Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/LivingBot

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.

LivingBot

Operator: Jarry1250

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Unsupervised automatic

Programming Language(s): PHP

Function Summary: Checking "___ missing (living people)" to make sure that they are also marked as Living people.

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): One time run

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

Function Details: I imagine the process to be such:

Grab listing of articles in the Category:Year of birth missing (living people) or similar category.
Scan each one to see if they have Category:Living people (or a template that generates it).
If they don't, add them to Category:Living people

Category:Living people is mandatory for all articles about living people, regardless of whether they have Category:Year of birth missing (living people) (etc.) or not. However, some articles in the latter are not in the former, when they should be. A nice, easy task for a bot to do I would think.

Discussion

Okay, so this is my new area for improvement. I realise that my last application was a bit too tricky for a bot to handle, so I've drawn up a completely new proposal. Older discussion is hidden below if anyone wants it. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 19:57, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the other task wasn't too bad, it just needed a bit of human help.

As for this task, are you planning to use the API's prop=categories to detect which categories the page has? Anomie ⚔ 20:09, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it did just need human effort. I did what I could but unfortunately I didn't really have the time. Still, 57 pages corrected wasn't that bad an effort. I'll have to look into prop=categories, I didn't even know it existed. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 20:21, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See api.php for a quick reference to all the API can do, and mw:API for something a bit more human-readable. Anomie ⚔ 20:25, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I'll definitely use the above, assuming it registers template generated categories. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 20:37, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Have you considered using the m:Toolserver? A simple query told me that 1055 out of 37385 pages in Category:Year of birth missing (living people) are not in Category:Living people. I listed those at tools:~erwin85/dbq/enwiki livingbot.txt. --Erwin(85) 21:20, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I assume you meant tools:~erwin85/dbq/enwiki livingbot.txt. No that's just me being a bit grumpy because I just spent ages drawing up my own list like that and now feel like a complete idiot. ;) You live to learn these things, i suppose. Right, now all I need is permission to have my bot run through and edit them all. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 21:54, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. Removed the typo. --Erwin(85) 22:33, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a great idea. Simple, but important. Debresser (talk) 00:39, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The code's all in place now, so I'm ready for a trial should one be authorised. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 12:34, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the task looks straightforward.

Approved for trial (25 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Anomie ⚔ 14:55, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Trial complete. - you can see the 25 edits it made (all correct I think), on its contributions page. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 15:29, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Approved. Looks good, although you might want to consider copying the sortkey from the Category:Year of birth missing (living people) (if any) unless DEFAULTSORT is present on the page. Anomie ⚔ 01:27, 12 January 2009 (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.