is designed to collect all cleanup-related information for articles within a WikiProject's scope. This one is a bit less straightforward to setup, but luckily most WikiProjects already have been integrated. All you have to do is to browse the list of cleanup listings, and find something that you care about. Cheese perhaps? Or maybe human rights?
These listings, unlike the two previous tools, cannot be embedded directly on Misplaced Pages. Instead, most WikiProjects use {{WikiProject cleanup listing}} to advertise their cleanup listings on their front page, though alternatives exist. You can also put those on your own user page if you want.
| Example {{WikiProject cleanup listing}} for Human rights. |  A list of articles needing cleanup associated with this project is available. See also the tool's wiki page and the index of WikiProjects. |
|---|
The listings can be viewed alphabetically, by category, downloaded in a .csv file, and the 'History' link shows a graph of the number of cleanup tags over time for the project. The listings are updated weekly on Tuesday, so if you seriously tackle one cleanup category, or systematically go through a set of related articles, you can actually see the difference you're making from week to week!
If you use the box above, you don't need to create new shortcuts for Cleanup Listings. In the case of WP:HR, you can just use WP:HR#Cleanup listings and you will be taken to the section where the box is listed.
Hats off to Bamyers99 for coding that bot.
Final thoughts
There are many other tools are out there. Some are bot-assisted, like TedderBot's New Page Search, HotArticlesBot's Hot Articles, or JL-Bot's Journal Cited by Misplaced Pages. Others are user scripts-based like my own Unreliable/Predatory Source Detector, SuperHamster's Cite Unseen, or Trappist the monk's HarvErrors. I plan to cover those in follow up Tips and Tricks columns, but there are others tools I never used or heard of I'm sure! In the comments, I'd like for people to put what tools they use to facilitate WikiProject-wide collaborations or which are otherwise helpful to their editing. Those can be the tools I've already mentioned, so others know they've got widespread endorsement, or tools I never heard of so people can discover them!
← Previous "Tips and tricks"
Discuss this story
These comments are automatically transcluded from this article's talk page. To follow comments, add the page to your watchlist. If your comment has not appeared here, you can try purging the cache.- It's because of technical editors that the Misplaced Pages project is where it is today. Hats off to everyone mentioned here! (and for you, Headbomb, your cite highlighter script is awesome - I don't think I can live without them :D) Ca 12:06, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- Excellent article! Frostly (talk) 13:50, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- Thank you for this really well done article. Hope to see more articles about how automation, scripts and bots make a profound difference to Misplaced Pages. -- GreenC 11:32, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
- Absolutely love the CleanupWorklistBot! You have inspired us to give a demonstration about using it at the September 9th WikiSalon, Misplaced Pages:Meetup/Philadelphia/WikiSalon 2023-09-09. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 12:36, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- Link to Demonstration Video in Commons:
- Link to PDF tutorial in Commons:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/File:WikiSalon_Wikipedia_Cleanup_Worklist_Bot.pdf
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk • contribs)The Signpost is looking for new talent. Home About Archives Newsroom Subscribe Suggestions Categories: