Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Area code bot


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

Area code bot
Operator:

Bot Name: Area code bot

Time filed: 10:40, Tuesday, June 23, 2020 (UTC)

Function overview: Edits related to North American telephone area code pages

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Manual or Supervised

Programming language(s): Free Pascal, PHP, Javascript (if needeed)

Source code available: Not at this time. I presumed I had to get permission first before even doing testing, so I haven't written it yet. No sense in spending days or weeks developing a tool then be told you can't use it. As it would be a specialized tool and of no real use for other purposes I'll be happy to make it public.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): On occasion as needed.

Estimated number of pages affected: At most, approximately 800 pages, one for each North American area code (or group, for overlays) and "List of [state/province name] area codes" pages

Namespace(s): Mainspace articles beginning with "Area code" or consist of "List of [jurisdiction] area codes"

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No):Yes, but none of these articles should be marked nobots.If they are, I'll want to find out why.

Function details: Provide bulk changes to articles to unify descriptions, clean up references, add maps, and make appearance uniform. Pages describing the telephone area codes for North America (Canada, 22 Caribbean countries and the United States) are not uniform and say different things. I would like to standardize them, in the following ways.  Have each article start with "North American telephone area code " because other regions (like Europe) also have area codes, and we should not be America-centric. Also, some postal systems or other geographic identifiers might use "area code" to mean something else. By explicitly stating it's a telephone area code avoids confusion. Add short description to each article as needed. Every page should have a map showing either the state (or province or country), or portion of the state, along with border regions. The map should be clickable, so that if someone wanted to, they could follow the chain of area codes to wherever they are trying to get to. Each page should have the footer box containing same state and neighboring state area codes.  Some of this has been done, but in other places it has not.

Now, these are tasks I can and did do manually, but it's gotten to the point the job is too large to do so. One example. Some years ago I decided to convert all the maps for California area codes from PNG to SVG. Editing PNG images to add new area codes got to be painful as it required doing an erase and repaint on 22 different maps. With SVG maps, it just requires changing a text field. Editing time drops from several hours to minutes, sometimes just seconds. When I had to make some changes to add three new area codes and combine two, uploading the maps took longer than making the changes.

Making a task easier to do - such as by automating it - makes it more likely it will get done.

Now, North America has potentially 800 different area codes, while some are combined on one page (like the three-code overlay in Texas) most are single codes. Many do not have maps or have inadequate maps (an inadequate one is one that only shows the area code boundary, or just that state alone, but not its location in its state, province or country,or border states/provinces/countries.) Many that have adequate maps are not "clickable" so someone can choose the correct one if they picked the wrong code and wanted its neighbor. Either the map code for creating clickable maps has to be inserted or a template containing it has to be inserted.

My objective is, if someone reports to me that some state has a new area code, I can simply select the pages for the other area codes in that state or that touch that state, and just update them in an automated fashion, so instead of, say, having to manually edit 5, 8, or ten pages(plus additional time to check I make no errors typing in them) I can just indicate what has to be changed, let the tool do the grunt work, then simply check it's correct. But, it's my understanding to even test this I must first create an account with "Bot" in the name for doing this, (which I have done, see User:Area code bot), indicate my intentions on the home page of the bot (also done), then get approval to use it, which is why I am here.

Further, the N.A. telephone numbering system is eventually going to be expanded; we will run out of numbers by 2045. At some point before then either we'll go from 10-digit to 11-digit or 12-digit telephone numbers. When there are, not hundreds, but thousands of area codes, and one state might have 50 or 60 area codes, is anyone going to want to do changes to that manually? No, I don't think so. I think it's time to create automated tools to do the job, so it can and will get done. Thank you for your attention. Paul Robinson (Rfc1394) (talk) 10:40, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Discussion
Is there a relevant discussion where this "issue" has been described? Primefac (talk) 12:50, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
 * No, as I thought this posting was where I was supposed to do this. If there is some place I'm also supposed to do so, please advise. Paul Robinson (Rfc1394) (talk) 18:12, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I suspect one of the Village Pumps would be a good place to propose your changes. Primefac (talk) 18:25, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

No linked discussion or indication that this is a task anyone needs. Primefac (talk) 22:21, 2 August 2020 (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 WT:BRFA.