Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BannerBot

The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. The result of the discussion was Request Expired.

[edit] BannerBot

tasks • contribs • count • sul • logs • page moves • block user • block log • flag log • flag bot

Operator: Adam McCormick

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic - Semi-supervised

Programming Language(s): Python (Modified pywikipediabot Framework)

Function Summary: Basically, the bot will use the "What Links Here" page to find new transclusions of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools assorted banners and templates, and log them for review. Logging will also include adding the {{WPSchools}} banner to the articles if not present.

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): Daily/Weekly and as requested by the Schools Project

Edit rate requested: 10 / Minute or Less

Function Details: The bot will log in, request "What Links Here" pages for each of a list of templates (such as {{WPSchools}} -> Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:WPSchools) and then traverse all of the gatherred lists. It will compare all transclusions to a list of existing pages (generated by a previous run, initially empty), It will make sure each new page has {{WPSchools}} banner (and add it to Category:WikiProject Schools articles to be catalogued by User:BoxCrawler otherwise). The bot will then make a detailed log and post it for human review. The first run will not generate a log, but will be used as a baseline for future runs. After a large initial run, this bot can be expected (from my experience) to find about 10 new articles a week and need to make no edits other than its log entry.

• Applicable Templates:
  • Initially, only those listed on Wikipedia:WikiProject_Schools#Article_namespace and Wikipedia:WikiProject_Schools#Infobox_templates
  • Other templates such as {{Buckinghamshire-school-stub}} will be added as requested by the Project

[edit] Discussion

As long as this bot merely edits in its own userspace and keeps its edit rate below two edits per minute, it does not need to be flagged. — madman bum and angel 20:48, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

As stated, it also edits talk pages to add them to a category if they include templates from the project without including the actual banner. I would also prefer it to be flagged as it is not a sockpuppet. Adam McCormick 20:52, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

All right; I just read the function summary. Carry on.  :P — madman bum and angel 20:53, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I initially missed that too: can you update the function summary to make those edits explicit there, too? Thanks. If this is specific to WPJ schools, I think it essentially just needs some sanity checking on the "assorted" templates, and screening for whether they're likely to be at all false-positive-prone. If it's open-ended in scope, the same caveat, in more general terms: you should probably agree a specific set of templates on a per-WPJ basis with the editors concerned. Alai 18:18, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I've added a few more details. What do you mean as far as "sanity checking"? I already have code from User:BoxCrawler that detects the banner (fairly simple regex), and I plan on addapting those regexes to look for these templates. If other Projects expressed interest I would work with them on speficic templates and logs, but for now it's only for WP:Schools. Also, as i did with BoxCrawler, I intend to do many small runs (even after approval) to perfect the operation and account for special cases. Adam McCormick 21:30, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

By "sanity checking" I mean for templates that are "schools WPJ temples" in some sense (you don't state what your precise criteria for that are), but that are not 100% reliable indicators for an article being in the project's scope. Alai 22:39, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

How much more specific than the two lists I provided can I be? The schools project works on any and all articles about secondary schools and lower. If a school identifies itself as such, what's the problem? Adam McCormick 00:47, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Eh, you asked what I meant by what I asked before you added any such list of templates. If said template do all positively identify an article as a school, then fair enough. Alai 01:13, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Sounds pretty safe... can you give us a few edits as examples (under 20 or so) -- Tawker 04:06, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm in the process of writing the bot. I will post before I run it (should be within the week). Thanks Adam McCormick 19:53, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Request Expired. – no trial for three weeks. Feel free to reactivate this task request once the code has been written. — madman bum and angel 13:29, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.