Wikipedia talk:Bot requests/Archive 2

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Archive 1 Archive 2

RFC: Deploying 'Start date' template in infoboxes

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
This has been open for over a month, and ample opportunity has been provided for interested parties to comment. It appears that the change is uncontroversial, in that it merely alters existing input so that it can be parsed by search engines (its stated purpose) and here is no objection to the task in principle, thus I find that there is consensus to implement this proposal. Incorporating months written as words is a valid point, but one, I feel, for another discussion. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 10:09, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia emits many thousands of hCalendar microformats, mostly though infoboxes (see Category:Templates generating hCalendars), making the dates and other details of events machine readable and reusable. We have done so since around 2007. WikiProject Microformats has more information. They are parsed, among others, by Yahoo! and Google.

However, many of our hCalendar microformats do not include a valid date parameter, because the infobox does not use the {{Start date}} sub-template.

I have a long-standing bot-request to apply this sub-template to relevant infoboxes, as seen in this example edit for a year, and this one for a full date. Additional details, lists of affected infobox templates, and some exclusions are at User:Pigsonthewing/to-do#Date conversions.

There are already over 85,700 transclusions of {{Start date}} (up from 54,500 this time last year); there is no opposition when such changes are made manually; the vast majority - indeed probably all - of the templates in question stipulate the use of {{Start date}} in their documentation, again with no controversy; as does Wikipedia:WikiProject Microformats; and new or expanded instances of such templates, created by many editors, routinely include it without drama. {{Start date}} was unsuccessfully nominated for deletion in August 2009 and the result was a speedy keep.

There have been at least three bots approved to carry out this task, but for a variety of reasons this has not yet been done. Despite this, some other editors have suggested that further demonstration of consensus is needed. No cogent reasons for not deploying the proposed changes have been given. A date sub-template must be used; there is currently no alternative method of emitting valid microformat-compatible dates from these templates.

There is prior discussion at:

Note that the proposed changes will not add a single microformat to Wikipedia; they will simply complete those which we already emit, but which lack the required date parameter. No visible changes will be made to any article.

May we now proceed with this simple, necessary, long-overdue and non-disruptive task? Thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:27, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

  • Sound proposal. The technology is already given and supported, so why letting the templates lie around unused? --The Evil IP address (talk) 20:44, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
  • I think the key point that Andy makes is that this upgrade will not change the number of microformats emitted, but simply add a missing date in a number of formats where there is apparently already consensus for them. I can't see any point in carrying out this task manually, so I'd strongly support this request for a bot to do the job. It's long overdue. --RexxS (talk) 01:00, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Support, a really good summary. mabdul 21:45, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Support Brilliant idea. →Bmusician 07:27, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Support – long overdue, as the proposer remarks. Oculi (talk) 09:54, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Support – This is what bots are made for. Query: Is there, however, some way to transclude {{Start date}} in an infobox template if it's not transcluded in an article? That would ensure full coverage. I can't think of a way to do so, but my template-fu isn't that strong. — madman 16:14, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
    • That would only work if people only, and always, entered a YYYY-MM-DD values. However, sometimes they add comments or qualifications ("before" "circa"), vague dates (1667-8), references, etc. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:57, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
      • Hmmm. I was thinking some sort of invisible "marker value" in {{Start date}} that the infobox could then check for. But I'm pretty sure there's no parser function that can check for one string within another; it'd be too expensive. Just another reason to look forward to Lua, I suppose. — madman 17:20, 11 May 2012 (UTC) Oh, I see what you mean too, that automatically adding {{Start date}} would necessitate splitting into year, month, and date. A bot would need to do this, but could do so on a case-by-case basis. Some could possibly be converted with #time, but not enough. — madman 17:27, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
  • I can see one fly in the ointment in the implementation of this. How are we going to allow for the variations between US and UK/European style dating? Currently df=y needs to be added to to get the template to read the latter. From past experience I can tell you that not allowing for this difference can cause a firestorm (sometimes emberstorm but more often fire) as passions are strong on both sides. Since I know little about bot programming I wonder how a bot is going to detect whether it needs to add the extra command. If this has already been taken into account then my apologies for taking up your time. MarnetteD | Talk 20:35, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
    • This is already taken into account. The existing format will be preserved ("No visible changes will be made to any article"). When SmackBot XV started this task, it did that with no problem. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:49, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
      • Thanks for the reply that is good to know. MarnetteD | Talk 20:52, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
  • We had this discussion about implementing startdate in Template:Infobox spacecraft. The problem was that it meant that we lost words for months which people didn't like. Our compromise seems to be eg 
    {{Start-date|14 August 1997, 20:49:00|timezone=yes}} UTC
    so things are human as well as machine readable. Secretlondon (talk) 21:56, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
    • {{Start-date}} has 2941 transclusions; {{Start date}}, as noted above, over 85K; the latter clearly has found more favour. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 05:55, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
      • Well its the default for some heavily used templates. My point is that at least one Wikiproject rejected it. However if you are not going to change the way the date is displayed then I guess it doesn't matter. Secretlondon (talk) 11:34, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Scraping help, london2012.com

I recently came across approximately 2,000 biographical stubs of 2012 Summer Olympic athletes, most of them "referenced" with a link to the home page given above. The editor who created these unreferenced biographies asked, rather than having me send them toward deletion, if I'd look into a bot to try and match them up with that site's Olympic athlete bios, something I was happy to try and do. Unfortunately, the site appears to be resisting my attempts to interact with it automatically, as is its right, no doubt. The following PERL/LWP::UserAgent code snippet gets an access denied: 

$u = 'http://www.london2012.com/search/index.htmx?q=Maja+Jager';
my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
$ua->agent('Mozilla/9.876 (X11; U; Linux 2.2.12-20 i686, en; rv:2.0) Gecko/25250101 Netscape/5.432b1 (C-MindSpring)');
my $response = $ua->get($u);

Any workarounds? Thanks in advance, --j⚛e deckertalk 00:27, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Haven't tested it myself, but you may need to fake the rest of the headers that a web browser would send: (example for Firefox)
[User-Agent] => Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.8; rv:15.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/15.0
[Accept] => text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
[Accept-Language] => en-us,en;q=0.5
[Accept-Encoding] => gzip, deflate
[Connection] => keep-alive
On an un-related note, there are a few unofficial APIs that may be easier to use. LegoKontribsTalkM 00:33, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
Some subset of that was sufficient, I had to turn off gzip/deflate (coz I didn't want to deal with that). Thanks!!! --j⚛e deckertalk 00:56, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Change of Template Name

I would like to request that the template name of Template:2008 Mediacorp Channel 8 be changed to 2007. It is clearly 2007 not 2008. 5:00 21 September 2012 (UTC)

You should ask on the main Wikipedia:Bot requests page, not here. This page is for discussion about Wikipedia:Bot requests, not for requests themselves. Anomie⚔ 08:43, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
I suggest you start on Template talk:2008 Mediacorp Channel 8. Good luck! GoingBatty (talk) 00:27, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Scope of this page

As someone who tries to fulfill requests that are on this page, I'm not very happy with the direction this page is going in. Lately we've had extremely long discussions about whether a task should be done by a bot, and now we're even having a RfC on the page. I tried to remove the RfC, but I was reverted.

I've always seen this page as a simple way to find a bot operator once consensus for a task has already been determined (or if its uncontroversial, etc). If it hasn't, they should be sent to the appropriate village pump (or other forum) and obtain consensus, and then come back here. We even have a fancy template that tells users that!

By having an uncluttered page its much easier to quickly navigate through the various requests and figure out which ones still need a bot op, rather than scrolling through blocks of text, and have no clue on what to do.

Opinions? Legoktm (talk) 14:41, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Totally agree, Tasks listed should either be uncontroversial or already have consensus. ·Add§hore· Talk To Me! 17:50, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
I agree too. But good luck convincing the people with half-baked ideas to go finish baking them at WP:VPR. Anomie⚔ 01:45, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
Easy solution, have a BAG person or Admin hat every one of them ASAP. Werieth (talk) 13:42, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Perennial requests

I think we should have a perennial requests subpage similar to the one at the Village Pump which has a load of things we always say no to which never work, so people who come up with the idea don't need to waste their time. Nice big link to it at the top, we won't have to keep giving them the same spiel of why we're not letting a bot do the task. Especially the welcome new users one. Sir Rcsprinter, Bt (chatter) @ 20:03, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

WP:Bots/Frequently denied bots. Could probably use an update. Anomie⚔ 20:05, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
How did I miss that. Thought I'd seen one somewhere. Sir Rcsprinter, Bt (banter) @ 20:13, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Two user script questions

Maybe someone here can answer these questions there Wikipedia_talk:User_scripts#Two_questions. — Cirt (talk) 19:46, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Status page

I had my bot put together a status page like the one they have for BRFA. It's located at User:APersonBot/BOTREQ status. Any opinions? I was thinking we could either put it at the top of BOTREQ, put it in a collapsed box at the top of BOTREQ, or make a userscript (for botops) that inserts it at the top of BOTREQ whenever they visit. Enterprisey (talk!) (formerly APerson) 02:18, 22 June 2016 (UTC) Pinging a few editors that comment frequently: Anomie, BU Rob13, Σ, Omni Flames. Enterprisey (talk!) (formerly APerson) 02:20, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

I'd say a transclusion at the top makes perfect sense. Good work! Figuring out which botreqs are still up for grabs can be challenging at times. Would it be possible to highlight the rows that have no updates in the past 60 days to make it easier to follow up with those? ~ RobTalk 02:23, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
Sure, that would be perfectly possible. One issue, though, is that the Ruby API I'm using right now doesn't have total continuation support, so I'm working to get a patch for that in at the same time - I'm going to hold the transclusion until I can get that fully working. Enterprisey (talk!) (formerly APerson) 02:28, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
I fixed the continuation issue locally. Waiting for another editor to comment before I put it in. Enterprisey (talk!) (formerly APerson) 03:59, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
This table is an excellent idea. There are times at which I have to scroll through the long page of bot requests, looking for one that could use my help. I would support adding this to the top. Omni Flames (talk) 06:41, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
I transcluded it at the top and set up a cron job on labs. Thank you both for the feedback. Enterprisey (talk!) (formerly APerson) 01:05, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
One minor thing. Date/time format should have the same format (without seconds, which are useless). --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 06:53, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
Good catch. Will fix. Enterprisey (talk!) (formerly APerson) 21:31, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
Fixed. Enterprisey (talk!) (formerly APerson) 02:49, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

WP:Request a query

I just suggested at WP:VPT#GA reviews that we should have a page to WP:Request a query based on the success of the similarly named page at Wikidata... and so now we have. Just wanted to let the kinds of persons who follow the page here know about it, in case someone comes along for a read-only type request. --Izno (talk) 17:32, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

@Izno: u should link it from WP:Bot requests/Header. 103.6.159.84 (talk) 17:02, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Erm, what happens here?

The instructions don't make clear to visitors what happens after a request is placed. Do all requests get denied or taken forward or do some linger here for months, or do requests that don't find favour with a bot programmer get automatically denied? Would be worth clarifying. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 10:34, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

@Dweller: They generally linger until someone takes them up. More complicated tasks will take longer (limited skilled bot ops). Less impactful tasks will also take longer (limited time, and I think we do a decent job of prioritizing high-impact tasks). Some may be archived without action if they're technically infeasible, but generally the technically feasible tasks with consensus eventually do get taken up by someone. ~ Rob13Talk 11:18, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
Helpful, thanks --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 13:57, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Equivalent page for requesting scripts

Is there an equivalent of this page for requesting scripts/tools? If not, I think it would be a really good idea. One of the benefits of this page is that ideas are all logged in a searchable history. It's also better than never having those requests articulated for lack of forum. czar 17:05, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

While it is not a dedicated requests page, WT:US is the central location for discussing user scripts. — JJMC89 (T·C) 19:39, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Archived without action

A request I put in just got archived by bot without action or a reply. A previous thread on this talk page led me to believe that requests generally linger until someone takes them up. Nobody has declared my request to be infeasible and it was nowhere near the top of the list. So what can be done to progress this? SpinningSpark 15:58, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

@Spinningspark: Archiving bots cannot decide if a thread is still unactioned, or is awaiting a reply. Threads at Wikipedia:Bot requests get archived sixty days after the most recent post to the thread. Your thread was last posted to at 08:37, 22 January 2017 (UTC) and sixty days after that is 08:37, 23 March 2017 (UTC). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:07, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
Might be a useful feature to have the bot check for presence of certain text, like {{BOTREQ|done}}. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 21:51, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
So can the request be put back or not? SpinningSpark 21:56, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
I'm sure no one minds if you put it back (and leave a signature/timestamp so the bot doesn't re-archive it). —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 21:57, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
In general, I think I'd be against changing the parameters of the archiving here. Some requests grow stale, either because of a lack of interest, or that it's a bad idea. The archival gets rid of the dead weight, and the archival prompts the requester to either clarify things, or make a better case for why this is a good task. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 22:18, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Archiving config

The |archivenow= parameter in the archiving configuration template is useless as it is not taken in cosideration by any bot. It's not a valid parameter of {{User:MiszaBot/config}} and is ignored by Lowercase sigmabot III . Also it is ignored by ClueBot III as this bot parses values of that parameter only inside of its own config template ({{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveThis}}). XXN, 19:10, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Remove NOTOC?

Why are we suppressing the TOC here exactly? Any objections to restoring the TOC? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:58, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Pinging Pppery (talk · contribs), since they're the one that suppressed the TOC. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:59, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
As I explained in my edit summary, the TOC is redundant to the bot-generated table, which serves the same function of listing all of the requests. Pppery 20:10, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
I agree, no need for both here.—CYBERPOWER (Around) 21:59, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
I'm fairly neutral on it myself btw. I'll point out however, that the table is bot-generated, and is often out of sync with the page. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:02, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

I've tried something. It's live, so you can check. Not sure I like it though. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:09, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Maybe instead, what the bot should do is 1) Number the sections, like in the TOC 2) include sub-sections? @Enterprisey:? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:13, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
I could definitely number the sections to make it look more like the TOC. I'm not sure how subsections would fit into the organization scheme of the table, though. Enterprisey (talk!) 04:39, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
@Headbomb: What you actually did was update a bot-generated page, and thus were reverted by the bot. In any case, though I wouldn't object to the bot adding numbers, it seems unnecessary to me. Pppery 13:32, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Yeah I did. It was live for like, 15 minutes lol. As for how subsections would be organized, sometimes like


# Title Replies Last editor Date/Time Last botop editor Date/Time
1 Speedy AFC decline bot 9 Enterprisey 2017-05-30, 21:48 Enterprisey 2017-05-30, 21:48
2 Convert Template:This is a redirect to Template:Redirect category shell 36 MRD2014 2017-05-31, 23:30 Anomie 2017-04-16, 13:55
3 "de-amazon" bot 32 Primefac 2017-04-27, 11:58 Primefac 2017-04-27, 11:58
  3.1      Arbitrary break
4 FA by length bot 7 XXN 2017-07-07, 16:49 None —

This has two big advantages 1) You can re-sort the table in the original order after you sorted it in other ways 2) you get links to sub-sections when they exist. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:14, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Fine with me. Pppery 15:03, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
@Enterprisey: opinion on this layout? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:52, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
Unarchived and ping @Enterprisey: for opinions. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:29, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
Re-@Enterprisey:. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:59, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
Indifferent on Headbomb's proposal, but I definitely don't want both the table and a ToC. The ToC would be redundant. ~ Rob13Talk 23:55, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
Section numbering has been added, but I think we probably don't get enough subsections on this page to justify subsection addition. Enterprisey (talk!) 16:24, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
They don't happen often but when they do they really are handy to have around. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:57, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Requested page protection

FYI, I've requested semi-protection; see diff. --Izno (talk) 13:04, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bot requests/Header update

@Anomie, BU Rob13, Cyberpower678, HighInBC, MBisanz, MusikAnimal, Slakr, SQL, The Earwig, Xaosflux, Addshore, Hellknowz, Jarry1250, Kingpin13, MaxSem, and Maxim:

I updated the language in the Bot Request header. Pinging all active and semi-active BAG members for feedback. In particular, do we want to keep the computing ref desk mention there? It seems really odd. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:43, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

I doubt anyone has ever followed that link to the refdesk from here, kill it. — xaosflux Talk 21:07, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
Done. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:20, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Nomination for substitution of Template:BOTREQ

Template:BOTREQ has been nominated for substitution. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 03:39, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

 – {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 00:42, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Archive bot on talkpage

Hello. I added an archive bot to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Lead Improvement Team but the list of archives is not visible. Could you please fix the issue for us? Thanks!Zigzig20s (talk) 08:38, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

@Zigzig20s:  Done --DannyS712 (talk) 08:46, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
Thank you.Zigzig20s (talk) 08:48, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
Resolved

"Status" column in table

Could someone add a "Status" column in the bot overview table? Thanks! (and please don't take too long to respond; I don't want this archived)The 2nd Red Guy (talk) 15:47, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

What exactly is status and how will the bot detect it? —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 20:57, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
It might be possible to treat it like the WP:ANRFC triggers, where if there's a {{done}}, {{BOTREQ}}, {{resolved}} template or similar, it could be marked as such. Primefac (talk) 13:21, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
WP:ANRFC utilises a feature of ClueBot III (talk · contribs): where the {{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveThis}} template (found in the lead section of a discussion page) has a parameter 
|archivenow=<!-- <nowiki>{{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}},{{resolved,{{Resolved,{{done,{{Done,{{DONE,{{already done,{{Already done,{{not done,{{Not done,{{close,{{Close,{{nd,{{xXxX</nowiki> -->
The bot, on encountering any of these templates - {{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}}, {{resolved}}, {{Resolved}},{{done}} etc. (case-sensitive) - will archive the thread that contains that template. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:59, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Switching phrases in masse

Is there a bot or tool that can replace the phrase Kingdom of Hawaii to Hawaiian Kingdom across Wikipedia without having to edit each page and switch it over? This is just a logistical inquiry before a request for consensus for such a change. KAVEBEAR (talk) 21:01, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Why? --Izno (talk) 00:17, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
Yes, it is technically possible to do that with a simple search-replace bot. -- GreenC 00:46, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

pls remove my request

pls remove ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 15:42, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

@Lingzhi2: I removed the section --DannyS712 (talk) 16:37, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Do we need a page for "currently operating ad hoc requests" bots?

A recent removal from this page (in favor of WP:URLREQ) kind of illuminates a missing link to that page, and in general to some listing of bots currently operating or users with continued familiarity with a specific kind of bot-able issue, but whom do so on some ad hoc basis. Is URLREQ the only kind of page for that, or should we have something we can point users to in the description of this requests page? --Izno (talk) 18:21, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

If I were designing a workflow for industry, I would have some sort of general inbox. If you want something automated, you post it to that page, and a group of coordinators/non-coordinators/people send it to the correct spot (AWB, URLREQ, Bot Requests, whatever I do not know about). Submitter could have the option of selecting what they think the answer is, with an 'I don't know' option. It is tough for submitters to know of every option available, and even if they do know all the options, to know which is the best option to choose. Not sure in practice if this would be possible, just thinking of how I would solve it in an office environment. Kees08 (Talk)
I think Kees made a lot of good points. I don't see moving a section as some kind of failure, just making it easier for non-technical users wanting technical assistance to get the help they need. I do however think a more organized list would be very nice. With 2,300 approved BRFAs it's really hard to know if someone else already has a bot for some task and an organized list would be a great help. --Trialpears (talk) 19:32, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Remove sister project templates with no target

I'm unfamiliar with bots, and I don't know what's practical, so I'd like some feedback before I make this request.

Among moth articles, and I suspect many others, there are sometimes template links to Wikispecies and Wikimedia Commons but there's nothing at the target location in the sister project. I'd love to see a bot which could go through and check these and remove the deceptive templates.

Thank you, SchreiberBike | ⌨  22:48, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

@SchreiberBike: The request is better made at WP:BOTREQ. You may want to copy this there. SD0001 (talk) 02:09, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
Moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 30#Bot to remove sister project templates with no target. SchreiberBike | ⌨  23:55, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Commons could use people who can make/run/maintain bots

Going to leave this here on the talk page, since it's obviously tangential. It seems like I often come across problems with bots on Commons that occur due to the very small number of people maintaining bots there, who either get burned out or go inactive. The most recent one is VICbot, which does essential maintenance for the Value Image Candidates process. The operator has long been inactive, so there are long-standing smaller issues with the bot that have gone unfixed, and now it has stopped working. Earlier this year the person running Picture of the Year announced they would no longer be running it. FPCbot and QICbot occasionally have issues (Eatcha stepped up to take care of those if I recall correctly, but it would be a bad idea to rely on one person for everything). There's also been discussion about reworking the monthly photo challenge system (see the current system in action here, done manually, I think).

All of this is to say, if you, dear bot operator, are feeling bored and looking for new projects, let's talk on Commons. :) — Rhododendrites talk \\ 21:13, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, commons could use some automated scripts for users too. —usernamekiran (talk) 21:16, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Scratching my head

Ok so I've read over the page, and re-read a bit of bot policy (hadn't done that in awhile).

So my question is this: are there any bots currently approved to help with tagging pages for a group nom XFD, and how would one go about requesting such? (I tried to a find a list of bot approvals, but outside of going to each bots' userpage, I didn't find anything besides a few examples.) Thanks much. - jc37 11:38, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

The current bot handling this task is DannyS712 bot II, approved at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DannyS712 bot II 13. * Pppery * it has begun... 11:52, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
That task is only for CfD, not XfDs in general. I would say that unless you are mass-nominating multiple hundreds of pages in one go, the WP:AWBTASKS request page would be a better place to get quick assistance. Primefac (talk) 12:07, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
Thank you to you both : )
It's for all the subcats of Category:Songs by artist. (except Category:Lists of songs by recording artists) - jc37 12:24, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
In that case, yes, you should contact Danny about it. Primefac (talk) 12:27, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
Ok, thank you very much - and did : ) - jc37 12:32, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
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