Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DASHBot


 * 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.

DASHBot
Operator: Tim1357

Automatic

Programming Language(s): Python Using pywikipedia

Source code available: Err, you can have it if you want it. Its kind of a hacked version of movepages.py

(C) Leonardo Gregianin, 2006

(C) Andreas J. Schwab, 2007

Distributed under the terms of the MIT license.

Function overview: Move pages that have ' - ' in their name to ones that have 'ndash'

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Bot Request

and

MOS Page that says:

"A hyphen is never followed or preceded by a space"

Edit period(s): Monthly? The consensus was unclear. Personally I think its a once-a-month job.

Estimated number of pages affected: I have no idea, a Lot from the looks of the size of what X!'s dump scan returned (the list is 807 kb long). Update, I did a dump scan, and it returned a list around 21 thousand. However, that includes re-directs and DASHBot skips redirects.

Exclusion compliant (?): I don't know if pywikipedia is exclusion compliant. I will just parse out the links that transclude

Already has a bot flag (Y/N):

Function details: Moves pages containing '(space)-(space)' (and their talk pages) to an article with the '(space)-(space)' replaced with '(space)ndash(space)'.

Discussion
I'd like to hear about if you think there are going to be any false positives, and how you'll catch them? Rjwilmsi 22:24, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Well according to the MOS and the BOTRequest, it is appropriate to change all instances of '(space)-(space)' with '(space)ndash(space)'. Other then that there aren't really any openings for a false positive, as the bot won't even consider moving a page that dosen't contain '(space)-(space)'. If that wasn't the answer you were asking for, you may have to clarify a bit. Thanks for the question Tim1357 (talk) 23:27, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but I do not think it is a good idea to automate moving thousands of pages unless there is a very clear consensus after wide discussion. What you might do is prepare a user-space list of 1000 titles and seek consensus to move them. After doing a couple of those with no objection, perhaps the bot could be extended to run unleashed. One reason that automating this sort of activity is not a good idea is that different editors have different views, and the tiny benefit from having titles more compliant with some rule is not worth the almost certain side effect of upsetting some editors who are watching articles affected by the move (I can't think of an example, but there is bound to be some title where editors have argued over the hyphen/endash issue, and having a bot intrude will just offend some users). Johnuniq (talk) 00:40, 12 December 2009 (UTC)


 * If that is what the discussion comes to. I will ask some more people to come and comment. I was under the impression that there was consensus to make the MOS, and that should therefore translate to consensus for the bot. Tim1357 (talk) 05:59, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Of course bearing in mind that every endashed page should have a hyphen redirect, the number will probably be much lower than this. I am doing a scan now, looks around the 5k mark. Rich Farmbrough, 06:22, 12 December 2009 (UTC).
 * 8491 - most in big groups and obviously changeable. Rich Farmbrough, 06:32, 12 December 2009 (UTC).


 * I really support this idea. I proposed this once before and whilst it didn't happen (wikibreaks etc.) there was no opposition. I have on occasion done lots of these moves manually and this automated process would be a very beneficial time saver. Rambo's Revenge (talk)  10:40, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that Rich, I was going to do that, but now I'm glad I don't have to! I will run the bot from that list. Note that I will leave redirects Tim1357 (talk) 18:12, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I had a look through Rich's list and your plan is probably less controversial than I had feared in my above comment. Johnuniq (talk) 21:43, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * BAGAssistanceNeeded Ok, well if all the concerns are met, then I think I'm ready to go. Note that I made a settings page that will allow users to turn the bot off if something goes wrong. Tim1357 (talk) 23:51, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

 MBisanz  talk 02:59, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Tim1357 (talk) 04:11, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Damn, i only got 35 done. I am being throttled because DASHBot is a new user. Is it all right if I leave it as is? If not, Ill be back tomorrow to finish. DASHBot (talk) 05:57, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Sure, no rush.  MBisanz  talk 02:42, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * 49 pages (talk pages included) moved. Tim1357 (talk) 03:49, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 *  MBisanz  talk 10:12, 30 December 2009 (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.