Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Stwalkerbot

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] Stwalkerbot

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

Operator: Stwalkerster

Automatic or Manually Assisted: A bit of both. Probably manually assisted (definitely for categorisation), but may go auto for double redirects.

Programming Language(s): Pywikipedia framework.

Function Summary: To sort out double redirects, and add categories to uncategorised pages.

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): When Stwalkerster talk review is online. Usually Weekends and evenings (for the UK)

Edit rate requested: 2 edits per min

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

Function Details: To help sort out double redirects at Special:DoubleRedirects, and add categories to uncategorised pages, categories, and Special:Uncategorizedimages.

[edit] Discussion

Can you please describe exactly what the bot will do? That way others and the BAG can understand it better. E ^talk 12:59, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought I'd made it clear enough. To make it clearer:

• Double Redirects
  • Find a double redirect (by looking at special:doubleredirects)
  • Do this:

Redir A       --X-->    Redir B      ------->   Page C
   |                                              ^ 
   |                                              |
    ----------------------------------------------

• • Summary: change Redir A from pointing to Redir B to point to Page C
  • Reason: Whenever (usually) I look at special:doubleredirects there are many redirects not sorted. By running the bot then, I will :be able to clean up the list while other bots that do it are not running.

• add categories to uncategorised pages

There are many uncategorised pages. In an editor review I was asked (nicely) to help clean it up. Using a bot to clean it up will be a quicker way of cleaning it up. Also, it will be a more effective use of my time.

I hope this clears thing up. If not, please tell me and I'll try again. Stwalkerster talk review 13:28, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Double redirects are obviously Speedily Approved., but how do you intend to categorize uncategorized pages? --ST47Talk 17:54, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

With a modified version of catall.py (included in the pywikipedia framework). This will speed up the process of doing it manually. It will still be done manually, but will be done using the framework, speeding it up considerably. (hopefully) Stwalkerster talk review 18:11, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

If you're manually choosing the categories, then that's Speedily Approved. as well. Anything else for you today? --ST47Talk 18:18, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

After the above, I had another idea: Using the pywikipedia framework, I could use more of it to fix disambiguation pages, links to them, and identify broken external links:

• using disambrepair.py : Goes through the disambiguation pages, checks their links, and asks for each link that goes to a redirect page whether it should be replaced with a direct link to the correct page. (takes links to redirects off disamb. pages)
• using solve_disambiguation.py : finds internal links to disambiguation pages, and provides links on the disambiguation page to change the link to. (changes links from disamb. page to relevant article)
• using weblinkchecker.py : finds links from an article page, and tries to access them, reporting any errors on the talk page of that article.

These are all of the modules in the pywikipedia framework that I am (currently) willing to use. I hope that the bot will be useful! Stwalkerster talk review 08:41, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

1. Is Denied., don't fix links to redirects that aren't broken.
2. In an inappropriate bot tasks, as it requires human interaction, and can be done under your account.
3. Is Approved for trial., make 50 warnings and leave a message here, however I think the default is not to warn unless it's been down twice over at least 2 weeks.

--ST47Talk 14:57, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

It's one week until it's reported. I will try to get 50, but I can't guarantee it will be exactly 50. Stwalkerster talk review 20:32, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

That's OK, as long as it's at least 40 or so and not thousands, we can get an accurate idea. --ST47Talk 21:02, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

• I have a question about this task. Is there some means for the bot to ensure that Redir A should actually point to Article C? I believe that we have seen some cases recently where A or B was vandalized, creating a redirect which should not have existed. In these cases, the proper procedure should be to rollback the edit rather than to change the redirect. Examples 1) If Article A is vandalized to become a redirect to Redirect B, A should be reverted back to an article. 2) If Redirect A redirects to Article B, but B is vandalized to become a redirect to Article C, B should be reverted.

• Can the bot deal with these circumstances?
• If not, should this work be done by a human instead of a bot? Is it reasonable to expect the bot to be able to address these?
• Does this type of vandalism happen often enough to believe that it is a concern? If not, observant users will likely just do the rare cleanup necessary.

• Please note, I'm not objecting to the bot, but since I've not spend much time on BRFA before, I'm not sure if these issues are common, so I wanted to at least raise a concern. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 17:41, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

You have a good point there, I don't think it does, as it uses an unmodified version of the pywikipedia framework. Out of interest, do the other bots do this as well? There are a few other bots that fix double redirects, but whenever I looked before applying for bot status there was always a huge backlog (700+). Now there's never anything! That's just sods law isn't it? It might be worth checking. Stwalkerster talk review 17:55, 4 June 2007 (UTC) PS. The bot isn't doing anything except checking for broken links at the moment, so if it messes up during it's trial, it can easily be fixed. Stwalkerster talk review 17:55, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Is there any update on this trial? E ^talk 11:29, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I've been running the bot all week, BUT seeing that it checks the links, and if they are still dead a week later, THEN it edits. I was just about to run it for the first time it should edit, when I saw the note (which it told me to remove, so I did) 80.42.132.122 15:05, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry! I did'nt realise I wasn't logged in. The comment above by 80.42.132.122 was by me. Stwalkerster talk review 16:05, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Voila! 43 edits for a trial. I hope that's enough, tell me if it isn't, and I will run it for a little while longer. Stwalkerster talk 17:06, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Can you make it not spam? --ST47Talk 17:11, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Truth be told, I'm not sure. I feel it's useful to be told when the link failed, and that there is more than one link. I don't really know how that would be reduced, except by removing the title, and I'm not sure how to do that. If you know python, I wouldn't turn down help doing that. This is an unmodified version of the pywikipedia framework, called via batch files that I wrote (just to call the python scripts with the correct calls. Stwalkerster talk 17:26, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Hopefully, there won't be many pages like that. Stwalkerster talk 17:26, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

The bot needs to comprehend that if it has already left a note on the talk page before, it is to not start a new section, but instead continue the bulleted list of links. E ^talk 10:27, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

This spamming issue has me concerned. That needs to be fixed before I'll approve this bot. Raul654 15:33, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

• Stwalkerster, note Imasleepviking's manual edit here. That's what your bot should do when it finds a new dead link. (Just to be clear.) – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 18:31, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks Quadell, but I had already looked at that. At the moment (past week or so) I have been inundated in prep for exams AND a church fete, so haven't been doing much for anything else. I have been looking through the code and trying to sort out that issue, and if it's ok, I may run it in either my or it's userspace as a debugging space. Stwalkerster talk 19:53, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Right, I want to try this again, check it's ok, after seeing that it's not that possible to run it in a different namespace (other than article and talk). Can I try this again? Stwalkerster talk 17:10, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, please, Approved for trial. --ST47Talk 14:45, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Approved. --ST47Talk 14:41, 9 July 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.