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Overview Dictionary Bot policy Bot Approvals Group Guide Noticeboard Newsletter Bot Requests Requests for Approval Adminbots {{BAG Tools}} Creating a Bot List of bots Activity monitor Status report History Types

Commonly Requested Bots Frequently denied Anti-vandal Archiving Autoassessment Newsletter delivery Template substitution WikiProject tagging

• WP:BOTREQ
• WP:BOTR

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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages:User scripts/List.
• WP:CITEBOTREQ, to request a new feature for WP:Citation bot, a user-initiated bot that fixes citations.

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

#	Bot request	Status	💬	👥	🙋 Last editor	🕒 (UTC)	🤖 Last botop editor	🕒 (UTC)
1	"Was" in TV articles		7	5	Bunnypranav	2024-11-26 13:08	Bunnypranav	2024-11-26 13:08
2	Replace standalone BLP templates	Done	7	3	MSGJ	2024-10-30 19:37	Tom.Reding	2024-10-29 16:04
3	Assess set index and WikiProject Lists based on category as lists		19	5	Mrfoogles	2024-11-06 16:17	Tom.Reding	2024-11-02 15:53
4	Request for WP:SCRIPTREQ		1	1	StefanSurrealsSummon	2024-11-08 18:27
5	LLM summary for laypersons to talk pages of overly technical articles?		10	7	Legoktm	2024-11-12 17:50	Legoktm	2024-11-12 17:50
6	Redirects with curly apostrophes		6	5	Pppery	2024-11-11 17:30	Primefac	2024-11-11 16:52
7	Bot for replacing/archiving 13,000 dead citations for New Zealand charts		3	2	Muhandes	2024-11-14 22:49	Muhandes	2024-11-14 22:49
8	Basketball biography infobox request		7	2	Dissident93	2024-11-18 21:04	Primefac	2024-11-17 20:44
9	Meanings of minor-planet names		1	1	Absolutiva	2024-11-18 16:20
10	Reference examination bot		4	3	Wiki king 100000	2024-11-25 17:00	Usernamekiran	2024-11-20 13:02
11	Replacing FastilyBot	BRFA filed	25	9	DreamRimmer	2024-12-17 03:32	DreamRimmer	2024-12-17 03:32
12	Deletion of navboxes at Category:Basketball Olympic squad navigational boxes by competition	Working	4	4	Geardona	2024-11-20 23:48	Qwerfjkl	2024-11-20 17:32
13	Tagging Category:Cinema of Belgium	BRFA filed	20	4	Bunnypranav	2024-12-21 15:58	Bunnypranav	2024-12-21 15:58
14	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
15	Province over-capitalization		8	2	Dicklyon	2024-12-21 23:39	Primefac	2024-12-11 22:00
16	VPNGate	Y Done	13	6	MolecularPilot	2024-12-22 01:39	DreamRimmer	2024-12-21 13:40
17	Creation for nano bot	Not a good task for a bot.	3	3	Primefac	2024-12-09 16:30	Primefac	2024-12-09 16:30

Copy coordinates from lists to articles

Virtually every one of the 3000-ish places listed in the 132 sub-lists of National Register of Historic Places listings in Virginia has an article, and with very few exceptions, both lists and articles have coordinates for every place, but the source database has lots of errors, so I've gone through all the lists and manually corrected the coords. As a result, the lists are a lot more accurate, but because I haven't had time to fix the articles, tons of them (probably over 2000) now have coordinates that differ between article and list. For example, the article about the John Miley Maphis House says that its location is 38°50′20″N 78°35′55″W / 38.83889°N 78.59861°W / 38.83889; -78.59861, but the manually corrected coords on the list are 38°50′21″N 78°35′52″W / 38.83917°N 78.59778°W / 38.83917; -78.59778. Like most of the affected places, the Maphis House has coords that differ only a small bit, but (1) ideally there should be no difference at all, and (2) some places have big differences, and either we should fix everything, or we'll have to have a rather pointless discussion of which errors are too little to fix.

Therefore, I'm looking for someone to write a bot to copy coords from each place's NRHP list to the coordinates section of {{infobox NRHP}} in each place's article. A few points to consider:

• Some places span county lines (e.g. bridges over border streams), and in many of these cases, each list has separate coordinates to ensure that the marked location is in that list's county. For an extreme example, Skyline Drive, a long scenic road, is in eight counties, and all eight lists have different coordinates. The bot should ignore anything on the duplicates list; this is included in citation #4 of National Register of Historic Places listings in Virginia, but I can supply a raw list to save you the effort of distilling a list of sites to ignore.
• Some places have no coordinates in either the list or the article (mostly archaeological sites for which location information is restricted), and the bot should ignore those articles.
• Some places have coordinates only in the list or only in the article's {{Infobox NRHP}} (for a variety of reasons), but not in both. Instead of replacing information with blanks or blanks with information, the bot should log these articles for human review.
• Some places might not have {{infobox NRHP}}, or in some cases (e.g. Newport News Middle Ground Light) it's embedded in another infobox, and the other infobox has the coordinates. If {{infobox NRHP}} is missing, the bot should log these articles for human review, while embedded-and-coordinates-elsewhere is covered by the previous bullet.
• I don't know if this is the case in Virginia, but in some states we have a few pages that cover more than one NRHP-listed place (e.g. Zaleski Mound Group in Ohio, which covers three articles); if the bot produced a list of all the pages it edits, a human could go through the list, find any entries with multiple appearances, and check them for fixes.
• Finally, if a list entry has no article at all, don't bother logging it. We can use WP:NRHPPROGRESS to find what lists have redlinked entries.

I've copied this request from an archive three years ago; an off-topic discussion happened, but no bot operators offered any opinions. Neither then nor now has any discussion has yet been conducted for this idea; it's just something I've thought of. I've come here basically just to see if someone's willing to try this route, and if someone says "I think I can help", I'll start the discussion at WT:NRHP and be able to say that someone's happy to help us. Of course, I wouldn't ask you actually to do any coding or other work until after consensus is reached at WT:NRHP. Nyttend (talk) 15:53, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

You could use {{Template parameter value}} to pull the coordinate values out of the {{NRHP row}} template. It would still likely take a bot to do the swap but it would mean less updating in the future. Of course, if the values are 100% accurate on the lists then I suppose it wouldn't be necessary. Primefac (talk) 16:55, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Never heard of that template before. It sounds like an Excel =whatever function, e.g. in cell L4 you type =B4 so that L4 displays whatever's in B4; is that right? If so, I don't think it would be useful unless it were immediately followed by whatever's analogous to Excel's "Paste Values". Is that what you mean by having a bot doing the swap? Since there are 3000+ entries, I'm sure there are a few errors somewhere, but I trust they're over 99% accurate. Nyttend (talk) 02:57, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

That's a reasonable analogy, actually. Check out the source of Normani#Awards_and_nominations: it pulls the wins and nominations values from the infobox at the "list of awards", which means the main article doesn't need to be updated every time the list is changed.

As far as what the bot would do, it would take one value of {{coord}} and replace it with a call to {{Template parameter value}}, pointing in the direction of the "more accurate" data. If the data is changed in the future, it would mean not having to update both pages.

Now, if the data you've compiled is (more or less) accurate and of the not-likely-to-change variety (I guess I wouldn't expect a monument to move locations) then this is a silly suggestion – since there wouldn't be a need for automatic syncing – and we might as well just have a bot do some copy/pasting. Primefac (talk) 21:27, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Y'know, this sort of situation is exactly what Wikidata is designed for... --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 22:29, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Primefac, thank you for the explanation. The idea sounds wonderful for situations like the list of awards, but yes these are rather accurate and unlikely to change (imagine someone picking up File:Berry Hill near Orange.jpg and moving it off site), so the bot copy/paste job is probably best. Nyttend (talk) 02:23, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

By the way, Primefac, are you a bot operator, or did you simply come here to offer useful input as a third party? Nyttend (talk) 03:12, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

I am both botop and BAG, but I would not be offering to take up this task as it currently stands. Primefac (talk) 11:24, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for helping me understand. "as it currently stands" Is there something wrong with it, i.e. if changes were made you'd be offering, or do you simply mean that you have other interests (WP:VOLUNTEER) and don't feel like getting involved in this one? This question might sound like I'm being petty; I'm writing with a smile and not trying to complain at all. Nyttend (talk) 00:27, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

I came here to say what AntiCompositeNumber said. It's worth emphasising: this is exactly what Wikidata is designed for. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:25, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Actually not. A not-so-small fraction of articles need to have different coordinates in lists and infoboxes, as I already noted here. If we consistently rely on the lists to inform Wikidata, it's going to end up with a good number of self-contradictions due to lists that appropriately don't provide coordinates that make sense in articles (e.g. multi-county listings). Moreover, you can't rely on the infoboxes to inform Wikidata, because there's a consistently unacceptable error rate in coordinates unchecked by humans, and very few infoboxes are checked by humans; they're derived from the National Register database, and it would be pointless to ignore or trash the human-corrected Virginia coordinates. Literally all that needs to be done is a bot doing some copy/pasting; it would greatly be appreciated if someone were to spend a few minutes on this, instead of passing the buck. Nyttend backup (talk) 19:36, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Create WT: redirects according to WP: shortcuts

Would it be controversial to request a bot to create redirects in the Misplaced Pages talk namespace to the talk pages of the targets of redirects in the Misplaced Pages namespace? I've typed WT:xxx, expecting it's a shortcut given WP:xxx is, only to be disappointed it doesn't exist from time to time. Nardog (talk) 01:26, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Not really. It'd create a lot of pointless ones for mostly unused redirects, but it's not like anyone will care. Should only cover those explicitly marked as {{R from shortcut}} though. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:49, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Should only... Why? It's not like WP: shortcuts technically exist in the main namespace, as in H:. I'd like e.g. WT:Actors to work, even though WP:Actors isn't marked as a shortcut. (I can see an argument for avoiding shortcuts to sections, though.) Nardog (talk) 03:23, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

@Nardog and Headbomb: There's an order of magnitude fewer tagged WP redirects without a talk page than all WP redirects without a talk page. There's definitely an argument to be made that the tagged redirects are generally more useful or more well-known than untagged redirects, and there is definitely a lot of chaff in the all redirects query. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 04:04, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

I think it would be controversial, actually. For example, a lot of WP: shortcuts are to sections or anchors within a page, and it would seem unnecessary to create corresponding WT: shortcuts for these. In addition, the talk page of a redirect is the place to discuss that redirect—it should not automatically be made a redirect to the talk page of the redirect's target. I would definitely oppose using a bot to mass-create these redirects. -- Black Falcon 21:34, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Follow up task for files tagged Shadows Commons by GreenC bot job 10

GreenC bot by @GreenC: has a job that detects when a file on Misplaced Pages has the same name as one on Commons but is a different image, and tags the local file with Template:Shadows Commons, which puts it in Category:Misplaced Pages files that shadow a file on Wikimedia Commons.

I've been processing the files in that category, and many of the files on Commons are copyright violations, which are deleted within hours/days of upload. It would be useful for a bot to review the files tagged with Template:Shadows Commons and remove that template if there is no longer a file on Commons with the same name.

At any given time there are only a small number of files in that category, 30 or so, so this could potentially be done more than once a day without being very resource intensive, though once a day would be plenty useful. The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 06:43, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Shadowbot the bot that adds the tags, runs daily at 4:37 GMT -- GreenC 11:38, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

The Squirrel Conspiracy and GreenC: Here's the code (in Python) that I have for this so far; it's already been tested and it appears to work as intended. I just want to know if it looks good to both of you before I send it over to BRFA. Philroc (c) 16:11, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Nice. Pywikibot is nifty. My only thought the stdout statements have a date/time stamp and go to a log file, in case you want to track activity. -- GreenC 17:16, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

 Done. Philroc (c) 22:17, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

I have absolutely no coding ability. I defer to @GreenC:'s expertise entirely on this matter. The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 23:14, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

@The Squirrel Conspiracy and GreenC: BRFA filed; code has been completely debugged. Philroc (c) 20:32, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

2019-20 coronavirus pandemic updater bot

If any bot could take data from https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 and https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries and edit Template:Cases in 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic and Template:Territories affected by the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic automatically with the latest information that would be great. Sam1370 (talk) 00:21, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Paging Wugapodes, who's working on a similar bot. Enterprisey (talk!) 01:51, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm a little backlogged at the moment, but will try to get the worldometers dataset working asap. The first link uses the same dataset that WugBot does, and an interim solution would be to write a Lua module that reads the on-wiki CSV files and writes a wikitable. — Wug·a·po·des​ 05:12, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

@Wugapodes: I did a little work on this myself, and found that there’s an additional complication: the GitHub dataset updates only daily, while the actual interactive website updates every few hours. I tried fooling around with some web-scrapers that support JavaScript, but ran into a lot of problems, probably due to my very small amount of programming experience. Perhaps you can find a working solution? Sam1370 (talk) 10:04, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Updating more than once a day is likely unnecessary. The source data for each administrative unit doesn't really update more than once a day anyway, the website just shows the data as it comes in and the GitHub export combines it into a batch update. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 23:15, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

However, it is likely that even if this bot is implemented which updates it once per day, there are still going to be people who, in the interest of providing the most up-to-date information, will manually edit in the correct numbers, and bringing us back to where we started. I think that we should try to keep the info as accurate and recent as possible. I have contacted JHU on their email about this subject, asking him to either make the GitHub update along with the site or provide an easy way for a bot to get the most up to date data, but have received no response so far. Sam1370 (talk) 06:32, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps this could be useful for any developers who want to take up the task: https://apify.com/covid-19 Sam1370 (talk) 06:37, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Any potential problems caused by manual changes may be resolved by the bot building the page instead of amending it, just as Legobot (talk · contribs) does with the RfC listings. For example, go to WP:RFC/BIO and alter it in any way you like - move the requests around, delete some, add others. Then wait for the next bot run (1 min past the hour) and see what happens. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:58, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

However, do we really want to sacrifice accuracy for automation? Personally I would rather have manual, but the most accurate, case readings instead of automated, but slightly inaccurate, readings. As for the bot building the page, that just seems weird to me — removing helpful edits in favor of outdated data? I think we should either find a way to deliver the information right along with the JHU site, or leave it to be updated manually. Sam1370 (talk) 09:35, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

It would be best to use mw:Help:Tabular Data files on Commons, that way other wikis can benefit from the updating data as well. Tabular data can also be used to create graphs and charts using Extension:Graph. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 23:21, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Oh come on, the JHU data isn't freely licensed and they're actively claiming copyright over it (which has no basis in US law). Copying it to Commons would not be a great idea in that case, unless the Commons community has decided to ignore their claims. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 23:30, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

The JHU data had a specific discussion at Misplaced Pages:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_180#Let's_update_all_our_COVID-19_data_by_bot_instead_of_manually; Enterprisey/Wugapodes, you need to stop the bot task at earliest convenience. Thanks. --Izno (talk) 23:43, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

@Izno: I've been in touch with WMF Legal regarding this specific bot task and the response from Jrogers (WMF) was "I don't see any reason for the Foundation to remove these templates or any of the map pages linked from them". Johns Hopkins can claim copyright only on the specific presentation and selection of the data, not the data itself (which is public domain) per Feist v. Rural: "Notwithstanding a valid copyright, a subsequent compiler remains free to use the facts contained in another's publication to aid in preparing a competing work, so long as the competing work does not feature the same selection and arrangement". The data on the wiki have a different presentation and selection of data and therefore represent a valid use of the public domain component of the Johns Hopkins dataset, so I see no need to stop the bot task nor does WMF's senior legal counsel see a reason to remove its output. — Wug·a·po·des​ 03:14, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

The data's not acceptable on Commons because Commons cares about source country and US copyright. However, enwiki only cares about US copyright law, which doesn't recognize any copyrightable authorship in data like this. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 13:28, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

• Heather Houser (May 5, 2020). "The Covid-19 'Infowhelm'". The New York Review of Books. Covid-19 is undoubtedly testing our public health, medical, and economic systems. But it's also testing our ability to process so much frightening and imminently consequential data. All these data add up to the Covid-19 "infowhelm," the term I use to describe the phenomenon of being overwhelmed by a constant flow of sometimes conflicting information. -- GreenC 16:56, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Adding reciprocal merge templates

To add a merge template to the other page where only one page has had the merge template added; that is, to add reciprocal tags. This has been proposed before, and developed consensus, but doesn't seem to have been finished or the scope has been expanded too far until it becomes controversial. Rather than starting from scratch, it might be possible to resurrect Mutleybot or to add this as a Merge bot task, something wbm1058 has suggested before (Misplaced Pages:Bot requests/Archive 70#Removing bad merge requests). I suggest that the scope of the bot be simple, and that it not be designed to interpret merge consensus (or not), something that has been controversial in the past. Klbrain (talk) 07:50, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

@Klbrain: Right, I last did significant work in this area in May 2019, and also some fixes in January. I'll take another look and see what I can do. Merge bot remains a work in progress. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:44, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Cleanup Template:harv-like templates.

If you have short citations like

• {{harvnb|Smith|2001|pp=13}}
• {{harvnb|Smith|2001|p=1-3}}

Those will appear like

• Smith 2001, pp. 13
• Smith 2001, p. 1-3

Those are obviously wrong, and should be fixed so they would appear like this

• {{harvnb|Smith|2001|p=13}}
• {{harvnb|Smith|2001|pp=1–3}}

Those will appear like

• Smith 2001, p. 13
• Smith 2001, pp. 1–3

Those should be an easy fix for an AWB bot or similar. Those should cover all {{harv}}/{{sfn}}-like templates. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:02, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Also, the same for

{{harvnb|Smith|2001|p=p. 13}}
{{harvnb|Smith|2001|p=p. 1–3}}
{{harvnb|Smith|2001|pp=pp. 13}}
{{harvnb|Smith|2001|pp=pp. 1–3}}
{{harvnb|Smith|2001|p=pp. 13}}
{{harvnb|Smith|2001|p=pp. 1–3}}
{{harvnb|Smith|2001|pp=p. 13}}
{{harvnb|Smith|2001|pp=p. 1–3}}

{{harvnb|Smith|2001|p=13}}
{{harvnb|Smith|2001|pp=1–3}}
{{harvnb|Smith|2001|p=13}}
{{harvnb|Smith|2001|pp=1–3}}
{{harvnb|Smith|2001|p=13}}
{{harvnb|Smith|2001|pp=1–3}}
{{harvnb|Smith|2001|p=13}}
{{harvnb|Smith|2001|pp=1–3}}

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:05, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

@Headbomb: Before doing this, would it be reasonable to ask if the template source could be tweaked to display the right info even when the parameter is incorrect? GoingBatty (talk) 04:12, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

A bot or script taking on this task would somehow have to account for the edge case where a single page number contains a valid hyphen, like p=3-1, for a document where page 1 of part 3 is called "3-1". – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:00, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Those have IMO, acceptable false positives rates (after all this type of stuff is part of AWB genfixes, and no one is calling for heads to roll), and that's why the standard is to explicitly set |page=3{{hyphen}}1 in those cases in CS1/CS2 templates. But if that's somehow not an acceptable solution here, the bot could take care of the rest. Or assume that |p=p. 3-4 should be converted to |p=3-4 and not |pp=3–4. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:21, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Replacing categories

I am a bureaucrat on Real Life Villains Wikia and the other bureaucrat wanted to do a category cleanup, but changed his mind about some of the categories. Unfortunately, the user he tasked with removing the categories took his job too seriously and removed them anyway even after we decided to keep them. On any page where User:Super Poison Ivy removed the categories Anti-Semitic, Anti-Christian, Bully, Islamophobes, Fascist, and Communist, I want those categories to be restored. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bjanderson94 (talk • contribs)

This is the request page for bots running on English Misplaced Pages. Wikia is not affiliated with English Misplaced Pages, so you're in the wrong place and likely won't get anyone willing to help. However, what you're looking to do could be accomplished by AutoWikiBrowser, which you can download and run yourself. Here is a page on Fandom about running it on non-Misplaced Pages projects. That page also links to Misplaced Pages:AutoWikiBrowser, where you can find documentation. The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 20:13, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Clean up translation template quotemarks

The {{literal translation}} and {{langnf}} templates were originally written with simple unquoted outputs of (if called with just "example text" as their argument) Spanish for example text and lit.  example text. This isn't the best way to present a translated string, and in hundreds of articles users have very reasonably added quotemarks into the template calls (eg. {{langnf||Spanish|"Rich Port"}} and {{lit.|"Free Associated State of Puerto Rico"}} on the Puerto Rico article).

Last week User:Ravenpuff updated the two templates to include apostrophes around the translated phrase. This resulted in some articles displaying nested quotation marks, such as:-

Puerto Rico (Spanish for '"Rich Port"'; abbreviated PR), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (Spanish: Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit. '"Free Associated State of Puerto Rico"')

I suggested adding a {{trim quotes}} to the templates to avoid this, and Ravenpuff suggested fixing all of the hundreds or thousands of template calls in articles instead. Which sounds like a job for a bot, so here I am. A bot would simply be tasked with checking all usages of the {{literal translation}} and {{langnf}} templates (and their synonyms), to look for any argument that starts and ends with a quotation mark, and remove those marks. If an argument contained more than two quotemarks, which is perhaps plausible where an editor offers multiple translations, that should be flagged somehow.

Is this worth creating a bot for, or is {{trim quotes}} a better solution? Or are there other options to explore? --Lord Belbury (talk) 10:52, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

I do not recommend putting {{trim quotes}} into a template unless you know for sure what the parameter values will be. There are too many edge cases, like the one you have already thought of. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:43, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

What other options are there? Is it possible to have a template that applies the logic of "if the passed string is not already wrapped in quotemarks, wrap it in quotemarks", without being computationally expensive? Or should this be the job of a bot? --Lord Belbury (talk) 10:21, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

There are too many kinds of quote marks, in too many arrangements, to be sure that automated trimming would render the string correctly. You could probably use string processing of the contents to put pages in a hidden category for human inspection. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:29, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

So would it work to have the template apply a string process of:

1. If the string starts and ends with a quotemark (or starts and ends with an apostrophe), display it unchanged
2. If the string contains any quotemarks at all, or any apostrophes that aren't in the middle of a word, display it unchanged and add a hidden category to flag that the template call is providing something more complex than a single literal translation
3. Otherwise (ie. if the string contains no quotemarks, and its apostrophes are all in the middles of words), display it surrounded by additional quotemarks

I'm not sure how I'd write that in a template, but can take a look if that seems like it wouldn't be computationally expensive. --Lord Belbury (talk) 14:04, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

That sounds like a fun experiment. Let me know if you set up a testcases page, and I'll come visit. Make sure to account for straight quotes and curly quotes. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:06, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: Best I can do offhand has been User:Lord Belbury/sandbox, which needs another pass to ignore all italics markup, and I'm stumped by Lua's handling of curly quotes (I've never used Lua before): it's beyond me why a match of s:match()]]) is returning true for a single curly apostrophe. Will take another look later, would appreciate any feedback (or a pointer to a better talk page to ask for templating help).

While this is being worked on, should {{literal translation}} and {{langnf}} be left as they are (with Ravenpuff's simple "put quotemarks around every string, even if it already has them" update) or reverted to leaving the string unchanged? --Lord Belbury (talk) 10:50, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

List of Wikipedians by article count on Luganda Misplaced Pages

I would like to generate a list of Misplaced Pages Editors on the Luganda Misplaced Pages by Article Count https://lg.wikipedia.org/Olupapula_Olusooka

To be able to generate something like this https://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedians_by_article_count — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kateregga1 (talk • contribs) 19:54, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Kateregga1, https://quarry.wmflabs.org/query/44128 --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 20:47, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Kateregga1, if you want the bot that generates Misplaced Pages:List_of_Wikipedians_by_article_count to also run for Lgwiki, post a request on the talk page of the list. I recently set it up on Trwiki for example. -- GreenC 00:10, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

WikiProject United States files on Commons

There are thousands of file talk pages in Category:File-Class United States articles for files that were moved to Commons and deleted in 2011 or 2012. These talk pages contain no content except a transclusion of {{WikiProject United States}} (or one of its redirects) and should have been deleted long ago. These transclusions are of no use to the WikiProject and should be removed; however, simply removing them would leave these talk pages blank and mislead a viewer seeing a blue link into thinking there is something there. More broadly, there is no reason for these Commons files to be project-tagged on en.wikipedia—local talk pages for Commons files generally lead to split discussions or invite occasional comments that no one sees or answers.

I asked about these talk pages at the WikiProject's talk page (see Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject United States#Categorizing files on Commons), and was told to "go with own instincts on this". Any page in Category:File-Class United States articles that (1) does not have a corresponding file on en.wikipedia and (2) contains no content other than a transclusion of {{WikiProject United States}} (or a redirect), should be speedily deleted under criterion G6 (routine housekeeping). Given the sheer number of pages involved, I am hoping a bot could take on the task. Thanks, -- Black Falcon 23:21, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't think it's this clear cut. Even if the files are on Commons, they do appear and are used on enWikipedia and I can see reasons to tag them for a WikiProject. The misplaced comments are an actual problem but I don't think their occurrence has any correlation with the presence of a WikiProject template. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:23, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Jo-Jo Eumerus, you may be right in general, but this WikiProject does not have such reasons. Certainly, the fact that CSD G8 exempts talk pages for files that exist on Commons suggests it would be wrong to assume that no WikiProject could tag files on Commons (although that is my preference). However, I am not looking to take on that broader issue right now, and my focus is just on WikiProject United States, which does not need these pages to be tagged. -- Black Falcon 16:32, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

I think I'm going to go with Needs wider discussion. WP:PROJSCOPE is pretty clear that if the members of a wikiproject agree that a page is outside of their scope, it should not be tagged. However, anything related to mass deletion requires strong consensus to implement, which I do not see here. Under WP:G8, simply being a talk page for a Commons file is not a sufficient reason to delete, and this task isn't clearly covered by the text of G6. According to this query, there are over 11,000 file talk pages with only one revision and a {{WikiProject United States}} tag. (I unfortunately can't reliably filter for "has more than one template" without doing wikitext parsing. However, most of the WP:USA file tags appear to have been added in single-project AWB runs, so the total number is likely to be fairly close. Any bot that would implement this task would need to parse the wikitext to ensure that the WP:USA tag is the only page content.) Bot tagging 11,000 pages for deletion is also not exactly polite, so this task would be best implemented by an adminbot that can just do the deletions (which again, requires demonstrated strong community approval). --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 16:25, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

AntiCompositeNumber, thank you for responding. The challenge is that there are two issues which are intermingled here: (1) removing {{WikiProject United States}} from talk pages of files on Commons; and (2) mass-deleting the resulting empty talk pages. (1) is the WikiProject's decision and does not require a wider discussion. I was hoping that (2) would be uncontroversial housekeeping (CSD G6), but am willing to seek a wider discussion if that is not the case. -- Black Falcon 16:32, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

@AntiCompositeNumber: Making an edit with the sole purpose of bringing the page within the scope of a speedy deletion criterion is not acceptable behaviour for a human or a bot. You will need explicit consensus that these pages should be deleted. Thryduulf (talk) 09:57, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

@AntiCompositeNumber: fixing the ping. Thryduulf (talk) 09:58, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

That's what I said. @Thryduulf:, did you mean to ping Black Falcon instead? --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 14:52, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Whoops, I did indeed mean to ping Black Falcon. Sorry. Thryduulf (talk) 15:41, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Thryduulf, that misses the point. The edits would not be for the sole purpose of speedily deleting the pages; instead, they would be for the purpose of removing an unneeded project banner. Deletion would be incidental to the pages becoming blank, and I am just trying to save time by skipping an intermediate step. However, in light of the hesitation expressed above, I will seek a wider discussion related to this request. -- Black Falcon 16:35, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Challenge bot

I hope that someone can help me by making a bot add the template that articles has been added to Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Europe/The 10,000 Challenge for example. There are several Challenge pages and there are templates to be added at the articles talk pages that the articles has been added to the Challenge project page, but the bot has stopped to do the task for a long time. Please ping me if this can be done.BabbaQ (talk) 17:17, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

@BabbaQ: This still a active request? Hasteur (talk) 23:06, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

@Hasteur: - If it can be done. Sure.--BabbaQ (talk) 10:03, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Coding... I did a quick sample/proof of concept of going in and reviewing paged for eligibility, here's a random sampling of pages that appear to be eligible. Adding the template to the talk page is easy compared to unwinding the list.

1. Talk:Pihtsusköngäs
2. Talk:Otto Evens
3. Talk:Royal Pawn (Denmark)
4. Talk:Nyhavn 1
5. Talk:Nyhavn 31
6. Talk:Nyhavn 11
7. Talk:Ludvig Ferdinand Rømer
8. Talk:Nyhavn 51
9. Talk:Eva Eklund
10. Talk:Nyhavn 18
11. Talk:Hostrups Have
12. Talk:Nyhavn 12
13. Talk:Nyhavn 20
14. Talk:Verrayon House
15. Talk:Lis Mellemgaard
16. Talk:Sophia Bruun
17. Talk:Inger-Lena Hultberg

@BabbaQ: Was there a consensus discussion about applying {{WPEUR10k}} to these talk pages? I suspect this isn't contraversial, but it might be needed when I go to file the BRFA. Hasteur (talk) 19:45, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

@Hasteur: - I did the request based on this being uncontroversial. A few years back the template was added to all new articles joining the projects. And I was surprise to notice that was not done anymore. BabbaQ (talk) 08:11, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Removal of "w:en:" prefix from wikilinks

About 106 pages in article and template space contain wikilinks that begin with w:en:, which is redundant, and VPT consensus was that this extra code can interfere with various tools and scripts that expect links to be in a certain form. Would it be possible for an AWB-wielding editor to go through and remove those prefixes, at least in article space? The edits in template space would need manual inspection to see if they are intentional for some reason. Pinging @Redrose64, Trialpears, Xaosflux, Johnuniq, and BrownHairedGirl:, who attended that VPT discussion. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:55, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

@Jonesey95, I'm doing it now for article space only. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:36, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

I have completed a first pass, in these 87 edits.

In that run I turned off genfixes, so that I could focus clearly on this precise issue. Some of the links fixed were of the form ], which has now been changed to ]. That's fine ... however, many of the links were of the form ], and that first run has left them as ], which needs to be consolidated as ]. So I will do a second run through the set, just applying genfixes. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:08, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Second pass complete, in these 70 edits. A further 17 pages needed no genfixes at all, so were skipped. Note that some of the pages had only genfixes unrelated to the first pass.

That leaves only the 19 pages in template-space with wikilinks that begin with w:en:. I will leave to others the manual inspection and possible cleanup of those templates. @Jonesey95, Redrose64, Trialpears, Xaosflux, and Johnuniq: do any of you want to do the templates? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:31, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

I got all of the trivial ones for you. The remainder either require advanced permissions, or are Template:En-WP attribution notice, which appears to have the w:en: on purpose. The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 06:15, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

I did a couple of "w:en:" removals but left it in these:

• Template:Non-free symbol (it specifically says "the English-language Misplaced Pages")
• Template:En-WP attribution notice (does it need ":" in case the parameter is File/Category? any other bad side effects?)
• Template:Checkip ("intentional so that the links work in m:Special:CentralAuth")
• Template:Checkuser ("intentional so that the links work in m:Special:CentralAuth")

My thanks to JJMC89 for the information regarding the last two.

Johnuniq (talk) 07:49, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, all! I did not search other namespaces initially, but there are apparently 100,000+ instances across all namespaces. Many are in user signatures and other things that should not be modified, but detail-oriented editors may find links worth changing in some namespaces. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:27, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

A bot to update Template:NUMBEROF/data

This task was previously handled by Acebot (BFRA here), but it stopped functioning in November 2019. The manual updates done by several editors since then indicate that there is continued demand for the information in the table. Its operator appears to have retired. {{u|Sdkb}}  17:05, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Acerbot was running the bot on around 50-60 wiki language sites. If they applied for and received bot perms on all those sites, that is a lot of time and work. First step would be find out why Acerbot stopped running and try to get it restarted with Acerbot's established perms. -- GreenC 17:48, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

There is another bot on ruwiki that generates similar data here. Ideally data would be stored on Commons in Tabular format then templates pull it from there, so bots don't have to run on each language wiki. -- GreenC 18:10, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Doing... - an opportunity to test out tabular data on Commons with a Lua template. If it works, the Lua module can be rolled out to other wiki languages without needing bot perms or bot edits. -- GreenC 18:24, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! {{u|Sdkb}}  20:03, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Y Done, new system working with Commons tabular data. Installed on 60+ wikis. -- GreenC 02:41, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

A bot to monitor the activity level of other bots

There are many bots whose job involves making regular updates or are otherwise anticipated to make edits frequently. When such bots stop operating, it might just be because they're no longer needed and have been retired, or it might be indicative of a problem. I propose a bot that monitors the edits of other bots known to make frequent edits (those bots could be added to a category, or to one of several categories based on level of activity expected), and sends an automated alert to a noticeboard if the bot makes no edits within the expected timeframe. At the noticeboard, editors could review the alerts, marking some as no issue and placing others into a queue for repairs. (This is somewhat a follow-up to my brainstorming from March; feel free to lmk if it's just as non-viable, but I wanted to at least throw it out here.) {{u|Sdkb}}  17:20, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

There are bot accounts, bot operators and bot software. We could monitor bot account activity but for any given account there could be a dozen or more bots (software) associated with that single account. It might be possible to differentiate by looking at edit summaries, but the complexities of keeping it up to date would be challenging. -- GreenC 17:36, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, that is a challenge. I wish that more of a standardized notation was set up so that bots would always identify which task they were doing in the edit summary of each edit they make. As it stands, I think the more realistic goal for now would be to just focus on catching bot accounts that stop editing entirely (many cases where bots stop without being immediately noticed fall into that category anyways, I think?). That would improve on the status quo, and if the system works, maybe others in the future would feel compelled to expand it to include individual tasks. {{u|Sdkb}}  20:03, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Even identifying the specific task might not be enough. Take Misplaced Pages:Bots/Requests for approval/Legobot 33 for example - this has several sub-tasks, and is still running to update the GA lists and RfC lists, but hasn't sent out any WP:FRS messages since December 2019. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:49, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

If no human notices that a bot has stopped editing, doesn't that mean the bot was doing a task nobody else cared about? * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:36, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

@Pppery: I wouldn't say that's always the case. Take the example above — people cared enough to start updating it manually, they just didn't know it was supposed to be done by a bot, or didn't know to take it here, or maybe assumed someone else was working on the issue. {{u|Sdkb}}  23:04, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

How would we monitor the activity of Joe's Null Bot (talk · contribs)? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:50, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

In theory, bots can/should define a unique useragent. These can be queried via meta=featureusage, although doing so it tedious and would require knowing the agent for each bot. I'm skeptical of the utility of this in general, but in theory such a tool could check bots without edits and known none-or-minimal-editing that way. In practice, User:Joe's Null Bot/source does not list a custom useragent, so it'll be MediaWiki::API/0.41 or whatever version it's using. Trivial to add. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 15:14, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Throwing ideas, we could simply have a table of bots sortable by bot name, operator name, number of edits made, and by date of last edit. Then have a disclaimer at the top that several bots, like nullbots, will not make edits. Would give a good idea at a glance of which bot is active and which isn't. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:56, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Seems reasonable. The only question would be what to do with the inactive bots and/or blocked bots; do they share the same table or do they eventually get pulled and/or lose their bot status? Primefac (talk) 15:03, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

There could be a "status" column as well. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:16, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Primefac: It used to be that inactive bots would be deflagged after notifying the operator, but I don't think anyone on either side has done that chore for a while. I wonder if we should flag bots for 3 years and have the operators request extensions. –xeno 23:20, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

BOTPOL already says we can pull the flag after 2 years (and 1 week notice); a table like this would make the task a little easier, since it would mean not having to manually update it like some people do. I do think we can be a little less blasé about hanging out the bot flag - if a bot is doing a one-time run, there's not much point in granting it indefinitely. However, that's something to discuss at WP:BOTN. Primefac (talk) 14:58, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Coding... Current messy code is at and example output at User:MajavahBot/Bot status report. Is there anything that should be included and currently isn't? – Majavah  17:36, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

@Majavah: not a super fan of the machine-format time stamps. Any way to format them in a friendlier-to-human way, e.g. 2020-05-02T08:14:47Z → 2020-05-02 (UTC) or whatever? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:42, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

@Headbomb: As I said, that's still a work-in-progress. I'm not sure what to do with them as I would also like to keep them automatically sortable which gives its own problems when trying to make them human-readable (must use order year-month-day... and can't use month names instead of numbers). – Majavah  17:45, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Well my format above is still sortable. There's also {{sort}}. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:47, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

I'd also add a total edit count to the table. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:48, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

How about now? The date format is still open, I'm 50-50 split between your format above and the one currently there ("02 May 2020 18:04:45 (UTC)"). Also added the edit count there. – Majavah  18:08, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Not super fussy on the exact format. I'd put edit counts in the second column personally. And use <center>—</center> instead of hyphens to indicate an inexistent entry. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:14, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

And maybe move (UTC) to the headers, instead of repeating it in each entry to save width/space. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:16, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Please don't recommend <center>. I have no opinion on centering text, but an obsolete HTML element isn't cool. --Izno (talk) 18:28, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Whatever gets the job done. I use < center > </ center> because it's the simplest way to reliably center something that doesn't require convoluted mark up. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:32, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

In this version, I don't really see a need for all three columns indicating activity, and total edits doesn't seem necessary for a report on activity. Non breaking spaces are overkill (but even if they weren't, you should prefer class="nowrap" on the cells in question). I do not think we need to know HH:MM:SS to know a bot has failed or stopped operating. I'm tempted to suggest a human-readable "time since last operation", probably also to 'day' precision. --Izno (talk) 18:40, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Well this isn't just to provide the minimum required information to know if yes/no a bot is active, but also to provide a general overview of the activity of bots. A bot with 3 million edits that is inactive is more interesting than a bot with 240 edits which is inactive. Agree that the exact time-of-day of those activities is probably overkill, but at the same time, there's room in the table. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:46, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

There's room in the table for people with big monitors or skins which aren't responsive. :^). A bot with 3 million edits is no more interesting, though may be more important, than one with 240 edits. I suspect there is a more interesting metric than count of actions/edits to indicate the important ones though...? --Izno (talk) 19:00, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Such as? – Majavah  09:50, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

@Majavah: anyway you can add the bot operator(s) from {{Bot}}? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:03, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

@Headbomb: Sure! Done. – Majavah  16:23, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

@Majavah: I made some tweaks . The class="center" thing messes with column widths, so I went with <center> </center> tags. The final ' of diffs should be done with {{'}} (or you could just make use of {{'}} everywhere instead of '). But this table looks pretty good to me. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:12, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

@Headbomb: Thank you! I adopted those changes. BRFA filed. – Majavah  06:19, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm glad to see this went through — thanks Majavah and everyone else! To follow up from Primefac's question above, it does look like there are quite a few bots that haven't made an edit in a long time. It'd probably be good to mark those as retired or remove them from the list. Once that cleanup is done, it might be possible to add some light color coding so that e.g. the "last activity" timestamp cell of any bot inactive for more than say a month is turned red. {{u|Sdkb}}  16:40, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

I don't think we need any sort of colour coding - 2 years is a pretty easy timeframe to sort out. Primefac (talk) 21:36, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Updating DANFS links to ship articles

While working on a stub recently, I noticed the US Navy's Naval History and Heritage Command has updated the syntax of links to entries in the important reference Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. This means that many outside links to the dictionary and tools like Template:DANFS (which is transcluded on hundreds if not thousands of US Navy ship articles) now have incorrect html targets. Here are three examples of repairs I've performed personally: , , . As those examples reveal, the new webpage structure isn't complicated and while I suppose I could go through all the articles by hand and rapidly improve my edit count, this is exactly the sort of thing that an automated performer of edits would be best to solve. I've never before requested a bot, so I'm asking meekly for advice. BusterD (talk) 15:54, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

BusterD, what is the change in syntax between the old URL and the new one? Primefac (talk) 16:00, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the speedy reply. As I mouseover the links I created in my request, I see

1. the site is now secure "https" not "http"
2. after the page address www.history.navy.mil/ they've added a new location for the entire collection "research/histories/ship-histories/"
3. the new addresses all end in .html not .htm
4. In addition, they've changed the reference structure so that the page link no longer directs to a sub-page, for example in the USS Minnesota example, the old link referenced the 11th "m" page, rendered as "m11". The new link just uses "m".

The first three are simply direct replacement edits (copy and paste), the fourth one requires the deletion of ANY digit or digits directly following the only letter in that sector of the address. Does that make sense? I'm certain my use of terminology is inexpert. BusterD (talk) 16:15, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

I've converted you list to numbers just for my own ease of use. I've got a few other projects I'm working on, but I'll take a look if and when I can.

Small update, looks to me from a quick LinkSearch that we're looking at around 18k links to http://www.history.navy.mil. Primefac (talk) 16:21, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the refactoring. I suspected the number of entries must be large. Testing the success of the first few attempts would be a simple matter. Thanks for any help you can offer. Perhaps there are some MilHist or WPShips people who'd do this, but as opposed to starting a talkpage discussion, I just thought I'd request automated help. I'd be glad to monitor or help in any way necessary. Coding isn't my thing. BusterD (talk) 16:26, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

The major part of the change isn't recent - see and the discussion there was that the changes weren't completely consistent so couldn't easily be done automatically.Nigel Ish (talk) 20:41, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for linking that discussion. BusterD (talk) 21:55, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

A lot of the links have been fixed manually by users in the meantime as part of normal editing.Nigel Ish (talk) 09:13, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Many of my criticisms in that old discussion stand but a few of the historical documents have come back. Some of those are not in the original report format preserving all context but in new transcribed form. Meanwhile the Vandals (Homeland Security with no interest in "Service history"?) sacked the USCG Historian's site with the old cutter histories "burned" and instead of a good index a pile of "stuff" one has to click through in hopes of finding what was once well organized. (Fingers crossed Army holds the anti Vandal defense line!) One has to realize providing excellent historical libraries for the public (that paid for everything) is not high on the mission priority or budget list and contracting out has eliminated subject matter expert librarians from intimate involvement and oversight regarding on line collections. Palmeira (talk) 15:04, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

"2019–20 coronavirus pandemic" title changing

As the result of a move request, 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic was moved to COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, there are a metric tonne of articles (and templates and categories) that have "2019–20 coronavirus pandemic" (or "2020 coronavirus pandemic") in the name. Accordingly, it would be appreciated if we could get a bot that would move all of these to the consistent "COVID-19 pandemic" name. This matter was briefly discussed in the move request, with unanimous support for consistency, and it's quite obvious that all these titles should be in line with the main article, named so only because of the previous name.

While this is a one-time request, I believe this is too time-consuming with AWB as these are title changes. But happy to be told otherwise. -- tariqabjotu 03:14, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

• If implemented, can appropriate rcats please be added via the bot, as outlined as User:J947/sandbox/16. — J947 03:22, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

• As a note, it seems like enough people are attempting to do this manually that this may not be necessary as a bot. But, I'll leave this up anyway. -- tariqabjotu 03:31, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

  I'd like to see this done through a bot, just so we don't miss any and save ourselves some work. I started some discussion about general implementation here. {{u|Sdkb}}  04:40, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

  Care should also be taken to ensure all talk page archives (or any other subpages if they exist) are moved. Nil Einne (talk) 06:17, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Per an intitle search and it looks like all the relevant pages have been moved already. Galobtter (pingó mió) 23:25, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Wow, well done, gnomes! I found a few stragglers. Template:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data/styles.css; Template:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data/Benin medical cases chart; Template:Territories affected by the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic; Template:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data/India/Punjab medical cases chart; Charitable activities related to the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic; maybe 2020 Philippine coronavirus testing controversy. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:02, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it was mostly taken care of with AWB and the MassMove tool. Template:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data/styles.css just needs to be deleted (done). Template:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data/Benin medical cases chart was recently created; I moved it. Template:Territories affected by the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic is a deprecated template that should just be deleted. Template:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data/India/Punjab medical cases chart should just be a redirect; I reverted a change that removed it. Charitable activities related to the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic was missed because it didn't have an endash; it's been moved. 2020 Philippine coronavirus testing controversy... yeah, I'm going to leave that alone. -- tariqabjotu 03:25, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

• If someone wants to take on the task of a bot that tags a few hundred COVID-19 categories for moving, by all means; there is a long list at Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Speedy#Current requests. -- tariqabjotu 03:43, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Checking Category:Misplaced Pages images in SVG format

• Namespace: File:

Hello!

I checked this category which is for so-called valid SVG files tagged with {{Valid SVG}} however I noticed that many in fact were invalid. I would like a bot to check all files in the category to see if they are in fact valid or if the files are mistagged. Steps:

1. Check if file is valid at http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http:{{urlencode:{{filepath:{{#titleparts:{{PAGENAME}}}}}}}}, if yes ignore, if no see 2.
2. Replace {{Valid SVG}} with {{Invalid SVG|<number of errors>}}.
   1. <number of errors> can be retrieved at http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http:{{urlencode:{{filepath:{{#titleparts:{{PAGENAME}}}}}}}}

Pinging @JJMC89: who is familiar with the File: namespace.

I think this is quite important to do since now probably hundreds of files are lying about their validity which isn't good.

Thanks!Jonteemil (talk) 07:21, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

@Jonteemil: I looked at doing this but couldn't find an API that matches that validator. There is one for https://validator.w3.org/nu/ that I could use though. — JJMC89 (T·C) 01:25, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

@JJMC89: I don't think using another validator should be a problem, as long as they both output the same amount of errors. If that's not the case, I think the valid/invalid SVG templates should be updated with the new validator as well.Jonteemil (talk) 20:56, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

@JJMC89 and Jonteemil: Both validators shared the same number of warnings/errors for a few files I put through them, which makes sense, because, well, they're following the same spec to validate off. That being said, whilst there is a nice, easy API to use for the nu validator, it's still possible to use the old validator just by parsing the HTML it outputs - although that'd be slower to run and a bit more of a pain. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 21:06, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

@Jonteemil and Naypta: They don't always give the same errors. File:NuclearPore.svg: 60 for check vs 4 for nu. Yes, the HTML could be parsed, but I'm not going to do it, especially when I can get JSON from nu. — JJMC89 (T·C) 01:39, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

A bot that condenses article issue templates into the ‘multiple issues’ template

I think it would be effective to have a bot that condenses multiple “article issue” templates, such as “more citations needed” or “Missing information” into the “This article has multiple issues” so it appears as one notice instead of several consecutive notices. Users might forget to do this, or add to previously existing issue templates and forget to condense it using the ‘multiple issues’ template. I propose that this bot would apply the condensing template to any article with more than 2 notices at the top, or whatever the official guidelines are for this according to the Manual of Style as I’m not yet sure what they say about the number of templates allowed to appear. This would be fully automated as opposed to the semi-automation of the AutoWikiBrowser that already has this capability.

This might already exist or have been discussed, so forgive me if I’m wrong.

Thanks! MrSwagger21 (talk) 10:50, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

I hold a bot running the same function in zhwiki for several years and generate a report w:zh:User:Cewbot/含有太多維護模板之條目. Maybe I can help? --Kanashimi (talk) 08:25, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

@Kanashimi: Hi, that seems like something that would work. Could you optimize it for use on the English Misplaced Pages and then submit your request at Misplaced Pages:Bots/Requests for approval?

BRFA filed --Kanashimi (talk) 11:53, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

@MrSwagger21: The bot will work weekly. --Kanashimi (talk) 23:17, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

@Kanashimi: Thank you so much! Great work. I will display this on my user page! MrSwagger21 (talk) 02:13, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Sports Reference

Hi. The main resource for sourcing basic biography data on Olympians, Sports Reference, has now been switched off. I started a recent thread about this at the Olympic Project. There are tens of thousands of articles that source Sports Ref. However, there's quite a simple fix that can be done to stop the links from going dead. Just change "cite web" to "cite sports-reference" in the ref, as per this example, adds the web archive link. This is per the recent change made to the cite template by Zyxw.

So therefore, please can a bot change anything from "cite web" to "cite sports-reference" where this is used on WP? Many thousands of article already use the latter, but even more so do not. Please ping me if you need anymore info. Thanks. Lugnuts 13:58, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes I've been working on this for months. See WP:URLREQ. There are a lot of complications and it's a very large job. Please do not switch to {{cite sports-reference}} this will create problems. -- GreenC 14:43, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Y Done Around 150k links archived in around 100k articles. -- GreenC 02:39, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Enlist help to clear Category:Harv and Sfn no-target errors

1. Fetch all articles in Category:Harv and Sfn no-target errors
2. Compile a list of who created what article
3. Compile a list of which Wikiproject covers what article
4. Send each user and each WikiProject a personalized report about which articles they created have errors in them, e.g.

 
= = List of your created articles that are in ] = =
A few articles you created are in need of some reference cleanup. Basically, some short references create via {{tl|sfn}} and {{tl|harvnb}} and similar templates have missing full citations or have some other problems. This is ''usually'' caused by copy-pasting a short reference from another article without adding the full reference, or because a full reference is not making use of citation templates like {{tl|cite book}} (see ]) or {{tl|citation}} (see ]). See ]. To easily see which citation is in need of cleanup, you can check ''']''' to enable error messages ('''Svick's script''' is the simplest to use, but '''Trappist the monk's script''' is a bit more refined if you're interested in doing deeper cleanup).
The following articles could use some of your attention
{{columns-list|colwidth=30em|
#]
#]
...
}}
If you could add the full references to those article, that would be great. Again, the easiest way to deal with those is to install Svick's script per ]. If after installing the script, you do not see an error, that means it was either taken care of, or was a false positive, and you don't need to do anything else.
Also note that the use of {{para|ref|harv}} is no longer needed to generate anchors. ~~~~

1. Skip user talk pages with links to List of your created articles that are in ] in headers since they already have such a report

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:18, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

I think the message needs to provide a link to a discussion page where people can go for help. Keep in mind that most requests for help will be of the form "What is this message? I didn't do anything or ask for this. I don't understand it. Help me." – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:31, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Agree it would be a good idea to point to a help page. Where would that be? Help talk:CS1 perhaps? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:21, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Maybe Template talk:Sfn? If this goes through, I'd like to see these messages go out in batches, in case a potential help system (run by you and me, presumably) gets a lot of traffic. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:44, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Doesn't really matter much to me where things go. Module talk:Footnotes could be a place. Messages could be sent in batches too. Maybe top 25 users, then next 25, and so on each day for the first week. And then see what the traffic is and adjust rates if it's nothing crazy. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 11:28, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Revival of User:TedderBot/CurrentPruneBot

This defunct bot removed inappropriate uses of {{Current}} (which per its documentation is meant only for short-term use on articles receiving a high edit count) by removing it from articles that have not been edited in more than two hours. It stopped functioning I think in 2013, and since then (perhaps because it stopped) the standards have gotten increasingly lax. I propose that we bring it back (with perhaps a slightly longer edit window, at least to start). {{u|Sdkb}}  08:54, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

I support this. Thryduulf (talk) 09:43, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Coding... - seems a good idea to me! Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 19:30, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb and Thryduulf: BRFA filed Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 08:32, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

A bot to add missing instances of padlocks

Following up from this conversation, I think it would be helpful to have a bot automatically apply the appropriate padlock icon to pages after they become protected. {{u|Sdkb}}  09:39, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Worth noting that TheMagikBOT 2 previously had a successful BRFA to do this, but no longer appears to be functional. If there's consensus that it's still a good idea, I'm happy to make this task 3 for Yapperbot - it's not that hard to do. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 09:43, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

I think it's still a good idea. The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 15:15, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

courtesy pinging Redrose64 who I see was involved in the previous discussion Sdkb linked Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 15:17, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Could I also mention that it would be useful to have a bot which fixes incorrect protection templates? MusikBot removes incorrect ones, as I pointed out here, but it doesn't replace them (and could be the cause of some of these missing templates). This seems like a related subject. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:29, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

MusikBot is capable of fixing incorrect protection templates, that feature just didn't get through the BRFA. I am willing to give it another push though, if there's demand for it. Similarly it can apply missing protection templates, I just didn't enable that since there was talk to revive the Lowercase sigmabot task that did this and we didn't want the bots to clash. When that didn't happen, TheMagickBOT came through, but alas it has retired now too. I don't mind one way or the other, so if Naypta wants to take it on don't let me stop you, just know that the code is largely written in MusikBot. — MusikAnimal 18:49, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal: If the code's already written in MusikBot, seems to me to make a whole lot more sense to just push to use MusikBot for it then if there's consensus to do this now - the lazier I can be, the better! Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 18:52, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

It definitely makes sense to have one bot do all the work regarding protection templates rather than a hodge podge of different bots. Galobtter (pingó mió) 18:45, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

• Yeah, I've been doing a fair amount of batch protects now (which are easier using p-batch or manually using the mediawiki interface in some cases.) I'm not mass adding the ECP template though, as that seems like a waste of my time for nice but optional templates. Anyway, I thought this was still happening via another bot, so add a +1 to bring some bot back to do it (cc: MusikAnimal if you're still willing to give this a go ) TonyBallioni (talk) 18:57, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
• Insert reference to ancient task on the point. --Izno (talk) 19:32, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

A bot to develop a mass of short stubs and poorly built articles for Brazilian municipalities

I propose a bot along the lines of {{Brazil municipality}} is created to develop our stubs like Jacaré dos Homens which have been lying around for up to 14 years in some cases. There's 5570 municipality articles, mostly poorly developed or inconsistent with data and formatting even within different states. A bot would bring much needed information and consistency to the articles and leave them in a half decent state for the time being, Igaci which Aymatth2 expanded is an example of what is planned and would happen to stubs like Jacaré dos Homens. Some municipalities have infoboxes and some information but hopefully this bot will iron out the current inconsistencies and dramatically improve the average article quality. It would be far too tedious to do it manually, would take years, and they've already been like this for up to 14 years! So support on this would be appreciated.† Encyclopædius 12:09, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

• Support. See User talk:Aymatth2#Brazil municipalities for more discussion. It looks like a straightforward (but far from trivial) screenscraper. Aymatth2 (talk) 12:35, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Fixing broken section anchors

Misplaced Pages has a very long list of section anchors that need to be repaired. To fix these broken links, it is necessary to add an {{anchor}} whenever a section's title is changed.

User:Dexbot was designed to correct these broken links, but it hasn't corrected any of them in several years. Can Dexbot be configured to fix these links again? Jarble (talk) 16:40, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

pinging Ladsgroup, the botop for Dexbot Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 16:51, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I haven't touched it. I should pick it up again and do it. Hopefully in a week or two. Ladsgroup 06:24, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

 Done I started the bot, here's the first edit: Special:Diff/958520923 Ladsgroup 08:31, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Aand Special:Diff/958526196 and Special:Diff/958526426 and Special:Diff/958526630 Ladsgroup 08:53, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

so much done \o/ 16:22, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Thank you Ladsgroup - nice job! Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 16:23, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

@Ladsgroup: Will Dexbot continue to repair these links periodically, or does it still need to be started manually? Jarble (talk) 18:22, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

@Jarble: I will make it work monthly, as long as the report works, my bot should work too. Ladsgroup 04:59, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Updating the dates on the maps on COVID-19 pandemic

Can someone create a bot that will look at the latest date of the maps when the maps are updated and update the date automatically? I tried putting in the TODAY template, but I got reverted by Boing! said Zebedee that it would not work. I was hoping someone could work on a bot to save editors' time updating the dates on the maps. Interstellarity (talk) 19:45, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

No, the "as of" dates should be updated only when the actual data is updated, not any time the map file is updated (which could be for many reasons). Do we update the "as of" if someone adjusts the colour of a map? No. Do we update it if someone modifies a geographical border? No. We would only do it when a map is updated to reflect new data - and I can't think of how that could be done other than manually. Incidentally, I reverted your use of TODAY as it's obviously wrong for every map to say it's up to date as of today. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:52, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

This seems like a doable task. I'm not sure if it's for a bot so much as a template, though. I imagine that it would work similarly to {{Cases in the COVID-19 pandemic|date}}, fetching a value that would be stored at the Commons file and updated by the map updater whenever they upload a new version. As an aside, thank you, Interstellarity, for all the work you've put in updating map date captions; I recognize it's a tedious task. {{u|Sdkb}}  19:59, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Some kind of template like that might work, but whoever updates the map would still have to update the data field at the Commons file manually - it couldn't just use the upload date as the "as of" date. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 20:03, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

• While we're here, if anyone wants to work on a bot for updating maps themselves, that's something that ought to be done at some point, but I imagine it'll be a much more complex task. Still, we have the data stored in templates already, so it'd just need to be mapped onto the various maps. It could help with some of the standardization we've been discussing at the WikiProject. {{u|Sdkb}}  20:05, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

This is a very good idea. Currently, for the map File:COVID-19 Outbreak World Map per Capita.svg and File:COVID-19 Outbreak World Map.svg, the date is accessible in the first sentence, e.g. "Map of the COVID-19 verified number of infected per capita as of 28 May 2020.". It takes me a lot of time to then go modify the date in every page, even more in many languages. We would gain a lot by having a way of entering this value only once. Raphaël Dunant (talk) 15:15, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb and Raphaël Dunant: It looks like you two might be talking about different things - either that or I'm misunderstanding one or both of you. Raphaël, it sounds like what you want is basically just an AWB run for pages that contain the map to replace the associated date when appropriate; Sdkb, it sounds like what you're after is software that constructs the actual map.Both of these things are eminently possible; the world map SVG is such that making a bot to update the colours from a dataset given a scale ought to be trivial. That being said, if that bot was wanting to update the Commons file, it would need to be a Commons bot, not a bot on enwiki. Let me know if I've got what you're both looking for wrong though! Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 16:06, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Update: actually, on looking, seems there's already a bot that's making a version of the map! See c:File:Covid19DataBot-Case-Data-World.svg and c:User:Covid19DataBot. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 16:08, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

This bot request is about updating dates automatically, not about the map colour. But it would be nice to adapt the map bot for COVID-19 map, @Sdkb: if you can open a discussion about this subject, I'll happily participate. @Naypta: if you could explain how to automatically update dates, I'll be delighted! Raphaël Dunant (talk) 16:42, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

@Raphaël Dunant: So one option here might be using the {{Wikidata}} template to pull in a record from Wikidata. That would mean that you could replace each iteration of the date with {{wikidata|qualifier|Q81068910|P1846|P585}}, which produces - and you'd then only have to update the single point on Wikidata qualifier on Wikidata (wikidata:Q81068910#P1846) for it to update on all wikis. I've had a chat with a couple of admins about this and the general consensus is that it's okay to do performance-wise, but be careful with how you use this - using the wikidata template in this way can be taxing on the server, so try and use it the fewest amount of times you can!If you're happy with that method, I can run through and update the relevant bits on enwiki - you'll know better than I will where the bits are on the other wikis. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 18:26, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

@Naypta: The main places where the date is needed are, in English Misplaced Pages, COVID-19 pandemic and COVID-19 pandemic by country and territory (performance-wise, it's a total of ~1.5 mio page views per week). How doable is the use of this bot in other languages? As of now, there is 56 different languages using the map, with the date to update on each of them. Raphaël Dunant (talk) 10:36, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

@Raphaël Dunant: Well, this would be a way of doing it without a bot. The {{wd}} template pulls directly from Wikidata, so there's no need for a bot to update the page wikitext then. Assuming that the other wikis also have a similar template for Wikidata, which I think most do, they'd be able to use the same code. I will just ping in here the creator of the template, Thayts - do you think it'd be okay to use this method on high traffic pages in this way? The general consensus I've had seems to be "yes", but I've not spoken to anyone directly involved in the Wd module. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 13:52, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Sure, why not. :) Thayts ••• 15:20, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Awesome! Raphaël Dunant, if you're happy with this solution, I can get it working on the relevant pages on enwiki at least. I can also have a crack at the other language wikis - it's clear that the template is available on the other wikis too, so this kind of a centralised approach should work. The only problem might come in terms of needing to purge the page caches when the Wikidata item changes - but that should happen when any part of the page changes anyway, and can be done manually if need be. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 16:34, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

@Naypta: Thank you very much for the solution! I applied it to the English Misplaced Pages pages. It would be amazing if you can apply it here and on other Wikipedias, as I am not quite sure on how to apply the template to Commons and other languages. Thanks again, I hope this solution works. Raphaël Dunant (talk) 19:00, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

@Raphaël Dunant:  Doing... - just FYI, to make it compatible for inclusion on Commons and on some other language Wikipedias, I've changed the Wikidata page it links into. It's now wikidata:Q95963597 - so when updating the date, update it on the P585 "point in time" property there, and it'll update everywhere else automatically. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 20:02, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

@Naypta: The solution works well for most pages, thanks! However, it does not automatically update this page, which is problematic (maybe because the date is updated only when there is a page update?). Do you have any solution to make it update this page as well? Raphaël Dunant (talk) 22:01, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

@Raphaël Dunant: Sure thing. So the cache expires on the sooner of the next edit, a manual purge being requested, or seven days from the last cache time. I've manually purged the cache of that page, and you can see it's now updated, but you can also purge it at this link whenever you like. You may wish to do so after updating the Wikidata item - just click that link and then click "yes", it'll automatically update the date :) Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 22:16, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Five year old mass message to Wikiprojects not being archived

I noticed that a "Wiki Loves Pride" mass message to all wikiprojects from June 2015 is not being auto-archived by some of those projects that set up autoarchiving (such as WT:IRAN). It is missing a timestamp. Can a bot be set up to archive all those messages that still remain on the main talkpages to the proper archives? Or can a boit be set up to to add timestamps to all the messages that remain on the main talk pages? (June 2015 timestamp) This is 5 years out of date, and seems odd to inform people to do still some thing 5 years after it already ended.

-- 65.94.170.207 (talk) 18:50, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

These were not mass messages per se, but emanated directly from Another Believer (talk · contribs). There were several batches beginning at 00:52, 31 May 2015 and ending at 16:34, 3 June 2015 amounting to more than 1,000 posts. Not all edits in that interval were "Wiki Loves Pride" messages. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:39, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I regret not time-stamping these messages, but lesson learned. I archive these manually as I come across them. If a list of WikiProject talk pages with unarchived WLP posts were available, I'd help with archiving, but I don't know how to best help with this otherwise. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 21:43, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Possible There's currently an issue with the Data Services replicas from WMF Labs, but once that's sorted, I can hopefully identify a list of the pages that this template is on with some fairly simple SQL. Once I've got that list, should just be a case of running an AWB run to wrap the relevant bits in {{archive top}} and {{archive bottom}} templates - I think stuff being unsigned inside one of those doesn't cause problems for the archiving bots (although feel free to correct me on that!) Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 22:17, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm quite sure archiving bots need a timestamp somewhere inside the section. {{archive top}}/{{archive bottom}} don't indicate when the section was last edited so the archiving bots won't know that the mass message needs to be archived. Galobtter (pingó mió) 22:26, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

@Galobtter: {{Archive now}} should do it, surely? Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 22:29, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

No, only if specified as described at Template:Archive now/doc. Why not just add a 2015 timestamp? Galobtter (pingó mió) 22:31, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

@Galobtter: Ah, I didn't remember it needed the specified bit in the bot config. Fair enough - something like (timestamp may not be accurate) {{subst:Unsigned|Another Believer|15:13, 3 June 2015 (UTC)}} on the end of each of them then? Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 22:34, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

That should work. Galobtter (pingó mió) 22:37, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

@Another Believer: This should suit if you're interested. includes the June 2015 text, so I don't know what the 100 page disparity is between search 1 and 2. --Izno (talk) 22:19, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

@Izno: From a brief look, it doesn't look like it's just WikiProject talk pages - it's also user talk pages too at least, possibly more. Now there is of course the question of whether or not user talk pages should just be left as they are if the user hasn't bothered to clean it in all that time... but nonetheless. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 22:22, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

The IP specified WikiProject talk pages and accordingly both searches were solely in Misplaced Pages talk namespace. --Izno (talk) 22:25, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Izno, Ah, very helpful, thanks! So should I work on this manually or wait a bit to see if a bot can do this? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 22:23, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

No opinion from me. It looks like Naypta can help though. --Izno (talk) 22:25, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Doing... - and I've just realised the edit summaries AWB is leaving includes the usernames of the two users responsible - to both of you, I am very sorry for the ping explosion! Helpfully, running AWB in Wine seems to hide the checkbox to turn that off, so I'm going to switch to JWB for the rest. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 22:55, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Y Done -- cc 65.94.170.207. With apologies as mentioned above to the temporary ping-bomb for Another Believer - fortunately it looks like the other user had a rename so they won't have got all the pings. All sorted now, things should be archiving soon :) Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 23:15, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Naypta, Thanks for your help! Where I did received pings, I've been helping to archive my old posts as well as other outdated notifications on talk pages. I'm happy I could help a bit with this cleanup since the mistake was mine. Glad this is finally being resolved, much appreciated! ---Another Believer _(Talk) 01:26, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Bot to update the pages: Misplaced Pages:Vital articles/List of all articles and Misplaced Pages:Vital articles/List of all level 1–4 vital articles

The list of vital articles gets updated on a regular basis. Sometimes page titles are changed. I think we should have a bot update the pages to make work easier for humans. Interstellarity (talk) 13:14, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I will let cewbot update the list when updating the section counts and article assessment icons of vital articles. --Kanashimi (talk) 08:11, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

 Done --Kanashimi (talk) 11:39, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Move 500 River articles per consensus on tributary disambiguator

This is a simpler multi-article move than the last one I requested and withdrew, since the targets are all redlinks. See the discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Rivers#More tributary disambiguators to update and complete list of old and new titles at User:Dicklyon/tributaries, which are listed like these examples (about 500 of them):

• Plotter Kill (Mohawk River) --> Plotter Kill (Mohawk River tributary)
• Packs Branch (Paint Creek) --> Packs Branch (Paint Creek tributary)
• Sharps Run (Cow Creek) --> Sharps Run (Cow Creek tributary)
• Charley Creek (Clallam River) --> Charley Creek (Clallam River tributary)
• Slate Creek (Rapid Creek) --> Slate Creek (Rapid Creek tributary)
• Aguaray-Guazú River (Paraguay River) --> Aguaray-Guazú River (Paraguay River tributary)

I appreciate your help. Dicklyon (talk) 18:05, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

I think we should leave a redirecting for each article, right? --Kanashimi (talk) 00:29, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, for sure we want redirects, so existing links don't break. Dicklyon (talk) 03:21, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

coding... --Kanashimi (talk) 04:23, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

@BD2412: You've been doing some of these by hand. Hold off while the list is grabbed for the bot. Dicklyon (talk) 04:38, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm done for now. I figured out my other project. Cheers! BD2412 T 04:39, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't know if Água Fria River (Tocantins River) and Slate Creek (Rapid Creek) are still need to move. Please check the result, thank you. --Kanashimi (talk) 05:25, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I went ahead and moved those two. I don't know why my query didn't find them. Dicklyon (talk) 17:12, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

@Dicklyon: Thanks for spotting this requirement. I've put another bunch of pages that you may wish to move here. Certes (talk) 11:08, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, excellent; I'll review and then come back and ask Kanashimi to do them. Dicklyon (talk) 17:12, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

@Kanashimi: do you need the list of old and new names as I had prepared before to make this easy, or is Certes's list enough? Dicklyon (talk) 17:12, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

@Dicklyon: I need a list so the bot won't make mistakes, thank you. --Kanashimi (talk) 19:46, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Making a list ... checking it twice. Dicklyon (talk) 22:55, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

@Dicklyon: The articles in User:Dicklyon/tributaries are all redirected. The articles in User:Certes/sandbox are not with targets. Is there another list existing? --Kanashimi (talk) 03:11, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Not yet. I'll make it. Dicklyon (talk) 03:51, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

OK, new list of about 54 from Certes has been reviewed and made explicit, herebelow. Dicklyon (talk) 05:04, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

• Bagley Brook (West Branch Delaware River) --> Bagley Brook (West Branch Delaware River tributary)
• Betty Brook (West Branch Delaware River) --> Betty Brook (West Branch Delaware River tributary)
• Center Brook (Unadilla River) --> Center Brook (Unadilla River tributary)
• Chase Brook (West Branch Delaware River) --> Chase Brook (West Branch Delaware River tributary)
• Dry Brook (East Branch Delaware River) --> Dry Brook (East Branch Delaware River tributary)
• Ribeirão Grande (Tietê River) --> Ribeirão Grande (Tietê River tributary)
• Rio do Peixe (Mojiguaçu River) --> Rio do Peixe (Mojiguaçu River tributary)
• Rio do Peixe (Paraná River) --> Rio do Peixe (Paraná River tributary)
• Rio dos Bois (Paranaíba River) --> Rio dos Bois (Paranaíba River tributary)
• Rio Grande (Paraná River) --> Rio Grande (Paraná River tributary)
• Río Negro (Magdalena River) --> Río Negro (Magdalena River tributary)
• Rio Verde (Das Almas River) --> Rio Verde (Das Almas River tributary)
• Rio Verde (Grande River) --> Rio Verde (Grande River tributary)
• Rio Verde (Guaporé River) --> Rio Verde (Guaporé River tributary)
• Rio Verde (Jamari River) --> Rio Verde (Jamari River tributary)
• Rio Verde (lower Paranaíba River) --> Rio Verde (lower Paranaíba River tributary)
• Rio Verde (Maranhão River) --> Rio Verde (Maranhão River tributary)
• Rio Verde (upper Paranaíba River) --> Rio Verde (upper Paranaíba River tributary)
• Rivière à la Cruche (Malbaie River) --> Rivière à la Cruche (Malbaie River tributary)
• Rivière à la Fourche (Champlain River) --> Rivière à la Fourche (Champlain River tributary)
• Rivière aux Canots (Métabetchouane River) --> Rivière aux Canots (Métabetchouane River tributary)
• Rivière aux Écorces (Pikauba River) --> Rivière aux Écorces (Pikauba River tributary)
• Rivière aux Ours (Sainte-Anne River) --> Rivière aux Ours (Sainte-Anne River tributary)
• Rivière aux Outardes (Chateauguay River) --> Rivière aux Outardes (Chateauguay River tributary)
• Rivière aux Outardes (Saguenay River) --> Rivière aux Outardes (Saguenay River tributary)
• Rivière aux Pins (Beaurivage River) --> Rivière aux Pins (Beaurivage River tributary)
• Rivière aux Sables (Saguenay River) --> Rivière aux Sables (Saguenay River tributary)
• Rivière de l'Esturgeon (Châteauguay River) --> Rivière de l'Esturgeon (Châteauguay River tributary)
• Rivière des Cèdres (Ha! Ha! River) --> Rivière des Cèdres (Ha! Ha! River tributary)
• Rivière des Chutes (Batiscan River) --> Rivière des Chutes (Batiscan River tributary)
• Rivière du Milieu (Launière River) --> Rivière du Milieu (Launière River tributary)
• Ruisseau à John (Malbaie River) --> Ruisseau à John (Malbaie River tributary)
• Stony Brook (Delaware River) --> Stony Brook (Delaware River tributary)
• Stony Brook (Merrimack River) --> Stony Brook (Merrimack River tributary)
• Strath Burn (Wick River) --> Strath Burn (Wick River tributary)
• Sucker Brook (Seneca River) --> Sucker Brook (Seneca River tributary)
• Town Brook (West Branch Delaware River) --> Town Brook (West Branch Delaware River tributary)
• Tracy Brook (Middle Branch Grass River) --> Tracy Brook (Middle Branch Grass River tributary)
• Trout Brook (East Branch Delaware River) --> Trout Brook (East Branch Delaware River tributary)
• Lewis Run (Roaring Brook) --> Lewis Run (Roaring Brook tributary)
• Deep Run (Springers Brook) --> Deep Run (Springers Brook tributary)
• Bear Brook (Baxter Brook) --> Bear Brook (Baxter Brook tributary)
• Dry Brook (East Brook) --> Dry Brook (East Brook tributary)
• Beers Brook (East Brook) --> Beers Brook (East Brook tributary)
• Gee Brook (Baxter Brook) --> Gee Brook (Baxter Brook tributary)
• Miller Brook (North Branch Mehoopany Creek) --> Miller Brook (North Branch Mehoopany Creek tributary)
• Lake Brook (Otego Creek) --> Lake Brook (Otego Creek tributary)
• Licking Run (Beaver Run) --> Licking Run (Beaver Run tributary)
• Dark Hollow Run (Mud Pond Run) --> Dark Hollow Run (Mud Pond Run tributary)
• Buzzard Run (Lynncamp Run) --> Buzzard Run (Lynncamp Run tributary)
• Corrente River (Rio do Peixe) --> Corrente River (Rio do Peixe tributary)
• Cuieiras River (Rio Negro) --> Cuieiras River (Rio Negro tributary)
• Lajeado Grande River (Rio da Várzea) --> Lajeado Grande River (Rio da Várzea tributary)
• Pardo River (Rio Grande) --> Pardo River (Rio Grande tributary)

 Done --Kanashimi (talk) 09:55, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

DYKN image resize bot

Greetings. At WP:DYKN, the image size is based on the orientation of the image; vertical images at 120px, square at 140, and horizontal at 160. However there is no way to set the resolution during nomination, which means that even experienced editors often forget to fix the size of the image, and new editors don't know that they should.

I am proposing that a bot do a daily check and update the resolution where needed. In order to cut down on the amount of resources required, it needs only look at recent additions.

It would, I'm guessing, work something like this:

1. Generate a list of all DYK nominations added to Template talk:Did you know since the task was last run. (It can't use the nomination date because there's a 7-day window to nominate.)
2. Determine if they contain {{main page image}}.
3. For nominations where that template is present, determine the aspect ratio of the image.
4. If the ratio is between 5:6 and 6:5, change the field width= from 120 to 140.
5. If the ratio is greater than 6:5, change the field width= from 120 to 160.

Sincerely, The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 00:31, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Since nominations can be reviewed quite quickly and moved to the Template talk:Did you know/Approved page, the bot would need to check there as well. While the main Nominations page has a "Current nominations" section comprising of the current date and the previous seven days—this is updated at midnight every day—the Approved page doesn't have the equivalent section. Depending on how often it runs, the bot may need to check earlier on the page, because the dates are not when the nomination was added, but rather when work on the article began, which is supposed to be no more than seven days before nominating. (But is sometimes a little late.) BlueMoonset (talk) 01:44, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

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