Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/WildBot 6

The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA. The result of the discussion was

Approved.

WildBot 6

Operator: Josh Parris (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): Python

Source code available: https://svn.toolserver.org/svnroot/josh/WildBot/wikisyntax.py

Function overview: Note syntax problems that Check Wikipedia looks for

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Wikipedia:WikiProject Check Wikipedia

Edit period(s): Continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: In the current report, over 1700 pages have the Headlines start with three "=" and later with level two syntax problem identified (the most voluminous high-priority problem not addressed by bots in any way); at a guess many dozens a day for that particular error.

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Standard in pywikipedia

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

Function details: In addition to other checks performed by WildBot, all new pages will be tested for the various syntax problems identified in Wikipedia:WikiProject Check Wikipedia reports will be noted on the talk page of the syntactically-broken page. For example, for Headlines start with three "=" and later with level two syntax problems:

The Manual of Style for section headings says "primary headings are then ==H2==, followed by ===H3===, ====H4====, and so on."

The article's first heading has three "=" and later there is a heading with two "=":
===Early years===
==Broadway beckons==

This box was placed by WildBot, a bot designed to keep it up to date and then remove it when the links are fixed. If WildBot is malfunctioning, please leave a message.

Discussion

It is my intention to implement the functionality on an on-going basis (there are many dozens of syntax checks that can be performed), and I'm looking for approval for all of the eventual functionality as defined by what Wikipedia:WikiProject Check Wikipedia looks for. For trial purposes, I'm going to go with the example above. Josh Parris 08:53, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We have WP:CHECKWIKI that records these cases in a single article, it's updated almost daily and mainted by a lot of editors. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:30, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm hoping to provide grass-roots level education about these syntax problems, and intend to focus on those problems that aren't addressed by bots at the moment - basically, to bring wiki syntax errors to the attention of the original editors at the time the syntax error is made; given that there isn't a bot to fix the problems and the best placed human to fix the issue is the one that made the syntax error in the first place. Josh Parris 23:51, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think this may be a bit of overkill. While I am superbly happy with the messages that WildBot leaves about Disambiguation Links and Broken Section links, I think it is silly to list something as minor as this. While it is important to fix, the daily report at WP:CHECKWIKI has shown itself to be a fine solution to these simple human errors. There is no need to message bomb these talk pages simply because there is no real backlog of work to be done. Tim1357 (talk) 03:59, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I can see where you're coming from. There's no reason I couldn't limit the bot so that it puts at most x messages on a talk-page, or have it collapse the lower priority ones away behind show/hide links. The reason I picked this particular syntax problem is that there's no bots running around fixing it, only humans, so if we can alert the originating editor to the problem, that's one less for the Check Wikipedia project to deal with (and there's a fair number of them as a starting point); a parallel could be drawn with WildBot's disambiguation flagging - there's a WikiProject dedicated to disambiguation, but you won't hear a word of complaint from them if someone outside the project fixes a link to a disambiguation page. Josh Parris 14:19, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have the impression that this bug is fixed daily and very often and this would cause a lot of outdated messages or the bot making a lot of edits by adding/removing tags within days in the same talk page. Am I wrong? -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:15, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

From my reading of the current full report for this particular error, the date of discovery for the 1798 entries are spread fairly evenly between 2009-09-20 04:41:00 and 2010-02-19 23:42:49 – so they keep getting created, and they're not getting fixed. Josh Parris 23:56, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

They question is of course who would see a message in the talk page and go to the article to fix this minor problem. I mean that locating dabs can't be done by just looking at the article and messages in the talk page are usefull. Header ordering is obvious when reading though an article. -- 01:21, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Possibly the only way to find out is to do it and measure the results. Once I've run the trial, I'll gather up some statistics to satisfy everyone's curiosity. Josh Parris 01:24, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Approved for trial (30 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. I'm curious to see how this works in practice. — The Earwig ^(talk) 01:06, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Trial results

Trial complete. No hiccups. As for the statistics, of the 29 remaining pages (some were deleted), after six days 6 have had the problem resolved. Resolution time (HH:MM) was: 0:21, 0:21, 3:04, 35:21, 42:50 and 123:04 (which could be called a 20% clean-up rate within a week). Computation of some of these values would not have been possible without toolserver access. Lists certainly seem to have a penchant for disregarding the MOS. Josh Parris 11:10, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Approved. Looks fine. — The Earwig ^(talk) 02:56, 25 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA.