Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Ow0castBot

Ow0castBot

New to bots on Wikipedia? Read these primers!

Approval process – How this discussion works
Overview/Policy – What bots are/What they can (or can't) do
Dictionary – Explains bot-related jargon

Operator: Ow0cast (talk · contribs · SUL · edit count · logs · page moves · block log · rights log · ANI search)

Time filed: 01:50, Thursday, November 14, 2024 (UTC)

Function overview: Replace external links to wikipedia with wikilinks

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Automatic

Programming language(s): Python (pywikibot)

Source code available: No

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): I do not believe that discussions are required for this action, as this is the entire point of wikilinks

Edit period(s): Continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: 25/day at the highest.

Namespace(s): Mainspace

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes

Function details: The goal of this task is to replace "external" links to wikipedia pages with the proper wikilinks.

Watch Special:RecentChanges for edits containing "https://[*].wikipedia.org/wiki/[*]", then replace the external link with a wikilink.

Example: "Python https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Python_(programming_language) is cool" → "Python is cool."

Discussion

Many articles contain external Wikipedia links to templates, policy pages, and discussion, usually added as comments. On average, about 20 of these kinds of links are added per day, with 95% of them as commented-out text. Replacing these links would only lead to cosmetic changes, which should be avoided per WP:COSMETICBOT, as commented-out text are not visible to readers. For the remaining 5%, using a bot isn't a good idea, as these minor edits can be easily handled by a human editor. Currently, over 62,000 pages have these types of commented-out links, and none need replacement based on your criteria. This suggests that these types of external links are fixed regularly. – DreamRimmer (talk) 14:32, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I do not want to pile-on, but for "en.wikipedia" this task wont be much useful like DreamRimmer explained above. However, in case the link is to some other wikipedia eg "de.wikipedia" (german), or "es.wikipedia" (spanish), this task would be useful, but again, the occurrences are extremely low, and they are generally handled/repaired by editors as soon as they are inserted. Also, bot operator is new (not extended confirmed), so this might get denied under WP:BOTNOTNOW. But this is actually a sound request, my first BRFA was outright silly. —usernamekiran (talk) 15:45, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

DreamRimmer, I think CheckWiki #90 would probably be more useful for finding the number of pages affected by this; at the moment it's sitting at ~4500 pages so this probably does require some sort of intervention. Primefac (talk) 20:19, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Ow0cast: Given there are around 4500 pages, this is indeed a useful task. Would you be able to program it to handle the subdomains? Similar to the example I provided above? —usernamekiran (talk) 20:25, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Usernamekiran: Yes, I should be able to make it handle subdomains. /etc/owuh $ (💬 | she/her) 20:29, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Approved for trial (100 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Primefac (talk) 20:39, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Should I run it on Special:RecentChanges or the pages listed at checkwiki? /etc/owuh $ (💬 | she/her) 22:26, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Ow0cast: pages listed at checkwiki would be the optimal choice. —usernamekiran (talk) 00:18, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]