Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/PrimeBOT 35


 * The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at Bots/Noticeboard. The result of the discussion was

PrimeBOT 35
Operator:

Time filed: 19:37, Saturday, May 29, 2021 (UTC)

Function overview: Convert external links to Commons with internal links (combats link rot)

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Automatic

Programming language(s): AWB

Source code available: WP:AWB

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Initial idea (permalink), BOTREQ (permalink)

Edit period(s): one time run

Estimated number of pages affected: ~4k

Namespace(s): Article, though willing to expand to other namespaces if there is interest

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes

Function details: Using an  text search, replace instances of external links to Commons with internal links. For example:

This is a fairly straight-forward regex replace:

Note also this is a fairly restrictive find regex but I suspect that 90% of the links in question will follow this standard.

Discussion

 * insofar that these are in articles where are you seeing these types of links the most? Are they in places that are inappropriate for a link at all (such as in references)? —  xaosflux  Talk 22:56, 29 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Just followed a few of the search hits on this, and at first glance these looks like links that should be removed, not converted; as such the bot job doesn't seem like it would be improving the article, and it wouldn't be an automation of an edit I'd expect an experienced editor to make. Am I missing something? — xaosflux  Talk 23:05, 29 May 2021 (UTC)
 * If you think this is inappropriate, just say so; I'm following up on a BOTREQ that (as I mention below) seemed reasonable. I am more than happy to convert the task to "remove all external links to Commons" if that's more appropriate. Primefac (talk) 23:08, 29 May 2021 (UTC)
 * If the elinks in refs are problematic, I can always skip them. Primefac (talk) 23:38, 29 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Most of them are in references, but I would not say those I have seen are inappropriately in those references. On Wikipedia there is a ref that links to commons:File:Wikipedia_page_views_by_language_over_time.png as a supplement, Public_domain refers to (and links) to Commons in a ref, etc. There are also External link uses (linking to a gallery or related category), Cubism links directly to the image of an image discussed in one of the articles, and others. Obviously with 4k uses I have only gone through the first dozen or so, and I would guess there are likely some inappropriate uses, but I'm not really sure if that necessarily invalidates this run. Primefac (talk) 23:07, 29 May 2021 (UTC)
 * You probably want your regex to verify there are no query parameters. Is there a reason you're limiting this to just Commons and not other interwiki prefixes? Legoktm (talk) 23:44, 29 May 2021 (UTC)
 * First, because that's all the BOTREQ asked for, and second because I figured it could always be expanded later. Same reason why my regex is rather straight-forward at the moment. Primefac (talk) 23:48, 29 May 2021 (UTC)


 * OK so I went to the search and picked a few random articles, here is what I'm seeing:
 * Division (military)
 * This article is linking to some diagrams on commons directly from the prose - changing these EL's to IWL's would make it appear to the reader that they are going to go to another article - not another project. The prose probably shouldn't be sending readers to a commons file directly at all.
 * New Hampshire
 * In this article the commons link is inside of a caption, as what appears to be a reader facing easter egg - at the least it is an EL now, changing to an IWL would make the reader wanting to learn more about that library end up leaving the project and going to a file page on commons.
 * United States Congress
 * On this page, the link is in a reference, that is for some reason going to a Special log page on commonswiki - this doesn't appear to be a good citation form at all.

Primefac (talk) 00:15, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
 * In short, I don't see how this bot task will be improving the articles - and in some cases it is making it even more confusing for the reader to end up on another project when not expecting to leave. I agree with the concept that IWL's are better than EL's in most cases - but for this source set if they are going to be addressed there are much better ways these should be addressed by editors. —  xaosflux  Talk 23:53, 29 May 2021 (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 Bots/Noticeboard.