Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Mr.Z-bot 2

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 Denied.

[edit] Mr.Z-bot

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

Operator: Mr.Z-man

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic, supervised

Programming Language(s): AWB

Function Summary: Fixing reference format and AWB general fixes

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

Edit rate requested: 10 edits per minute

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

Function Details: Fix incorrectly formatted references, currently those formatted as Article text <ref>Reference text</ref>. which should be Article text.<ref>Reference text</ref> as well as the same type but with Article text <ref name="foo">Reference text</ref>. and Article text <ref name="foo"/>. The regexps I plan to use are:

• \s*<\s*ref\s*([^\]]*)>([^<]*)<\s*/ref\s*>\. replaced with .<ref $1>$2</ref> (yes, I realize that this will result in <ref > but AWB general fixes fix that and are applied after the find/replace)
• \s*<\s*ref\s*name\s*=\s*([^\]]*)/>\. replaced with .<ref name = $1 />

I've tested these on various possible reference formats and have yet to find any situations it does not work on.

This will also apply AWB's general fixes.

If anyone can think of any other common ref errors (and how to fix them), I could also implement those. Mr.Z-man 05:23, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

1. Where will you get your target pages from? — xaosflux ^Talk 05:35, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
   1. AWB Feature Request - Ref Fixing. User:Gaius Cornelius has posted a list of regex's for this... Cant say if any may cause errors... But they are there for you to try out. —Reedy Boy 10:09, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
2. See Wikipedia talk:Footnotes. There is by no means consensus that this style of referencing is an "error". I'm not involved in the debate (and think it's slightly WP:LAME), but I imagine that more than a few people would oppose this bot because of it. Staecker 15:52, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

   I was not aware of that discussion and was under the impression that the guideline for reference formatting had consensus. If this might be controversial (as controversial as ref formatting can be), I'd rather not do it. The main reason for this request is for preparation of articles for upload to Veropedia, the software for which requires this format. I will talk to Eagle 101 (who did most of the software for the site, I believe) about possibly loosening this restriction. Though I agree, the whole debate is quite silly. Also, the current list of pages I wanted to run this on (about 300 biology related pages that I assume are all formatted like this) were written by one of the users who was against this format, so that might not be so good :( (but he has been inactive for about a month) Mr.Z-man 22:02, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

   Isn't 10 epm a little high? Is it possible to use something lower? Soxred93 has a boring sig 22:49, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

   10 EPM its is nothing, Ive had BCBot at 5,000 edits an hour before, as long as its maxlag compliant. (AWB could in no way every effect our servers from a single user) β^_command 22:55, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

   I doubt it would actually be that high. That would be if the the pages are small, most of the pages in the list need changes made and my PC/internet connection are not running slowly. And the list of pages will not be more than a few hundred. Mr.Z-man 23:07, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

   Off peak for a task like that it's no problemo - you could even run faster w/ no adverse consequences. -- Tawker (talk) 09:08, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

There seems to be no consensus either way for this one, so I think this request should be denied. Anyone got anything to add? :: maelgwn - talk 01:40, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

• No automatic bot should be doing this, and not just because there is opposition to the particular style, but because the regexes appear to have weaknesses. For instance: this.<ref name=one />.<ref name=two />. It looks like the above regexes would produce: this...<ref name=one /><name=two /> The regexes of Gaius Cornelius at WT:AWB appear to have a similar concern. What about commas and other punctuation? Even if these can be handled, real language has unusual cases that are difficult to program for. See also Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SelketBot. Yes, I'm involved in that WP:LAME WP:FN debate, but I pretty much only change these on articles with inconsistent styles. Gimmetrow 04:53, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

There does not seem to be much consensus to keep at all. and I can't say as I blame them. With the <ref > thing, and the error in ref name parameters, this does not sound useful. Also, as said above, there is no consensus that Article text <ref>Reference text</ref>. is an error. Denied. Soxred93 has a boring sig 04:59, 2 December 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.