Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Robert SkyBot 4


 * 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 The result of the discussion was Symbol oppose vote.svg Withdrawn by operator.

Robert SkyBot 4
Operator: Robert Skyhawk

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic; supervised

Programming language(s): Python

Source code available: The bot will use replace.py, a script for find and replace operations.

Function overview: Addition of Dead link header to sections of articles containing dead links.

Edit period(s): One time run

Estimated number of pages affected: 178, based on mainspace transclusion numbers fetched by a Python script

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Yes

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

Function details: The bot will place Dead link header in sections of articles containing dead links (as indicated by the templates listed at this bot request detailing the task), per consensus here and using the Regex found at the aforementioned Bot Request.

Discussion
Thanks for taking the initiative to do this! First of all, there are a lot more then 178 pages. One estimate was more then 100,000. The second is that the regex was written for dot NET, so Im not sure if it will work the same with python. Regex varies a little bit between languages, so it might take a little tweaking. Thanks, and feel free to ask me any questions! Tim1357--(what?...ohhh) 01:43, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I see a number of potential issues here: Anomie⚔ 02:04, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The referenced discussion seems to be somewhat of a weak consensus, and consensus there to bot-tag articles is basically nonexistent. As mass-tagging of articles is often controversial, I think we should insist on stronger consensus.
 * Where did the "178" number come from? I count 10325 mainspace uses of dead link, and I doubt only 1.72% of those would match the provided regular expression.
 * There seems to be no provision for skipping pages already tagged with this template, although I believe replace.py does have appropriate options to handle that. Also, will replace.py continue to revert reversions of its edits, or will it only touch each page once?
 * This really does look like it needs more discussion. I just saw this BRFA, and after looking at the discussion, I'm rather confused... why do we need another big, ugly banner when we already have the (less ugly) dead link, which isn't as obstrusive and still provides all the relevant information (except for the link to the tool, but couldn't that go in an mbox at the top of Linkrot? Anyone going to that page from the inline templates would then have easy access to the tool. We need to cut down on the use of big banners, IMO, not add more, and especially not to 10,000+ articles with, really, not much consensus. Might I recommend starting a WP:RFC, and posting a link to the RFC on WP:CENT? –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 02:21, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * We skimed down the template to be this: The whole point is that it is slim. Im not sure what good an 'mbox' would be. To tell you the truth, I don't know what an 'mbox' is. The idea of the template was to encourage editors to use the tool and fix the dead link. Let me remind you that 1 in 10 links are in some way, dead. I will ask User:Dispenser to make it so the tool automatically removes this template.Tim1357--(what?...ohhh) 03:03, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I can't say about the issue of consensus, but regarding the number of pages with dead links, that came from running templatecount.py on all the templates listed at the bot request, filtering out non-mainspace pages. Perhaps the tool is broken, or the list of templates I used was not complete...either way that larger number makes this task much larger and less practical, and in need of more consensus in my opinion. Perhaps dropping a note at Wikipedia talk:Wikiproject External Links would be in order. Robert Skyhawk So sue me! (You'll lose) 16:35, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I found out why my number was so low...I left out Dead link, so 178 only represents its redirects. Python gives me an actual total of 10,537. Robert Skyhawk So sue me! (You'll lose) 16:54, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Not that it makes that much of a difference here, but don't forget that if an article uses a redirect to a template it is also listed as using the template itself. Anomie⚔ 23:08, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Per discussion with Tim1357, I have decided that there are too many things that need to be worked out before this task can happen that I did not consider before filing the request. I am withdrawing the request for now, but may revive it if the necessary preemptive measures get done.
 * 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.