Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval

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Notice Please remember that all editors are encouraged to participate in the requests listed below. Just chip in - your comments are appreciated more than you may think!

If you want to run a bot on the English Wikipedia, you must first get it approved. To do so, add a request below. Rather than running your own bot, it may be a good idea to ask someone else to run one for you at Bot requests.

See also: Current policy on bots and Wikipedia:Bots/Frequently denied bots, to make sure your idea is not listed.
I
Creating a user account and user page for the bot describing its functions.

please state the following:

  1. To log the creation of the bot account under your operator account click here while logged in. (Please note that if you fail to do this, your bot may be blocked quickly as a possible sock or unauthorized bot until you verify that you are the owner.)
  2. Describe the bot's purpose, language it uses, what program(s) it uses (pywikipedia framework, etc).
  3. Describe whether it is manually assisted or automatically scheduled to run.
  4. The period, if any, we should expect it to run.
  5. Identify the maintainer.
  6. Add the bot's user page to Category:Wikipedia bots (By adding {{bot|your user name}} to the bot's user page)
II
Listing your bot here.
  1. Replace BotName with your bot's user name in the box below and click the button. If this is a request for an additional task, put a task number as well (e.g. Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BotName 2).
  2. Complete the questions on the resulting page and save it.
  3. Edit this page, adding the following text to the appropriate section (replacing BotName with your bot's name):
    1. {{BRFA|BotName|TaskNumber|Open}}
    2. If this is a request for your bot's first task, leave TaskNumber blank (i.e., do not add it unless you added a number to the title of the page created above). That is, use the template {{BRFA|BotName||Open}}
III
Operations Approvals.

Before running your bot you must wait for approval from someone in the approvals group. Please add a link to the approval request to the bot's userpage. Depending on the requested tasks, editing limitations may be placed during trial periods. After any required trials or other community approvals your bot may be approved for full operations.

Contents


[edit] Organization

New bots

Please list new requests for bot approval in this section. Be sure to document the name of the bot, your user name, and exactly what the bot will do, in detail. Community members are invited to comment on requests; an approvals group member will approve or reject the bot approval request after a reasonable amount of time has passed for community input.

New tasks for existing bots

Please list requests for approval for new tasks for your existing bot in this section. Be sure to explain the new task in detail. An approvals group member will approve or reject the new task request after a reasonable amount of time has passed for community input.

Need assistance?

If you've waited a reasonable amount of time for a reply, or if you have an urgent issue, you can place {{BAGAssistanceNeeded}} onto your bot request. This is intended for use if urgent attention is needed or if a request is being neglected; please do not use it after every comment.

Active trial runs

(Approvals group members only)

If a bot is placed on a trial run, please document it in this section. Further comments should take place there, as will the decision to approve or deny the full run.

Approved bots

(Approvals group members only)

When a user has completed a trial run (if needed), their bot has been approved, please:

  1. Add a clear statement indicating approval of the bot on the bot's subpage.
  2. List the bot here.
Archiving

When a reasonable time has passed for the operator to know about the approval (a few days in most cases), and the bot already has the flag (if needed):

  1. Tag the discussion top and bottom of the discussion with {{subst:Bot Top}} and {{subst:Bot Bottom}} respectively (See this example). Updating the categories is also recommended as in this example.
  2. After more than 7 days have passed on the list of recently Approved Requests, archive the discussion in the current archive.
Archive
Archives

Old Format
Archive 1, Archive 2, Archive 3, Archive 4
New Format
Approved - Rejected     all subpages of this page
Bot Name Status Last edit Date/Time Last BAG edit Date/Time
WuBot (T|C|B|F) Open Wuzur 2008-06-12, 15:17:29 Never edited by BAG 2008-06-11, 15:00:27
kwjbot 2 (T|C|B|F) Open Kwj2772 2008-06-10, 08:51:21 Never edited by BAG 2008-06-10, 08:51:21
DOI bot 3 (T|C|B|F) Open Bjweeks 2008-06-11, 22:47:12 Never edited by BAG 2008-06-09, 23:17:51
HiDrNickBot (T|C|B|F) Open CWii 2008-06-09, 21:54:53 Never edited by BAG 2008-06-09, 11:52:54
Peti610botH (T|C|B|F) Open Bjweeks 2008-06-09, 14:49:34 ST47 2008-06-01, 22:01:05
TinucherianBot 3 (T|C|B|F) Open Tinucherian 2008-06-11, 15:38:56 Never edited by BAG 2008-06-11, 15:36:33
Addbot 9 (T|C|B|F) Open Addshore 2008-06-11, 06:04:24 Never edited by BAG 2008-06-10, 16:29:16
Addbot 7 (T|C|B|F) Open Addshore 2008-06-10, 17:19:35 Giggy 2008-06-10, 09:11:48
Chris G Bot (2nd Request) (T|C|B|F) Open Chris G 2008-06-06, 10:21:55 SQL 2008-06-04, 07:10:06
LemmeyBOT 2c (T|C|B|F) Open Wuzur 2008-06-11, 15:02:19 Gimmetrow 2008-05-24, 21:57:58
BJBot 8 (T|C|B|F) In trial Bjweeks 2008-06-09, 08:33:45 Giggy 2008-06-09, 08:17:32
Addbot 8 (T|C|B|F) In trial Bjweeks 2008-06-11, 22:39:38 Giggy 2008-06-09, 08:07:43
Swimmingbot-awb (T|C|B|F) In trial: BAG assistance requested! Printer222 2008-06-12, 03:10:32 E 2008-06-08, 23:31:45
John Bot IV (T|C|B|F) In trial CWii 2008-06-07, 00:14:20 Giggy 2008-06-05, 08:50:43
Computer (10) (T|C|B|F) In trial Mr.Z-man 2008-06-04, 00:35:10 Mr.Z-man 2008-06-04, 00:35:10
JVbot 2 (T|C|B|F) In trial Jayvdb 2008-06-12, 03:18:57 Giggy 2008-06-08, 04:09:35
SoxBot VII (T|C|B|F) In trial Giggy 2008-05-30, 14:53:23 Giggy 2008-05-30, 14:53:23
SoxBot II 5 (T|C|B|F) In trial MBisanz 2008-05-19, 23:15:37 MBisanz 2008-05-19, 23:15:37
Purbo T (T|C|B|F) In trial Purodha 2008-06-09, 23:14:02 MBisanz 2008-06-04, 04:46:59
DinoBot2 2 (T|C|B|F) In trial: BAG assistance requested! T-rex 2008-06-11, 04:18:02 Giggy 2008-06-09, 08:05:54
John Bot 4 (T|C|B|F) In trial CWii 2008-06-08, 16:16:12 E 2008-06-07, 21:39:20
DyceBot 4 (T|C|B|F) In trial Dycedarg 2008-06-11, 02:48:11 SQL 2008-06-06, 03:59:58

[edit] Current requests for approval

[edit]

[edit] WuBot

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

Operator: Wuzur (talk) (Wuzur@Global Home Wiki: Wuzur@dewiki)

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Setting interwikis would be done automaticly, other tasks manually

Programming Language(s): For interwikilinks: Pywikipedia Framwork, for other tasks I'll use the AutoWikiBrowser or an PHP-Framwork programmed by User:Guandalug (Main part) and me (only slight adaptions, and some modules).

Function Summary: Mainly this bot will create interwikilinks

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): whenever I'm online

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): Yes on de.wp

Function Details: Other (simple) tasks I would only do when I was asked by an trusted user, for bigger task I'll ask here for permission

[edit] Discussion

If this is a approved please only use the bot account for approved tasks. Smalls tasks can be done on your main account. BJTalk 22:42, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, there is no problem with this guideline. --Wuzur (talk) 15:17, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit]

[edit] Kwjbot

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

Operator: Kwj2772 (talk) (This is a ko:User:김우진1's SUL account)

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic

Programming Language(s): Python, Pywikipedia (Update:Nightly realese or SVN)

Function Summary: interwiki

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

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): Y:cs,de,es,it,ja,ko,nl,ru,simple,sl,sv

Function Details:

  • I gave up other bot(ex.welcome, redirect etc)
  • I will run only interwikibot.
  • To administrator:Please unblock this bot if you approve.


[edit] Discussion

[edit]

[edit] DOI bot 3

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

Operator: Smith609 Talk

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic

Programming Language(s): PHP

Function Summary: Replace hyphens with en-dashes in page number ranges

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

Function Details: There has been some confusion as to whether "correct[ing] common mistakes", specified as a bot task in Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DOI bot 2, includes the replacement of hyphens with endashes in page number ranges. While the manual of style is unambiguous in stating that an endash is the correct format to use, and the bot's edits in its trial period for task 2 dominantly included edits of this nature, and as far as I can tell the edit does no harm, it seems that explicit approval would be helpful.

[edit] Discussion

This isn't really in the BAG's purview, I'd try to gain consensus at a WT:MOS (or wherever this is discussed). BJTalk 22:47, 11 June 2008 (UTC) [edit]

[edit] HiDrNickBot

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

Operator: ➪HiDrNick!

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic and unsupervised.

Programming Language(s): php

Function Summary: Warn and report users for possible violations of the three-revert rule.

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

Function Details: This bot monitors recent changes to report possible violations of the three-revert rule, and issues warnings to users as appropriate. No script can differentiate edit warring and constructive editing accurately all of the time, but most edit wars exhibit patterns that can be easily detected. These edits will be reported to administrators to determine if a violation occurred.

Three-revert rule reports are very time-consuming for even veteran editors to prepare; there are many requirements, and many users just don’t bother. The bot will produce easy-to-read reports showing the article history from the first revert in question to the last.

All warnings issued will be non-bitey, with an aim toward informing a possibility clueless user of the rule and preventing a violation. Reports will not be filed until the bot has evidence of further editing to a page after a warning; however, warnings will not be required for administrators, IP editors, those who have been blocked for edit warring previously, and editors with more than 2000 edits.

The bot is written in php; it runs automatically every five minutes, and makes only a few edits at a time.

[edit] Discussion

Does the bot ignore admins and long time editors "editing warring" with IPs or new users? How about long time editor vs admin? Or admin vs admin? BJTalk 11:58, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

No. Since all editors are equal before the three-revert rule, anyone that attracts the attention of the program will be reported. It is impossible for a script to tell if a given revert is 3RR-exempt, which is where administrative judgment comes in. All reports made by the bot will be clearly labeled as automated reports, and all users reported will be informed of the report on their talk page. In the 24-hour testing data set that I’ve been running, about 10% of reports are false positives. We’ll have to decide if that is too high to be useful. ➪HiDrNick! 12:10, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
This may come down to our interpretation over policy but I think that admins should be totally exempt from getting warnings as anything to do with admin edit warring is a mass drama fest and I don't see bots helping. I also think "trusted users" (define that how you will) should get the benefit of the doubt against non-autoconfimred users or IPs. I'd love to see some data posted for us to review. BJTalk 12:19, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Admins won't be warned by the bot, since they are presumed to already be familiar with 3RR. I’ll post up the sample set by Wednesday so you all can have a better idea of just what I’m talking about. ➪HiDrNick! 16:01, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Can it tell from vandal reverting and pure 3RR? How? CWii(Talk|Contribs) 21:54, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit]

[edit] Peti610botH

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

Operator: hu:User:Peti610 (talk)

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic

Programming Language(s): Python

Function Summary: interwiki

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

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

Function Details: interwiki

[edit] Discussion

Request Fixed up [1]. —Reedy 14:31, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Interwikied the local bot user page also. —Reedy 14:39, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

How often do you update interwiki.py? Do you have a bot flas elsewhere? -- maelgwn - talk 13:44, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Every day, I update interwiki.py . I use botflag:hu, cs, es,it,fi
I'm sorry but the owner not signing worries me :/ CWii(Talk|Contribs) 21:17, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Please provide a link to the bot account on huwiki, and do so using your global account so we can confirm your identity please. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹoɟʇs(st47) 22:01, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} BJTalk 08:45, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Well that was silly, I didn't notice the user didn't have a local account. I'm going to leave them a message at their local talk. BJTalk 14:49, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Requests to add a task to an already-approved bot

[edit]

[edit] TinucherianBot 3

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

Operator: -- TinuCherian (Wanna Talk?) -

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic ( With manual supervision)

Programming Language(s): AutoWikiBrowser

Function Summary: WikiProject tagging.

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): On request especially at Bot requests page.

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

Function Details: BRFA 1 was specific for {{WP India}} Tagging for WP:INDIA . This is for any general project tagging request at Bot requests page. Action is simple :- Bot takes a category. Bot loads an article list and converts all to talk. Bot tags articles using the kingbotk plugin with Generic templates option. To be safe it will not run for categories recursively. The requester has to provide the end node category(s) for the article list collection.

[edit] Discussion

[edit]

[edit] Addbot Task 9

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

Operator: ·Add§hore· Talk/Cont

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic (once run)

Programming Language(s): PHP

Function Summary: Substing user talk page templates

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

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

Function Details: Substing the given user talk page templates on given talk pages, example(note this was controlled and I had to "click" save before it wrote) This currently only works for each template that I input and get the list of "what links here (trans)" for and inputting e.t.c. I don't possibly see how this bot can make a mistake. (List = here.

[edit] Discussion

Which user talk templates? -- maelgwn - talk 23:14, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Im planning on working my way through Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/User_talk_templates as there you have virtually every talk page template that can need substing. ·Add§hore· Talk/Cont 06:04, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit]

[edit] Addbot Task 7

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

Operator: ·Add§hore· Talk/Cont

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic

Programming Language(s): AWB

Function Summary: Described here Searching and tagging pages from Special:NewPages (also patrol logs and DB dumps - if allowed)

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): Not Continuous yet (I will manually restart the run after the completion of the previous)

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

Function Details: Bot automatically tagging and adding general fixes to new pages for WikiProject Orphanage

[edit] Discussion

How will you identify orhpans? Have you thought about redirects? -- maelgwn - talk 23:10, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

The bot will use the AWB auto tag feature. Also if it some to a redirect it will follow the redirect. ·Add§hore· Talk/Cont 16:00, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Can I say that I would like the bot to be able to be allowed to read for pages from database dumps, patrol logs and the new pages list. ·Add§hore· Talk/Cont 16:01, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
I just wanted to chip in my two cents: WikiProject Orphanage would really appreciate a bot like this. We've been running across a lot of pages which have been orphaned for 4 years (5 years, in a few cases), probably because people have only been going through Special:Lonelypages, but no one's been searching all of mainspace for them. Tagging these articles (and therefore dropping them straight into CAT:ORPHAN for easy processing) would make our job a lot smoother.--Aervanath's signature is boring 02:51, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
I'll also get my bot to work on it, to help out there. Soxred 93 02:57, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
That would be great, Soxred!--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 14:09, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
I have just downloaded a database dump so If this gets approved I can use that. ·Ãḍď§ђɸŗЄ· Talk 15:13, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
What do you mean by 'patrol logs', using what logic, and how? What qualifies an article for WP:O tagging? What template will you tag it with? If it's tagged on the talkpage, are you prepared to deal with shells? SQLQuery me! 07:09, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
For what qualifies as an orphan, please see the orphan criteria on the WikiProject Orphanage page. The bots should be following that criteria already, anyway, when running through Special:Lonelypages (an already-approved task).--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 07:13, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes the bot will be running using the same tagging system as it does when tagging lonelypages. All that is changing is where the bot is getting the list of articles from.·Add§hore· Talk/Cont 13:01, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
I will get a list from Special:Log/patrol and then run it through the tagging process which I am planning on making it to skip articles which have been tagged for deletion. It would tag with (for example {{orphan|date=June 2008}} for this month) This tag would be at the top of the article and not on the talk page. The pages will be tagged if the have no links to them from other pages. I hope this is everything you wanted to know. ·Ãḍď§ђɸŗЄ· Talk 11:19, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
I am also planning (as it says above) to tag these for the other mantainence tags, fix the mantainence tags dates if they dont include any already. Also other General fixes that AWB will automaticly do. ·Ãḍď§ђɸŗЄ· Talk 11:21, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
{{BAGAssistanceNeeded}} ·Add§hore· Talk/Cont 18:55, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Too ambitious at this stage. No general fixes, no other maintenance tagging. Those things are thrown in by AWB with the intention of human review, not of a bit saving automatically. You can have this trialled and approved for adding {{orphan}} only, as far as I'm concerned. giggy (:O) 08:10, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
The problem with that is with the simple auto tagging in AWB you cant just pick which tags to add. It has to do the whole lot. (uncat, orphan e.t.c) I have done this process before with my user account and I have never had to skip a page as it ignores disambigs e.t.c ·Add§hore· Talk/Cont 19:06, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Eh? You mean all you're doing is running a bot on every new page and having AWB check if it's an orphan, in the context of all its auto fixes? From me, that's a resounding no. giggy (:O) 09:11, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Not using its autofixes, only tagging. If you still don't like I will probably withdraw. ·Add§hore· Talk/Cont 16:31, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Could it just be done for the orphan tag, as you suggested above? That's what we originally requested this task for in the first place. Maybe it's because I don't know enough about AWB, but I don't quite understand what you're objection is. Could you explain more thoroughly?--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 17:05, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
The automatic tagging option in AWB automatically detects and adds the maintenance tags if they should be. (uncat if the page has no cats and orphan for no links e.t.c) This is just a single option for the whole set of tags and not for each individual tag. ·Add§hore· Talk/Cont

[edit]

[edit] Chris G Bot

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

Operator: Chris

Automatic or Manually Assisted:

Programming Language(s): PHP, Stealing Cobi's Classes

Function Summary: Mass Reverting Vandal Page Moves

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

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

Function Details: Gets all the users page moves from the api and reverts them. See the source for more info

[edit] Discussion

Chances are there will be a page move vandal when I'm not online to run the bot. What would be the best way to allow other users to run the bot, while making sure it won't be missused (I was thinking something like a toolserver page which lets approved users run the bot) --Chris 10:07, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Just had a good suggestion from Cobi. Bot runs every minute or so, checks User:Chris G Bot/Users.js and reverts all the page moves made by users listed on the page. Users will be listed like so:
Foo
Bar
FooBar

--Chris 10:52, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Will it be able to handle complex page moves properly? Say, A -> B, B -> C, D -> A? What would it do in the above case if the redirect at "D" had subsequently been edited? --Carnildo (talk) 20:06, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
If D had been subsequently edited the bot would crash (Bots can only suppress redirects, not merge histories). As for the order of the redirects it will just revert A->D, C->B, B->A (Not sure that's the ideal scenario, but this bot is intended for mass page moves like this, more complex vandalism will have to be dealt with by a human) --Chris 22:40, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Will this be manually activated, or automatically? SQLQuery me! 07:10, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
It will run on a one minute cron job --Chris 10:21, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit]

[edit] User:LemmeyBOT

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

Operator: Lemmey talk

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic

Programming Language(s): Python

Function Summary: Destroy Bastards (Referneces that is...)

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run):Daily / on command

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

Function Details:

SHORT VERSION: This task specifically replaces Bastard References with {{subst:Fact-now}} tags. A Bastard is defined as any named reference like <ref name = Lemmey/> in an article that has never, in its entire history, had a parent tag like <ref name = Lemmey>www.example.com</ref>

LONG VERSION: This task explanation uses the analogy that named references (i.e. <ref name = Larry>) in an article act as a family. The explanation uses crude but clear language to effectively describe the task.

  • Parent Reference <ref name = Larry> reference source or cite tag </ref>
  • Child Reference <ref name = Larry/>
  • Siblings all mentions of <ref name = Larry/> are siblings to each other
  • Orphans any child reference that does not have a parent reference
  • Bastards any child reference that does not have a parent reference in any previous verson of the article
  • Inheritance the copying of content of a dead parent to an orphan reference, the Orphan becomes a Parent to its former siblings

Guidelines of BOT behavior

  • Orphans are bad. They produce produce red line errors in the reflist and can not be seen by readers. They can not be linked to from the reflist. They appear to give a statement a source but it can not be verified by readers. Orphans must be fixed.
  • Bastards are really bad. Though they may not be intenetional they are giving false sense of authority to a statement within a paragraph. They should be replaced with Fact tags that can be filed in (or the entire statement removed) by editors. Bastards must be destroyed.

LemmeyBOT already does a fine job of restoring Orphaned References but many Bastards still exist. A reader will not realize a statement is infact unsourced unless they look at the reflist(which in itself is difficult because the inline links don't work on orphaned or bastard references)


[edit] Test

I've run the BOT on the article Fsix Corporation. A short history article I've nominated for deletion as not notable, it provides a clean real world test for this task. This article had two child references that were orphans. LemmeyBOT searched through the article history and determined the references were actually Bastards. LemmeyBOT replaced the refs with fact tags.

The diffs can be seen here [2][3]


[edit] Discussion

A couple questions:

1. What will the bot do if it finds an orphaned reference?
2. Where will it get the list of pages to run on?

--Mr.Z-man 20:25, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

LemmeyBOT already replaces orphans with their parents information taken from an older version of the article. This is already an approved task. LemmeyBOT processes articles found in the Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting. --Lemmey talk 23:21, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think this can be automated. In your example article, the author did try to give references (diff 16:06, 24 September 2007). Although it's not in wikisyntax, you can clearly tell from that diff exactly what the author intended to go with REF1 and REF2. A human reading the wikitext could figure it out and fix it. Replacing the REF1 and REF2 with {{fact}} makes it much more difficult to fix; it's not an improvement. Gimmetrow 03:53, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you could figure out United States housing market correction then. --Lemmey talk 03:57, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I could. And that's why I don't think you should just replace them with fact tags. Gimmetrow 12:06, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Actually, looking at the revision before the bot's edit to United States housing market correction, it "fixed" the wrong thing. The ref with name "ffiec.gov-hmcrpr" was already defined a few lines above where the bot added it. Mr.Z-man 22:47, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
That was actually due to a fault in the earlier version of the bot where it didn't recognize the difference between "ffiec.gov-hmcrpr" and "ffiec.gov-hmcrpr. The fault has since been fixed. --Lemmey talk 22:53, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I do tend to agree with Gimmetrow though, simply removing them makes it harder for humans to fix them as it removes the context of the reference name. I think it would be better to simply comment them out and/or leave a different inline tag than {{fact}}, something like [broken footnote]. Mr.Z-man 23:06, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree, commenting them out (and adding a comment "can't find reference foo_1 - check for typos") is a much much better idea. There are always typos, homographs, issues with people not quoting names, and so on. I'd also rather see a different tag, appearing as [missing reference] or something. It's much less insulting. Pseudomonas(talk) 13:57, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

The references the bot would replace are listed here: User:Lemmey/L

From this version of United States housing market correction The refs for #18 and 19 are:[1][2] for #38 is:[3] for #49 and 50 are:[4][5] and for #52, 53 and 55 are:[6][7][8] Can your bot do that? Gimmetrow 23:08, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  1. ^ "Alan Greenspan Interview with Jim Lehrer", The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, 18 September 2007. 
  2. ^ "Greenspan alert on US house prices", Financial Times, 17 September 2007. 
  3. ^ Shiller, Robert (2005). Irrational Exuberance (2d ed.). Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-12335-7. 
  4. ^ This article classified several U.S. real-estate regions as "Dead Zones", "Danger Zones", and "Safe Havens."
    Fortune magazine Housing Bubble "Dead Zones"
    "Dead Zones" "Danger Zones" "Safe Havens"
    Boston Chicago Cleveland
    Las Vegas Los Angeles Columbus
    Miami New York Dallas
    Washington D.C. / Northern Virginia San Francisco / Oakland Houston
    Phoenix Seattle Kansas City
    Sacramento Omaha
    San Diego Pittsburgh
    "Welcome to the Dead Zone", Fortune, 4 May 2006. "Welcome to the dead zone: The great housing bubble has finally started to deflate, and the fall will be harder in some markets than others." 
  5. ^ Tully, Shawn. "Getting real about the real estate bubble: Fortune's Shawn Tully dispels four myths about the future of home prices", Fortune, 25 August 2005. 
  6. ^ "Adjustable-rate loans come home to roost: Some squeezed as interest rises, home values sag", The Boston Globe, 11 January 2006. 
  7. ^ "Mass. home foreclosures rise quickly", Boston Herald, 29 August 2006. 
  8. ^ Shiller, Robert. "The Bubble's New Home", Barron's, 20 June 2005. "The home-price bubble feels like the stock-market mania in the fall of 1999, just before the stock bubble burst in early 2000, with all the hype, herd investing and absolute confidence in the inevitability of continuing price appreciation. My blood ran slightly cold at a cocktail party the other night when a recent Yale Medical School graduate told me that she was buying a condo to live in Boston during her year-long internship, so that she could flip it for a profit next year. Tulipmania reigns."  Plot of inflation-adjusted home price appreciation in several U.S. cities, 1990–2005:
    Plot of inflation-adjusted home price appreciation in several U.S. cities, 1990–2005.
    Plot of inflation-adjusted home price appreciation in several U.S. cities, 1990–2005.

Apparently Yes

--Lemmey talk 23:25, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

You realize those refs are not in the page history, right? But they can be found. Gimmetrow 23:28, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Bot is now blocked for doing an unrelated task. There are reasons why edits like this shouldn't be done. Some editors intentionally write articles without using named refs, and a bot shouldn't be imposing this. Gimmetrow 23:58, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I can see it why may be helpful in some cases as having lots of refs sprinkled about paragraphs can be annoying, but using names like "jrvhew" and "trgnbs" which aren't at all related to the content of the reference isn't very helpful. Mr.Z-man 03:24, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Bot unblocked. If you want to restore the rest of the missing refs from United States housing market correction, you might try pasting the article from United States housing bubble and removing it, then running your ref-restoring script. I suspect that's where almost all the named refs came from. Gimmetrow 21:44, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Cluebot and msisiabot won't like it, but I can deal with being blacklisted for a week. --Lemmey talk 21:48, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
Can you do it in software? Load up the text of the other article and treat that as a history version of the current article. Doesn't need to be actually saved. (Though I wonder, with the overlap between the articles, if something shouldn't be cut out of one or the other.) Gimmetrow 21:56, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
Please note that Lemmey and his bot has been blocked per this AN thread for sockpuppetry. LegoKontribsTalkM 04:43, 1 June 2008 (UTC)


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