Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/AnomieBOT 81


 * The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at Bots/Noticeboard. The result of the discussion was

AnomieBOT 81
Operator:

Time filed: 22:49, Sunday, January 28, 2024 (UTC)

Function overview: Remove direct use of parent monthly categories when a corresponding maintenance template already exists on the page.

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Automatic

Programming language(s): Perl

Source code available: User:AnomieBOT/source/tasks/TagDater.pm

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): None

Edit period(s): Continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: Two currently. In the future it depends on how many more get added.

Namespace(s): Articles

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes

Function details: This is an extension to AnomieBOT's existing TagDater task. Previous BRFAs: 49, 55, 57, 72.

AnomieBOT logs pages that it finds in the parent monthly categories where it can't find a template to date, and I periodically go through these to clean them up. One common situation the bot can't handle is when someone puts a category like Category:Articles lacking sources directly on the article, usually either when creating via ContentTranslation or by misguided use of HotCat.

It seems safe for the bot to automatically remove these when a corresponding maintenance template (e.g. Unreferenced for Category:Articles lacking sources) also exists on the page. If no maintenance template on the page would add the category, the bot will leave it for a human (to decide whether a template is really needed and which one specifically to use).

Discussion
Examples:
 * Currently there are two such pages: St Michael's Catholic High School and List of schools in Buckinghamshire. I skipped fixing them in my most recent run through AnomieBOT's logs.
 * OTOH, Special:PermaLink/1196564781 would not have been fixed by this task, since there is no template in the page adding Category:Articles with unsourced statements. But if someone were to have added a citation needed, then the bot would remove that category.
 * Past manual edits fixing this sort of issue include Special:Diff/1191749128, Special:Diff/1191748826, Special:Diff/1191748760, and Special:Diff/1191748652 (I finally decided to write the bot code after doing those, then I had to wait for more examples to be created 😀).

The bot currently detects "a corresponding maintenance template" by checking for templates from WP:AWB/DT already on the page that, when called with no parameters, would generate the category in question.

The edit summary used for these edits would look something like "Category:Articles lacking sources should not be used directly. The template already on the page already handles the categorization correctly. (added by )". Anomie⚔ 22:49, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Primefac (talk) 16:35, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately it looks like a human editor removed the categories from those two pages, so no immediate edits for the trial. Anomie⚔ 01:27, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
 * One edit so far: Special:Diff/1207603305. Also a non-edit on Hedayatollah Khademi, but if someone were to add dead link or the like to it then the bot would edit it. Anomie⚔ 12:32, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Another one: Special:Diff/1209769831, after disambiguation cleanup was added. Also a non-edit on Aidan Bryant. Anomie⚔ 14:03, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
 * The 30 days have passed. Not as many edits as I had thought there would be. Although I do see from the bot's logs that Pony Malta was just created with another one the bot would edit. Anomie⚔ 13:21, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
 * It might be a low-edit-count task, but it does appear to be a useful one to keep maintenance logs in-check. Primefac (talk) 21:01, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
 * 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 Bots/Noticeboard.