This is a page for requesting tasks to be done by bots in accordance with the bot policy. This is an appropriate place to put ideas for uncontroversial bot tasks, to get early feedback on ideas for bot tasks (controversial or not), and to seek bot operators for bot tasks. Consensus-building discussions requiring large community input (such as request for comments) should normally be held at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) or other relevant pages, such as a WikiProject's talk page.
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Bot to remove historical "begins" dates from airport destination lists
When new routes are added to airport destination tables, the starting date for said route is added if it's in the future - eg. [[Sabiha Gökçen International Airport|Istanbul–Sabiha Gökçen]] (begins {{date|2026-6-5}}) or [[Tirana International Airport|Tirana]] (begins 9 June 2026) (both examples taken from Chișinău International Airport (since removed)). It's a normal maintenance task to remove these dates once they have passed, so you are left with only the link, comma (if present) and the following reference (if there is one). I've tried using templates which substitute the text with null after the date has passed, but trying to persuade thousands of airport editors to use them is impossible... so we're left with the mishmash of plain text/partially templated formats we have today.
Ideally, this routine maintenance task could be automated, so that dates in these destination lists (always within an {{Airport destination list}}, or its redirect {{Airport-dest-list}} template) which have passed or are today are removed.
Note - the above copied from a post at WP:AWB/TASKS, where I initially asked for assistance and was directed here. Danners430tweaks made 08:19, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
Just for context on why a bot is desirable here... this is the volume of edits being made. It's currently 9:30 where I am, and these are the edits on my watchlist from this morning alone where the sole purpose is the removal of one of these dates... Note that not all are today's or yesterday's date, which is just an indicator that these often get missed, and they remain in lists for sometimes months when they should be removed. Danners430tweaks made 08:28, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
Processed 4,667 pages and fixed 22. I checked all possible date formats, and these were the only pages that needed fixing. – DreamRimmer■ 11:32, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
It's possible most of them have already been caught - it's more the fact that this is a daily task that needs doing, I feel like although it's small in the grand scheme of things, it's almost ideal for a bot Danners430tweaks made 11:50, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
Yep, doing some quick regex searches it does look like the majority of the old ones (with two exceptions) have been blatted by a combination of the previous AWB run done when I asked the question at AWB/TASKS, and your run just now, so at least we're at "base zero" now. As I say though, I do still think it would be useful - if it's something that could run on a daily basis, and remove these dates, it would lessen the manual maintenance effort required Danners430tweaks made 12:34, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
Nevermind, I was very much wrong! Davgrx7646 is actively removing more dates as we speak...! Danners430tweaks made 12:53, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
Should these dates be removed even if service hasn’t begun? I ask because one of the questions that helps determine if a bot can do the job is whether human judgment is required. Dw31415 (talk) 11:22, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
I think the answer is yes and no - if the service has been cancelled, the entire entry (link, start date and ref) will be removed by an editor... and that will be done regardless if it gets cancelled before the start date, or after. Removing the date also, in my opinion, won't prevent that from happening Danners430tweaks made 11:51, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
Ideally this would be done by humans, who would confirm that the scheduled start has actually occurred (and either delete the entry if the route is cancelled, or adjust the date if the start is postponed) but in practice I don't think that removing the start date automatically will do any harm. If anything, given that the editors who habitually update these destination lists almost certainly have the airport pages on their watchlists, seeing the bot's edit is likely to serve as a reminder for them to check whether service has actually started. Perhaps the question we should be asking is how often routes that have been announced as starting on a given date actually get cancelled or deferred at the last minute? (hopefully routes whose cancellation or deferral is announced in advance would be noticed and dealt with by humans before the proposed bot comes into action). Rosbif73 (talk) 15:52, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
I don't have hard and fast figures, but I only see a route get removed from a destination table, having never started as announced, once or twice a week at absolute most... which is a drop in the water compared to how many do actually start as planned. And as you say, the human editors will still be there, and indeed the regular watchlist updates will act as a reminder Danners430tweaks made 17:37, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
Just a quick note, because I forgot - "begins" isn't always the word used... sometimes it's "resumes", where a route previously operated and is being reinstated. Why? I have no idea... but I'm not arguing! Danners430tweaks made 17:50, 23 June 2026 (UTC)
I can provide a Python script for this that you can run on PAWS every few days. It will remove any begins/resumes dates that have already passed. – DreamRimmer■ 12:01, 25 June 2026 (UTC)
That could work - I’ve just never used PAWS before… but wouldn’t this make more sense to be run as a bot task? I’d even be happy to assist in maintaining, although my experience in programming is amateur at best Danners430tweaks made 16:59, 25 June 2026 (UTC)
Any luck? Apologies, trying not to pester, but also want to make sure the archive bot doesn't appear! Danners430tweaks made 15:51, 25 August 2026 (UTC)
@Vanderwaalforces wondering if any progress has been made? Noticed recently there’s some quite old dates being removed Danners430tweaks made 16:30, 7 October 2026 (UTC)
I think that answers that question :D Looking good!! Danners430tweaks made 10:09, 9 October 2026 (UTC)
@Danners430 I was waiting on DreamRimmer to give me the code, but I just went ahead and write it. Since it looks good to you, I'll just go ahead and file a BRFA right away. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 10:12, 9 October 2026 (UTC)
Just noting that DreamRimmer is now Max. Primefac (talk) 22:57, 9 October 2026 (UTC)
WTH? I actually knew that but totally forgot while pinging, bahahaha. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 06:25, 10 October 2026 (UTC)
BRFAfiled. @Danners430 I think you should look at the BRFA when trial begins just to watch out for anything unexpected. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 11:26, 10 October 2026 (UTC)
Top 25 Report
Previously a bot added a Top 25 Report template to all articles talk pages that appeared in the Top 25 Report list. For a while this have not happened. Maybe we could fix that. BabbaQ (talk) 21:16, 15 July 2026 (UTC)
Hi, see the AINB report and cleanup page, would it be possible to have a bot tag all of Esculenta's LLM-generated creations with {{AI-generated}}? Judging by the change in speed of creations (see XTools), I'd suggest 15 March 2023 as the date they started using LLMs, meaning everything after that point (ie. after Platygramme lueckingii) would need to be WP:LLMPRODed. That however needs to be done manually because the articles need to be checked for "significant contributions" from other editors, and because there's around 2320 of them, it's highly unlikely anyone will get round to doing them anytime even remotely soon (esp. because of the large workload at AINB). In the meantime I think it'd be best to tag them all with {{AI-generated}}, if only to make readers aware of the potential/likely issues. Suggested edit would be to add the following to the first line of the articles:
{{AI-generated|{{subst:DATE}}|reason=See [[Wikipedia:AI noticeboard/Archive 7#Esculenta and GAs]] and [[Wikipedia:AI noticeboard/User:Esculenta]]}}
I'm afraid, but is there any discussion showing support for this mass action? – DreamRimmer■ 14:20, 27 July 2026 (UTC)
There hasn't been, but I can notify WP:AINB and WP:BOTN of this request or start a separate discussion seeking support? Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 14:32, 27 July 2026 (UTC)
I’ve been thinking about making a bot to help with AI clean up but agree it needs broader discussion, probably starting at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) or (proposal if you’re ready to concretely propose something (like tagging every edit in a date range) (talk page stalker)Dw31415 (talk) 17:35, 27 July 2026 (UTC)
I would support this. I agree that the LLM use is well established, and thus ought to be disclosed to readers; and that we are by no means prepared to individually handle all of these articles. A tag is a low-risk partial solution. M kuhner (talk) 05:51, 26 September 2026 (UTC)
would probably need to gain consensus from WP:VPR, and given the recent controversies around tagging I don't particularly fancy that lol. Also, some disagree that maintenance tags are partly targeted at readers per WP:NDT (like it says Maintenance templates should not be used to "warn the reader" but tbh I don't think that's representative of community views) Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 13:24, 26 September 2026 (UTC)
Null edits?
Is there any bot that can just smash through a bunch of pages doing null edits?
The situation is that a badly formatted recent edit to {{Non-free book cover}} caused an absolute explosion of redlinked categories on the latest run of Special:WantedCategories, with almost 1,200 redlinks representing almost six times the usual number, because it caused the invocations of the template to start treating code that was intended as a sortkey, not as a category, as new categories.
The edit has been reverted and the redlinked categories are no longer appearing on the pages themselves — but the implicated categories aren't emptying out or leaving the redlinked category report, so that as of right now there are still over 1,000 redlinked categories on the report, which is further interfering with the process of finding and fixing the redlinked categories that weren't caused by that one template edit.
So is there any bot that can just do a quick one-off run through the categories on Special:WantedCategories, null-editing their contents to clear the ones that don't need an editor's direct attention? (The nulls would have to be to the individual pages that are appearing in the categories, not to the categories themselves.) Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 15:56, 7 August 2026 (UTC)
There weren't that many API requests, so I just did it without a BRFA. – DreamRimmer■ 16:43, 7 August 2026 (UTC)
Thanks much Bearcat (talk) 17:14, 7 August 2026 (UTC)
This purge task has been broken for quite a while now. Most of ProcBot's other tasks have also been stopped for a long time. – DreamRimmer■ 01:19, 8 August 2026 (UTC)
Oh, fair enough; last I checked it was still running, but I will say it's been a minute. Primefac (talk) 13:02, 8 August 2026 (UTC)
Taking over ProcBot 5 and 6
With PR somewhat indisposed a the moment (not sure when they'll be back to regular editing) I hope they'll forgive me for skipping the "ask the botop" step, but I think we should get someone to take over ProcBot's Task 5 and Task 6 for an on-demand purge list; being able to do a null edit run on a template/category would be extremely useful for some of the tasks I'm working on at the moment, and I'm sure there are some other template maintainers that would agree with me. Primefac (talk) 12:07, 22 August 2026 (UTC)
I'm a little worried people might see this as me taking over yet another set of bot tasks, especially since I've already taken over a few where the original operator was inactive and the bots had stopped. But if no one else wants to take these on, I'm happy to help. These were written in Ruby and ran on a VPS that wasn't very stable and would stop working from time to time, so we'd probably need to write them again in Python or something else. The original code is also closed-source, so we'd have to write them again anyway. Let's wait for a bit and see if anyone else is willing to take them over. Max (talk) 14:13, 22 August 2026 (UTC)
I may be able to take this on. Python is one of my stronger languages, and from the old task pages this looks fairly straightforward to reimplement. I wouldn't be able to start immediately, but once I do, I don't expect the rewrite itself to take too long. How soon is a replacement actually needed? Also, if there are any notes on the old implementation or behaviour that aren't documented on the task pages, those would be helpful. Fengrímur (talk) 14:06, 25 August 2026 (UTC)
I started working on the code yesterday, but feel free to take it on if you're interested. It's a pretty resource-heavy task and needs to be handled carefully, so I'd expect you to be around for a while and get familiar with the Wikipedia environment, especially since the account is only about a month old. Max (talk) 16:38, 25 August 2026 (UTC)
I suppose the only thing I want to settle is what exactly you meant by "feel free to take it”. If you're offering to hand it over outright, I'd be quite happy to take it from there. I'd rather do that than unnecessarily have both of us half-working on the same thing. Obviously, I’ll spend time getting familiar with the environment before running anything. If you meant it as a handover, that makes things simple enough. Just confirm that and I’ll take it from here. Thank you! Fengrímur (talk) 18:30, 25 August 2026 (UTC)
As I said, you're free to take it over. I'm going to stop working on it. Max (talk) 18:53, 25 August 2026 (UTC)
Note that someone who has been here for only a month may not be ready to be a bot operator. The community normally likes bot operators to have demonstrated a familiarity with the English Wikipedia's policies, guidelines, processes, and norms. Anomie⚔ 23:01, 25 August 2026 (UTC)
🤷 It seems like something I could have AnomieBOT do easily enough, if an existing bot isn't working. Anomie⚔ 23:10, 25 August 2026 (UTC)
Well—I'm happy to keep going with the ProcBot 5/6 reimplementation. I took your comment above as concerning eventually operating the bot rather than writing its replacement; if you meant the latter too, do say. If there really is a preference for AnomieBOT to inherit the tasks instead, that's fine; I'd just like to establish the line of succession now.;) Fengrímur (talk) 06:43, 26 August 2026 (UTC)
BTW: I'm starting work on this now (on the assumption that I'm taking over). Fengrímur (talk) 05:59, 27 August 2026 (UTC)
Null edit all articles that use {{Project Gutenberg}} with a single-line command:
wikiget -b "Template:Gutenberg author" -t t | while IFS= read -r p; do wikiget -N "$p"; done
-b is backlinks; -tt filters on transcluded articles; -N <pagename> is null edit. The rest is unix pipe and bash. -- GreenC 00:21, 26 August 2026 (UTC)
Quick update! I've been going through the old behaviour and the current MediaWiki side, and I have a rough direction now. I'm leaning toward purge + forcelinkupdate rather than real null edits. For categories/templates, I'd get the full list of affected pages first and put a hard cap on the job (before processing!) and only then work through that fixed set. Also, I'm going to to keep processing serial, respect maxlag, and persist job progress. Fengrímur (talk) 11:31, 27 August 2026 (UTC)
For category/template requests, it requires a permanent link to the discussion behind, but leaves the question of whether there is enough consensus to humans. I'm also not planning to simply restart the old PurgeList as it is. Recurring entries would be reviewed before being moved over and old one-off requests do not start running again. Fengrímur (talk) 17:26, 27 August 2026 (UTC)
Though the bot can’t and the operator doesn’t have to read the discussion or consensus at all—they’re added for logging purposes on fan-out requests. Similar to ProcBot 6, who required those, except those weren’t logged. Wanted to clarify. Fengrímur (talk) 07:11, 31 August 2026 (UTC)
BRFAfiled (just to update the status of this request). FlammablePizza (talk) 17:34, 31 August 2026 (UTC)
Bot for articles tagged requested photo that already have photo's
A bot that does such a thing would be very useful instead of manually sorting through articles. There's a similar bot for the image requested counterpart. Alternatively, bots could be made for both categories that delete the tag when the article already has an image, barring tags that have specific parameters to meet Edlectro28 (talk) 00:21, 30 August 2026 (UTC)
Please supply an example page or edit removing the tag. Dw31415 (talk) 02:07, 30 August 2026 (UTC)
Sorry, could I just double check what you're asking, you say we have a bot that removes image request tags when an image is present, but that we need a new bot to remove image request tags when an image is present? In addition to agreeing with dw (above) that we could use some examples, could you please provide a) the cat(s) you're referring to and b) the bot that is currently performing this task (or something similar)? Primefac (talk) 10:32, 30 August 2026 (UTC)
Looks like they are referring to Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/CFA (bot), though that was for a specific category. The bot never completed the task and has been inactive for about seven months, while the operator has been inactive for around six months. Max (talk) 11:40, 30 August 2026 (UTC)
Ah, that would do it. Okay, so they're looking for a bot to remove |image-requested= or similar if the page has an image. I'm surprised there's not already a dbase report for that sort of thing... Primefac (talk) 12:29, 30 August 2026 (UTC)
Importantly, for image requested and photograph requested. They're interchangeable terms, and the process is the same Edlectro28 (talk) 12:31, 30 August 2026 (UTC)
"Image" and "photo" are not interchangeable terms. An article with multiple drawings of a subject could legitimately be tagged with {{photo requested}}. Anomie⚔ 14:48, 30 August 2026 (UTC)
So people on that page use a weird jargon where "photograph" means "any kind of image" rather than the common English definition of the word, and the existence of separate templates {{image requested}} and {{photo requested}} that seem to follow the common definition? Strange. But I anticipate that a bot removing {{photo requested}} based on that alternative definition would run into complaints. Anomie⚔ 15:39, 30 August 2026 (UTC)
Understood, which is why I also suggest a piece of code that shows what articles have {photo requested} but already have an photographs, similar to the one found at Image Existence Checker which does the same for images Edlectro28 (talk) 16:20, 30 August 2026 (UTC)
How would a bot tell that an image is a photograph rather than some other type of image? Anomie⚔ 18:17, 30 August 2026 (UTC)
They’re interchangeable as we’ve established. And anyway, the code I sent isn’t perfect, but it works 8 or 9 times out of ten. Sometimes there’s a specification, and it doesn’t matter because the user going through it will see the bots mistake and either leave that article or find the image and remove the tag. The code for the bot I sent should be the same for photographs, just with image swapped for photo Edlectro28 (talk) 18:20, 30 August 2026 (UTC)
So when you said "understood" earlier, you actually meant "I'm going to ignore what you said"? But then again, you seem to be completely confused as to what a bot actually is, too, if you think that there is any "user going through it". Is what you actually want a tool listing pages you can go through manually, rather than a bot? Anomie⚔ 18:32, 30 August 2026 (UTC)
I came here asking for a bot, and the conversation changed into making a tool similar to the one I tagged. Edlectro28 (talk) 18:33, 30 August 2026 (UTC)
{{Photo requested}} and {{Image requested}} templates have quite a few parameters for requesting specific types of images or photos, so it's hard to reliably tell what kind of image was requested and whether that particular image was added to the page. This query returns 62,247 pages where one of these templates is on the talk page and the article already has an image. Max (talk) 14:04, 30 August 2026 (UTC)
Perhaps as a starting point, I could mock something up that looks for pages that have an Infobox with an image and remove the {{Photo requested}}/{{Image requested}}/etc. from those talk pages?
I do have a concern about false positives or cases where there is a logo or a map present but not a true representative image... On settlements for example, there could be a flag or map but no image of the place... Could restrict to looking specifically at the |image= parameter though and ignore |map=, |logo=, |flag=, etc. Happy to work on this though if people are interested? Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 19:24, 4 October 2026 (UTC)
fixing forego typo for forego
Every occurrence I could find within en.wikipedia.org of "forego" (though I stopped checking after more than one page of hits) is a typo for "forgo" (including their conjugations).
[A notable counterexample is the Forego Stakes.]
An even semi-automatic correction would be a great saver of labor. If not possible, after I learn that that's the case, I'll do it by hand. Steven Alexander (talk) 02:48, 12 September 2026 (UTC)
Using the find and replace feature within the editor is a bit tedious, but not the worst. I've been working on a series of corrections that occasionally includes source names/links so I have to verify each change manually, and I make decent progress even from my phone. (I'd probably be finished already if I bothered to switch to desktop.) ChompyTheGogoat[Bleat|Munched] 06:07, 26 September 2026 (UTC)
Bot that operates the daily-article-l mailing list needs a new maintainer
Hi. The bot that operates the daily-article-l mailing list needs a new maintainer before the end of this month. More details are available at m:Talk:daily-article-l. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:21, 17 September 2026 (UTC)
Marking this as YDone, since my script is now sending the emails as of October 1st (per the meta wiki discussion). FlammablePizza (talk / contrib) 12:57, 1 October 2026 (UTC)
Add Template:Overview section to Overview sections missing it
Here are 39 examples that probably should not get tagged with this template. I'm not saying Featured Articles are infallible and not needing of improvement. However, if the article made it to FA status, something as significant as a bad section would likely have been caught. Unless you have consensus established elsewhere, I don't see much of a need for this particular bot, if I'm being honest. phuzion (talk) 03:05, 23 September 2026 (UTC)
I don't disagree that we might have an issue that a bot could help with. I'm just wondering if blasting nearly 55,000 articles with a maintenance template is the right course of action, when there are currently just 28 articles that have said maintenance template.
Either we're looking at a maintenance issue that has been widely overlooked for decades, or I'm possibly misunderstanding the scope that you want this maintenance tag applied. I just want to make sure I understand the request before spending the effort to code up a bot. phuzion (talk) 00:50, 5 October 2026 (UTC)
@Piotrus: as a member of BAG and a bot operator myself, I would like to see a further discussion on this one. I'm thinking something on the Village pump. To be clear, I'm not saying I disagree with your interpretation here, but I would want a very clear consensus before I would feel comfortable approving bombing over 55k articles (including a few FAs) with a maintenance template. Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 03:26, 5 October 2026 (UTC)
Alexschmidt711 came up with the idea for "HoaxBot" in 2014. I still think this is a good idea. The bot would do Google searches and then flag articles whose titles aren't mentioned outside Wikipedia as potential hoaxes. The basic idea would certainly detect hoaxes, if there were a way to discount Wikipedia mirrors. It would not detect hoaxes that have been subject to citogenesis.
Another idea I had to find more elaborate hoaxes would be a bot would search through articles, and read through all the citations linked. If none of them mention the title of the article, the bot would then list the the article so users could look at the article manually to figure out what is going on. This would be a way to try flagging hoax articles that have fake sources which don't mention the subject. As of now, these can be difficult to find. RanDom 404 (talk) 00:59, 4 October 2026 (UTC)
Do you have any recent examples of pages that lasted more than 90 days before being deleted? I ask mainly because AFC takes care of all drafts created by new (i.e. non-ExCon) editors and I suspect the number of editors making it that far would then get caught up by NPP, neither of which really existed in their current forms back in 2014. Primefac (talk) 17:44, 4 October 2026 (UTC)
@Primefac The goal of this would mainly be for older hoax articles still around, like the ones you see on WP:HOAXLIST. However, regarding what you asked, Philodoppides (which passed AFC in 2021) and Murexia xenochromus are both examples of recent hoaxes which stayed multiple years. RanDom 404 (talk) 17:59, 4 October 2026 (UTC)
I don't think a bot request for approval is needed to create a report like this. Anyone who wants to develop the code is welcome to write it and use it to create a report or table that shows potential hoaxes. Since edits would not need to be made outside of the editor's User space, at least initially, no bot permission would be needed. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:03, 5 October 2026 (UTC)
It depends on how exactly the "flag articles" works. A report in the bot's userspace wouldn't need a BRFA (unless it's somehow "disruptive"), while a list in projectspace would fall outside of what WP:EXEMPTBOT allows. Anomie⚔ 22:51, 5 October 2026 (UTC)
The list would be in the bot's userspace. RanDom 404 (talk) 23:02, 5 October 2026 (UTC)
I had worked on a similar project in the past. An automated program that goes through websites gets a lot 403, and other similar errors these days. That's the only difficulty. In theory this is doable. —usernamekiran (talk) 04:58, 5 October 2026 (UTC)
It just occurred to me that running bots is against the TOS of many websites. I only want this to be done if it doesn't go against the TOS of the websites used. Is there a way to do so? RanDom 404 (talk) 15:20, 5 October 2026 (UTC)
@RanDom 404: "ethical bots"/ethical scraping is generally allowed. Rather than depending only on one search engine, we should also go through the sources provided within the article itself. Bot's interaction with each domain/website would fall below the line to be considered as "aggressive/unethical scraping". After thinking about this for a while, technically speaking, it is not as straightforward as I thought it to be. I have following operations in mind (no particular order): 1) go through each cited source, check whether it actually discusses the subject and supports the claims 2) compare source publication dates, article creation date, and dates mentioned in article 3) independent use of search engine(s) 4) combine all these signals into a suspicion/evidence score, then post the results.I think this can be done without machine learning.I also found https://aclanthology.org/2024.wikinlp-1.11/ and https://snap.stanford.edu/data/wiki-hoaxes.html I read only these particular pages though, did not download any lists. —usernamekiran (talk) 18:17, 8 October 2026 (UTC)
Upgrade citations to 'The Gazette' to use dedicated template
and would be happy to to discuss more complex or edge cases, and the point at which automation becomes impractical. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits; 14:06, 6 October 2026 (UTC)
I don't see the benefit of converting well-formatted citations to the specific template (maybe I'm missing something?). Rusalkii (talk) 15:55, 6 October 2026 (UTC)
And just to pile on, I don't see the benefit of removing a valid webarchive link. Web sites die all the time. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:41, 6 October 2026 (UTC)
The answer to both of your points is the same: If we use the dedicated template (which already has >36.8K transclusions, so is widely accepted by the community); in the highly unlikely event that the site disappears, we can change the base URL to be one at the Internet Archive, or some other such service (or even if the site just changes its URL structure; update it), and all the links will be updated at once.
I'd also argue that [http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/55710/supplements/1 Official announcement knighthood] (my first example) is not a "well-formatted citation".
Nor is the citation in my second example, whose first link:
If the citation is missing information or otherwise badly formatted (as, I agree, both of these are) this seems unobjectionable. I'm not a huge fan of removing the archive link even if we could easily restore it via changing the template - it has several advantages like capturing a snapshot of the page as it stood at the time it was cited, or at least closer to that time. But if there's otherwise a consensus for this I don't intend this objection to be blocking. Rusalkii (talk) 18:22, 6 October 2026 (UTC)
I’m not confident you could change the base url in a template to switch to the archive. The base url for the wayback (like in your Salman Rushdie example) has a timestamp in the url. Loosing that would likely mean that the archive is more difficult to find. The latest timestamp for old content is often a “soft 404” where the archived page says “content not found”. I guess that could be remedied by adding an archive url parameter to the London Gazette template. Just some initial thoughts. Dw31415 (talk) 22:14, 6 October 2026 (UTC)
which has no time-stamp, and which the template could easily build from existing components. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits; 22:24, 6 October 2026 (UTC)
You will absolutely need consensus to get a task like this approved, and "it's used a lot" is not consensus. While it doesn't look like there are huge CONTEXTBOT issues, I share some of Jonesey's concerns about webarchive links. This might be better off as an AWB task, but also you've given no information on the scale/scope of the supposed problem that needs fixing (i.e. are we talking tens or tens of thousands of edits?). Primefac (talk) 09:17, 8 October 2026 (UTC)
Change all headings "Critical reception" to just "Reception"
Is this something that would be possible to do via bot, and is it something we want to standardize? I can think of no reason not to, but... thoughts? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:13, 8 October 2026 (UTC)
Considered just doing it in AWB? It’s a pretty straightforward regex. Mathglot (talk) 08:21, 8 October 2026 (UTC)
Edit count usually determines whether AWB or a bot is the way to go. Numbers here would be good to make a better determination of how to go about this request. Primefac (talk) 09:22, 8 October 2026 (UTC)
Looks like we'd be looking at about 60k edits if we did every instance, which is solidly into bot territory. However, I echo @Anomie's WP:CONTEXTBOT concerns. phuzion (talk) 12:52, 8 October 2026 (UTC)
Seems likely to be a WP:CONTEXTBOT to me. Should we be concerned with a "Critical reception" section heading being in contrast with a parallel section about other kinds of receptions? Anomie⚔ 11:37, 8 October 2026 (UTC)
Agreed. Best to check each change manually. FaviFake (talk) 21:47, 8 October 2026 (UTC)
"Critical" may mean "among professional critics" as contrasted to "by the public"; I've seen many articles have separate paragraphs about these aspects, and subsections might make sense for very popular works there even the reception is covered by secondary sources. Or "critical" may mean "negative" as contrasted to "positive"; again, I've seen articles have separate paragraphs for these aspects too. There's even a chance that "critical" refers to importance, or a turning point in the development of the topic.Between this question and your proposal above about spamming {{overview section}} to every article with a section titled "Overview", I'm beginning to think you should step away from these sorts of proposals where you seem to be unable to think of different ways words can be used. Anomie⚔ 11:36, 9 October 2026 (UTC)
Coming back to the OP: in regards to "I can think of no reason not to..." seems like a backwards approach to justifying action, whether by bot, awb, or other. I would like to hear a stronger case about why any effort *should* be expended. Presumably the goal, or at least one goal, would be to improve these articles, right? Can you please provide a handful of concrete examples of articles that would be improved by such a change? Mathglot (talk) 18:21, 8 October 2026 (UTC)
@Mathglot Standardization of identical section headings is a basic MoS concept, and good for the reader, because it reduces confusion. Why one article about identical subject has reception but another critical section? Is there a difference? No, tt's just confusing implying there is. I just retitled manually one such section in an article about anime; I know from experience most such section are entitled just reception (examples: diff, diff, diff). "Critical" is just extra bytes and confusing. Minority of articles use non-standard section title for no good reason. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 01:00, 9 October 2026 (UTC)
All of your diffs are in the area of anime/manga. Would you handle reaction to artistic performance (film, play, novel, anime/manga, painting, ballet, stand-up act, etc.) different from reaction to scientific or philosophical theories, government bills or proposals, new commercial products, and so on? Within the topic area of artistic performance, Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Film makes a distinction between §Critical reception and §Audience reception. Mathglot (talk) 01:23, 9 October 2026 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Television#Release - ditto, although that article does mention the term critical reception once, but it makes numerous references to just "Reception" section, not "Critical reception"
So it seems Film is an exception. At present, we can either leave it out of MoS-mandated standardization (which now, thanks to your helpful finding that MoS does address best practices, is rather clear), or raise the issue with WikiProject Film, asking whether revising their MoS to have parent section "Reception" and subsections named "Critical" and "Audience" wouldn't be a good solution to bring Film MoS in line with other Art MoSes. Similar question could be raised at WP Visual arts, but review of Wikipedia:Featured_articles#Art,_architecture,_and_archaeology - I checked the first few - suggest paintings, for example, don't have such a section. It makes sense - usually paintings don't get "reviews".
As a bot operator, I would feel much more confident with your requests moving forward if you would come with proof of consensus for the requests that you're making. You've made two bot requests that would have affected more than 50,000 articles each with the only rationale behind said requests essentially being "I see no reason not to". Despite this, both requests have had some pretty wide areas of exception to where the proposed bots should edit.
To be clear, I'm not saying that your requests are invalid, these are very likely useful maintenance tasks when scoped properly. However, WP:BOTPOL is clear: among other things, bots must only perform tasks for which there is consensus. And to date, I have yet to see consensus for either task.
I'd recommend bringing future proposals up at the Village Pump before bringing them here. phuzion (talk) 12:34, 9 October 2026 (UTC)
@Piotrus: as a bot operator and member of BAG I am going to, at this point, ask you to stop making bot requests. Phuzion is 100% spot on in his comments above and I will go one step further. You are making zero effort to show any sort of consensus for the ideas that you are throwing out to have someone program. This latest idea, to change the headings on 50,000+ pages, is not a good task for a bot and shows no consensus other than your summation that it should be done. Before you make another bot request, please establish clear and concrete consensus that the task you are requesting should be done.
The following discussion 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.
There are some articles about British TV channels being forgotten like:
Wow! I never know this channel existed
But he literally opened this page when he was a kid SamukaBoom2 (talk) 23:04, 21 October 2026 (UTC)
Hi there. It's not exactly clear what you're asking for here. This page is to request that a bot developer write a bot to do something here on Wikipedia. Your request does not appear to actually request a bot. Could you please be a bit more specific? phuzion (talk) 23:16, 21 October 2026 (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.
Automation for some TFA scutwork
Hi! As a new TFA coord, I was surprised to find that TFA scheduling notifications are all done manually. Would it be possible to have a bot take over this fairly tedious task? It would effectively consist of leaving a templated notification along the lines of this example once a month when the schedule is posted. If the bot could also add the "maindate=" parameter to the article's talk page, that would be great too.
I might be interested but I’m happy to defer if someone else wants to pick it up. I’ll watch and see. Dw31415 (talk) 02:50, 24 October 2026 (UTC)
If this is needed, it seems to be a fairly easy thing to automate. One question though, would the templated notification go to the TFA nominator, or the person who originally created the article? If its meant to go the to nominator, I'm not sure of a way to automatically check that. FlammablePizza (talk / contrib) 02:51, 24 October 2026 (UTC)
The FAC nominator. The person who started the article may or may not be involved. Or may be 20 years gone. Wehwalt (talk) 17:32, 24 October 2026 (UTC)
If nobody picks this up I could look into it, but my plate is pretty full. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 04:15, 24 October 2026 (UTC)
The TFA job already performs several tasks. I can enhance it to put out the notification to the nominator. The Bot already adds the |maindate= parameter automatically if the TFA coordinator does not do so. Hawkeye7(discuss) 06:23, 24 October 2026 (UTC)
It would be preferable to have maindate= added at the time of scheduling in my view. Wehwalt (talk) 17:39, 24 October 2026 (UTC)
Thanks all, I really appreciate the swift responses from the technically inclined <3 ♠PMC♠(talk) 22:11, 26 October 2026 (UTC)
Automatically relisting discussions at MfD tagged with the appropriate template
Legobot no longer relists discussions tagged with {{mfdr}}. I have raised the matter at User talk:Legobot/2025#Miscellany for Deletion relisting to no avail. It may well be that the procedure listed at WP:MFD/CI with the aforementioned template I created about 10 years ago was merely a hack of the system (i.e. never intentional) that no longer functions for whatever reason.
Is there anyone willing to take up this task? It simply entails the following:
{{mfdr}} is substituted above the nomination statement in a discussion, likely through XfDcloser, by an individual relisting the discussion:
(Time stamp for bot to properly relist.) —Godsy(TALKCONT) 06:38, 26 October 2026 (UTC)
A bot would then need to move the discussion to the appropriate section header above. If a section for the current date in question does not exist, the bot would need to create it. The user-side process is described in full at WP:MFD/CI. I am also happy to personally answer any questions if the information there or this explanation is lacking.
XfDcloser could do this in theory, but trying to get anything done over there seems to be an issue as it appears under-supported.
Thanks, —Godsy(TALKCONT) 06:38, 26 October 2026 (UTC)
