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 Denied.

Operator: DannyS712 (talk · contribs · SUL · edit count · logs · page moves · block log · rights log · ANI search)

Time filed: 02:27, Monday, April 8, 2019 (UTC)

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: automatic

Programming language(s): AWB

Source code available: AWB

Function overview: Purge pages by saving them with no change replacing the content with ((subst::((subst:FULLPAGENAME))))

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): NA

Estimated number of pages affected: Lots, but 0 edits

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): N/A

Already has a bot flag (Yes/No): Yes

Function details: Easily purge pages by replacing the content with the same content. Currently, Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working/Manual#Templates removed or updated – deletion pending automatic emptying of category is waiting for purges on 35,000 pages, which prompted me to file this BRFA, but it can apply elsewhere to. The idea is simple: replace the entire content with a copy of itself, forcing the page to reprocess any transcluded templates. (noting for the record that Category:Pages with maps currently has 25,795 - if approved for a trial of 0 edits, my goal would be to purge each page and empty the category)

Alerting Joe Decker, the operator of Joe's Null Bot, to this task. ((3x|p))ery (talk) 02:30, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Pppery: Thanks. Yes, I semi-envisioned this as a replacement for Joe's bot, but this would be manually run on each category when its needed, so its more useful for as-needed runs rather than daily scheduled updates. --DannyS712 (talk) 02:34, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You're using an outdated version of the bot request preload, do you intend this to happen for all namespaced, or just some? Is it just a "I want to run unlimited purges all over the place" bot? — xaosflux ^Talk 03:35, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Xaosflux: sorry, I'm using User:Enterprisey/easy-brfa (@Enterprisey: apparently the bot request preload is outdated) Ideally, this would apply to all namespaces - the maps are almost exclusively in mainspace, but the other category that CfD is waiting to empty is Category:Pages with graphs, which is mostly talk pages, as well as some user pages, category talk, and a handful of pages in other namespaces. In short, yes, this is a "I want to run unlimited purges all over the place" - at a reasonable rate and without needing to hit purge each time - bot. --DannyS712 (talk) 03:56, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The proposal here seems particularly dangerous. First, does using action=purge with forcelinkupdate work? That'd be ideal. If not, it would still be safer to post back the page's actual wikitext rather than trying to subst the page to itself. Anomie⚔ 11:32, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Anomie: Well the reason User:Joe's Null Bot stopped working is that forcelinkupdate didn't work. Alternatively, I could just save the page without making any edit - the web browser doesn't let you save an edit wit no changes, but AWB does --DannyS712 (talk) 18:07, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I save no-changes in the web browser all the time. Perhaps it's one more reason for me to not use the 2017 VE-based wikitext editor? Anomie⚔ 18:17, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Anomie: ? I'm confused by one more reason for me to not use the 2017 VE-based wikitext editor - I use the 2017 editor, and it doesn't save empty edits. --DannyS712 (talk) 18:19, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That was my point. The "2010 editor" that I'm currently using doesn't have that limitation. Anomie⚔ 18:20, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Anomie: Oh, its a reason for me not to use the 2017 editor - I thought you were saying that the limitation is a good thing. --DannyS712 (talk) 18:23, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The bug with forcelinkupdate was fixed. — JJMC89 (T·C) 04:11, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A purge with forcelinkupdate does work for this case. (See this comparison to null edits.) — JJMC89 (T·C) 04:11, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Couldn't this be more easily done with Pywikibot's touch.py instead of incurring extra server overhead by doing two substitutions? The command would just be python pwb.py touch -lang:en -family:wikipedia -cat:INSERT_CATEGORY_NAME_HERE. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 19:18, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Ahecht: I don't know how to use Pywikibot - but if you look at my discussion above with Anomie, an alternative that avoids doing 2 substitutions is just to save a blank edt --DannyS712 (talk) 20:23, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it can. I'd add -purge -forcelinkupdate to that command. — JJMC89 (T·C) 04:11, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@JJMC89: so it works with pywikibot - except I don't now how to use pywikibot... are you saying I shouldn't do this task? --DannyS712 (talk) 04:19, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A comment/suggestion a while back, someone told me that appending/prepending ((subst:void)) with AWB (with all other fixes disabled) was the most reliable way to get AWB to do proper null edits. I use this with User:JCW-CleanerBot, but it runs on a ~1,000 page once every month or so, with occasional runs on 10-20 articles. So server load really isn't an issue with that bot. However, with 15,000+ purges per run, performance does start to become an issue. @Ahecht:, you run a bot, and you know python. Is this a task you'd be interested in? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:31, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't have time to take that on until May. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 13:40, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You can use any whatever programming language you want to use the purge API. AWB can't purge though. If you're going to null edit with AWB (not that I recommend it), you're better off adding ((subst:void)) at the end instead of substituting the contents. — JJMC89 (T·C) 04:48, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@JJMC89: for some reason AWB didn't purge it when I added void - I tried that. But, instead of substituting the contents, I can just save it without any changes --DannyS712 (talk) 04:59, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure it used to work, but maybe something changed. You can try that, but I'm not sure if that will work. — JJMC89 (T·C) 05:02, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@JJMC89: it does - just saved 20 null edits with my main account using AWB, no real edits were made, but the size of Category:Pages with maps decreased by 20. --DannyS712 (talk) 05:15, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see that this task is necessary? Category:Pages with graphs is already empty and Category:Pages with maps is down to 6000 pages; is there a reason the pages need to be purged faster than the job queue does? (as a side note, I would be willing to run a python bot doing it the right way with action = purge, but only if it is actually needed..) Galobtter (pingó mió) 07:58, 10 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Galobtter: those were just the examples that inspired me to file this brfa. User:Joe's Null Bot (when it was working) was purging over 1000 pages per day - eg Category:Pending AfC submissions is ideally purged daily to update the tracking categories with the current age of each submission --DannyS712 (talk) 08:03, 10 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Joe's Null Bot should be working now since phab:T210307 was resolved; an AWB bot wouldn't be suitable to replace Joe's bot anyhow and I think the BAG's would be not be willing to approve such an open ended task without at-least concrete examples where running the bot is actually necessary (i.e, where one cannot simply wait for the job queue to do its job) Galobtter (pingó mió) 08:17, 10 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Galobtter: To quote Joe from task 4: categorization-by-template-based-on-what-time-it-is doesn't function properly without purging the page. An AWB bot that makes precisely the null edit envisioned by WP:NULLEDIT seems like an acceptable solution. Can I ask what, if any, downsides you see to this task? To be clear, not a single change should be saved to any page as a result of this task. --DannyS712 (talk) 08:28, 10 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm well aware of why the pages in Category:Pending AfC submissions need to be purged. However, categories that need to be purged recurringly should be handled by a bot run using cron, not by an AWB bot, with the specific categories approved in a BRFA (rather than having an open ended approval); and you haven't given any examples of one-time runs on categories where the job queue wouldn't do the job. Galobtter (pingó mió) 11:49, 10 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Well, since there doesn't appear to be any bot doing it currently using cron, I think AWB is better than nothing. @BAG I'm fine with limiting this BRFA to just that one category if open ended approval is an issue. --DannyS712 (talk) 01:39, 11 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Denied. AWB seems the wrong tool for this, as Galobtter pointed out above. Others have also said Joe's Null Bot should be working now. I'd consider the limitation to only Category:Pages with maps, but as the job queue seems to have caught up with it and it now has 0 pages it no longer needs to be done either. Anomie⚔ 10:44, 11 April 2019 (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.