Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/HelloWorldBot

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] HelloWorldBot

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

Operator: PeteMarsh

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic.

Programming Language(s): Python (Pywikipedia)

Function Summary: This bot will clean up the pages on this list.

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): One run if I can host the bot somewhere else, multiple runs otherwise.

Edit rate requested: 1 edits per minute (can be lower)

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): N (doesn't yet exist)

Function Details:

Not all pages on the list of programming languages exist, and those which do are in need of some cleanup. For example not each page carries a 'Infobox programming language'. The bot will:

1) Create stubs for all of those langauages which do not already have a page. 2) Insert 'Infobox programming language' into each page and replace existing infoboxes (several pages have different infoboxes - there should be a single standard).

A further improvement would be the introduction of a 'Hello World' example to each page. This is the traditional way that a programming language is introduced. At the moment each page introduces a languages syntax in a different way. This would be a difficult thing for a bot to do, however a bot could place a message in the page (or talk page) asking for one to be given and how to give it (i.e. creating a new section called 'Hello World'.

These improvements will vastly improve the pages featured on that list. If this bot does will then I will generalise it so that it can be used in a similar fashion for other categories. You comments please! HelloWorldBot 13:28, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

• Could your operator post to this subpage, just to make sure that they are in fact running the bot? --ais523 13:48, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't notice I was logged into the bot's account. I can confirm that I will actually operate the bot. PeteMarsh 13:57, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm a bit skeptical to approve a bot of such a new user, but it's not out of the question. We'll need a lot of more information, however, about what exactly the bot will do. Can you show us an example of one new page in the format that the bot might create? —METS501 (talk) 18:03, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

In fairness I have been using and contributing to Wikipedia for longer than I have had an account, but I can understand your concern. Take this example (I've put this here so its easier to see):

AppleScript is listed under 'programming languages' but contains a 'software' infobox (before/after):

The bot would change this to a 'programming language' infobox:

Alright, there's not much difference, but I also suggest that the template be updated to become a little bit snazzier (i.e. some colour!). That too would need discussion. As for creating new pages I did create a page for Actor but the page was deleted. I had put: 'Actor is a programming language' and a stub message. I suppose this isn't enough to warrent a page, but perhaps someone may be able to suggest how to expand this simple start so that any langauage without a page can be given one by a bot. PeteMarsh 19:04, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I fail to see how you can create useful stubs if you only have the name and maybe a few other bits of info in a list. If no further information is added, the stub will be useless and waste of time for anyone to see it, and it indeed should be deleted. Besides how can you know that the information given in the lists are correct? I am also concerned that you will run the bot automatically. The task seems to be too complex to do that in a safe manner. Byrial 19:12, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

You're right, perhaps a better idea would be to remove the links to dead pages from the list? Or just leave them? What about the issue of the infoboxes, do you think it would be worthwhile changing them? PeteMarsh 20:06, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Leave the red links. They may become blue in the future if someone writes the missing articles, and in the meantime they may help readers who know about the subject to easily start the articles. You should rather repair the "false positives", i.e. the links to disambiguation pages. It may be a good idea to standardize the infoboxes, but I guess that it would be easier for a human than for a bot to find the info to put into the boxes, but you may have some good ideas about how a bot could do it. Be aware of the differences between a programming language and a implementaion of it. Byrial 00:59, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Implementations of programming languages shouldn't be listed on the list of programming page, and variations of languages generally have their own pages, so that won't be an issue. A bot could easily change the infoboxes on pages which have the wrong one, since many of the fields are the same/similar. For those pages which do not have infoboxes than the best idea would probally for the bot to generate a list of the pages which require them. Would a bo need approval if it only performed one edit on it's own user subpages? PeteMarsh 14:59, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

In my experience, it's normally best to get approval just as a sanity check (e.g. a bot that edited its own userspace 100 times a minute would probably be rejected), but bots that only edit their own userspace are usually speedily approved. --ais523 13:55, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Has there been any improvements on this bot request? E ^talk 10:37, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Per Byrial, I'm skeptical of how this bot will get the data used to generate the infobox. Raul654 15:36, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Request Expired. —METS501 (talk) 21:17, 18 June 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.