User talk:Polbot

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[edit] Flagged

This account has been flagged as a bot [1] =Nichalp «Talk»= 13:15, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ambiguous links

Hello. Do you think you might be able to set up your bot to not add ambiguous links? e.g. a lot of these new Frog and Salamander articles link to Spring, which is a disambiguation page. (You probably meant to link to Spring (hydrosphere).) Thanks! Ewlyahoocom 05:32, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll change this. If you find any more places where Polbot could be improved, please let me know. (I'll see it faster if you leave a note on my talk page.) – Quadell (talk) (random) 12:18, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Working Bot's Barnstar

The Working Wikipedian's Barnstar
I award you this barnstar for tireless work in creating a whole plethora of articles related to squirrels. New pages list was filled with your uploads for a time! :) aJCfreak yAk 13:11, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestions

Please see WT:ARTH for suggestions which should be heeded before making too many more articles. --Stemonitis 17:09, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry — I just had to block. The category issue needs to be sorted out before this bot goes further. --Stemonitis 17:12, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
What's the category issue? Please detail, so we can check if there is a problem with botany articles, also. In addition, maybe for arthropods it is possible (as in endangered makes it important), but I don't think we want the bot classifying importance of plants. KP Botany 17:55, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Ditto W:WikiProject Birds. The IUCN Red List is not a project-nominated authority for bird naming or taxonony. Generating a whole lot of new article stubs off it just makes loads of work for others in tidying up the resulting naming mess.--Gergyl 00:30, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

That's silly. It would be more work to manually create all these articles. – Quadell (talk) (random) 03:03, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
Given a large number of editors most birds on the IUCN Red List would have articles on Wikipedia. For one thing, they are birds that have been sufficiently researched to know their conservation status. The bot is not taking anyone's glory, just putting some useful information about species, the bare essence of information, but useful none-the-less.
You're welcome to your view (and to your "glory"); afraid I don't share it. Again, the IUCN Red List is not a project-nominated nomenclature authority. There are nominated authorities, and they often differ from the Red List. This matters most for birds, where (unlike other biota) most have officially accepted common names. Again I ask, what use are a load of often incorrectly named, absolutely bare-bone stubs? A result for the wikipedia bird community is that we go from knowing exactly where the gaps are (off the various regional and global lists), to not having a clue. Yes, that could readily be fixed, but it's more work again. There are roughly 10000 birds and a a couple of hundred bird lists to mark-up with stub indicators. What benefit, exactly?--Gergyl 07:58, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
Uh, the obvious benefit of less work for you? Wikipedia Birds project, however, doesn't own birds on Wikipedia, anymore than Wikipedia plants owns plants. We have all sorts of people come in all of the time and create articles about plants without consulting us. We have to move them all the time, and I have a sublist of over a hundred that I have to move to scientific names, that I have to check in IPNI, that I have to edit entirely because someone used an incorrect regional name, that I have to add sources to, none of it as fun as creating articles about the species I love. The bot can be programmed to search your lists. But, if you don't want all these birds, and apparently you don't, just ask Quadell not to do it. You bird folks keeping changing the reason why you don't want it, and the original reason was that the bot was stealing all the glory--but the real reason seems to be you just want to do all the bird articles without the bot. I suppose that's fine, but the benefit is that someone can come onto Wikipedia (yes, an end user of the product, not an editor) and find the bird and its taxonomic relationships. That's the benefit. The Wikipedia user can find information. So, you eliminate this information the bot can provide, and when exactly can the bird editors provide this? You keep waffling on your reasons, also, saying that all the problems can readily be fixed--so, let the bot fix the problems, what's the big deal? The benefit is precisely what it is: availability of information to users. KP Botany 00:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Maybe I'm not following you at all. You're saying the issue is that now that they've been created you have to categorize them? Well, if they weren't created you'd have to create them AND categorize them. KP Botany 00:37, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
You're not listening. I'll have one more go, then shut up:
1. I didn't mention "glory"; you did. No interest.
2. The Red List is not an appropriate authority for bird naming or taxonomy. Said twice above, still not acknowledged.
3. Stub articles just don't help bird editors much. We don't see the inappropriate new species accounts that you report for plants. It's a non-problem. So it doesn't need a stub generator bot fix.
4. We know exactly where the species account gaps are because we have accurate lists. Hundreds of them. Most are wiki-linked. If a species account is missing, the link is red. So at the most basic level, there is no need to categorise. The stub generator bot destroys that information by creating bare-boned stubs against most entries. So now we do need to categorise.--Gergyl 05:28, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Promised I'd shut up, but I just ran through the Australian list and noted over 50 Polbot naming errors; at least a dozen of those in the binomials. We only have 700-odd birds altogether!--Gergyl 11:40, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I am listening, and trying to understand, but not all of these conversations have occurred here. Other bird editors have complained about the bot, but basically it was about the articles not being initiated by human editors, which might lead to them not being able to be featured in Did You Know. I didn't start this issue about glory, it was started by bird editors.
If the bird list is not an appropriate authority for bird naming, this is an important issue, but when the bird editors start by initiating complaints about the human editors not getting the glory, it's hard for others to understand, follow, support, and find solutions to this, particularly when none of my concerns about not generating stubs are addressed at all. And the bird editors don't seem to offer up an obvious solution: generate the stubs from the existing lists, so it's hard to see that this is the concern, the lists already exist that are being used, but they're not being offered up for use....
My concern is that the stubs given by polbot do place articles in Wikipedia that give information about the taxonomy (at least enough bare bones information with family that some users can gain additional knowledge about the species).
In addition, no bird editor has bothered to state that birds weren't categorized. I didn't know this either. And I don't see why I should have assumed that bird articles aren't categorized.
I read and translate articles from historical natural history resources. There are birds by the dozens listed in every article. It is almost impossible to find out anything about these birds, but one source where I've found a few is the IUCN Red List, so my thinking is that having articles about these birds could be useful to people using the encyclopedia, a concern no bird editor wants to or is able to address.
If the bird lists exist, with authorities, then polbot can generate the stubs from the lists. I realize this comes from birders using common names, rather than scientific names, but there are easy ways to deal with it that give information to the users of the encyclopedia.
And saying you'll say it and shut up just makes you one more bird editor who isn't making this clear to anybody. KP Botany 19:57, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, some tire of my rants, hence the offer to shut up... I've fixed all the naming issues I can find in the HANZAB region - about 4-5 hours work, so no real big deal. Can't speak for the other 4500 bird stubs. To be fair, I can see that stub making has it uses. What might have been done better? Discuss the stubbing program first at W:WikiProject Birds. It amounts to a huge change. We don't own the articles, but people there did make many of them, and maintain most.
There are some more tasks to do now. We need to work more on regional article categorisation: stub, image present, commons link, quality rating etc. There are categorised lists, just not regional ones... Maybe you could help? The HANZAB list annotated by those four categories would be useful.--Gergyl 09:05, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
I could probably only accurately assess marine birds and pelagic seabirds, so I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be any use--but if you're desperately in need of assessing southern hemisphere pelagic seabirds and penguins, let me know. However, when I first started editing Wikipedia I looked at some of the seabird articles and found they were generally excellent, some of the best of Wikipedia, so I assumes ya'll have that area under control. So let's have polbot do only specific tasks in the area of birds, and it can be programmed to use your lists, I'm sure, but letting the bird folks dictate how to go about it. Actually, I see now you don't categorize by importance, I'll go look at some on the list. KP Botany 19:00, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
Can someone please tell me what the category issue is? Stemonitis? KP Botany 03:58, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
Stemonitis doesn't like having a category for each genus. – Quadell (talk) (random) 04:04, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
Oh. For future reference, the organisms all do it differently, some of it is a function of nomenclatural codes, other parts are a function of using vernacular versus scientific names, etc. Also, the plants are outsiders in a lot of areas because we have some folks heavily into taxonomy. Anyway, the category issue is settled for now for plants, and if and when we change our minds, or when you get down to Fabaceae and Scroph/Lamiaceae let us know. Thanks again for having it doing all the tedious work, and I want to move it on to some editing as soon as I can get all those plant folks onto APG II or Reveal. KP Botany 04:18, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I really like your bot. When will it work again? --70.179.170.133 17:28, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I still need to change some things and finish discussions with the arthropod people before it runs again for arthropods. Then it'll need to run for fishes, plants, and miscellaneous invertebrates. So. . . as soon as I get around to making the necessary changes, and working through the details. Soon. – Quadell (talk) (random) 19:10, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
While the arthropod issue gets resolved, can't Polbot run for the other categories in the meantime? --70.179.170.133 20:06, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, we got most of the glitches for plants removed, except, of course for the taxonomic nightmare that is the Schrophs, and those Fab families, so run all the plants you want, as far as I am concerned. KP Botany 21:07, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Bots Match

Your recent edit to Anisopappus pseudopinnatifidus (diff) was reverted by an automated bot that attempts to recognize and repair vandalism to Wikipedia articles. If the bot reverted a legitimate edit, please accept my humble creator's apologies – if you bring it to the attention of the bot's owner, we may be able to improve its behavior. For future editing tests use the sandbox. Click here for frequently asked questions about the bot and this warning. // MartinBot 13:29, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Uh-oh! Bot fight! :-) (For those following along at home, I was testing Polbot and she blanked a page accidentally. MartinBot reverted before I had a chance to. I fixed Polbot's bug.) – Quadell (talk) (random) 15:44, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
MartinBot is stooopid! :-) He can't even put his comments in a new section. How childish is that? Polbot is so grown up in comparison. I have £5 on Polbot to win in round 5 with a left hook from a plant stub, a right hook from a bird stub, and a devastating uppercut from a fish stub. Hmm. We need a neutral umpire. I'll see if User:Bishzilla is available. Carcharoth 23:30, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm also betting on Polbot for the win, but in round 7 (MartinBot's been on his own for a while), with an uppercut to a plant categorization--$10US. KP Botany 23:47, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Regret, Bishilla care to umpire Mecha all-in wrestling only. Arrange stand-off Voltron — Mazinger Z, Zilla be there! bishzilla ROARR!! 19:27, 4 August 2007 (UTC).

It must not recognise Polbot as an authorised bot. There is something somewhere about telling Martinbot on IRC that the bots edits are ok... Reedy Boy 14:01, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
"I've whitelisted the user and unblocked the bot - anyone can do this in #vandalism-en-wp by issuing the command "computer wl add user"" Reedy Boy 14:02, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Catfish?

Polbot created a number of articles recently of fish but tagged them all as cichlid stubs, when they are not. Please fix this problem. Most should be tagged with fish-stub, and catfishes should be marked catfish-stub. MiltonT 16:18, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Can this be fixed NOW... the bot has autogenerated a large amount of articles on various species in many families (Scorpaeniformes, Gobiidae etc) and is tagging them all as cichlid, which they are definately not. Kare Kare 03:54, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
I would love to fix this problem. Can you link to a non-chichlid article that Polbot tagged with "chichlid-stub", so I can try to figure out the problem? Thanks, – Quadell (talk) (random) 21:20, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Here are a few:European mud-minnow, Typhleotris madgascarensis, Big scale archerfish... Actually, most of the auto generated articles aren't about Cichlids. In fact, so far as i can tell, EVERY single one of over 1000 fish articles generated by Polbot branded the articles as Cichlid stubs, of which only around 50 or so were. I don't suppose you can get the bot to change all of those back to at least a 'fish' stub, otherwise its going to take forever to fix. Kare Kare 03:53, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, Quadell can and will get Polbot to fix the articles, all of them. But, you know, those Cichlids sure do speciate readily.... KP Botany 03:31, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
True, and with such genetic diversity it readily explains how some speciated into Sturgeons and others into Spanish mackerels....Kare Kare 03:53, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

To praise Polbot with faint damns, it must be said that even if these were "correctly" tagged with just {{fish-stub}}, that'd now be in urgent need of re-sorting on size grounds. So we'd be in much the same place, and the majority of these articles would have to be re-edited to sort them into new stub types. (Hence my request(s) that the bot-op let the stub-sorting project know what he's up to, as opposed to coming across suddenly-huge stub categories some time after the fact.) Alai 06:19, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I found the problem. Gah! Polbot thought all fish were cichlids. (For those who know perl, I was checking if $family == "Cichlidae", when I should have been checking if $family eq "Cichlidae". Newbie mistake.) I'm going to get Polbot to fix those. Thanks for the faint damnation! :-) – Quadell (talk) (random) 13:05, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
"Fixing" them to fish-stub? As I say, that's largely redundant work, they'll just have to be re-re-tagged. Alai 13:38, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm using the most specific stub-type available, as listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Fish. If they're catfish, I use {{catfish-stub}}. If they have some other more specific stub-type, I use it. If there's nothing more specific type than "fish" listed, then that's what I use. – Quadell (talk) (random) 15:08, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
I can see what you are doing, I just don't follow why. Stub types aren't a fixed resource to be used as-is regardless, far beyond the point their possible utility has been obviated by a mind-boggling weight of numbers. The whole thrust is to adapt them to evolving circumstances. I suggested a range of options for at least minimal co-operation with the stub-sorting effort, and IIRC your response was "good idea". (I'd go find the diff if your talk-page practices didn't make that quite so difficult.) But that was many thousands of stub creations ago, and not a peep. Alai 03:01, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
The bot can fix articles it created, when necessary, but neither the bot nor Quadell are taxonomists, so you simply have to explicitly tell Quadell what needs fixed and how to fix it. I don't know what stub sorting is, but if it requires categorizing the articles, the bot can do this according to specified criteria. KP Botany 03:59, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
This isn't a taxonomic issue, or even a bot functionality issue at all. It's just a matter of whether Quadell is inclined to do anything to facilitate (or in the best case, obviate the need for) the large amount of after-the-fact re-sorting that's made necessary by his current mode of running the bot. Initial thinking seemed to be "yes"; current practice, and general lack of communication on the topic, seems to imply "no". Alai 23:55, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for fixing the problem. MiltonT 14:28, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks from these quarters as well. Cheers Kare Kare 12:24, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Butterflies and moths

I have come across a number of articles such as Omiodes which Polbot has stated are butterflies, and marked with {{butterfly-stub}} [2], but which are evidently moths (often the article titles include the word "Moth"). Is there any chance of Polbot fixing some of these mistakes? --Stemonitis 13:41, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this is a strange problem. There's no {{lepidoptera-stub}}, but only separate ones for "butterfly" and "moth", and there is apparently no simple way to tell what's a butterfly and what's a moth just based on taxonomy. I'll talk with the Wikipedia:WikiProject Lepidoptera folks about this. Thanks, – Quadell (talk) (random) 21:22, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
See the list of families in the taxobox at butterfly. All other families are moths. --Stemonitis 21:28, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Aha! I thought it was a non-standard taxonomy thing, like the difference between terns and gulls. Okay, I can make that change now. – Quadell (talk) (random) 21:43, 5 August 2007 (UTC)


Also on the butterfly and moth pages, could some more butterfly and moth pages be created from the information at http://www.discoverlife.org ? For example, I was looking for the species Perichares philetes, and wikipedia doesn't even have a page on the genus. Could you modify the bot to generate pages from here http://www.discoverlife.org/mp/20q?search=Perichares+philetes? Their database seems to be fairly simple.Hectorguinness (talk) 13:38, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Plants under common names

The taxa listings show quite a few plants under common names. The clue for Polbot is that the name is either a single word, or the second word of the name begins with a capital letter, as binomials' specific epithets never begin with a capital letter. Can you get Polbot to run through the taxa listings and move at least the second sort (two or more words, and second or third word begins with a capital letter) to their scientific names? Thanks. I don't think any of the one word names are genera, are they? Should I check? KP Botany 19:11, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Polbot does create single-word genus articles. But I think I can go back and fix those, if you haven't already. All the plant species Polbot created are listed at User:Polbot/taxa listing/SpeciesPlants1 and User:Polbot/taxa listing/SpeciesPlants2, and there shouldn't be any genera on those pages. Thanks, – Quadell (talk) (random) 21:25, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, those are the lists I was looking at, there are some single word names on the lists, the ones I looked at were all common names, so yes, please just fix them, I have no love of moving articles, but if you can post the ones you fix, I will reword them, or if polbot can, please do have it done. They should read something like Fancysmanchy genus, known commonly as What The Article Used to Be Called, blah blah blah. Your English is a bit better than mine, and your attention to detail, and I don't recall how the others start, but would be easier if the bot did it. Thanks. KP Botany 21:38, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Right. Here is a list of just the ones that appear to be common names. User:Polbot/taxa listing/ProblemPlants Some of them have probably already been moved. I'll look through them. – Quadell (talk) (random) 21:41, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, I moved some, but it is tedious. The Cock'S whatever that is red-listed has been moved to its scientific name. KP Botany 21:45, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
I've finished these. – Quadell (talk) (random) 13:00, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] An unusual sort of amphibian...

Looks like the species name "caudata" is here being mixed up with the amphibian order of that same name, for purposes of the canned text and the stub tag [3]. If you use the taxobox information in a "top down" manner, that should be easy to avoid. It looks like there's a number of similar such mistakes, in the amphibians alone. Alai 04:15, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

This may be a good idea, I had not thought of that as the issue, but yes, top down in the taxobox should clear it up. KP Botany 04:34, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Oh dear. I didn't know that could happen. The IUCN Redlist search page provides a way for me to search for animals with "Caudata" anywhere in their taxonomy (returning this), but no way to search only for ones where the order is "Caudata". I guess Polbot will have to check each entry individually when she starts to create the articles. – Quadell (talk) (random) 13:14, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Found seven so far, all with species name "caudata", variously actually passerine birds and rosid plants. This could happen with any number of other taxons, though I imagine you're not going to be generating text from most of them. Since you're building up that information anyway, surely it should be relatively straightforward to correlate before doing so. Alai 13:45, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I think so. – Quadell (talk) (random) 15:10, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Oh, yes, the ins and outs of names. Also, a plant and an animal can have the same name, and "caudata/caudatus" is a hugely popular specific epithet among plants. IPNI returns 800 for caudata as a specific epithet--and most common Latin adjectives will be the same, even if you're thinking, well, plants don't have tails.... KP Botany 17:18, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Bot

Wow I'm amazed at the difficulty you've been facing!!!! I think the Bot is ingenius and if utilized correctly is of enormous benefit to the encyclopedia as it sets a foundation for other editors to try to expand. I really really!!! appreciate any work you do in this area and strongly support you in continuing your work. I just want you to remember that when you have an criticism from users who clearly are so far gone they can't recognize the benefit of your work that I think you are doing a superb job and to never give up. I know there are many other editors who are extremely appreciative of your work. All the best and keep the articles coming! ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ "Expecting you?" Contribs 14:46, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Polbot is blushing! You, sir, have made my day. – Quadell (talk) (random) 15:09, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
But, please, let's not call Wikipedia editors "so far gone they can't recognize the benefit of the work." People need it to work in a way that is usuable, and taxonomies are complex and dynamic. Quadell has done a great job listening to folks and working the bot to get as much as possible without resorting to insulting anyone. Taxon articles on Wikipedia are a lot of work, with few editors actually doing them, but a lot of folks criticizing and second guessing those who are doing the work. It's not necessary to criticize people who are frustrated when things don't appear to be working in a beneficial manner--and it's much better for Wikipedia to just try to find solutions, rather than criticism. Also, Polbot and Quadell can be complimented, as can anyone, without criticizing another. KP Botany 17:22, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

OK KP I know it is very important as articles on species involve complex categories and we need to get it right. I didn't mean to offend you - its just it seemed all comments directed at the bot were negative. I'm glad you also appreciate its potential. I admire the Bot for being able to take a lot of criticism and stick in there and correct any mistakes to get it right -shows a strength of character. All the best and ell done to everyone involved including you KP ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ "Expecting you?" Contribs 20:40, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I just don't want people being negative about the human editors who are frustrated when something new arises--it's easier, and it's better, imo, to just find ways to work it all out, which we are doing, and successfully. I greatly appreciate everyone who has had a complaint but is sticking it out to find ways to make this work well for Wikipedia, that's all. KP Botany 21:34, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stray name punctuation

Polbot is generally looking good... however, one cleanup issue: I just fixed up Snake skin hunter slug which was created with a period at the end of the title. Might want to adjust the bot to filter out excess end periods and possibly other punctuation in the names. Dl2000 02:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

That's weird! Yes, that's a typo at the source document at the IUCN. It probably won't reoccur, but I'll try to adjust for it. All the best, – Quadell (talk) (random) 10:40, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Problems not solved

I notice that despite my having flagged the issues up, Polbot is continuing to make some of the mistakes I had previously blocked it for. Pink velvet worm, for instance, is missing some of the italics formatting that should be there and has links to redirects in the taxobox, but more importantly, the authority for the scientific name is given as George Newbold Lawrence. The IUCN page which is all Polbot used as a source does not indicate which Lawrence described the taxon, except that the reference list includes a 1947 paper by R. F. Lawrence, whoever that might be. How on earth did Polbot decide that George Newbold Lawrence was right? Why would an American ornithologist be describing African invertebrates fifty years after his own death? I could understand Polbot's not wanting to decide which Lawrence was meant, but to just assume one is unforgivable. This problem needs to be fixed now, and Polbot should probably retrospectively remove any authorities it has assumed, because they clearly cannot be relied upon. --Stemonitis 14:03, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Greetings. Polbot gets its abbreviation descriptions from List of zoologists by author abbreviation. If an abbreviation is wrong there, then Polbot can't know that. GIGO. – Quadell (talk) (random) 14:21, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
But it was entirely to be predicted that that would be garbage. Why not adopt a policy of "garbage in; nothing out" — don't make predictions of authorities where the information is not verifiable. List it as "Lawrence, 1947", for instance, and leave it at that. Or at the very least perform some simple fact-checking; birth and death categories are almost always present. If Polbot can't do that, then it should never be adding links to authorities. Could Polbot please unlink any authorities that have not been checked manually? I think it's only fair to expect it to clear up its own mess. --Stemonitis 14:36, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
She used to not link authorities at all, but to just list as "Lawrence, 1947". Several users requested that she start linking them when there's a match at List of zoologists by author abbreviation. If more people think it's better not to link, then I'll stop linking, but currently the majority seems to think that it's better to have useful links that are right 99% of the time, than have no links at all. – Quadell (talk) (random) 14:48, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
On a more personal note, you might be more successful when asking a person to make a voluntary change if your rhetoric was less oppositional. Calling minor errors "unforgivable" and a "mess" isn't likely to win you any allies. – Quadell (talk) (random) 14:51, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
It's only because it's a point I'd raised before, and which I thought had been dealt with. I assumed when I agreed to unblock Polbot that the really bad mistakes would have been fixed, and not just for arthropods. What we are discussing here is the knowing introduction of false information into Wikipedia. I had previously warned you that Polbot was occasionally linking to improper authorities, which you may well not have realised until then. However, to continue adding the links when you knew that there was a good chance that they would be wrong is really quite bad. I've seen accounts blocked for less. A matter like this does not need to be put to the vote. If there's a reasonable chance that the information is false, then it should not be added. Can you doubt that this is a problem? Do you doubt that it's a mess? I'm not trying to be objectionable, but there is a potentially large quantity of unnecessarily unreliable material on Wikipedia as a result of Polbot's activities. The solution is a relatively simple one, and one which I suggested before in an effort to improve Polbot's performance. I understand your frustration when problems are brought to light which necessitate more coding on your part, but the state of the encyclopaedia must come first. --Stemonitis 16:14, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Many people would disagree with you. If a bot task adds useful information which is correct more than 99% of the time, many users feel the info should be added. I'm certainly willing to take out the information if there's consensus to do so, but I don't see evidence of that. I'll request further input below. – Quadell (talk) (random) 17:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
I hadn't thought of this list until I actually looked at it. I at first assumed it was similar to the list of botanists by author abbreviations until it occurred to me, some time last week, that author abbreviations are not standardized in zoology. This list is just an ad hoc list of authors with abbreviated given names found in zoological literature by various Wikipedia editors who maintain this particular list. It has nothing to do with zoological authorties for the purposes of identifying these same and attaching them to taxa, because there are no standardized abbreviations for zoological authorities. This is something only done in botany, so please do not use this list for zoological authorities, as it is not authoritive for this purpose. And, because it is not authoritive, the information added must be taken out. If the zoologists want to make a case for it being authoritive, they've been given the opportunity with my edits to the list, but have declined to do so, and there is no authority in the zoological code for nomenclature. KP Botany 17:28, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
That's useful information, thank you. – Quadell (talk) (random) 17:33, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for opinions

Polbot includes the abbreviations for biologists names from IUCN data. Currently, the bot links to the biologist's articles based on data at List of zoologists by author abbreviation and List of botanists by author abbreviation. It is estimated that these links point to the correct person over 99% of the time, but there are some cases where the wrong person is linked. Should these abbreviations remain linked, or should these links be removed? (This is not a vote, but merely an attempt to gage the various opinions on the matter.)
  • I personally think the links add useful information and are reasonably reliable. Fixing the occasional errors manually is much less work than adding links manually, and any manual linking process is bound to create occasional inadvertent errors as well. – Quadell (talk) (random) 17:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • See my note above. The fact is there is authority in the codes for abbreviating botanical authorities, and these abbreviations are taken from articles, and from a compilation. The list of zoologists by author abbreviation has no standing in the nomenclatural code, and is NOT what it states it is, but rather an ad hoc list of zoologists, whose given names have been abbreviated somewhere in the literature. There is an authority for the botanical authorities being abbreviated, multiple authorities, and nomenclatural basis for the abbreviations, and no authority or nomenclatural basis for the latter. These are not equivalents, and should not be treated as such. KP Botany 17:46, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Linking the names of botanists is a very good idea. --EncycloPetey 18:59, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I'll be working on plants next. So far as I can tell, no one objects to me linking to botanists, so I'll do that. – Quadell (talk) (random) 16:58, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree with Stemonitis that Polbot must avoid linking the wrong zoological authorities at all costs. This is precisely the sort of information that doesn't get checked very often, and will end up misleading people. Carcharoth 01:10, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Monotypic taxon redirects

Polbot has created a couple of redirects for genera to species for monotypic genera. The problem is that these genera, such as Clariallabes and Dinotopterus, are not actually monotypic. Horaglanis is also edited this way, but not only is this genus not monotypic, but the redirect isn't even to a species under this genus. Please address this problem. MiltonT 20:44, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah yes, this problem came up with plants. The list of birds at IUCN is "complete", as is the list of amphibians, and some groups of mammals (rodents and bats). For these groups, it made sense to change genera pages with only one species to be redirects. Unfortunately, I didn't take that "feature" out when I ran it for fish and plants. I undid the monotype signifiers for plants -- I'll do it for fish now. (Don't worry, arthropods and molluscs, I never ran that for you guys.) – Quadell (talk) (random) 21:56, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Special:Newpages

The bot floods Special:Newpages. Is there a way to address this? Regards, Navou banter 00:45, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

You can click the "ignore bots" link. – Quadell (talk) (random) 01:28, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
&hideBots=1 does not work on the newpages link. Navou banter 01:40, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, it's causing very bad flooding of Special:Newpages. I'd appreciate some sort of fix to this, because it's making new page patrol very difficult. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 18:22, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to third this request. JPG-GR 04:18, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm surprised that newpages won't let people ignore bot creations. I wish there were a fix for this. – Quadell (talk) (random) 13:50, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
I think there is. See bugzilla:1401. Carcharoth 14:04, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Further comments

A couple of things I've noticed looking at the latest set of Polbot creations: the articles on genera still have the "Taxobox | name=" field not in italics. This has been fixed for the species, and I assume it wouldn't be too hard to fix for genera as well. There is a slight inconsistency between the IUCN's taxonomy and the one used elsewhere on Wikipedia. We treat Crustacea as a subphylum on all other articles, but since this is taken from the IUCN pages directly, I guess it wouldn't be particularly easy to fix. I probably should have noticed it before. A bigger problem is the group of articles on Doratogonus; they all say "…is a species of crustacean", and the problem is that they're not. They're millipedes. I've checked the IUCN source and it clearly says "Diplopoda", so I don't know where Polbot got "crustacean" from. You'll be glad to know that I haven't come across any other errors of that magnitude. --Stemonitis 09:35, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

  • Argh! I forgot to italicize the genus name. I knew I'd forget something. Fixed.
  • I could move "Crustacea" to be a subphylum, but I wouldn't know which of the six-or-so classes (that the IUCN thinks are subclasses, I guess?) to use, since the IUCN just lists "Crustacea" and then the order. Oh, wait, I guess I could make a list of all orders each class has listed at Wikipedia, and do a search-and-replace. So if the article is in Cyclopoida, I would change the class to Maxillopoda. I'll look into that.
  • The Doratogonus problem was a weird bug. IUCN didn't format the pages on these species the same way it did for everything else, for some unknown reason. If you run into another problem like that, and you don't feel like switching the links and names manually, feel free to leave me a note and I'll have the bot do it. – Quadell (talk) (random) 12:38, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Another difficult problem: some generic names appear under both the ICBN and the ICZN — i.e. there are both plants and animals with the same name. This could cause problems. Polbot has no way of knowing that Category:Deckenia could apply equally to palm trees such as Deckenia nobilis and African mangrove crabs such as Deckenia mitis. I suppose it's also possible that a taxonomic category could have the same name as a non-taxonomic entity. I could imagine a genus States which would conflict with Category:States, for instance. Again, this is a problem to which I can't see a good solution, but it's something to bear in mind. --Stemonitis 09:54, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Yeah, it's a problem, although relatively minor. I've run into it where a genus is the same name as a constellation or Greek city or something. I wonder if the ICZN would allow the discoverer of a new crab species to name it "Deckenia nobilis"? I wish taxonomic names were all unique.

Thanks for letting me know about these bugs. (Ooh, that could be seen as a bad pun.) – Quadell (talk) (random) 12:38, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Maine US Reps

Quaddell: A number of Maine US Reps have not been entered. Is it possible to run polbot to finish them off????? Pmeleski 01:11, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any Maine reps listed here. If you'll list them on that page, I'll create the articles. – Quadell (talk) (random) 17:08, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_August_11#Category:Cannomys

Anyone following Polbot and its issues is may be interested. I am a big fan of automation and think that having Polbot adding all these stubs will, in the long run, be a very good thing. However, in the short term, it's raising a few issues. That's not its fault, all of these issues will have to be addressed sooner or later. -- Prove It (talk) 01:56, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] species lists

hi,

i just stumbled over your bot, and though i had no time to check what it really does, it looks like a nice thing. after all, working on arachnid taxonomy, i see the repetitious tasks all the time and was thinking of doing a bot myself for quite some time. i have one minor suggestion at the moment. the page Banksula had a "list" of species with only one member. maybe you could add a hint that this list is incomplete? lists like these are disturbing me a lot, because they suggest that there are only the listed species, when in reality there are sometimes for example 200, and not only the four listed. oh, and also adding two empty lines before a stub-tag helps in separating it from the rest of the text, makes it look a lot better imo. and, if you create nice lists like Doratogonus, would it be hard to add the describers after the names, and possibly (where available) even the distribution? i have found these infos very helpful in getting a feeling for a genus. thanks a lot for your work, i'll check it out in more detail soon :) --Sarefo 00:09, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

i just saw that iucnredlist.org has common names in its database. maybe these could be included in the taxobox (under "name")? i did this by hand for Doratogonus. and certain category tags ended up in the middle of text. is there an easy way to put them at the end of the article? --Sarefo 17:01, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback. A couple replies.
  1. Unfortunately, I don't have a way of knowing whether a genus list is complete or not. It could be monotypic, or the IUCN could only list one out of 50 extant species. I don't want to put false info, so I just leave it the way it is. (If I said there were others, I might be incorrect.)
  2. I can definitely add 2 blank lines before the stub notice. I'll do that.
  3. I could add the describer after the name, but adding the distribution would be harder. (In some cases, there are 50 countries listed, and I'm sure you wouldn't want to see them all.)
  4. The IUCN lists common names, but User:Stemonitis thinks these are unreliable. He'd asked that I leave out common names for arthropods. (I have made these as redirects, however.)
Thanks again for your compliments and reports. – Quadell (talk) (random) 17:24, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
then better say something like "this list is possibly incomplete". it's really bad for me if a list says there are two species, when there are two hundred, gives a completely false picture of biodiversity. ok, then add just the describer, but only if the parentheses are right, not sure that IUCN handles this correctly. on the problem of monotypic genera, you could for example consult wikispecies. it has its own problems, but i think in this respect it could give good hints. this, and also genus authorities, which seem to be missing in IUCN. btw, please please let me know before you start arachnids, so we can work out how to do it before there are thousands of pages that need to be fixed. i know the inner urge, i created 550 salticid genus stubs last year, but sometimes spending more time at the beginning can save huge amounts of work later on. and i would recommend to tackle one kind of animal at a time, and to work out the bugs there (no pun intended), then move on with gained knowledge. yes, it will take longer, but the result will be much better. for example, if you take the time now to check for each group if there are already taxonomic databases, if they are reliable, and so on, and combine the data, you can create much better pages from the start, as fixing them later is a major hassle, be it automatically or by hand. thanks again, and as i said i'll check everything in more detail if i have the time :) --Sarefo 20:06, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I've already done the arachnids. All I have left to do is plants. I'll add "this list may be incomplete" to the genus articles, and I'll add the describers there as well. (IUCN does indeed omit genus authority info, but it does use parentheses correctly in species authority.) Thanks for the feedback, and I'm quite willing to go back and change things. – Quadell (talk) (random) 13:21, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
argh, i just stumbled over the first spider page the bot created (actually the last), and it's completely wrong: Red-kneed_tarantula is actually Brachypelma smithi. here's what's wrong: it is called B. smithi since 1903, and has only briefly been in the genus Euathlus, from 1993 to 1995. Euathlus is not at all monotypic, there are four species (and a subspecies) currently recognized.[4]
and, the describer of the species is not Raven, but (F. O. P-Cambridge., 1897). i don't know what went wrong at IUCN that they provide such strange data, but i hope the other data they have on spiders are better. for now, i rectified this error and will later check more (in a week or so). update: i checked the other spider pages, they were mostly ok. not many spiders in IUCN! cheers :) --Sarefo 22:42, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Inactivity

Hi, I'm sorry but why did Polbot stop again? I hope to see 2,000,000 before the end of this month. --75.18.15.45 01:53, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

She's taking a break after finishing the animals. I'll start her on the plants some time this week. – Quadell (talk) (random) 17:27, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Lol, but why does she need a break when she's a bot? She doesn't have limited endurance and doesn't need to stop, rest, and drink between laps. What's the point of letting a bot rest? --70.179.175.240 19:24, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
I actually need to change a lot of the code so she'll work correctly with plants. – Quadell (talk) (random) 19:41, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
You said sometime this week, so I guess by Saturday evening, I suppose. --70.179.175.240 10:35, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
THANK YOU for starting her up again! =) --70.179.175.240 00:57, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fish Categories

Hi there. Thanks a lot for creating numerous fish articles. I can't say how much I appreciated it. Without your bot, many of these species would never have their own articles in the forseeable future. However, there are some issues related to fish categories I found. Not sure if you noticed, but fish species are categorized mostly at the family level (or subfamily in specific cases), not genera. For example, Pyxichromis orthostoma would be in Category:Cichlidae not Category:Pyxichromis. Is there any chance you could recategorize fish species articles created by your bot into family-lrvel categories, and then delete the genera categories the bot created? Thanks, --Melanochromis 03:33, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I can certainly do that. However, this could lead to some very large categories in some cases. WikiProject Mammals asked me to do it by genus, for instance. Why don't you ask at Wikipedia:WikiProject Fishes? If there's consensus there, I'll certainly change the articles Polbot has made. All the best, – Quadell (talk) (random) 17:42, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
mammals and birds use the genus, but for example invertebrates don't. i guess the thing is that the bird pages will be interesting for every species, so people do all the pages, whereas nobody will be interested in most Corophium species. in fact, i just now saw that stemonitis merged the pages i created last year into the genus page. but, because you are creating this immense number of new stubs, this situation will change dramatically. so i would suggest to create genus categories wherever you create a number of species pages, otherwise it will become unwieldy. i guess we will just have to adjust to the new situation. i remember that i was in part really hassled last year when i created the salticid genera, looks like the time has changed, and automation is now more accepted, i'll see what i can contribute. there's certainly a huge amount of work that could be automated. one problem i had is copyright - to what degree is it legal to systematically integrate data from databases into wikipedia? --Sarefo 20:59, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Data can't be copyrighted. Only "creative content" can be copyrighted. (See Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service.) So if you copy an exact sentence, that could be an infringement; or if you copy the "look and feel" of a page, that might be an infringement; or if you copy the general organization and paragraph-level outline of an article, even that might be an infringement in some cases. But copying raw data is never an infringement. My bot is careful to strip out the raw data from the underlying sources first (e.g. Family="Podargidae", Distribution="Canada; USA; Mexico"), and then form those into sentences and articles. That should avoid all legal problems. I'm pretty knowledgeable about copyright, so feel free to ask me for help in specific cases. – Quadell (talk) (random) 13:17, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Big plant families

Before the bot creates hundreds and thousands of articles, would it be possible to have it be more specific with categories. For example dividing legume species into their subfamily categories will save someone from having to do a lot of category maintenance. Orchids don't have such a simple solution - but adding all the orchids to Category:Orchid species is going to make a bit of a mess. The same is probably true for a lot of large families that haven't had much work done on categorization since there weren't a lot of species articles. Otherwise, I think the bot is doing a really great job. --Peta 02:51, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

  • One other thing - since all the plant articles the bot is making are at the binomial name, the name field in the taxobox should probably be italicized. --Peta 02:54, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
    • This is somewhat related to my earlier point about the creation of stub types. In the worst case, though, they can be bot-recatted after the fact readily enough, once a suitable category structure has been created. (My own bot can do this, and presumably so can Polbot.) It does seem like a lot of unnecessary double-handling, though. Alai 04:31, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
      What do you mean by "a suitable category structure"? We don't use categories for small families or genera here. Some WP projects do, but the en Wikipedia does not. --EncycloPetey 02:57, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
        • Actually, the Wikiprojects for birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles all agreed that we should have genera-level categories. There was some debate on the fish and arthropod wikiprojects, but they eventually decided that it's okay to categorize these at the genus level as well. (After all, a single family of beetles might have many thousands of species.) – Quadell (talk) (random) 16:55, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
          • That does not apply to plants, however. All of those groups are animals. The plant categories and taxonomy is not the same as animals. Also, All the plant taxoboxes are being created with "phylum", but botanists do not use that rank; we use "divisio". --EncycloPetey 23:34, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

How will this work when some plant and animal generic names are the same? --EncycloPetey 21:05, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AfD nomination of Joseph Bellinger

Joseph Bellinger, an article you created, has been nominated for deletion. We appreciate your contributions. However, an editor does not feel that Joseph Bellinger satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in the nomination space (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and the Wikipedia deletion policy). Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Joseph Bellinger and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Joseph Bellinger during the discussion but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. fuzzy510 05:57, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bryophytes

The classifications, categories, and stub markers for all added bryophyte articles are incorrect and will have to be fixed. --EncycloPetey 02:37, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

If you can give me more details, I can have Polbot fix this automatically. – Quadell (talk) (random) 10:38, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
All bryophyte stubs should be marked with {{bryophyte-stub}}. The categories and divisional names for bryophytes should be as follows:
We don't use finer categories than these for bryophytes, because there are only about 100-110 total bryophyte pages on Wikipedia right now. Additionally, the classes, subclasses, and orders for some of the entries have been incorrect; the correct placement depends upon the taxon. You can see the lists of classes on the divisional pages listed above. --EncycloPetey 15:15, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
As soon as Polbot finishes making the plant articles, I'll have her change these articles about bryophytes. – Quadell (talk) (random) 16:53, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I've already begun some of the changes. I need to update the classifications anyway, since it looks as if the classes and orders of most entries are not aligned with the 2000 moss classification by Buck & Goffinet (which is what both Wikispecies and the English Wikipedia are using). --EncycloPetey 21:04, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The EMC² Barnstar

The E=mc² Barnstar
I'm awarding this bot this barnstar for your particularly fine contributions regarding mathematics or science-related topics! Great work! Wikidudeman (talk) 15:20, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] August 2007

Please do not add unsourced or original content. Doing so violates Wikipedia's verifiability policy. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you. Please stop making articles without sources. Thedjatclubrock :) (T/C) 23:58, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "manually find species names"?

Whatever happened to said aspect of task #6? If you're now (as appears to be the case) importing every species in the IUCN db that's not already in WP, isn't this going considerably beyond the approved scope? And come to that, what sort of numbers did you have in mind by "in small batches"? Alai 03:13, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand your first question. Could you rephrase for me? As to your second question, no, the approved scope is to import every species that the IUCN lists that's not already in WP. What did you think the approved scope was? – Quadell (talk) (random) 13:02, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I quote from the BRFA. "Function Details: I will manually find species names that do not have articles, and I will list them here." The list hasn't changed in six weeks, so evidently you're no longer doing that, and thus it seems you're doing something more automated than you asked for approval for. "Edit period(s) [...] In small batches." You most certainly don't appear to be doing that, unless we have very different notions of a "small batch". Given the frankly cursory nature of the bot approval, and the apparent lack of any prior consensus for doing this at all (at, say, the relevant Wikiprojects -- where instead the discussion seems to have been of the nature of "there's now this huge number of articles notionally in the project's scope, how to deal with them after the fact" -- I would personally be inclined to construe this approval narrowly, and not ever-more-loosely. Indeed, given the rather massive rate of outright errors, the problems with out-of-date taxonomy, and the massive cleanup cascade you're causing for stub-sorters (or at the least, for me -- I freely confess to possible bias borne of sheer frustration on that score) and are making no efforts to in any way mitigate, I'm finding myself wondering less, "how best to communicate with Quadell to get resolution of these issues" -- which has been like pulling teeth, really -- and more, "where best to complain to get the whole thing shut down until those are sorted". Alai 18:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
What sort of "outright errors" are you referring to? Just let me know and, if it's actually a problem, I'll fix it. Several users have done this, and it hasn't been a problem for them. (Polbot stub-sorts already, as I'm sure you know.) I'm sorry you're having difficulty communicating with me, though. – Quadell (talk) (random) 19:41, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Plant italics

Polbot isn't italicizing the name field on genus taxoboxes for plants. It doesn't seem to be adding a genus authority on the genus pages either (I don't know if it can, but it'd be nice). --Peta 05:06, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I'll fix the italicized genus name, thanks. Unfortunately IUCN doesn't list the genus authority. (It would be nice.) – Quadell (talk) (random) 13:21, 22 August 2007 (UTC)


[edit] No content in Category:Mimizuku

Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on Category:Mimizuku, by another Wikipedia user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because Category:Mimizuku has been empty for at least four days, and its only content has been links to parent categories. (CSD C1).

To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait before possibly deleting Category:Mimizuku, please affix the template {{hangon}} to the page, and put a note on its talk page. If the article has already been deleted, see the advice and instructions at WP:WMD. Feel free to contact the bot operator if you have any questions about this or any problems with this bot, bearing in mind that this bot is only informing you of the nomination for speedy deletion; it does not perform any nominations or deletions itself. CSDWarnBot 06:32, 25 August 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Agar Wood

I have changed your redirect of Agar Wood from Aquilaria crassna to Agarwood as that article deals with the resin-suffued wood that is known as agar wood. There is now a hatnote at the top of the Agarwood directing the reader to the Aquilaria article, as Aquilaria crassna is just one of several species that produce agar wood, that seemed appropriate. The major producer of agar wood is Aquilaria malaccensis, synonyms A. agallocha and A. secundaria. I also added a hatnote on the Aquilaria crassna article directing the reader to the Agarwood article, but I am not so sure that it is necessary or advisable. What do you think? --Bejnar 17:29, 25 August 2007 (UTC) (Talk)

It looks fine, and useful to readers, the way you did it, as the wood article is more developed. Maybe because the A. crassna article is so short and the link to the economic uses so obvious, it might be removed, but I think it's better left. KP Botany 18:19, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wow...

Hi, Funnily enough I was just wondering whether it would be possible to create a bot like this the other day. Seems like you've beaten me to it!

I primarily wanted to make sure you were aware of some recent changes to the Taxobox template: firstly, that the name parameter need only be specified when the name required is not the PAGENAME (for example, when italicisation of the binomial name is required). Secondly, that when a kingdom recognised by {{taxobox colour}} is specified, there is no need to provide a colour attribute. I'm actually in the process of writing a bot to fix this!

I also wanted to congratulate you on the contributions of this box - I worked out today that there are almost thirteen million taxoboxes on Wikipedia. I wonder how many of them are yours?

Finally, a request: is there any way that your bot can be set to work on the fossils of the Ediacaran and Cambrian periods?

All the best,

Verisimilus T 20:56, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Speedy deletion of Nanodectes bulbicercus

A tag has been placed on Nanodectes bulbicercus, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia per CSD A1.

Under the criteria for speedy deletion, articles that do not meet basic Wikipedia criteria may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as an appropriate article, and if you can indicate why the subject of this article is appropriate, you may contest the tagging. To do this, add {{hangon}} on the top of the article and leave a note on the article's talk page explaining your position. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would confirm its subject's notability under the guidelines.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion. To do this, add {{hangon}} on the top of the page (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag) and leave a note on the page's talk page explaining your position. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself. Shawnpoo 21:29, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] CfD nomination of Category:Wetmorethraupis

I have nominated Category:Wetmorethraupis (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at the discussion page. Thank you. Rocket000 11:14, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Banjo shark, Thornback skate and Thornback ray

I've just had to sort out the above three articles and redirects. Where did you get the idea that "thornback shark2 is the usual name/ thornback ray is much more widely used (google them and you'll see). Thornback ray, while also another name for the banjo shark, is also the main name od something else. why didn't you realise this when creating the article? oh, of course, you're a bot and you can't realise anything. I think your creator should reconsider whether having a bot to create articles is useful at all, if it means someone has to clear up after it. Totnesmartin 22:03, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Freshwater Crocodile

The bot created a new article "Australian Freshwater Crocodile", when there was an existing article Freshwater Crocodile describing the same animal. I've merged the details and redirected "Australian Freshwater Crocodile", as "Freshwater Crocodile" had more details, interlanguage links, long edit history. There were some good helpful additions from the bot article. I have the concern about double work on parallel articles, can the bot check for example the Binomial name to see if there's an existing article? Thanks, XLerate 06:04, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Speedy Deletion of Polylepis microphylla

A tag has been placed on Polylepis microphylla, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done for the following reason:

Such a small article

Under the criteria for speedy deletion, articles that do not meet basic Wikipedia criteria may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as an appropriate article, and if you can indicate why the subject of this article is appropriate, you may contest the tagging. To do this, add {{hangon}} on the top of the page and leave a note on the article's talk page explaining your position. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would confirm its subject's notability under the guidelines.

For guidelines on specific types of articles, you may want to check out our criteria for biographies, for web sites, for bands, or for companies. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this. Ludds (talk) 21:01, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AfD nomination of Naitō Tadayuki

Naitō Tadayuki, an article you created, has been nominated for deletion. We appreciate your contributions. However, an editor does not feel that Naitō Tadayuki satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in the nomination space (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and the Wikipedia deletion policy). Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Naitō Tadayuki and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Naitō Tadayuki during the discussion but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Rtphokie (talk) 19:08, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Backlinks

Kudos to your current run adding the required backlinks to image templates lacking them; when you are though, you will have saved thousands of images from deletion and saved countless editors from the thankless task. A barnstar will certainly be in order when you hit Z! Thanks again. — TAnthonyTalk 16:10, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Yee-haw! :-D I'm chugging along, but I still have miles to go before I sleep. It's a good thing I don't sleep! Polbot (talk) 16:16, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
I've alerted the troops to your efforts here, so hopefully you'll get more compliments; how many are you getting through in a day?! You'll take a huge chunk out of that scary number (22,000) of images in need. — TAnthonyTalk 16:32, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Note that Polbot is clever and is also generating User:Quadell/Report on backlinks (articles with only one use rationale but several images used). This will be useful for repeated runs through the category. Carcharoth (talk) 16:37, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
This bot is a Godsend. Thanks from WP:HOCKEY. Merry Christmas :-) Flibirigit (talk) 01:48, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I get on done about every 5-10 seconds, when I'm running. Of course, sometimes I stop intermittently for no good reason. (I'm capricious like that.) Polbot (talk) 17:25, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for doing this. I've done some manually, but it takes a LONG time. — Rlevse • Talk • 11:03, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I just want to add my thanks as well. It's wonderful, seeing all those images I added FURs for pop up on my watchlist with the backlinks added. You're saving me oodles of time and worry. Kudos! --Karen | Talk | contribs 09:56, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Microbug

There's a microbug in Polbot in that it doesn't seem to be un-HTML encoding (at least) ampersands in its edit summaries; see for example this edit. Not too important in the grand scheme of things. Cheers --Pak21 (talk) 08:38, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bug in your bot

[edit] Image:Img_deewar.jpg

There seems to be a problem with your bot when there is more than one fair use rational being used on a single image page. The bot will add the article name multiple times to the first fair use rational but leave the second one that actually is missing the article name alone. see: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image:Img_deewar.jpg&curid=12413463&diff=179037560&oldid=178918449 Dbiel (Talk) 01:17, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah, yes, thanks for pointing that out. – Quadell (talk) (random) 13:17, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image:71Days.JPG

In Image:71Days.JPG your bot add a second fair use rational rather than fixing the existing copy, another user has reverted your entry which is probably the better entry, so that should be manually corrected see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image:71Days.JPG&diff=prev&oldid=179064846 Dbiel (Talk) 01:36, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I've tidied this - agree the bot improved the situation. Addhoc (talk) 04:43, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
In the example you listed, the image previously did not have an image use rationale at all. Polbot added one. Betacommand reverted Polbot's edit as vandalism, and Addhoc basically reinstated it. – Quadell (talk) (random) 13:21, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New outfit?

I see Polbot has a new outfit. Nice. Carcharoth (talk) 21:32, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I've been playing around with some icons I found. See also. – Quadell (talk) (random) 22:05, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AfD nomination of Earl Carter

I have nominated Earl Carter, an article you created, for deletion. I do not feel that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Earl Carter. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time. Redfarmer (talk) 02:20, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Autogenerated Fish stubs

Polbot has created quite a number of fish stubs. For some of these, the information about the habitat is incorrect because the corresponding field in the IUCN Red List is too general. For example, the article about Julidochromis marlieri said that "Its natural habitat is freshwater lakes" (plural!). This is incorrect because it only occurs in a single lake, not in many lakes. I have manually corrected this for the Julidochromis species, but doing this e.g. for Neolamprologus and Lamprologus would take a lot of time. And that's just Lake Tanganyika, Lake Malawi and Victoria probably have a lot of endemic species as well that are affected by this. Maybe the bot could recognize phrases like "Endemic to Lake Tanganyika" in the "Range" field on the IUCN list.

It would also be very helpful if Polbot created interwiki links, particularly to the German and Polish Wikipedia because they already have a lot of fish articles (or give a list of newly created articles to a bot that does this). Other bots could then create reverse links so that the authors of the German/Polish articles would be aware of the new English version. That way pictures could be added to the English articles more quickly. I was not aware of the newly created articles for Julidochromis (they do not show up on my watchlist), so I could not add pictures even though they existed.

Anyway, great bot that saves a lot of time (taxoboxes...)! --Regani.de (talk) 11:37, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Speedy deletion of George Craig

A tag has been placed on George Craig requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A7 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article appears to be about a person or group of people, but it does not indicate how or why the subject is notable: that is, why an article about that subject should be included in an encyclopedia. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, articles that do not indicate the subject's importance or significance may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as notable, as well as our subject-specific notability guideline for biographies.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the article does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that a copy be emailed to you. BpEps - t@lk 10:37, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Plants? Fish? Pah. Bring on the bacteria!

Hi,

Once you've finished sorting out all the plants, animals and other minorities of the biosphere, you may be interested in addressing your reverse discrimination with this data source - the complete list of officially recognised prokaryotic taxa. (-:

Verisimilus T 14:21, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 2008 Red List

Hi Polbot.

Three things:

Firstly, I thought you might be interested in the request at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds#Coming soon, for a bot to handle the 2008 Red List updates.

Secondly, if you do take this on, please be aware that the Taxobox is now somewhat more stringent in its handling of conservation statuses. If you omit a status_system parameter, the article will end up in Category:Taxoboxes needing a status system parameter.

Thirdly, I'm not sure if the 2008 update implies a version number increment to IUCN 3.2, or whether it will still be IUCN 3.1. If it is 3.2, and you want to take this on, then you'll first need to arrange for the taxobox to be upgraded to accept "status_system = IUCN3.2".

Hesperian 03:55, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Name disambiguation, etc.

Hi— I was looking at some of Polbot's old tasks, and I see that she used to add redirects for politicians and some other people. I am working on a bot to find missing disambiguation links, and perform other DAB-related tasks. It looks like Polbot was very conservative, and wouldn't add new entries to existing DAB pages. Is this so, and can you say what the reasoning was there? (BTW, I know this isn't related to the bot's current activities, if you'd rather carry on this conversation on another page, or via email, feel free.) Thanks! —johndburger 18:24, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DYK

Updated DYK query On 1 May 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Tesia, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Gatoclass (talk) 15:11, 1 May 2008 (UTC)