Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/AvicBot 9

The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA. The result of the discussion was Approved.

Operator: Avicennasis (talk · contribs)

Time filed: 12:15, Thursday September 8, 2011 (UTC)

Automatic or Manual: Automatic unsupervised

Programming language(s): Python

Source code available: Standard pywikipedia

Function overview: Tag orphan pages.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): As needed.

Estimated number of pages affected: Unknown

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Y

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): Y

Function details: Scans over pages in mainspace and finds orphans (Zero incoming links). If an Orphan page is found, it checks to see if the orphan tag (or "multiple issues|orphan=date" tags ) are on the page. It automatically skips redirects, {{wi}} pages, and disambig pages.

Discussion

Are you going to be delaying tagging for newly created articles or recently edited ones? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 12:46, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I assume it tags pages with zero incoming links from mainspace pages? Ucucha (talk) 13:21, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking of doing this from Database dumps - so it will tagging pages that have been around awhile. (Say, a botrun a week after last database dump.) And currently, it only checks for any incoming links - though I may find a way to limit that to mainspace links in the future. ^Avic_ennasis @ 13:56, 9 Elul 5771 / 13:56, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That would be good; I suspect there are few pages, even mainspace orphans, which aren't linked somewhere outside mainspace. Ucucha (talk) 14:55, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There isn't a bot that already does this? I see orphan tags on articles all the time that were put there by a bot, although the last ones I noticed were on articles with multiple links and the orphan tags were years old and out of date. --72.208.2.14 (talk) 03:40, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe so. And even if there was, I don't think it hurts - if the task is helpful, why not? How many bots do we have that fix double redirects? ^Avic_ennasis @ 01:45, 11 Elul 5771 / 01:45, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think internal links increase the readability of articles, but all the tags at the top of the article are just one more indicator of how many wikipedia editors have no clue there is an audience. Orphan tags just sit around and interfere with readability. Especially when put there by bots. Human editors monitor articles. So, no, not helpful, imo. --72.200.106.228 (talk) 16:40, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is a Perennial proposal to remove these kinds of tags (and add them to the talk pages instead.) ^Avic_ennasis @ 18:31, 12 Elul 5771 / 18:31, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Approved for trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. The task has been approved before and is being done status quo by editors. Tags have been considered unnecessary many times, but every time the decision was to keep them. Editors tag orphans all the time, so may be if the bot does it quicker, they could spend their time more productively and perhaps link one or two articles instead. Approving a trial for now, keeping an eye on the discussion. If editors feel this needs a wider discussion, feel free to open a thread on a relevant noticeboard. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 19:13, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Trial complete. Results posted to talk page. ^Avic_ennasis @ 10:18, 13 Elul 5771 / 10:18, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Technically, edits seem fine. The bot does not group tags into {{multiple issues}}, e.g. [1] or [2]. 3+ tags are no longer as useful in individual boxes and the point about readability becomes valid. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 11:03, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't found a reliable way to group the tags. I could go over the tagging when done with AWB (With a manual, non-bot account) for the multiple issues grouping. Barring that, I can skip pages with pre-existing tags. Or, alternatively, I can add a |Bot=AvicBot parameter (Or perhaps |auto=yes), which would make the tags invisible, but still add the category, and perhaps an additional category of Category:Orphans automatically tagged by a bot or something simliar. ^Avic_ennasis @ 11:21, 13 Elul 5771 / 11:21, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, let's not have bots add a fifth tag to the top of an article. Once more cluelessness that people might actually read wikipedia articles if they could find them among all the editing tags that prevent it. --68.105.141.221 (talk) 02:28, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I get it. So, categories only, then? ^Avic_ennasis @ 23:27, 17 Elul 5771 / 23:27, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, yes, categorizing would be good when there are too many tags already at the top. --68.105.141.221 (talk) 03:18, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It would take a bit of work, but it's certainly not impossible to add some code to check for existing cleanup tags and group them into {{multiple issues}} if possible. Some of the more obscure cleanup tags are not supported by {{multiple issues}}, but the popular ones are. Just a matter of creating a mapping between {{multiple issues}} parameters and standalone templates, and using regex to find the cleanup templates. I could probably offer some help if you're interested. —SW— ^prattle 17:03, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly won't turn down assistance. This task is essentially "lonelypages.py" from the pywikipedia package. (I've added the regex r'\{\{(?:template:|)(multiple issues).*(orphan).*[\|\}]' to the script to stop it from tagging orphans that are already part of {{multiple issues}}) The script is currently set up to find orphan articles and tag it if it's not already. I'll confess that my coding skills are not up to the task of re-writing it to handle {{multiple issues}} more fully. If you have an idea on how to handle that, be my guest. (You'd certainly help other pywikipedia users, as well!) Beyond that, I've been looking at how best to modify the getReferences call to only include links from Articlespace, to make the tagging more complete. ^Avic_ennasis @ 05:14, 25 Elul 5771 / 05:14, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Avicennasis, try this: User:Snottywong/cleanuptemplates.py See instructions on the talk page. Let me know if you have any questions or run into any problems. Cheers. —SW— ^babble 22:49, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to Snottywong, AvicBot can handle this task much better. If there are already 2+ tags on the page before the orphan tag, they will all be grouped into multiple issues (as well, if any of the other tags are undated, they are dated as well.) Example: [3] If there is only one pre-existing tag, then just the orphan tag is added [4]. I think it's much better now. Perhaps another trial should be done, to see if there are any kinks in process? ^Avic_ennasis @ 21:27, 2 Tishrei 5772 / 21:27, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Approved for trial. Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Test it, make sure the new code runs smoothly; then report back. --Chris 08:46, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Trial complete. New run with 40 pages. Results posted to talk page. The ones with asterisk next to the page title are the ones that demonstrate the new code. ^Avic_ennasis @ 04:06, 21 Tishrei 5772 / 04:06, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good  Approved. --Chris 13:16, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA.