Wikipedia:Bot requests

; Archives
	August 2004 – September 2005; June 2005 – November 2005; August 2004 – January 2006; February 2006 – April 2006; November 2005 – February 2006; February 2006 – April 2006; May 2006 – July 2006; August 2006;

Shortcut

[[:|WP:BOTREQ]]

This is a page for requesting work to be done by a bot. This is an appropriate place to simply put ideas for bots. If you need a piece of software written for a specific article you may get a faster response time at the computer help desk. You might also check Wikipedia:Bots to see if the bot you are looking for already exists. Please add your bot requests to the bottom of this page.

If you are a bot operator and you complete a request, note what you did, and archive it. Requests that are no longer relevant should also be archived in a timely fashion.

This talk page is automatically archived by Werdnabot. Any sections older than 14 days are automatically archived to Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 8. Sections without timestamps are not archived.

Add a new request

Auto-signature bot

I have noticed that perhaps six out of seven anonymous users who leave comments on talk pages do not sign their posts properly. I have usually added the {{unsigned}} message after those posts when I have encountered them. However, this could be a job for a bot: scan the Recent changes list limited to the Talk space, and if a comment is made by an IP-address, check it for a signature and add one if necessary. Of course logged in users also forget the signature sometimes, and those could be checked too, if it doesn't take too much resources. Alternatively only check those users that have not created an user page yet, they are often new to Wikipedia and do not know about signing their posts. Is anyone with the skill/equipment up to this? --ZeroOne (talk | @) 20:49, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do-able but not 100% sure of the demand on resources it would make -- Tawker 20:52, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To help gauge how big the demand would be, what is the number of nsigned comments made, say, per minute (I can easily see this being well over reasonable bot editting limits). Perhaps an extension to mediawiki is more appropriate? M a rtinp23 21:05, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, within the last two hours there were an average of 110 anonymous edit per hour in the talk namespace. Some of these were edits instead of new comments. Also excluding signed comments, I'd say there are some 90 matches / hour, or 1,5 matches / minute. Registered users seem to edit the talk namespace maybe five times a minute (300 times / hour), but if you count only those who have not created an user page (the risk group of new users that may leave unsigned comments), the number is much smaller, about 15 / hour. So all in all, rounding a little upwards, I'd say the bot would have to make ~120 edits / hour or 2 edits / minute. I believe this is about half the amount of edits that the AntiVandalBot makes.

I'm not familiar with the MediaWiki extensions you mentioned. However, I can accept anything that works. :) --ZeroOne (talk | @) 13:56, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I thought of this same idea last night. We could really use a bot signing for anonymous users. Alphachimp 14:15, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A disadvantage of auto-signing edits with a bot is that a potentially nonsensical/vandalistic entry will no longer be the top edit in people's watchlist, and will require more effort reverting or removing. Also, you'll have to know which edits do not require signing (addition of templates, edits to headers or general information about the talk page, archiving, refactoring etc.), which is a rather nontrivial and probably impossible task. I would certainly not want a bot that signs my edits. Kusma (討論) 15:40, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another problem is that many pages need signatures more than talk pages do. On AFDs, signing is usually necessary, but they are not in the talk namespace. On many article talk pages, it doesn't matter at all which anon says what, as most discussions with anons do not involve more than one at the same time, and they will sign manually if necessary for identification. Plus, an AOL anon signing with a nickname is signing in a more useful way than our autosig with his always-changing IP address. Kusma (討論) 15:49, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If the bot gets a bot-flag, it won't even be shown on people's watchlist, so no problem there. The first rule could be that if a new paragraph is created, then add signature, otherwise treat it as an edit. The paragraph should also not start with a {{ and not end with a }}, nor should the signature be added to those paragraphs that already end with one. The bot could also be made to monitor AFD-pages.

The signature has other functions besides identifying the user who left the message. It separates different messages from each other and tells you the date and time the messages were left. --ZeroOne (talk | @) 11:54, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Er, when I have "hide bots" turned on, I don't see the edit before the bot edit on my watchlist, the page disappears from my watchlist completely (and I want to see what the interwiki bots do anyway, so I don't want to hide bots). I can't use the "extended watchlist" because I have too many high-volume pages on my watchlist, and it sucks anyway, as I need an extra click to see whether the top edit summary at WP:AIV does or does not include the word "empty". Kusma (討論) 12:19, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, if that's how it works then it sounds like a bug in the MediaWiki software. --ZeroOne (talk | @) 13:20, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why not just write it into the program (an auto signature)? If it's not an option to not leave a signature then a bot wouldnt be needed in the first place. --MNAdam 23:19, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In case of simple edits or addition of certain templates one will not want to leave a signature. --ZeroOne (talk | @) 12:51, 4 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Red Link Bot

Can someone write for me a bot that removes red links, red templates, and red categories from articles (except Template:Red link)? What it does is it will turn "

" into "this" for red links, and remove red templates and red categories straight from the article. --AAA! ^{(talk • contribs)} 11:45, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

IMO, this is a very bad idea. See Wikipedia:Red link for some reasons why red links are good.

If you remove all red links, then the person who writes a new article has to go around to every page that my conceivably contain a link to that page and make new links. If the red links are left alone and that same article is written then they will automatically turn blue. Red links aren't the devil!! Dismas|^(talk) 11:58, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Red links to plausible article titles are a good thing. It inspires people to create articles and create them under the correct name, and it means that when a good article is created there are likely to be at least a few useful incoming links, so people will be able to find the new article. But people should be careful to only create redlinks to possible articles, same as always. A bot to just remove all redlinks is a bad idea. --W.marsh 15:56, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Touché. --AAA! ^{(talk • contribs)} 04:03, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

small batch of double redirects

Hi. At this page, you can see a list of links pointing at List of Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy episodes. That page, however, is a redirect to List of Ed, Edd n Eddy episodes, without the apostrophes. Could someone please sic a bot on that list and fix all the individual episode pages, which are currently double redirects? Thanks. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:34, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No problem, getting to it. —Mets501 (talk) 19:35, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wait a minute: was there consensus for this move? —Mets501 (talk) 19:38, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It was listed [1] at Wikipedia:Requested moves for five days without anybody objecting. The editor filing the request had commented on each of the three talk pages involved, in this case, here. I followed the link provided, and sure enough, the official site lists the title without the apostrophes. So, I went with it, rather than relisting for another week. It seemed pretty clear-cut to me. -GTBacchus^(talk) 07:09, 28 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Interlanguage Commons image suggestion bot

How about a manually summoned bot that can suggest images for an article based on images from Commons that exist on copies of the page on other language wikis? --InShaneee 02:21, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Like this? --Emijrp 12:02, 4 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

move pages with "Ancient Greece" in title to "ancient Greece"; "Ancient Rome" to "ancient Rome"

There are many pages dealing with subjects in ancient Greece and Rome that erroneously capitalize "ancient". WP guidelines and editorial consensus say that "ancient" should be lowercase. It's easy enough to move individual pages, but fixing the redirects is a pain. Is this the kind of task that a bot can help with? If not, are there other ways to (semi-)automate the process? Thanks. --Akhilleus (talk) 16:32, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Have you looked into WP:AWB? I know this could be helpful--Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 19:01, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not in detail, because I mostly use OS X. But I have some access to a Windows machine, so I'll check it out. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:05, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, you want to be able to capitalize if it's the beginning of a sentence, and possibly some other contexts a bot might not always recognize. Maybe there could be a special symbol, such as inserting any invisible comment between ancient and Rome, which signals the bot not to decapitalize in this case (as well as the bot being smart enough to recogize almost all beginnings of sentences). Just an idea. --Coppertwig 19:32, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Errr...this proposal speaks of moving pages. Article titles must begin with a capital letter, for technical reasons. Hence the link ancient Greece will always point to the article titled Ancient Greece. Robert A.West (Talk) 19:47, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

PDFlink bot

Could someone write a bot that'll convert the old Template:PDFlink format to the new one, while adding file size info possibly, some details one what needs to be done is located at Template talk:PDFlink#PDFbot -Dispenser 08:19, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I can't do the file size, but I'll convert the old style to the new style. —Mets501 (talk) 14:35, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, should be done now. —Mets501 (talk) 21:48, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bot to help with WP:COMIC assessments

Waht I'm after is either guidance on how to write a bot and what I need to run it, or perhaps someone to set up a bot that would run through the various comic stubs categories and tag them as stubs for the 1.0 assessment. I get some webspace with my ISP that includes cgi space I don't know if that's enough to host a bot, but I'd be interested in doing it if someone would hold my hand, otherwise if that's impractical or impossible, I'd appreciate someone taking it on. The categories are Category:Comics stubs and sub-categories and the code that needs to be added or amended on an article talk page is that either {{Comicsproj|class=Stub}} needs to be added or where it exists {{Comicsproj needs to be amended to {{Comicsproj|class=Stub, leaving the close brackets in case other fields are active. Also, I guess a subpage, um, {{FULLPAGENAME}}/Comments needs to be created with a message, um Assessed by comics-bot which automatically tags articles in stub categories as syub class articles. Appreciate thoughts. Steve block Talk 18:23, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

can do the tagging but do you realy need a subpage? I could just put that in the edit summary. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 18:50, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the tagging is the more vital element, so no, the subpage isn't vital. Steve block Talk 20:39, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I was just asking why you want a subpage? Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 20:44, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's the way the 1.0 version ideally want it set up, with comments on such a subpage so they can better contextualise the ratings. So that's why. Steve block Talk 21:02, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I can do Ill set up the pre-run data and get back to you. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 02:44, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See: User:Betacommand/WPCOMIC and remove/add any that you want tagged and leave me a note on my talk page when you are done. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 03:24, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, will do. Steve block Talk 20:02, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't bot-create the subpage: otherwise we'll end up with several hundred thousand sub-pages saying nothing but "automatically assessed as a stub-class article due to being a stub", as well as several hundred thousand article talk pages saying much the same thing. The "auto-assessed" surely says it all; if people want to expand on that when they confirm (or deny) the auto-assessment, they can do so at their leisure. Alai 10:01, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Major Highways

Change all "Major Highways" titles to "Major highways", particularly in counties. --MNAdam 03:41, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You mean page titles or in text? why? is there a consensus/vote(I SAID THE V WORD ZOMG!) somewhere? ST47Talk 11:11, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In the titles, I don’t know about consensus/ there hasn't been a vote, but the template on Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. counties has it listed as "Major highways". It also violates the MOS wording [2] . Back when the template was first made, all titles were capitalized, and the capitalization was removed from the template on December 5th 2004. I just think all county articles should be standardized. --MNAdam 21:38, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Standardizer bot

I'm not sure if this would be a good idea or not but perhaps it would be possible to build a robot to standardize Wikipedia pages (make them of similiar formatting).

Some points would be:

Convert American spellings to English or vice versa.
Capitalize words that should obviously be capitalized; for example, the beginning of a sentence.
Uncapitalize words that should obviously not be capitalized.
Convert accented characters to their normal equivalents (for example, '�' to 'e').

I'd be interested to see other people's points on this. Yuser31415 07:43, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

re 1&4 should be left alone American and Engish are both the same language. And the accents are there for a reason Betacommand ^{(talk * contribs * Bot)} 07:48, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Re 2 & 3, how would the bot know where the beginning of a sentence is or which words are improperly capitalized? For the first, if a sentence were to have an phrase such as "...percent of U.S. citizens...", how would the bot know that the word "citizens" wasn't the beginning of a new sentence? For the second, how would the bot know that the word in question isn't part of a band name or something like that? For instance, Red Hot Chili Peppers is a band and thus those words are capitalized but a bot wouldn't know that it's a band name and would therefore uncapitalize the words. Dismas|^(talk) 08:35, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose you're both right. I was thinking of human interaction though: the bot finds keywords it's not sure about and the human checks them. I suppose this could take too long and would only be useful for individual pages.Yuser31415 19:11, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It might not be exactly what you described, but the Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser has this "Apply general fixes" option that is pretty similar. The program works with human interaction just as you described. --ZeroOne (talk | @) 05:12, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bot on wikispecies

I would like to request a bot that can touch about 80.000 pages on Wikispecies. I am one of the admins on Wikispecies, and we're going through some major changes. We do have one registered bot, but it stopped working, for an unknown reason. Perhaps a 'techy' is able and willing to do some standard changes. In principal it would need to delete '::::' colons out of taxonavigation sections. Perhaps also a check on a certain layout and if it does not fit standard layout add a Category. (or fix the issue if possible). Help would be highly appreciated. --Kempmichel 10:21, 3 November 2006 (UTC) (Wikispecies:User:Kempm)[reply]

Well, I can write a quick thing for WP:AWB to remove colons, that's easy. The layout, you'd need to give me a 'good' example and a 'bad' example, but I can use AWB for that too once I can tell it what to look for. Can I see some sample diffs of both changes? Thanks! ST47Talk 11:28, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, the colon thing is funtional simply by changing :::::::Species: to Species:. ST47Talk 11:48, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Note here it can also be ::::Subspecies, ::::Regnum, :Superregnum, :::Subregnum, or ::Subregnum, and many more :) --Kempmichel 12:13, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ok, how about ^:+([KPCOFGSR]) -> \1 ?(that is, if it works, ill try it out in 5 seconds) ST47Talk 19:08, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, that works. Generating list... ST47Talk 19:11, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That ended up hitting interwikis, now I'm using [^(\w\w)]:+([KPCOFGSR]) ST47Talk 19:30, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And saving it to $1<br />, because otherwise pages with more than one(i just saw one) would get clumped up ST47Talk 19:34, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And using [^(\w\w)]:+([KPCOFGSRIT]) cause some scientist hates me :) ST47Talk 19:39, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And 50 edits made, looks good to me, let me know if I can start it on automatic. ST47Talk 19:49, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You already found out :) --Kempmichel 14:05, 4 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

indeed :) ST47Talk 14:46, 4 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not like, killing your servers am I? ST47Talk 14:46, 4 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have some annoying hiccups sometimes, but that seems quite normal. So far I received 20.000 e-mails from your edits :) Is that how many you did? --Kempmichel 17:58, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

20,000? WHY! That's probably about right. i have 20k pages left to do, then i wait for a database dump and re-scan it ST47Talk 19:03, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A double redirect bot

I've just come back from fixing about 16 double redirects. Could someone write up a bot for me that fixes double redirects (If it's possible)? --AAA! ^{(talk • contribs)} 08:40, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

all ready being run Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 09:47, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Which? --AAA! ^{(talk • contribs)} 00:39, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Many bot do it (including mine). Just download the pywikipedia framework, a double redirect fixer is included (make sure that you get approval at WP:BRFA first though). —Mets501 (talk) 01:31, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:COMIC noticeboard

Is it possible to have a bot written that would patrol subcategories of Category:Comics and where an article has been tagged for deletion it could add that fact to the relevant section of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/Notice Board? Steve block Talk 21:22, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Memory Beta (aka Non-canon Star Trek Wiki)

Is it possible that a bot could be created or used that would be able to patrol all images on the wiki, and either add or replace the category with Category:Memory Beta images, as we have hundreds of images and it would be a mammoth task to do by hand. If so that would be fantastic, address for the wiki is Memory Beta Main Page. --The Doctor 11:32, 08 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I could make a list of all the image names on your wiki, load them into AWB, and if they have a page here, I could add the category. ST47Talk 11:36, 8 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]