Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/MBisanzBot 4

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

Denied.

MBisanzBot[edit]

Operator: MBisanz ^talk

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Unsupervised, automatic

Programming Language(s): AWB

Function Summary: Categorizing templates with {{uncategorized template}}

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): Run through the current 25,000 uncatted templates

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

Function Details: Bot will take a list either from Special:UncategorizedTemplates or generated from the toolserver of template pages lacking categories. It will scan using regex /(\{\{|atego)/ to make sure there are no existing categories or transcluded templates passing through a category. If there are none, it will add <noinclude>{{uncategorized template}}</noinclude> to the page. This will fully populate the uncategorized template category and make it easier to sort and slice the list for specific categorization.

Discussion[edit]

Your regex looks like it would get a lot of false matches: plenty of templates will contain e.g. "{{{1}}}", which will match /\{\{/. Is it really even needed? —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 16:51, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, your right, my main fear is that many templates have categories done by passing through other templates. In theory my list method should eliminate that, and I can remove all instances of {{documentation}} to being with, so maybe /(atego)/ will also work. MBisanz ^talk 05:31, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think that just checking for no entries in the categorylinks table (which is what Special:UncategorizedTemplates does, but it could also be done on the toolserver) should be enough. If MediaWiki doesn't think the page is categorized, then it by definition isn't categorized, period. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 07:54, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good point, I may still exclude tempaltes with the Documentation subtemplate, since by definition, templates should only be added to the documentation page. That will be phase 2 of this I think. MBisanz ^talk 07:59, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have incredibly strong opposition to this task. It is the definition of a waste of server resources. It adds entirely unnecessary revisions that serve only to bloat various database tables. While users generally shouldn't worry about system performance, the practicality of this task is non-existent. If users are interested in categorizing templates, MediaWiki's list or a Toolserver-generated list can easily be used. This task (ironically?) puts all of the uncategorized templates into a category (Category:Wikipedia uncategorized templates), thus entirely defeating the purpose of the Special: page, which will also further complicate any lists that need to be generated of actually uncategorized templates. Essentially, this task is clearing out a Special: page for no other reason than to make someone feel better? In addition, a lot of uncategorized templates do not need to be tagged, they need to deprecated and deleted (or redirected). I strongly recommend a speedy denial of this bot. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:45, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that occurred to me as well. However, MBisanz's explanation above suggests that he may think there's some advantage to doing it this way, in which case I'd certainly like to hear what it is. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 05:03, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are about 25,000 uncategorized templates, the special page only lists the first 1000, cleaning it out would permit someone to see all 25,000 in one category without needing to find someone with a toolserver account and get them to provide some sort of list, format the list, etc. MBisanz ^talk 06:45, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It would be trivial to have a web tool on the toolserver. BJ^Talk 06:47, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. We're talking about 25,000 (in my opinion entirely useless) revisions versus one or two to a MediaWiki: message to point people to a longer list. Or, alternately, if they categorize the pages in order, the list will then show the next 1,000 pages. KISS. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:07, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, I might be missing something here, we have maintainence categories to help us sort things, we have a template whose purpose is to sort things, I have a bot that wants to do this thing, so far no one else has created a better way to do this thing, how else is this thing going to occur? MBisanz ^talk 13:58, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Denied. I appreciate what you're trying to do here, MBisanz. But consensus seems to be that this isn't the best way to do it. – Quadell ^(talk) 14:01, 6 August 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.