Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/LivingBot 7


 * 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.svg Approved.

LivingBot 7
Operator: - Jarry1250 (t, c)

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Supervised automatic

Programming Language(s): PHP, Wikibot framework.

Function Overview: Tidy up isbn parameter of Infobox Book instances

Edit period(s): One time run

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

Function Details: Per this bot request, it would be useful to tidy up the isbn parameter of Infobox Book. The main example of this would be to respond to a change in the template from "isbn = ISBN ###" to "isbn = ###". The former now looks clumsy and inconsistent; it is in the minority. Whilst we're making edits, we might as well standardise the capitalisation of the template name "Infobox Book" and remove unneccessary punctuation from the parameter such as quote marks.

I haven't coded it yet, but I've done a couple of AWB mock-ups, and everything looks easy. A very rough sample of the 17,000 transclusions of that template suggests ~5% need changing, so about 850 edits in total.

Discussion
It just occured to me that I could make it bot exclusion-compliant, if this would be useful. - Jarry1250 (t, c) 11:07, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The whole framework is now bots compliant. - Jarry1250 (t, c) 12:43, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Looks like a good task for a bot,  Richard  0612  15:17, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * - edits here. You have my sincerest apologies for overrunning (23 edits in total); I forgot the three I'd done earlier! Still, the trial's brought up three points of interest:
 * It seems my un-revised figure was actually more accurate: edit 23 was number 65 on the list, suggesting up to one in three need changing.
 * Some of the ISBNs have dashes in them - this does not affect wikilinking; any need to change?
 * There was an incident where there were two ISBNs providied, both wikilinked. The bot correct the first leaving it not wikilinked at all. The second remained wikilinked with ISBN in front of it. I can think of three possible things for the bot to do here:
 * Exactly what it did: there was a working wikilink, and all content was preserved.
 * Correct both. If the template was not updated in some way, neither would be wikilinked. Content preserved.
 * Correct first, delete second; this would leave a working, wikilinked ISBN but some content would be lost (the second ISBN).
 * Apart from that, I believe the trial was a success. - Jarry1250 (t, c) 14:32, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I see no reason to change the hyphenation if it doesn't affect wikilinking, and in cases where there is more than one ISBN, I would have the bot correct both ISBNs. The template could (should?) be updated to facilitate multiple wikilinked numbers.  Richard 0612  11:52, 19 February 2009 (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.