Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/PearBOT 6


 * 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

PearBOT 6
Operator:

Time filed: 02:03, Friday, December 20, 2019 (UTC)

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: automatic

Programming language(s): AWB

Source code available:

Function overview: Remove confusing date parameter from taxapad citations.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): AutoWikiBrowser/Tasks

Edit period(s): One time run

Estimated number of pages affected: 3833

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes

Already has a bot flag (Yes/No): Yes

Function details: The bot will look for a very specific string (" |date=1997–2012 |url=http://www.taxapad.com ") and remove the date parameter. This should avoid any false positives. For the why see AutoWikiBrowser/Tasks where Soap explains it better than I could.

Discussion
So is it a complete removal of the date or a replacement with "2012"? Primefac (talk) 17:55, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
 * , complete removal. Most items weren't added in 2012 making the date meaningless for most items, just the date when the website stopped updating. Also worth noting that the purpose of the date parameter is to disambiguate short form notations which isn't necessary since none of the affected pages use short form citations. ‑‑Trialpears (talk) 19:12, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Primefac (talk) 02:04, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
 * 33 edits no issues. ‑‑Trialpears (talk) 16:31, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

I created most of those references when the Taxapad website went down and I used AWB to set up the archive links. Since each database entry has no date, I used the copyright date range in the pages' footer in the date. That's not a good date, but I figured it was better than none. I've no objection to the removal of the range. SchreiberBike &#124; ⌨ 04:09, 10 January 2020 (UTC) Primefac (talk) 19:01, 2 February 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.