Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SDZeroBot 8

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

Approved.

SDZeroBot 8[edit]

Operator: SD0001 (talk · contribs · SUL · edit count · logs · page moves · block log · rights log · ANI search)

Time filed: 13:29, Tuesday, October 6, 2020 (UTC)

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: supervised

Programming language(s): Node.js or AWB

Source code available: Coming soon

Function overview: Add {{set category}} to applicable categories

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): One time runs

Estimated number of pages affected: 1000s

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): No

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

Function details: Add {{set category}} template to categories that are WP:SETCATs. The template has 32,500 transclusions so its usage is well-established.

It is not possible for a bot to tell apart set categories from others. I would be manually telling the bot what categories to edit. For example, all pages in Category:Television programs by director and Category:Television series by creator should be tagged.

This came out of a discussion at User_talk:SDZeroBot/Category_cycles#It's_hopeless.

Discussion[edit]

cc RoySmith. – SD0001 (talk) 13:32, 6 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If you're specifying precisely which pages/categories this will run on, I feel like this is assisted editing and may not need a BRFA - even if you're using some Node.js code and not AWB (although I feel like this task would be suitable for AWB). I also think you'll still need consensus for this somewhere, though. If we can't think of a more specific venue, WP:VPPR will work. Enterprisey (talk!) 03:43, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Hi. Not very familiar with AWB, will give it a whirl. Can you add AWB access for the bot account? Since the edits will be made from the bot account (as I don't want to litter the contribs of my own account), I think BRFA is needed, right? Regarding consensus, I left a comment at WT:WikiProject Categories#Tagging set categories. – SD0001 (talk) 12:17, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  I have given your bot account an AWB flag (pinging Swarm to see if I did it correctly). For your other point, a dedicated AWB account (or any other declared alternative account) will only need a BRFA if you're doing (fully) automated editing; assisted editing doesn't need a BRFA. And thanks for opening the discussion; if nobody comments there I assume it'll be okay. Enterprisey (talk!) 09:03, 12 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  Wouldn't it be best practice to do these edits on main account (or an AWB account), rather than on the bot account? Just seems less confusing to limit bot edits to BRFA approved / exempt ones, rather than assisted editing. Not forbidden, of course, but I think it's a general good practice? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:33, 12 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Enterprisey: You did it right. Good job alphabetizing correctly. @SD0001: It is indeed common for users to use a secondary account for AWB usage to avoid "cluttering" their contributions. As Enterprisey says, AWB use is not treated as "bot-like editing", it's treated as manual editing because it requires that you personally screen and approve every edit made with it, although the general community position on this is that it's unacceptable to use AWB to make potentially-controversial, sweeping changes without a prior consensus. Strangely, WP:BOT does not include any sort of caveat for allowing manual editing with a bot account without BAG approval. Is this sort of thing common, Enterprisey? I agree with ProcrastinatingReader that it seems like a bit of an unnecessarily complex, esoteric situation. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 03:14, 13 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

An AWB account sounds like a fine solution to me. SD0001, thoughts? After the WT:WikiProject Categories discussion goes a week without anyone replying (and there's consensus among the replies, if any), I figure you're good to go for this task; just let me know the name of the account (or use the AWB checkpage). Thank you to both Swarm and ProcrastinatingReader for weighing in. Enterprisey (talk!) 00:22, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, I think "supervised" is being taken very literally by SD0001; I would consider this a fully-automated task, even if they just feed the bot the pages to change; this could happen anywhere (not just AWB) and thus I would consider this a great task for a bot; correct me if I'm wrong, SD0001, but your intention isn't to sit there and hit "Save" thousands of times, correct? Primefac (talk) 16:41, 16 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Ah yes, Primefac and Enterprisey. I may have been a bit unclear in the original request – most of the time, pages won't need to be looked at individually. So using the human mode of AWB definitely would be a banal waste of time. My understanding of the process/policy is that AWB alt accounts (use of which was suggested above) are not given access to the bot mode of AWB, right? If so, a bot approval would be good to have. – SD0001 (talk) 13:59, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
~~SD0001, would it be easier to run on Node.js as you initially proposed? Go with whatever is easier for you. Primefac (talk) 17:30, 17 October 2020 (UTC)~~[reply]

Approved for trial (25 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. I don't really care what you run it with, though if you do need the bot's name put on the AWB list just post here and someone will take care of it. Primefac (talk) 17:32, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} Any progress? Primefac (talk) 15:34, 10 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Trial complete. edits. policy is unclear whether categories which have non-set-cat subcategories should be considered as set-cats, so for now I have tagged only the ones that don't have any subcategories.

Not sure if there are much benefits of this exercise, though, so at the end of the day, I don't plan on running this task a lot. – SD0001 (talk) 05:11, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Approved. Fair enough regarding the exceptions, but thank you for your forethought on those restrictions. Primefac (talk) 20:29, 13 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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 Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard.