Wikipedia:Bots/Cosmetic Bot Day

This page contains details for a trial of "Cosmetic Bot Day", following an RFC on the matter. The exact date for the trial is yet to be determined, but will likely be in early 2021.

Each bot will have a two-step approval process.
 * 1) A regular WP:BRFA (see the approval process if you are unfamiliar with it), in which a technical review will occur (e.g. limited bot trial) as well as a preliminary check on whether or not the task is a good idea.
 * 2) A larger trial during COSDAY itself. The exact terms of this trial is still under deliberation.

Following the COSDAY trial, there will be a period for comments during which the community can examine the results and decide how it wants to proceed.

Reviewing the WP:BOTDICT entries cosmetic edit, editor-hostile wikitext, and threshold of usefulness will likely be useful to many.

Restrictions
WP:BOTREQUIRE and everything in WP:BOTPOL still apply. The only thing that's different is that the restrictions from WP:COSMETICBOT have been slightly been relaxed to allow for mainly-cosmetic/cosmetic-only tasks to be done on COSDAY. In particular, for a bot to be approved, its operator should still demonstrate that it:


 * 1) is harmless
 * 2) is useful
 * 3) does not consume resources unnecessarily
 * 4) performs only tasks for which there is consensus
 * 5) carefully adheres to relevant policies and guidelines
 * 6) uses informative messages, appropriately worded, in any edit summaries or messages left for users

In practice that means
 * Filing a WP:BRFA for new tasks and make a case for why the task meets the threshold of usefulness. Then list the page below in the New tasks subsection.
 * If you want a COSDAY trial of an existing cosmetic task from an already-approved BRFAs, then list the page below in the Existing tasks subsection.
 * During their trial, edit summaries should specifically link to both the relevant BRFA and this Cosmetic Bot Day page (e.g. )

Dealing with COSDAY
If you find your watchlist explode on COSDAY, a few options exist for you to minimize disruption.
 * WP:HIDEBOTS – You can customize your watchlist to hide all bot edits, or to hide only those of specific bots. Hiding specific bots require a WP:USERSCRIPT to be installed.

If you have comments on something, several options exist.
 * If a specific bot made a mistake, comment in the relevant BRFA if it is still open. If the BRFA is closed, follow WP:BOTISSUE and contact the bot operator (normally on the bot's talk page).
 * Wikipedia talk:Bots/Cosmetic Bot Day will also gather general feedback about COSDAY in general

New tasks

 * WikiCleanerBot 25 – Removing some unnecessary tags in regular text. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 13:08, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Existing tasks

 * WikiCleanerBot 6 – Asking for fixing (Template contains useless word Template:) to be done as standalone edits on COSDAY. NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 11:01, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * WikiCleanerBot 8 – Asking for fixing (Link equal to link text) to be done as standalone edits on COSDAY. NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 11:01, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * WikiCleanerBot 9 – Asking for fixing (Title linked in text) to be done as standalone edits on COSDAY. NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 11:01, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * WikiCleanerBot 11 – Asking for fixing (Empty list item) to be done as standalone edits on COSDAY. NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 11:01, 12 December 2020 (UTC)