Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Bibcode 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 Symbol keep vote.svg Approved.

Bibcode Bot
Coders:
 * coded the first chunk of this bot, and abandoned the project.
 * took over and will do the rest of the "major" coding.
 * [aka me] took care of the journal detection / JJJJJ assignment stuff (see below) and will keep making tweaks as needed.
 * Apparently I've discovered some coding skills as well. So basially the current coders are both me & Snottywong. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:08, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Operator:

Time filed: 05:13, Friday April 15, 2011 (UTC)

Automatic or Manual: Automatic

Programming language(s): Python / Pywikipedia

Source code available: When a stable version is around.

Function overview: Finds bibcodes and dois for citation and cite journal. See also the BOTREQ.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):WP Astronomy, WP Astronomical Objects, WP Physics, WP Space, WP Solar System, and the Relativity taskforce have been noticed. Response is either unanimous support, or indifference, no one gave feedback, most likely because this is uncontroversial and similar to what User:Citation bot already does, or maybe because the BOTREQ was rather technical. Either way, no one bothered to object. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 05:13, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Edit period(s): One big run after every database dumps, with possibly a few smaller runs following logic tweaks. If it doesn't have the time to finish between dumps, then it'll essentially be continuous.

Estimated number of pages affected: The theoretical upper limit is all pages with a citation and cite journal. A more realistic scenario is every astronomy- and physics-related page on Wikipedia (~50K), plus a few odd pages which cites a astronomy/physics journal for some weird reason (~5? ~10K? ~25K?) and most cite doi templates built by User:Citation bot. The number of affected pages should go down drastically following the first few runs, since there is a ~10 year backlog of stuff to deal with at the moment. The bot would at first go through human-compiled lists mostly focus on articles related to astronomy & physics articles. Once its astronomy & physics workload is reduced drastically, it could possibly move on to all pages with citation and cite journal.

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Not implemented yet, but should be compliant with it.

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

Function details:

A bibcode is in the YYYYJJJJJVVVVMPPPPA format, such as, where YYYY is the year, JJJJJ is a journal code, VVVV is the volume, M is a special character, PPPP are pages, and A is the first letter of the first author's last name. The bot tries to...
 * Look for foo in citation/cite journal and tries to find the associated bibcode, if it exists, by querying the ADSABS database. If it find one, it adds bar.
 * Look for foo in citation/cite journal and tries to find the associated doi, if it exists, by querying the ADSABS database. If it find one, it adds bar.
 * If a search for the bibcode comes up empty-handed, it tries to build a bibcode from year/date, journal/work, volume, page/pages, last/last1
 * If the bibcode is valid, it adds bibcode. If the bibcode has an associated doi, it also adds doi.
 * If not, it makes some additional guesses (varies A from A to Z, if that fails, it varies M from A-Z, then from a-z).
 * If it finds a valid bibcode, it adds bibcode. If the bibcode has an associated doi, it also adds doi.

The bot does not touch anything other than doi and bibcode. If the scope expands beyond this, there will be another BRFA. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 05:13, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Discussion
Could you post an example of before and after the bibcode addition and what that means for citation/user? Is there a point of reference that bibcode presence in the citation is beneficial in all cases and wanted by the community to be implemented? — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 14:26, 15 April 2011 (UTC)


 * See sample diff. And I know of no cases where a bibcode is harmful or unwanted, as for the "wanted by the community", it is (see links to relevant discussions above). It's basically similar to User:Citation bot, only with a limited scope. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 14:37, 15 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Those had no responses. Anyway, —  HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 14:45, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Everything went flawlessly, save some timeout errors which make the bot crash from time to time [doesn't affect Wikipedia, just annoying on this side of things]. All bibcodes and DOIs were the correct ones. Logic is continuously being refined to cover more and more journals, but that's something that can only be taken care of over time. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:07, 19 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Update
 * I've done a recoding of the whole bot, to make it more efficient with queries, and to also make it cover arxiv (which is also present in the ADSABS database, so might as well retrieve it too [this is uncontroversial]) as well as bibcode and doi. I could be making a BRFA 2 for the arxiv thing, but, since I've recoded the whole thing and it's not yet approved, and it's a very small expansion of the scope of this bot, could I get another 30 trial edits?. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:37, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Still no responses on talk pages. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 19:43, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Also, would the operator(s) please acknowledge points of Bot policy. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 19:48, 21 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Only I operate the bot. If that changes, BAG will be notified. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:49, 21 April 2011 (UTC)


 * O.K. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 19:50, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * FYI - I have access to portions of the code, but have no intention of running the code, and I don't have access to the User:Bibcode Bot account. &mdash;SW&mdash; soliloquize 20:51, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

everything was a smooth ride. Bot is ready for action and flagging. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 00:43, 22 April 2011 (UTC)


 *  MBisanz  talk 04:14, 23 April 2011 (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.