The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. The result of the discussion was Approved.

UnCatBot[edit]

Operator: Nn123645 (talk)

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic with manual oversight every so often

Programming Language(s): AWB (C#/VisualBasic)

Function Summary: To be an automated AWB tagging bot that will add the uncategorized, orphan, and wikify templates to all pages that do not already have them, in Special:Uncategorizedpages.

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): Whenever the cache of Special:Uncategorizedpages is updated, then continuously until done.

Edit rate requested: 3 edits per minute

Already has a bot flag (Y/N):No

Function Details: Pretty much summed up in Summary. I don't really intend to modify AWB in any way as I'm still very new to coding and really only have marginal experience with html and php. This is the text from the AWB user manual:


So that is basically what I am requesting. I have already manually gone through the Uncategorized pages once (see my Contribs), and there wasn't an edit in there that I had to click ignore on. It gets extremely tedious staring at the AWB screen for 3 or 4 hours just clicking save.

Discussion[edit]

I created the pages for you. <DREAMAFTER> <TALK> 22:57, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've changed the operator to the correct operator name (it was the bot's). Snowolf How can I help? 22:58, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
lol, thanks :D. --Nn123645 (talk) 23:11, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I just noticed a request on Wikipedia:Bot_requests to add the uncat tag to articles, which is pretty much what this bot is intended to do so I would like to extend the edit periods to allow for making requests by editors or browsing of all pages based on a database dump. --Nn123645 (talk) 23:55, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Special:Uncategorizedpages is often broken, for example the very first entry on the list 'Til Death was already in seven categories at the time of the update listed. Will you be doing sanity checking to NOT tag pages that actually are categorized? — xaosflux Talk 04:17, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Additionally, that page is broken and is (at least currently) failing to list beyond 1000 entries. — xaosflux Talk 04:20, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As per the first concern, I would simply setup AWB to skip any article to which there are no changes to be made. AWB does not add templates to articles if the template that it is going to add already exists on the page.
As per the second concern, to my understanding the page isn't broken, just cached, if I had to guess to the reason I would guess it would have something to do with performance. It is this reason that I have requested to run it every time I notice a update in the page. --Nn123645 (talk) 04:32, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In example one above, the page was well categorized, and did not contain any uncategorized templates, you request also appears that you will be adding this template to pages that don't have it, how are you configuring the skip on these? (I didn't see it as a native AWB action). — xaosflux Talk 06:15, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Do you know the last time more then 1000 entries were actually available on this page? — xaosflux Talk 06:15, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have uploaded an image here of the skip option highlighted. Based on what I have seen from manually going through the pages AWB does not add the uncategorized template if it sees catagories. Apparently the reason the page you linked to showed up on Uncat pages is because of an incomplete cite template. (see this diff).
So, in the example (which just so happen to be the very first page I checked) are you saying that your bot WOULD have added an uncategorized template to the page, not skipping it, in otherwords IF pagename is included in list, AND page does not include template, THEN add template, in where it would be adding this template to pages that don't need it. — xaosflux Talk 00:24, 24 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
To my understanding AWB checks for a [Category:] before adding the template. So IF pagename is included in list, AND page does not include template, AND there are no [Category:] tags on the page, THEN add template.The reason I suspect this is because of the alerts message that says "No category (although one may be in a template)" as seen in this screenshot and watching it when I was doing it manually. I will ask on the AWB discussion page however to make sure. --Nn123645 (talk) 01:14, 24 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I just tested this in the sandbox. AWB did not find any changes to that version of the page. --Nn123645 (talk) 13:05, 24 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the update, confirmed it as well, answering my earlier questioning "I didn't see it as a native AWB action" that tagging uncategorized tags is a native AWB function under "Auto tag'". I don't see any issues that would lead to double or error prone ((uncategorized)) tagging now; but do still wonder if there is a better way to seed your bot, as that special page seems incomplete at best. — xaosflux Talk 23:05, 24 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If somebody with a toolserver account could run a query for pages without any categories that would provide a good list. If I understand the bot correctly this would be better to run as a weekly bot that has toolserver DB access. BJTalk 23:10, 24 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Per the second comment, no I do not know the last time more than 1,000 entries were available on the page. I have noticed that the page is cached as previously mentioned ("The following information is cached, and was last updated 02:49, December 22, 2007." on the top of the page.). I'm not really trying to be able to find uncategorized articles in real time not on Special:Uncategorizedpages, though that could be a possible feature which could be implemented at a later time. (possibly using database dumps?) --Nn123645 (talk) 07:18, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Have you noticed that User:BetacommandBot has done this, and continues to do this? <DREAMAFTER> <TALK> 17:32, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Diff One and Diff Two. <DREAMAFTER> <TALK> 17:33, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Someone pointed that out to me on IRC last night, when I filed the request I was unaware that Betacommand bot did that (I thought it only did images lol). I was able to find two inactive bots that did this task User:stwalkerbot (which I found before I opened this request) and User:UncatTemplateBot (which I was unaware of until after I opened this request). --Nn123645 (talk) 17:39, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Id like to point out something, there was a BOTREQ asking for this to be done, using a toolserv database query, given that data I set BCBot to tag all pages that did not include a category directly on the page. Please note that I did not file a BRFA as I was only planning a single run, but if it comes to it Ill gladly re-run this task, (the last run was about 8k edits without any issues.) βcommand 00:29, 24 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
BCBot has been ((BotSpeedy)) UnCatBot may be a clone/semi-clone if BC will allow it. Dreamafter \*/ 22:33, 24 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I just said that was a good idea above without reading your comment. I do think this would be better suited to the toolserver and a cron job. BJTalk 23:25, 24 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Due to the fact that I am lazy, I just used AWB myself, :). I could have coded something in python but I did not feel like it. also please note that the toolserver does not support AWB. βcommand 01:12, 25 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
What is the status of this request? --Nn123645 (talk) 16:56, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
((BAGAssistanceNeeded))I don't honestly know... Is BetaCommand going to run this bot, or is he giving up the task for you to do it? Dreamafter ⇔ 16:03, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
((BAGAssistanceNeeded)) I can't figure out what else is must be said, any help here? Dreamafter ⇔ 00:47, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
((OperatorAssistanceNeeded))If the operator still wants to do it, then we will approve it for trial. If they do not, then it can be closed as withdrawn. -- maelgwn - talk 03:39, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would still like to do this task, if nothing else I'd like to get approval to be able to be a backup for betacommand bot. --Nn123645 (talk) 05:36, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good. Approved for trial (35 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. -- maelgwn - talk 05:59, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bot AWB Approved. —Reedy Boy 16:52, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Trial  Done. After watching it I'd like to request a bit higher edit rate of 5 edits a minute insted of the original 3. 3 edits/min seems kind of slow for this task as it would take 5 and a half hours to go through all 1,000 items, assuming it edited on each one. At 5 edits a minute it would be able to complete the task in about 3 and half hours. --Nn123645 (talk) 21:15, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Two things, shouldn't you have the word "robot" in you edit summary, and it appears that the bot adds the "deadend" tag, not the "wikify" tag to articles. Dreamafter ⇔ 21:34, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I will change the edit summary to include bot in the wording. As far as the wikify tag, AWB does add it, when I was manually going through the list two weeks ago it added it a few times, such as here and here. --Nn123645 (talk) 02:47, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

 Approved. for 6 epm. -- maelgwn - talk 06:49, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
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