Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Ganeshbot

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 Approved.

[edit] Ganeshbot

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

Operator: Ganeshk (talk)

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic

Programming Language(s): Python using pywikipedia framework

Function Summary: To create articles for missing Indian towns and cities based Indian Census of 2001.

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): one time run

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

Function Details: I've created Ganeshbot to create city/town articles in India based on on data provided by Census India 2001. I converted the data into a comma-seperated file. Bot will read the file line by line and create article stubs. Please see examples, Aadityana and Aambaliyasan, that I had created in the sandbox using the bot. It will be manually run by me. There are 5161 towns listed. It should take a couple of hours to complete. This is similar to the User:Rambot that created U.S city/town articles. Thanks, Ganeshk (talk) 08:33, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

A few questions:

• Do you have more information you can put into the articles besides the name and rough location? Part of the strength of the Rambot articles is the amount of information they contain: basic geography, a basic demographic profile, and frequently a map showing where the place is.
• How fast is the bot editing? To keep from overloading the servers, bots shouldn't edit more than once every ten seconds. Creating 5161 articles should take at least 15 hours.

--Carnildo 09:08, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Reply:

• The excel file had the following columns,

City Name,Urban Status,State Code, State Name, District Code and District Name

Let me research if there is anyway possible to expand further.

• I have added 30 seconds delay between each edit. Couple of hours was just a guess. Out of 5161, many exist already. I have not run it on the entire file yet. So I don't have a time estimate.

- Ganeshk (talk) 09:22, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Per suggestions by User:Carnildo, I had made changes to the bot. Could you please look at Aadityana, Aambaliyasan and Kodumudi and give approval for the bot?

Changes:

• Added population count
• Added Geo-coordinates and Altitude

I would like to run it for all towns.

Thanks, Ganeshk (talk) 08:20, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I think it looks good, I would give it permission, but I think it might need greater community approval first, as it is such a large project. Maybe you could mention it at the village pump? Martin 12:56, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

We should only be happy to have something like this, and eventually for all the countries in the world. Hearily support, except perhaps the demographics could be moved to another paragraph, like Rambot did. But if this is all the info you have then this is probably fine. --Golbez 20:05, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Martin, Thanks for the tip. I put up a message on the village pump.

Golbez, I have added two new sections, Geography and Demographics. Please check Kodumudi. Thanks, Ganeshk (talk) 22:00, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

How do you feel about exploiting Geographic references like Rambot, instead of adding the same reference to all the articles? Melchoir 21:52, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Melchoir, Could you please explain with an example on how Rambot used Geographic references? Thanks, Ganeshk (talk) 22:00, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Done. Added geographic reference similar to Rambot. I used Census of India 2001: Data from the 2001 Census, including cities, villages and towns. (Provisional). Census Commission of India. Retrieved on 2007-09-03. format since the number will not be constant. - Ganeshk (talk) 22:40, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Please don't go ahead Bot articles are horrible, especially the awful rambot ones about American localities. A couple of human-written sentences are always better and they will all get done in the end. I see huge long term problems with the rambot articles. They are going to get very out of date, but when new census data is ready how are they going to be updated, especially those where people have added proper content? Is is going to be wiped along with the old rambot bilge, or is the rambot data going to be left in place forever. Please be patient and wait for Wikipedia to be written by people not machines. Hawkestone 23:03, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I have to disagree; having the stubs help greatly, I find the information generally useful, and I prefer to have machine-made articles than none at all. Many of the Rambot articles have since been improved, sometimes vastly so, by editors. Treat them as stubs. --Golbez 23:53, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

The examples provided look pretty good, as for becoming out of date, this is applicable to all articles, regardless of how they were created. Creating the articles like this is good, as it provides a base for humans to build on and create much better articles, as is the case with many of the rambot articles. Martin 23:17, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

It should round to the nearest percent, rather than truncate (to avoid the gender proportions totaling to 99%). It should give the literacy rates for males and females, rather than the proportion of the literate people. TimBentley (talk) 19:21, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I fixed the rounding issue. I rephrased the the literacy line. If you feel it still does not sound right, Could you please write the exact line how it should show using Kodumudi as an example. Thanks, Ganeshk (talk) 23:32, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Why is the bot not getting approved now? Any more issues left? deeptrivia (talk) 12:31, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] June 2006

I have added a locator map feature. For towns that have longitude and latitude values, a locator map will be automatically loaded and dot placed for the city. With this last change, I feel the bot is complete. Please check Kodumudi. Can the approval group please give it a bot flag? - Ganeshk (talk) 07:07, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Looks good to me. --Carnildo 01:10, 25 June 2006 (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.