Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/CapitalBot


 * 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 Symbol keep vote.svgSymbol support vote.svg Speedily Approved.

CapitalBot
Operator: CapitalR

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Manually assisted; requesting bot status so not to clutter recent changes and watchlists

Programming Language(s): AWB module (with minor modifications to AWB itself)

Function Summary: Add or update in all U.S. places.

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): Daily, a few hours at a time

Edit rate requested: 10 edits per minute

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

Function Details: This bot uses a large database I've compiled with census and other government information to fill in for all U.S. places (cities/towns/CDPs/villages/etc). For each article, if the infobox exists, it fills in missing parameters; if it does not exist, it creates the infobox and then fills it in. It does not overwrite any existing parameters (with the sole exception of "County", for which a significant number of articles have incorrect information in the infobox that this bot will fix). Deprecated parameter names in existing infoboxes are renamed to the new names. Infoboxes that are redirected to are renamed to bypass the redirect (,, etc). If a map lies outside of the infobox, the bot sucks it inside of the infobox. If article message templates (cleanup, unreferenced, etc) or indented text follow the infobox, they are moved in front of the infobox. Finally, just for fun, it applies AWBs general fixes. The bot is manually assisted and I will check every edit before saving.

Discussion
Please see my edit history for about 500 edits using this tool (done with my regular account to design/test the bot; now that it works, I would like to move it to this bot account to get the edits out of recent changes so as not to clutter it up). The first few edits had some minor problems, but all have been fixed and the last 400 or so have gone through without any problems. The risk should be fairly low since it's manually operated. Also, this bot does not cause any conflicts with User:ArkyBot, which is doing a similar task (if ArkyBot has already been to a page, this bot just fills in lots of additional parameters to the infobox). The source code is available upon request. --CapitalR 08:54, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks good to someone not in the BAG :) When you say it's manually assisted, does that mean you'll check, and save, every edit? Dihydrogen Monoxide (H2O) 09:16, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Yup, every single one. Perhaps after many thousands of edits (if the code works well enough with very few errors) I'll reapply for full automation.  However, that would require major testing and I'm not sure it's even possible.  --CapitalR 09:20, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I love it! Very nice work. Given that you've already made hundreds of edits without problems and you're manually checking edits anyway, — M ETS 501 (talk) 14:20, 7 October 2007 (UTC)


 * 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.