Wikipedia:Bot requests

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. There are also quite a few "frequently denied requests", for various reasons, such as a welcoming bot, as it would de-humanize the process, and an anti-vandalism bot, as several already exist. If you want to request a bot to populate a category for a wikiproject, please create a subpage with a full list of categories to be used, as most bot operators who can complete this task will not go into all subcategories, as some members may be irrelevant to your project. Also note that if you are requesting that an operator change or add a function to an existing bot, you should ask on his talkpage, if you have questions about certain bots, they should be directed to the bot owner's talk page to the Bot Owners' Noticeboard, and that if a bot is acting improperly, it should be posted to the owner's talk page, the Administrators' Noticeboard, or AIV, listed in increasing levels of severity, and a link to the discussion may be posted at the Bot Owners' Noticeboard if appropriate. 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.

See also: Current policy on bots and Wikipedia:Bots/Frequently denied bots, to make sure your idea is not listed.

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Archives
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Updating Progress Templates.

We would need a bot that updates progress templates (Like this one) At least once a day, the problem is that these templates almost never get updated, and therefore it is nearly impossible to know how many articles are left. Flubeca (t) 21:11, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Each progress template would have to be done separately, of course. If you specify where this data comes from, it would be easier to create the bot. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 16:20, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, this is a count of articles in a category? (Hey gurus, how do you tell how many articles are in a category anyway?) – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 16:23, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Easiest way I know of is running AWB and getting a list from a category. It spits out the full number, regardless of paginating. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 18:35, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

write up exactly what needs updated and how you need to update it, the category counting is very simple it takes me ~15 seconds to write a bot for that. But how you want it with that template..... Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 19:15, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I have been doing this manually – about once a week – for {{Notability progress}} since April. I recently started also doing it for {{Copyedit progress}}, {{Merge progress}}, and {{Wikification progress}}. I have been doing it the low-tech way ... manually clicking "next 200" for each monthly category. I know it probably sounds awful ;), but each update takes only about 10 minutes. It would be nice to have the process automated.

On a separate note, the structures of the templates are slightly different. For instance, {{Merge progress}} and {{Notability progress}} are essentially identical, but both differ from {{Copyedit progress}}. Then there's a template like {{Wikification progress history}}. Which progress templates should this request cover? If the differing formats of the templates would present a challenge to having the bot automatically update them, I could standardise the format of all except {{Dead external links status}} (not organised by month) and {{Wikification progress history}} (graphic archive). Cheers, Black Falcon ^(Talk) 23:58, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

the template structure is not an issue, my question is how do I add data to them properly and keep the template from breaking. (I have no clue what im looking at) Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 01:12, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

That I can't say for certain as I have no knowledge of how to program bots. Maybe it would help to take a look at this diff. Essentially, this is the only information that should change from one update to another. Let's assume we have a template that covers three categories, starting with March 2007. The relevant lines for the bot (listed below) are those that include a '#...#' paramater. I don't know if surrounding a value with '#'s actually does anything ... I've just done it to highlight the fields for this example.

  bar:March2007
  from:0 till:#X# text: "[[:Category:Articles to be merged since March 2007|March 2007: #X# articles]]"
  bar:April2007
  from:#X+1# till:#X+Y# text: "[[:Category:Articles to be merged since April 2007|April 2007: #Y# articles]]"
  bar:May2007
  from:#X+Y+1# till:#X+Y+Z# text: "[[:Category:Articles to be merged since May 2007|May 2007: #Z# articles]]"

  bar:Total color:Total
  from:0 till:#X+Y+Z# text:"Total: #X+Y+Z# articles remaining"

The fields surrounded by '#' are the minimum that the bot would need to change (for purposes of simplicity, I have excluded mention of the "Unclassified" bar, which simply counts the number of pages in the main category – in this case, Category:Articles to be merged – and which can be dropped from the template altogether). So, conducting the update would require:

1. Counting the number of articles in each category;
2. Replacing the values X, Y, and Z with the updated numbers; and
3. Updating the rest of the figures using the new data by erforming a few computations (addition only) in order to modify the lengths of the bars.

It would be nice if the bot could also update the date and time of the last update ... a date stamp (~~~~~) should suffice. Ideally, the bot would also add a new bar for each new month as time passes. Such an update would include two steps in addition to the 3 listed above:

1. Adding a new bar to the "BarData = " field in the form ... bar:MonthYear just above bar:Total (see here)
2. Displaying the bar on the template and linking to the new category by adding the below text (which continues the example above) just above the line bar:Total color:Total

  bar:MonthYear
  from:#X+Y+Z+1# till:#X+Y+Z+α# text: "[[:Category:Wikipedia articles with topics of unclear importance from Month Year|Month Year: #α# articles]]"

Does that information help at all? Cheers, Black Falcon ^(Talk) 04:26, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

where X Y Z are what? Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 04:34, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Oops, sorry ... X, Y, and Z are the number of articles in the respective categories. In the example above, X is the number of articles in Category:Articles to be merged since March 2007, Y is the number of articles in Category:Articles to be merged since April 2007, and so on. -- Black Falcon ^(Talk) 04:56, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Ok I have an Idea of what im doing so im going to go be evil program some ideas. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 22:10, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Ok code is 95% done I just have to kill a bug before Its runnable. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 05:02, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

First there was getting an inanimate entity to do things for you and now squashing bugs ... this smacks of sorcery. ;) A quick question, please: would it be easy to make the bot update progress templates (using the same structure as above) other than the ones that have been discussed so far? In particular, I'm thinking of creating progress templates for Category:Articles with large trivia sections, Category:Articles lacking sources, and Category:Articles with unsourced statements. The latter two each contain 70000+ articles, so I doubt I'll create them if I have to update them manually. Cheers, Black Falcon ^(Talk) 18:02, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

New templates will be very easy Im just fighting a error (computer bug) with Unicode text, Im hoping to correct that tonight. So once I get this fixed we can move on to other templates. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 19:30, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Great, thanks! Best of luck with the pesky little critter, Black Falcon ^(Talk) 19:59, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

If you get frustrated and want to hand this off, Betacommand, I offer to take over. (I was coming here to work on this, actually, before I saw you were on top of it.) Or if you've got it, that's cool. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 15:48, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok I need a list of stuff:

examples taken from: {{Notability progress}}

1. list of templates
2. for each template I need the

{{Tnavbar-header|'''Notability Progress'''|Notability progress|bgcolor=#cccff}} line

1. and the main category to check for each template. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 19:41, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I am listing below 5 of the 7 progress templates in Category:Wikipedia progress templates; the structure of the other two is substantially different (as noted above, one is not even organised by month).

Template:Categorization progress

{{Tnavbar-header|'''Categorization Progress'''|Categorization progress|bgcolor=#ccccff}}

Category:Category needed

Template:Copyedit progress

{{Tnavbar-header|'''Copyedit Progress'''|Copyedit progress|bgcolor=#ccccff}}

Category:Wikipedia articles needing copy edit

Template:Merge progress

{{Tnavbar-header|'''Merge Progress'''|Merge progress|bgcolor=#cccff}}

Category:Articles to be merged

Template:Notability progress

{{Tnavbar-header|'''Notability Progress'''|Notability progress|bgcolor=#cccff}}

Category:Wikipedia articles with topics of unclear importance

Template:Wikification progress

{{Tnavbar-header|'''Wikification Progress'''|Wikification progress|bgcolor=#ccccff}}

Category:Articles that need to be wikified

If there is a problem with the structure of any of the templates, I'd be happy to change its format to approximate {{Notability progress}}, which I assume is the one you worked off of. It'll probably be easier to change the template format (it shouldn't take more than 1-2 minutes per template) than change the code for the bot. Cheers, Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:51, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Has the bug been resolved? Flubeca (t) 21:34, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

All the major bugs have been solved. ill work on getting it out within the next 36 hours. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 21:45, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Awesome! Thank you! Flubeca (t) 13:43, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Betacommand passed the source off to me, as he's kinda strapped for free time right now. I'm finishing up a few things, and I should be ready in the next day or so with it. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 00:22, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

It has been a few days now. Is the bot having any troubles? -Flubeca (t) 17:49, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Any news? I'm posting mostly so that this section won't be automatically archived (it's seen no activity for almost 5 days). -- Black Falcon ^(Talk) 23:21, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

As you can see, I made a successful run on Template:Notability_progress today. I'll set the rest up tomorrow, hopefully. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 22:57, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Great! Thanks. By the way, the bot seems to have removed Template:Notability progress from Category:Wikipedia progress templates. Was that accidental or is that necessary for the bot to function? -- Black Falcon ^(Talk) 19:40, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Accidental, sorry. I'll fix it when I get back to the code tomorrow (it's on a server at work). ^demon^{[omg plz]} 19:15, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok, it's running on Template:Notability progress, Template:Copyedit progress, and Template:Merge progress just fine. I'll plug the last 2 in after lunch. As I don't want to run this on my main bot account and I'm starting a second one, how often do we want to update these when I put a BRFA in? ^demon^{[omg plz]} 15:48, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

It's working fine on Template:Notability progress, but there are some issues with the other two. For Template:Copyedit progress, the bot also counted Category:All articles needing copy edit, which is redundant to all of the monthly ones. For Template:Merge progress, I think you may want to work off of Category:Merge by month to avoid problems. -- Black Falcon ^(Talk) 16:39, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

As for updating frequency ... once a day should probably be enough, but Flubeca may something different in mind. Thanks, by the way, for working on this. Cheers, Black Falcon ^(Talk) 16:40, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Once a day is good.-Flubeca^Talk 03:05, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh and when will the other 2 be implemented. -Flubeca^Talk 03:09, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

By the way, the Template:Categorization progress is also having a double counting problem similar to the copyedit progress chart. Thanks for implementing this. --Fisherjs 10:27, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Is the bot running?-Flubeca^Talk 19:54, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I ran it and it's mostly working. I still have a bit of clean up to to. Python isn't my strongest language. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 20:21, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

What is it called, and just to say, it still isn't running on Wikification Progress ;) -Flubeca^Talk 19:16, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Flubeca, see User:^demonBot2 and Special:Contributions/^demonBot2.--Fisherjs 16:19, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Template:S-cite, Template:S-pol

Unlike other succession box templates that seem to have sparked a limited controversy over at WikiProject Succession Box Standardization, these two are relatively unambiguous and have on their side what is closest to consensus (given the current state of the project). I thus request:

1. That Template:S-cite should be replaced by Template:S-ref in all articles in the main namespace. The two templates have already been merged and the former redirects to the latter, which is in compliance with SBS's three-letter name rule (while still retaining the ability of the name to be easily interpreted) and was initially included in the s-ref anyway. The change is a simple one: change {{s-cite|...}} in all succession boxes to {{s-ref|...}}. No complications whatsoever should ensue, as both templates work in the exact same way.
2. That Template:S-pol should be replaced by Template:S-civ (parameter |pol) in all articles in the main namespace. The two templates are headers, which makes the change even easier: all that has to be done is change {{s-pol}} to {{s-civ|pol}} in all succession boxes; the resulting headers will be identical. The change has been decided because a whole template just for police appointments is considered superfluous, given the relatively low number of offices that are to use it, while a more general header like "Civic offices" (with parameters for police, fire, and medical appointments) will prove more efficient, helping us reach the desired balance between a low number of templates and specific, useful headers.

I believe this change cannot be achieved by any means other than by bot (unless a great deal of time and effort is spend on the task), and is justifiable enough to be approved. The two templates are to be deleted after the change is done, so any help with speeding this process up would be greatly appreciated. Waltham, The Duke of 23:24, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

2. So why dont you redirect Template:S-pol to S-civ|pol :: maelgwn :: talk 23:58, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Because that's impossible, maelgwn. As for #1, I see no need for a bot to perform this task. Don't fix links to redirects that aren't broken. — Madman bum and angel (talk – desk) 05:00, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Aah sorry. Was getting my sections and my seperators all confuddled. It should be easy enough for a bit to do. :: maelgwn :: talk 06:19, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

But... Wouldn't it be better to get rid of a spare template than just hide it? I thought templates placed a burden on Wikipedia servers.

In any case, will you at least do number two, please? Waltham, The Duke of 18:29, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry about performance. I could create a task request, but I'd like to see some evidence of consensus. — Madman bum and angel (talk – desk) 23:31, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

We are gathering consensus; it was not easy to discern previously. I will notify you when we gather sufficient support. Waltham, The Duke of 13:05, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

It is not easy to gather a consensus when so many people are away instead of commenting on the issues at hand. I have tried to gather opinions about the substitution at WT:SBS, and two people apart from myself have supported the motion so far, while none has opposed it. I know that other people are favourable as well, but this might not be easily proved. BrownHairedGirl was against the proposed action initially, but it seems that this is no longer the case; she too is away, however, and thus currently unavailable for a comment. I do not know what to do right now but to urge the members of SBS to comment and keep this section from being prematurely archived, but the circumstances do not allow me to do anything more. Still, if you add this rudimentary consensus to my previous arguments and the lack of alternatives, you shall see that the substitution is indeed the best solution to our problem. Waltham, The Duke of 17:27, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

No comment? Waltham, The Duke of 07:20, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Still no comment? Waltham, The Duke of 22:05, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Identifying SPA contributions

I want to request a bot to generate a list of pages created by single-purpose accounts. Basically, the bot would go through pages and for each page perform the following steps:

(1) Select a page.

(2) Identify when the page was created.

(2a) If the page was created less than 7 days before {{CURRENTDATE}}, move on to another page (return to step 1).

(2b) If the page was created more than 7 days before {{CURRENTDATE}}, move to step 3.

(3) Identify the user who created the page.

(4) Check the user's contributions history to see if the user has preserved edits to any other page (mainspace or non-mainspace).

(4a) If the user has contributions to more than one page, move on to another page (return to step 1).

(4b) If the user has contributions to only that one page, add the page to a bot-generated list and only then move on to another page.

(Note: I don't know too much about bots, so I'm not certain that the method proposed above is actually feasible. Or, there may be an easier/more efficient way of generating the list.

I expect that many pages created by single-purpose accounts (defined narrowly as in step 4) will be tests, vanity pages, advertising for a product or company, and pages that otherwise do not meet Wikipedia's inclusion criteria. The bot-generated list may make it easier to identify and correct or delete such pages. The purpose of the 7-day lag introduced in step 2 is to avoid redundancy with new page patrol.

It will probably not be necessary to run the bot continuously or to force it to check all 9.5 million pages on Wikipedia. For instance, the bot could be programmed to terminate when the generated list reaches 500 entries.

A better option might be to restrict bot runs to specific groups of articles, such as:

• Pages in a specific namespace that start with a specific letter (or string of letters) (e.g., pages in the article namespace that start with "Ar", see Special:Prefixindex/Ar),
• Pages in a specific category (e.g., pages in Category:Companies of the United States),
• Uncategorized pages (see Category:Category needed),
• Pages with a cleanup tag (can be determined via whatlinkshere or cleanup/maintenance categories like Category:Category needed), or
• Pages whose talkpages are tagged with a certain WikiProject tag

What specific group is covered in each run should, I think, be determined by those who peruse the bot-generated list.

However, before getting into the specifics of what groups of pages the bot should target in its runs, it is important to know:

1. Could an existing bot perform this function?
2. If not, is the proposal technically possible?
3. If it is, is it a worthwhile endeavour?
4. If it is, is anyone willing to write this bot?

Thanks (and my apologies for the length of hte post), Black Falcon ^(Talk) 19:57, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

This would definately be technically possible. But would it be worthwhile? Is there anyone willing to go through the list? Or is it just going to end up wasting bandwidth and creating a huge log that no one will check? --Android Mouse 21:13, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

If it's a list of 20000 pages about hundreds of topics ... probably not. However, there might be people (or WikiProjects) willing to look through shorter lists on specific topics. Since this was a concern from the start, it is probably best to take some steps to optimise the potential usefulness of the list by, for instance, contacting some WikiProjects to see if they're interested. Off the top of my head, I can think of WikiProject Spam and WikiProject Deletion, both of which have broad scopes. More specialised projects may be contacted as well depending on the specific group of pages covered (e.g., WikiProject Biography for subcategories of Category:Living people, WikiProject France for subcategories of Category:France, and so on). I am willing to go through such a list (regardless of the topic), but it's not worth it if I'm the only one. Before I request input from anyone, could you give an idea of how much time it might take to write such a bot? Thanks, Black Falcon ^(Talk) 21:51, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Assuming that it would patrol IRC recent changes, log new articles and go back 7 days later and check the conditions you listed above, I think I could write it within a week or so, depending on my schedule. Although, I'm not personally willing to go through any logs the bot would create or attempt to solicit others to. --Android Mouse 22:16, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

In that case, it's definitely important to see if anyone will care to work on the list before pursuing the idea much further. I will notify some WikiProjects shortly. A technical question: would it be possible to program the bot to look not just at new creations, but also to try to catch older ones (I suppose that the downside to that is that the bot will have a lower hit rate). If the bot only patrols Special:Newpages, any article created before the time the bot is put into operation will be missed, won't it? -- Black Falcon ^(Talk) 00:19, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Correct. From a implementation point of view, I don't really see a reason why the bot can't get its data from a database dump but, in reality, that might just not be feasible: even if given relatively fresh dumps to parse, there's still the issue of having to query the servers for user's contribs. And if one were to slow the query rate down to avoid hogging server resources, there's the issue of that somewhat limited efficiency of that particular approach (ie. the regular articles vs. SPA plugs ratio might be a hard sell). I'm afraid checking every article may just really not be worth it. -- S ^up? 08:34, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I see your point, especially considering that older problem articles are likely to already have one or more cleanup tags on them. I've notified WikiProject Deletion and WikiProject Advertising to see if they are interested in the idea of the list. If they are, it may be worth working out the details. If not, then no problem. Thanks for your response, Black Falcon ^(Talk) 01:56, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

No problem. By the way, I think this is a good idea and I'd be happy to help out as well. -- S ^up? 09:15, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think I won't care about what category (list) of notability-suspicious articles do I hunt in. I sort as many articles as I'm comfortable at a time. So the idea makes sense. Just add links to new lists to WP:NN (elswhere) and make clear announcements on new feature. Here are some refining suggestions, not affecting my support:

• Should'nt we give more time to articles and authors (like returning pages older than month, not week) before counting edits?
• Category- and project-specific autosorting would be very helpful for recruiting users of the intended lists
• The bot could select accounts less throughly (like edits to only three pages instead of one). From my WPNN practice, creating an intended vanity or ad article may take changes to several pages. E.g., including new one in the lists, creating new categories, making it a redundant example in a general article. This is also a single-purpose editing. The bot wouldn't do any harm to either page or user anyway. -- Futurano 11:30, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

GFDL-self disclaimer idea

Looking at the GFDL disclaimer issues wouldn't it be nice if there was a bot that would re-tag all the images the user uploaded once the user posted on their user page with a retroactive blanket license? —Dispenser 06:51, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, legally, you can't relicense PD to GFDL. What sorts of licenses can we change? --ST47Talk 11:30, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I was just thinking of something simple, like images uploaded with {{GFDL-self-with-disclaimers}} the bot would check the uploader page, if it has a notice that they license everything with {{GFDL-self-no-disclaimers}} then it changes the the license on the image to {{GFDL-self-no-disclaimers}}. Otherwise it leaves a message on their talk page asking if they could relicense their content with the -no-disclaimers. —Dispenser 12:07, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Interesting idea but I'm not quite sure #1 is even legally permissible. Even if someone uses a specific license for all his contributions (by default licensing), there's nothing to prevent that person from using a different license for just that one image. It is my understanding that, in a case like that, that particular license overrides the default license. In other words, even if 99,999999% of a user's contributions are licensed under license A, there's nothing to stop that user from releasing a contribution under license B. -- S ^up? 15:15, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Isn't that more of a linguistics issue? Surely we could resolve it with a special template with the right language? —Dispenser 16:11, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Creating a new template won't resolve the problem with previously created images. I see this idea causing more problems than it attempts to solve. --Android Mouse 19:28, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok. How about this: The bot posts a message to users who have upload X or more images with {{GFDL-self-with-disclaimers}}. And that they can post to a special subpage of the bot with an agreement to allow the bot to change all of their license tags for them? —Dispenser 07:42, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Legally, they cannot relicense to PD. They no longer have the rights to do that. GFDL is non-revocable. Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 06:09, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Archival bot for DYK recent additions

Is it possible to get an archival bot to automatically archive the Did you know? archives? I don't know if it's an issue that there are no dates provided (like on talk pages), but the idea would be to move things to an archive each time there are 50-100 entries. (Best may be something like when it reaches 100, archive the oldest 75.) Rigadoun (talk) 20:41, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd talk to User:Shadow1 or User:Misza13. I'm not sure how much modification it would take though in order to get either of their bots to archive a page without dates. --Android Mouse 21:34, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I could probably write a new one fairly quickly. I'll see what I can do. Shadow1 (talk) 11:02, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

DIEbot/Signing bot?

Can someone make a bot on meta which tags pages on people who have recently died on other projects. For example, I noticed when Lady Bird Johnson died, other projects such as Japanese, Russian, Sweedish, etc. haven't updated their pages. In addition, when a notable person dies, baby Wikipedias have to take weeks or months to make a change. And, does anyone have any update on the signingbot? Thanks. Miranda 05:23, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Take a look here for info on the sig bot. --Chris ^g 10:03, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikisource 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica maintenance one-use bot

This bot will primarily deal with Wikisource. I apologize if this is the wrong place to ask for a bot dealing with another project. This bot will be helping WikiProject_1911_Encyclopædia_Britannica. It's basically just doing some cleanup after a template change. It will be working with all subpages of 1911_Encyclopædia_Britannica. It's tasks are this:

1. Check for the presence of the template {{EB1911}}. Compile a list of those on Wikisource:User:Psychless/Temp under the heading: Needs EB template. I will be dealing with those articles.
2. Remove the parameter |article=. Change the parameter |nonotes= to |wikipedia="none".
3. If the template on the article has any parameter except: previous, next, wikipedia, wikipedia2, other_projects, then add it to a list of articles with incorrect parameters. Post that list under the heading: Incorrect parameters, on Wikisource:User:Psychless/Temp.
4. Some articles use the code '''<big>J</big>OHN <big>S</big>mith'''. This outputs: JOHN SMITH. This could be simplified by using the (wikisource) template {{bbsc}}. The code would be {{bbsc|John Smith}}. Could the bot do this somehow?
5. Before the template change, people typed in the value for the |wikipedia= parameter as such: [[Wikipedia:John Smith|John Smith]]. Sometimes as: [[w:John Smith|John Smith]]. Replace this with the name of the page it links to; just: John Smith. Check to see if there are two links: [[w:John Smith|John Smith]] and [[w:George Washington|George Washington]]. If there are, do: |wikipedia=John Smith |wikipedia2=George Washington. Make sure you use the name on the left side of the divider (this symbol: | ), not the right, since for some there will be different text on the right side of the divider.
6. The bot needs to check where the link goes. If it redirects to a different page have the bot replace the |wikipedia= value with the name of the article it redirects to. If it redirects to an article that doesn't exist, add it to a list on Wikisource:User:Psychless/Temp under the heading: noarticle.
7. On the wikipedia article an entry links to add the template (if the template isn't already on there) {{Wikisource1911Enc|entryname}}.

I hope my directions were somewhat comprehensible. I would greatly appreciate it if someone would do this, as it means many, many, hours of boring work if I must do this manually. Thanks, Psychless 19:41, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I've found a similar place on Wikisource here, but anyone can still do it... I've reposted my request there. Psychless 22:38, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Category Alphabetizing

There should be roving bots that alphabetize categories in the article space.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 00:01, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand. Categories are alphabetized.. --ST47Talk 00:12, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the idea is to alphabetically sort the category listing at the end of an article page. This wouldn't really work because many pages have categories that come from templates, and sometimes people can choose to sort the categories in a more logical way than alphabetically, so using a bot (a) won't completely solve the problem and (b) piss many people off. Kusma (talk) 10:59, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Category:New South Wales Rugby League State of Origin players

Per the previous discussion (on this page and now has been archived here)

Could a bot do the same thing but for this page New South Wales state rugby league team players for this category Category:New South Wales Rugby League State of Origin players.

Making sure that red links arn't done (because it would create a page with just a category) and that it doesn't link the templates down the bottom, or the two links in the lead. Just the big long table. SpecialWindler talk 08:03, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Just keeping this discussion alive. SpecialWindler talk 10:10, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Add microformat mark-up to List of peaks in Norway

As described at Talk:List of peaks in Norway over 2000 meters#Microformat (there are 300 entries). Thank you. Andy Mabbett 11:26, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

RefDeskBot replacement

Since the RefDeskBot hasnt been working since June 27 and Martinp23 has been away since July 7, are there any chance of somebody cloning RefDeskBot or otherwise archiving Reference Desks? User:CesarB/Reference desk archiving notes has the description of the process itself. Doing it by hand is boring. — Shinhan < talk > 13:30, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

It seems, that right now, the days are moved off to the archives at random, what interval would be best for this to be done? Weekly? Daily? All in all, it doesen't look like that daunting of a task. I'll see what I can throw together. I'm pretty new at this, however, so, it might take a bit. --SXT4^{$\color {Red}\oplus$} 04:06, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Wow, looking more into it, that's a bit more than I can bite off right now.... Hopefully, one of the more experienced guys can help you out... --SXT4^{$\color {Red}\oplus$} 04:17, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Broken talk pages

user:Kf4bdy welcomed thousands of new users with a welcome template with broken HTML that effectively disables the user's talk page. See, for example, this version of user talk:Boracho74 which I've just fixed. The fix is to add a close font and close center before the first close div, as I've done in this edit. I've made a list of 2569 talk pages that are definitely broken (the addition of the welcome message is the latest edit), see User:Kf4bdy/broken talk pages, and another list of 1158 938 talk pages that may be broken (the welcome message is not the latest edit), see User:Kf4bdy/possibly broken talk pages. Any volunteers willing to help deal with this? -- Rick Block (talk) 17:04, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I can definately set this up, give me 15 minutes. --ST47Talk 18:39, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm running the "possibles" through a filter looking for mismatched HTML tags. I should have the results of this in a bit. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:49, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I've updated the list of "possibles" to those that seem to have html tag mismatches (not using a real parser or anything, so these are still only "possibles"). -- Rick Block (talk) 19:24, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I've posted a BRFA, but it isn't approved yet. I'll post when the bot is done. --ST47Talk 21:36, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

 Done --ST47Talk 19:04, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Introduction

We need a new bot to protect the Intro.

Wikipedia:Introduction was previously protected by User:AntiVandalBot until April, when User:MartinBotIV had taken over the duties (See this thread), but Martinp23 appears to be inactive now too (?)

It's action was to reset the intro page whenever the template/header text was altered, and every 30 minutes too. It stopped on June 26.

It was also handling the reset of Wikipedia:Sandbox, I'm not sure of precise details, but presummably the same.

Any help would be much appreciated. Please move/copy this thread to anywhere more appropriate too. Thanks. --Quiddity 21:26, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I'll set something up for you and post a BRFA for The sandbox, the template sandboxes, and the introduction pages unless someone chimes in here with an objection or further information in the next 24 hours or so. --ST47Talk 21:35, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Aha! After posting that, I noticed Martinp23 had just made a single edit, so I asked him, and he's going to fix martinbotIV, hopefully by tomorrow.

Thanks for the very quick offer of help though :)

I'll update with any progress. --Quiddity 01:34, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I've seen him on IRC. Great, post if you need anything, --ST47Talk 01:51, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Help add interwiki links on a Magnus' geohack toys

I've added interwiki links to the geohack toy. The english version can be found at Template:GeoTemplate/Lang and I have put it up on all the other 7 translations. The problem is, additional languages will likely be added to just one of the 8 templates. I'm not sure how a bot can copy over the templates from one language to another when they are edited, but I've been told that it can be done. Here are the other templates that need to stay updated: ast:Plantilla:GeoTemplate/Lang, cs:Šablona:GeoTemplate/Lang, es:Plantilla:GeoTemplate/Lang, de:Vorlage:GeoTemplate/Lang, fr:Modèle:GeoTemplate/Lang, is:Snið:GeoTemplate/Lang, sk:Šablóna:GeoTemplate/Lang. Hopefully more languages will be added in the future, so they need to be put on the list when they get created. Sincerely Steinninn 21:27, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Typo fixing request

Hi. I was directed here because I'd like a bot to fix a common typo. "Nassarawa State", "Nassarawa state", and "nassarawa state" to "Nasarawa State" are the changes I'd like made. Note the single "s" in the changed word, and also the capitalization of the "s" in state. Obviously, anything in quotation marks is an exception. I suppose the only namespaces this would need to be run in are article and template space. Best if this was just added to the list of tasks of one of the existing typo change bots. Thanks! Picaroon (Talk) 00:05, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Instead of typo change bots, we have WP:AWB/T. If you dont have expirience with regexp, ask for help on its talk page. — Shinhan < talk > 06:15, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject assessing

There are alot of articles, which fall under the scope of multiple WikiProjects. As WikiProject Biography is going through a assessment drive, I'd like to ask. As these articles have multiple WikiProject, one project is assessed, the other is not. I have seen this throughout my asssesing of these articles. For example, Page A is assessed by WikiProject B as B-class, but for WikiProject Z it isn't assessed. If a bot could go and enter the B in the class parameter, for WikiProject Z, thats one less article you'd have to be assessed.

I don't know how you'd do it, but someone did tell me that bots can do almost anything these days. I'd suppose you'd have to collect every WikiProject template over Wikipedia. There would be a problem if one template rates it B and the other rates it start, or something. SpecialWindler talk 11:41, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Why would there be a problem? Different WikiProjects have different criteria for their ratings. — Madman bum and angel (talk – desk) 17:59, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think so. Most WikiProjects have different ratings for importance, but the quality is the same based on {{Grading scheme}}. SpecialWindler talk 22:14, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Just saying, because, I don't know how bots operate and I'm just presuming that, that would be a problem, but I don't know. Is this a good idea? SpecialWindler talk 23:19, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, while most (all?) use the same scale, the criteria for a particular rating varies by project. What might be an interesting project for the WP:1.0 group, though, is to let each project know when their rating differs significantly from the other rating(s) on an article. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 02:45, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Whats WP:1.0, whats it got to do with WikiProjects. Its just some offline thingo according to the "General Background" section. But, could this idea work? When I said most, I meant all, while I haven't checked all WikiProjects, you'd have to think that if GA and FA are the same, then the rest around them (stub,start,B) should be basically the same. If we have bots assessing articles as "stub", because they use stub templates. Some articles have stub templates, but have since expanded to start, yet the templates have removed. So maybe if a bot does do this, then it needs to add auto=yes or something, though most WikiProject templates don't have this. So put it on a list. SpecialWindler talk 09:32, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

WP1.0 has a lot to do with WikiProjects. Take a look at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Work via Wikiprojects. Their bot-generated assessment lists are invaluable. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 13:41, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

User:PockBot can be used to see if any existing article in a category of unassessed articles have been assessed by anyone. Then, it's generally a simple matter to review the existing assessment and see if the article has changed for better or worse since the original assessment. John Carter 14:44, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

So what do you want me to do? SpecialWindler talk 20:47, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't you do something like

1. Check that no page in the subcategories Category:FA-Class articles, Category:A-Class articles, Category:GA-Class articles, Category:B-Class articles, Category:Start-Class articles, Category:Stub-Class articles, is in more than one of those (eg. If A is in both B and GA)
2. If so, ignore those.
3. Check if any of the rest are in Category:Unassessed-Class articles.
4. If they are in both change class= to class=WHATEVER.

Of course, you bot people are going to know alot more than me, and probably think that won't work, but as I said before, someone told me, bots can do practically anything these days. SpecialWindler talk 08:32, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Take Talk:Shane Perry as an example, It is assessed as start for one WikiProject, but unassessed for the other. Now it is placed in the category Category:Start-Class biography articles (a subcategory of Category:Start-Class articles) and is also placed in Category:Unassessed rugby league articles (a subcategory of Category:Unassessed-Class articles), now if a bot could go through and change that, then thats one less assessment, for those who do assessing, yet no harm. SpecialWindler talk 08:36, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Bot to maintain AfD listing on Australian noticeboard

Per this discussion, could we have a bot update Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board/AfD inline with Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Australia? If anyone is willing to take this on, the best place to say yes would be the Australia noticeboard. Giggy _U^CP 04:32, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

So to explain a little more. Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board/AfD is transcluded onto Australian Wikipedians' notice board and is a list containing current Australian related AfDs, MfDs, CfDs ... The Deletion sorting page is just like any other deletion sorting page with the discussions transcluded onto the page. Obviously we want them to contain the same articles. Currently these are maintained manually but it requires double handling to achieve this. So the bot, say every few hours would preferably be able to make sure the two lists are the same. If this was too hard then one list could be the one to update manually and the other follows automatically. I don't have a problem running this myself but my coding is not up to it. I see also that Canadian Wikipedians' notice_board has the same problem - chances are their are also others. :: maelgwntalk 06:39, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

So it just updates Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board/AfD with the content in Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Australia, I could do that, but the bot would only run once a day. --Chris ^g 09:29, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Maelgwn summed it up nicely. Humans update Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Australia (we currently have semi-automatic processes for that as far as I know), and bot streamlines Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board/AfD to ensure that it has the same AfDs, CfDs, etc. posted on it. If the bot runs once a day, that's fine, we just need them to be streamlined eventually (especially since XfDs run for at least 5 days, so we shouldn't miss any). Chris, if you could do this it would be great. Giggy _U^CP 21:56, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Need a bot to set up assessment schemes

Is there a bot that can adjust a template and set up the categories? It takes a human about half an hour to do it all, but a bot could do it easily I imagine. There are many projects that could do with them, and I often don't have anything suitable available to allow me to make an assessment. Richard001 10:42, 17 July 2007 (UTC)