Discussion

Discussion

Discussion

Discussion

• Source code available: pywikibot Pywikibot is a framework. It's not the source code by itself. – SD0001 (talk) 06:54, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

I have released the source code on GitHub, it is linked above. phuzion (talk) 11:43, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Discussion

This will be the first time the Rwikibot R package will be used, I've run a few tests on the testwiki under my own account and it has not had any problems pulling pages and data into R. Dr vulpes (Talk) 02:36, 18 October 2026 (UTC)

Discussion

• Note: This bot appears to have edited since this BRFA was filed. Bots may not edit outside their own or their operator's userspace unless approved or approved for trial. AnomieBOT⚡ 22:46, 30 July 2026 (UTC)
• Related ANI thread. —ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · email) 04:22, 15 August 2026 (UTC)
• If having the latest stats is that important, wouldn't a central data page be a better option? The bot could update that one page, and a module could pull the data from there and be invoked in the infobox. We don't usually update stats this way, and I'm not sure having a bot check around 600 pages every day and edit them just to keep the stats up to date is a good approach. I also read the ANI thread, and it gives me the impression that you don't have full control over the scripts you use, so I'd also like to see the source code for this task if you're comfortable sharing it. – DreamRimmer ■ 16:03, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

  I would second this. If it were 6 thousand pages it might be different, but having one module (and/or a .json page) storing the data would mean a lot less editing. I would also note that "daily" is excessive for stats when the matches are played what, at most two times a week for any given team? A weekly update is more than sufficient (regardless of if one page or every article is edited). Primefac (talk) 16:16, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

  Sorry this is late, but the stats are supposed to be updated once a week, not daily. There is a healer check to avoid vandalism or errors, though this isn't essential for operation. If you like, I can send the source code to you or @DreamRimmer. Electricmaster (talk) 04:34, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

  I'm not a BRFA regular so I don't know what's appropriate here, but I've found references to two GitHub repos scattered on different talk pages – is it OK to link them here? —ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · email) 00:47, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

  I'm not sure I understand the relevance; the issue right now is not "does the code work" (which, according to the ANI, seems to be "most of the time") but rather if there is consensus (at all?) for this task, or if there is a better/more efficient way to get the same results. Primefac (talk) 22:52, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

  Oh, that was in response to DreamRimmer's question about the source code. —ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · email) 03:58, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

  ClaudineChionh, you are more than welcome to add constructive comments in the BRFA space. Primefac, the reason I asked for the source is, as I said above, they made multiple claims about their code being reliable, but there were still mistakes as mentioned in the ANI thread, so I was curious to see how reliable the code actually was. After checking their GitHub repo, I found the table scraping and template manipulation logic pretty unreliable. There were also quite a few unnecessary functions in the code that I'm not really sure why they were using. That gave me a better idea of what they were actually doing. With our suggested version, though, it won't make any edits outside the single data page, so that shouldn't really be an issue if they're ready to go with this. Max (talk) 18:28, 19 August 2026 (UTC)

  I'm not against having a centralized data page, though this may be more trouble than its worth. I can provide the source code tomorrow if you like. Electricmaster (talk) 04:35, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

  @DreamRimmer, Primefac, Max, and SuperJew: Cheers for the feedback. I reckon you're absolutely spot on for using a centralised data page makes a lot more sense than having a bot edit ~600 individual articles every week. I'm keen to go down this route; however, I'm also wary about retired players and then having inconsistent references. How do you propose handling older examples. Do they just keep their manual edits? Would we put a plan in to work backwards later?

  The great thing about this approach is that it also addresses Max's concerns regarding the template parsing code. Since the bot will only need to spit out a clean JSON file, I'll be binning all that complex wikitext manipulation logic in favour of a much simpler, robust scraper.

  Just to clarify on the schedule as well, the bot will strictly run once a week after the round finishes, rather than daily, so it won't be clogging up watchlists.

  I've knocked out a sample of what the data page will look like over at User:Electricmaster/AFLTables_data.json. I'm happy to rewrite the bot to just output this JSON payload, but I'm a bit out of my depth when it comes to writing the Lua module needed to get {{Infobox AFL biography}} to actually pull from it. Would one of you guys be able to give me a hand with the template and module side of things once the JSON data page is set up? Electricmaster (talk) 05:44, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

  Implementation of the new .json can happen after, the main thing to see is if the bot is editing consistently and accurately (noting that Module:ATP rankings does something similar). As far as retired players go, I would just add a check to only update stats if there are changes to that player's entry; a retired player from 20 years ago can still be "updated 27 September 2026" and have the correct stats (those stats just... haven't changed). Primefac (talk) 18:12, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

Discussion

• How does this data get pulled off of the legislative website? Also, legislators' districts at the state level seem to have trouble getting updated. JuxtaposedJacob (talk) | :) | he/him | 01:04, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

it just gets this page using a python script every hour while my laptop is connected to the internet. i haven't written code to pull data for every state legislature - that would be incredibly tedious to do alone - but i've designed the structure of the modules to be easily expandable to other legislatures. for example, if someone wrote a script to download data for Texas's Senate, they could put the data into Module:Legislature/US/TX/upper/members, Module:Legislature/US/TX/upper/seats, and Module:Legislature/US/TX/upper/committees, or other subpages as appropriate, and then use the same functions in Module:Legislature (already written in Module:Sandbox/Blippy1998/Legislature) and templates (not yet written) to create views of the data, like a wikitable of all the members of a certain committee, or just the tally of members of a certain party. the point is to set up a framework that is easily extensible so people can write their own scripts and upload a data module to a sensible location with a standardized format (like Legislature/[ISO country code]/[subnational entity code]/[chamber label]/seats) and then not have to rewrite functions that actually parse that data. but all i'm seeking approval for is the bot that pushes the updates to those pages. seeing as all i have is the US House at the moment, updates would realistically not happen more than a few times a month to just a few pages, but, yes, hopefully more legislatures would be added and the number of pages and frequency of edits would scale with that. Blippy1998 (talk) 16:16, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

• Is there any discussion about this? Worth discussing this on the talk page of the template where you plan to invoke the module that pulls data from these data subpages.Max (talk) 13:08, 27 August 2026 (UTC)

  Agreed, I'd like to see a discussion. Primefac (talk) 20:55, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

  I'm still only using Template:HouseRepublicanTally, Template:HouseDemocraticTally, and Template:HouseVacantTally, plus subpages of my sandbox (User:Blippy1998/sandbox), plus Module:Sandbox/Blippy1998/Legislature and its subpages, plus Module:Sandbox/Blippy1998/Infobox U.S. congressional committee 2. I figured it was fine to just add the latter ones to the allowed pages to edit myself, since they're in my own sandboxes. I am using them in production, especially the last one, which is now on almost every active US House committee and subcommittee page, which are otherwise often months out of date, but now have infoboxes that update hourly with official data whenever my computer is connected to the internet. There was only one major time I recall that there was pushback, which was when I replaced some of the higher-traffic locations with the tally templates, so I am keeping those to lower-traffic locations only. Blippy1998 (talk) 06:31, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

• Note: This bot appears to have edited since this BRFA was filed. Bots may not edit outside their own or their operator's userspace unless approved or approved for trial. AnomieBOT⚡ 03:11, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

  As per my comment above, I believe it has only edited those pages. I have since moved the sandboxed Legislature module to mainspace but forgot to update the bot, though. That probably needs approval, though, since it's no longer just my sandbox. Blippy1998 (talk) 08:32, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

  @JuxtaposedJacob @Max @Primefac Blippy1998 (talk) 08:33, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

  I'd also like to note an update on objections. A user reverted a usage of the module on the grounds that it was in my sandbox, which was part of the reason I moved it to mainspace; I did not realize until that moment that people might get the impression that I have some claim of ownership over the module and thus that they can't edit it. This was never my intent; I built Module:Legislature explicitly as a framework for others to add data to, and obviously improve as they see fit, given consensus, etc., so I asked for it to be moved to mainspace, which was granted, to neutralize this misperception. Blippy1998 (talk) 08:37, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Discussion

Should something similar be done with bold? (10,000 per this search) -- WOSlinker (talk) 21:46, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

Likely. It might also be worth requesting this be added to the genfixes for AWB so that when this run is over any new instances will be more likely to be picked up. Primefac (talk) 21:50, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, I think it'd definitely be nice to do the same thing with erroneously bolded commas. I intentionally kept the query constrained to start off (ignoring any italicized terms with unusual characters, for instance), but it could be expanded after the initial run is over.

And yes, I agree it'd be nice to add this to the GENFIX set. Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 22:54, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

Are you not wanting to do bold? Primefac (talk) 17:48, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

I looked through the first 100 search results for the bold query. I found one niche edge case: On this page, bolding is used to delineate which parts of two passages match. Because manual line breaks are used, some bolded strings end with a comma. You could argue that this is a downstream effect of the article using poor syntax with manual line breaks, or that a passage like that should have been surrounded with {{as written}}. But because bolding is sometimes used for niche purposes like this, I think it's the slightest bit riskier to try to fix it than italics.

I'll defer to whatever the consensus is here about whether, given this, it's worthwhile to include it or not. Sdkb ^talk 17:44, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

This feels like something so minor that it would be best either ignored or done as part of AWB GENFIXES. I oppose this being done as the sole edit to a page. Thryduulf (talk) 14:28, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

It's certainly not the most earth-shattering change to a page, but it is an improvement, and it's clearly in compliance with WP:COSMETICBOT because it changes the output HTML of the page. It is something that I occasionally notice as a reader. Also, because it's an AWB bot, it can be run alongside GENFIXes, so often the comma fix will not be the only change the bot makes. Sdkb ^talk 17:20, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on whether the change is an improvement or neutral, and I have no objection to the change being made alongside changes that are unambiguously improvements, but minor changes like this should never be the sole change made by a bot. Thryduulf (talk) 18:40, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

On hold. There is opposition to the task, and with only the implication of consensus to run the task based on existing guidelines I would prefer to see a stronger consensus to specifically target this as a bot run. I know AWB releases updates less frequently than most countries change leadership, but that would be another route to go down to start whittling away at the list. Primefac (talk) 20:17, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

@Primefac, where would be an appropriate venue to get additional input on whether there is consensus to run this as a bot task? Thryduulf's view seems to be that WP:COSMETICBOT should be made stricter, and while I know that's a view some editors hold, presumably it's a minority given that editors have not found consensus to change the language of the bot policy. Sdkb ^talk 20:34, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

Either at the MOS talk or a Village Pump. I wouldn't necessarily say that it's a more strict ruling on COSMETICBOT given that it already says Minor edits are not usually considered cosmetic but still need consensus to be done by bots. Since this is a "barely visible" type of minor edit, I'd like to get at least some measure of support for making it; it's not like you're going to need an RFC, just enough to indicate that Thryduulf is in the minority when it comes to being concerned. Primefac (talk) 20:48, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

@Sdkb: Did you start a discussion to gather consensus at all? Tenshi! (Talk page) 14:59, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

@Tenshi Hinanawi, yes, see here. I read it as a weak consensus to proceed, although it didn't gather as much input as I would've liked. Sdkb ^talk 15:22, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

As I said at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 230 § Bot task to remove erroneously italicized commas, I think this would be a useful bot. I always fix those manually as well. However, it should not fix incorrectly "fix" instances of multiple italics separated by a non-italicised space, such as ''The good,'' ''the bad,'' ''and the ugly'', since this is especially common when editing in the VE. Otherwise it might sometimes make the problem worse, not better. FaviFake (talk) 12:54, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

How does one person reiterating their comments at a long-archived discussion help anything here? Should every participant just repeated their comments there here? I note that nobody has expressed any opposition to doing this as an AWB-task or alongside some other unambiguously substantive change, and nobody has articulated any reason why that would not be sufficient. Thryduulf (talk) 12:58, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

I just wanted to make sure the bot doesn't incorrectly handle this edge case in case it's approved. Do with that what you will. FaviFake (talk) 13:03, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Name-internal commas is an edge case the bot can handle, but name-internal edge cases where also there is a break in italicization is an edge case within an edge case that it cannot. I did not come across any instances of this scenario during the 110 test edits I reviewed, so I believe it is exceptionally rare. Overall, the garbage-in, garbage-out principle applies. Sdkb ^talk 14:45, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia is written for our WP:READERS. As long as the garbage stays in the editor, it's fine. If your bot would cause the garbage to be displayed to our readers, then I oppose the bot. FaviFake (talk) 14:49, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

@FaviFake, can you point me to any article where this would happen (or, better, give me a number of articles affected)? I could ensure all of them are resolved before running the bot. Sdkb ^talk 14:53, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

I'm not a technical user, so I can't give you any stats. But I've just tested this on the current version of the VE and I was able to italicise three parts of a sentence with commas in them, and the VE outputted this result in the preview: After ''the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq,'' ''ISI,'' ''then-led by John Doe,'' continued

I suspect this is rare. Someone should figure out a way to find a list of the articles that have this issue. Once they're fixed correctly, I guess your bot could go ahead even if it would still produce incorrect results from new edits. I just don't want to introduce the incorrect formatting into the articles that have been edited since Wikipedia was started. FaviFake (talk) 15:01, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

@FaviFake, wait, it's actually pretty easy to find these instances by just adding additional quote marks to the search query. There are 6,600 results. I manually reviewed the first 100 (you're welcome to do the same), and found that nearly all were instances of a list of italicized items or improper italicization in a reference, all of which the bot would handle correctly. There was only one instance, here (a comma being erroneously used to separate a title and subtitle), that was at all questionable.

We could modify the find-and-replace to skip all these instances (where an italicized term ending in a comma is immediately followed by another italicized term after a space) by using a negative lookahead. However, based on the sample, it appears that this isn't an issue, so my weak preference would be to leave them in. Which option do you prefer? Sdkb ^talk 17:40, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Huh, I didn't think there would be so few false positives. I've reviewed 100 more and they were all incorrect. So now I support the bot based on the data. Even if we assume 1% of 6k articles would cause false positives, that's just 60 articles, which is a great compromise! FaviFake (talk) 17:57, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Doing it as an AWB task would be exponentially slower. Because it is not a cosmetic task as it changes the visible page output, it is eligible to be done by bot. I know you disagree, but if you want to interpret the rules other than as they're written, you need to take that up as a proposed change to WP:COSMETICBOT. Sdkb ^talk 14:51, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Why does it need to be done more quickly than AWB would do it? What benefit does a change imperceptible to many (maybe most) readers, with no semantic relevance for readers or screen readers, bring that justifies so many edits? It doesn't meet the letter of COSMETICBOT but it certainly matches the spirit. Thryduulf (talk) 15:59, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

You had the opportunity to make that argument at the WT:MOS discussion and were not able to get a consensus supporting your view. It's time to drop the stick. Sdkb ^talk 18:07, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

No stick needs to be dropped at this point. The MOS discussion was essentially over by the time I was aware of it and your comment here is the first time anybody has actually acknowledged the substance of my comments and even you've just said "I disagree". You're entitled to disagree but that doesn't equate to a consensus. Thryduulf (talk) 00:39, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

• One small update: I've tweaked the query to include wikilinks. Reviewing the results, I'm not seeing any errors being introduced. Sdkb ^talk 17:48, 10 August 2026 (UTC)
• @BAG: combining the WT:MOS discussion with FaviFake's additional support above, I'd say this is ready for approval. Are we good to proceed? Sdkb ^talk 18:10, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

  I'm not going to weigh in on this too much just now, but FaviFake also participated in the MOS discussion, so their support here does not do anything to tip the scales in either direction. Primefac (talk) 22:48, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

  Yeah, I wasn't suggesting they be allowed to !vote twice, but just that they had concerns at the MOS discussion which are now resolved per above. Sdkb ^talk 23:00, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

  Yeah; to clarify, I commented here because I noticed the MOS discussion had been archived but the issue that another editor and I had hadn't been mentioned here. Now that we discussed it a bit more and discovered it's not really an issue, it just validates the MOS consensus. FaviFake (talk) 23:06, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

• I'm leaning towards declining this in its current form. There seems to be reasonable support for the edit itself, but I don't think there's a clear consensus for making potentially ~100,000 standalone edits for such a minor change, especially with the ongoing concern about cluttering watchlists and page histories. I'd be happy to see this added to GENFIX or run alongside more substantive changes. Max (talk) 02:42, 31 August 2026 (UTC)

  There is one editor objecting loudly, but overall it looks to me like there is consensus to proceed. And policy-wise the task abides by WP:COSMETICBOT, so the impetus to show otherwise was on those who object to the plain reading of that guideline. Sdkb ^talk 18:18, 31 August 2026 (UTC)

  And I will continue to object loudly until the substance of my objections are actually engaged with rather than ignored or handwaved away. This does not come remotely close to meeting the spirit of WP:COSMETICBOT, being a tiny change that almost nobody will notice and which has absolutely no semantic or other meaningful impact. Thryduulf (talk) 19:05, 31 August 2026 (UTC)

  well i always notice these little things like bolded commas and they often annoy me so much that i fix them on sight, even when I'm on my phone. FaviFake (talk) 19:11, 31 August 2026 (UTC)

  Good for you, but that doesn't equate to a consensus to disrupt the encyclopaedia by making only this trivial change, which most people (obviously not everyone) does not notice by bot. Thryduulf (talk) 19:14, 31 August 2026 (UTC)

  Making objectively substantial and minor changes to 7k articles does not disrupt the encyclopaedia and there is already consensus for it. Bot edits don't even clutter watchlist-like pages, what exactly would be disrupted in your view? FaviFake (talk) 19:22, 31 August 2026 (UTC)

  I don't think watchlist clutter is a valid concern when bots can be hidden in the watchlist, and if they have reason to want to watch problematic bots or something to that effect, the script at WP:HIDEBOT exists to hide specific bots. Tenshi! (Talk page) 19:29, 31 August 2026 (UTC)

  Bot edits clogging up watchlists have been a complaint for a long time. Even with the script and CSS rule to hide them, I don't remember the exact discussions, but I've seen people complain about it, so I don't think we can just dismiss it as an invalid concern.

  Sdkb, as I said above, I see consensus to fix the formatting issue, but I don't think everyone is on the same page about doing this as a standalone task, or at least that's how I read the discussion. Maybe the better option would be to unarchive the discussion and leave a notice somewhere more visible to get more people involved. Max (talk) 10:02, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

  So you're saying there's consensus to fix those formatting issues but not on whether to do it using a bot. Isn't BRFA the place where new bots are supposed to be discussed? If anything, this request should be made more visible rather than the archived one, imho. FaviFake (talk) 10:09, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

  BRFA space isn't really "the place where new bots are discussed" in that broad sense. It's mainly for getting approval for a specific bot task once there's community consensus for the underlying change, rather than being the place to establish that underlying consensus in the first place. That's why the BRFA request is expected to link to the relevant community discussion. Here, the question of whether the incorrectly italicised commas should be fixed at all, and whether a bot is the right way to do it, is something that can be discussed at the relevant venues, or at more visible places like WT:MOS or VPR, and this is where it was discussed. I suggested unarchiving the discussion because I thought it would be better to keep everything in one place and make it easier for people to see the earlier discussion, rather than having the same points repeated across different pages. Max (talk) 11:46, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

  Makes sense!  Done, see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style § Bot task to remove erroneously italicized commas FaviFake (talk) 12:06, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

  I'm sure there has been many complaints, but I don't believe they hold any weight when it's 2 clicks and some scrolling for ignoring all bots, and adding a user script for removing specific bots from the watchlist with a bit of configuration. Tenshi! (Talk page) 17:57, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

  Firstly you have to know how to do that, and secondly it doesn't address the issue of page histories at all. Thryduulf (talk) 18:21, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

  Correct, I haven't said anything about page histories, my contention is with watchlist clutter complaints. It's mentioned at Help:Watchlist#Options, and WP:HIDEBOT is on Wikipedia:Bots, both of these seem pretty easy to understand and on pages which would come to mind when checking how to disable bots in watchlists. Tenshi! (Talk page) 18:38, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

  Yeah, I remember disabling bot edits and making other changes even before I read those pages or even understood what exactly bots were. FaviFake (talk) 19:04, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

  I mean, sure, the options to hide bot edits are there, and we can definitely suggest them to people who find them useful. But I don't think that means concerns about watchlist clutter don't carry any weight. Just because there's a two-click option to hide bot edits, or a user script to hide a specific bot, doesn't mean everyone affected by the task should have to use them. If we're talking about potentially thousands of standalone edits for a pretty minor change, I think it's fair to consider how that affects people who don't want to change their setup. That's why I'd still prefer to get a bit more input. Of course, I understand you have a different opinion on this. Max (talk) 18:45, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

  I agree now that those cases should be considered, as well as the possibility that some people may not be able to (e.g. nojavascript users cannot use the user script), but I still don't think they should be given the same weight. Personally it's not a convincing argument when it's an issue that can be resolved for the majority of people easily. Tenshi! (Talk page) 20:18, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

  Let's also keep in mind that "majority of people" here means "majority of editors". The costs of minor edits are borne by editors, whereas the benefits are enjoyed by readers who outnumber editors by an enormous margin and who are the ones we're ultimately creating the encyclopedia for. We should try not to let editor-centric bias influence our calculus. Sdkb ^talk 20:59, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

  We should not lose sight of the fact that hiding bots is an imperfect solution to a problem that we have the option of not creating in the first place. Thryduulf (talk) 21:01, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose per Thryduulf. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 03:13, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

Discussion

Is this not already the case? I see 8284 pages transcluding the template, and 8282 pages in the cat. Why is this bot needed? Primefac (talk) 09:08, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

It is the case because I already manually fixed the ~150 that were in some way broken, and more keep needing to be fixed. Avalyn (talk) 11:10, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

Apologies, just trying to make sure everything is accurately being described - are you going through the 8k transclusions and fixing what needs fixing in those transclusions? If that's the case, why are you editing 1 page per day? Would not the files going forward ostensibly be tagged with the correct templates/values? Primefac (talk) 18:20, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

The once page per day estimate is mostly just from new POTDs being added/modified. Avalyn (talk) 12:36, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Again, forgive me for not understanding as POTD is not anywhere near my wheelhouse or something I even look at occasionally: if I understand the process correctly, when a picture is made POTD it has {{Picture of the day}} added to the file page, yes? This is done by the editor(s) who selected the page? Does it not regularly get added?

To ask for a specific page, File:Pin tumbler no key.svg is today's POTD, and it has {{picture of the day|2013-10-23|2026-09-27}} added to it. Why would that need to be modified? Primefac (talk) 18:04, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

The template is often missed/incorrectly added, especially if there is already one present. A lot of times, the author will mistakenly use the date of their time zone instead of UTC, or miss adding a second tag. This bot would also turn the adding of the tag into an automatic process, making the process simpler for those creating POTDs. Avalyn (talk) 11:56, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Also, if you want to see examples of POTDs that were in some way broken, you can go through my edit history, there's a lot there. Avalyn (talk) 12:00, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Approved for trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Primefac (talk) 21:27, 4 October 2026 (UTC)

Any update on the trial? Tenshi! (Talk page) 21:03, 18 October 2026 (UTC)

I am currently having trouble developing and testing the bot as I do not currently have access to a machine capable/willing to run a compiler. I am still working on it through Google Colab, however that is a slow process made even slower by my lack of available time. Avalyn (talk) 22:21, 18 October 2026 (UTC)

Discussion

Apologies if I'm asking a dumb question (I really need to start checking these earlier in the day), but if I wanted to do a fan-out request on all pages calling {{infobox cricketer}} (which has 32k transclusions) it would reject the request? Primefac (talk) 21:50, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

+. Each transclusion means a forced link update, and since maxlag alone does not stop one huge request from putting too much load on the servers or tying up the bot, it needs a per-job cap. I chose 1,500 because the discussion mentioned just under 1,200 redlinked categories, giving about 25% headroom, and because 1,500 had already been used for a similar task by Joe's Null Bot. If a higher limit works and is needed, I could raise it. A lower one is probably better for a trial, anyway... Fengrímur (talk) 08:12, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

I think I'm good for a trial, but I'd like a second opinion. Would be good to also make sure we have requested purges ready to go (i.e. is the BOTREQ request still ongoing?). Primefac (talk) 20:44, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

Not really ongoing. Depending on how much time people are willing to give this, I could continue working on my next planned bot — an updated version of this one — which would shove the problem off Wikipedia entirely. Basically, that means eliminating the human-in-the-loop that FengPurgeBot currently needs and just autonomously purging whenever it's needed and never when it's not supposed to (It's possible, I can confirm!). Naturally, I could also find pages for us that need requests specifically for this trial... Orrr we pause this for a bit until I publish the update for iFengPurgeBotPro. If it's up to me to decide, that's what I'd recommend, unless there’s a specific need for the bot in the next 1–2 weeks. Fengrímur (talk) 12:48, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

Does that mean you are withdrawing this for now? Primefac (talk) 18:22, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

No, I changed my mind. I’m way too busy right now to continue working on this bot’s replacement. I think it’s best if we move forward with this bot and its trial, and once I’ve finished my work on the other, previously mentioned bot (the updated version of this — more primitive — one) I shall file a separate BRFA. Let me know when a trial is ready or if you want me to look for much-needed purges myself. Fengrímur (talk) 12:33, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Approved for trial (3 individual requests and 3 fan-outs, or 30 days). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. I do recognise there won't necessarily be a contribution log, but if there are any logs please link to them as well as the request diffs. Primefac (talk) 18:07, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

I will get to this soon. Fengrímur (talk) 18:30, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Discussion

@Jonesey95: I know you are not a BAG, but you are one of the few people I know who actually understands linter errors. Do you have any thoughts on this BRFA? Value your opinion here. --Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 19:41, 17 October 2026 (UTC)

Jonesey95 since the above ping was malformed. Tenshi! (Talk page) 19:48, 17 October 2026 (UTC)

Facepalm . Thanks Tenshi Hinanawi.... My bad! --Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 19:50, 17 October 2026 (UTC)

This sounds like a great addition to the stable of Linter cleanup bots. I would like to see some test edits. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:47, 18 October 2026 (UTC)

Approved for trial (100 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. sounds like this is a useful tool and worthy of giving a trial. @Tenshi Hinanawi: you are go for a trial! Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 15:04, 18 October 2026 (UTC)

Trial complete. Edits. A few of the initial edits had a bad replace which included a backslash, which was fixed during trial. Tenshi! (Talk page) 15:42, 18 October 2026 (UTC)

The Ichthus newsletter also had an extra div which should have been removed. Tenshi! (Talk page) 16:17, 18 October 2026 (UTC)

@Tenshi Hinanawi: it would seem that an extended trial is warranted as there were at least a could of issues. Going to let this sit for a bit and I encourage you to do some more local testing. If there are no objections from other editors in the next day or two I will gladly approve another trial! Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 17:10, 18 October 2026 (UTC)

I don't think it does, since these are minor faults that I would have caught during normal operation. The rest of the regexes were fine, it's just me failing to check the regexes thoroughly. Also, please don't ping, I have this watchlisted. Tenshi! (Talk page) 17:14, 18 October 2026 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: Do you mind having a look through the trial edits and giving your opinion? Tenshi! (Talk page) 15:22, 19 October 2026 (UTC)

The bot created new Linter errors and failed to fix a font error at User talk:Walkero159, User talk:Kris Skylar Storm Bryden, and similar pages. The bot missed an easy closing /div tag and some easy center tags at User talk:Robynduby; the /div is one of the patterns listed on the signature submissions page. The bot missed some easy Icththus-related errors at User talk:Fulldisclosure07. You can find regexes for many of these fixes at User:Jonesey95/AutoEd/linter.js. (edited to add: This is the entirety of my feedback. I checked the entire edit batch.) – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:50, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

• 1&2: My fault for missing the font tag.
• 3: The trial ran with only 4 regexes, not everything on signature submissions.
• 4: It had only the January 2012 issue in mind. Tenshi! (Talk page) 14:04, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

  Previous bots have gotten negative feedback for visiting pages repeatedly. Legobot's Linter fixing bot deals with this, and with mistakenly creating new Linter issues with its changes, by checking to ensure that there are no remaining Linter errors on the page before saving. Your bot doesn't necessarily need to do that, but if there is any way to check to see if only font errors are left behind, or only obsolete tag errors, that would be helpful. In my script-assisted edits, I often leave only obsolete tags, hoping that Legobot will be able to clean up behind me in a single edit. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:12, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

  I'm aware, hence I've been trying to add more regexes during this period. Tenshi! (Talk page) 14:28, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

I recommend a new bot trial, since nearly every edit in this batch had an error. The trial should include visiting all of the pages where the diff byte count was -7 to fix the new Linter errors, then a new set of edits. I recommend that the bot operator do a few test edits for each new pattern, checking with LintHint before and after the edit to ensure that no new errors were created. This second trial will probably require more than 100 edits, since most of the edits in the first trial resulted in new Linter errors that need to be followed up on. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:42, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Tenshi your assertion that this does not require any further testing or another trial has made me very hesitant to move forward. As Jonesey has pointed out, nearly every edit in this batch had an error. I will leave this for another BAG member to handle. Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 01:58, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

It's a little odd that the bot operator has not reverted all of the erroneous bot edits. People get busy with real life, though. Not a huge deal, but something that needs to be fixed at some point. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:19, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

I don't think all of the trial edits require mass-reverting here? Where linter errors were introduced, they were removed, as for the ones it missed, it can be picked up in the next trial? Tenshi! (Talk page) 08:48, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

That is what I am recommending as part of the new trial. The bot should fix all Linter errors in pages like this one that have one new and one old Linter error (two errors total). It will need about 80 edits just to fix those edits, which is why I recommend a new trial of 200+ edits. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:32, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

I no longer object given the situation has changed from minor errors like a typo and one extra div to 3/4 regexes were erroneous or missing replacements. Tenshi! (Talk page) 08:48, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Discussion

Approved for trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Primefac (talk) 15:10, 10 October 2026 (UTC)

Trial complete. See contributions capped at 50. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 18:34, 11 October 2026 (UTC)

I’ve just gone through them all as the original requester at BOTR, and can’t see any issues with the edits made - they all cleanly removed the dates as required, and all were dates in the past Danners430 _{tweaks made} 21:53, 11 October 2026 (UTC)

I don't have any concerns with the task itself, but the operator has been blocked from article-space indefinitely during the BRFA. I'm not sure how BAG feels about that in regards to how this BRFA should be handled? Tenshi! (Talk page) 21:00, 18 October 2026 (UTC)

The bot is not the user, and the edits being made by the bot are specific and (as far as I am aware) not really something where using AI would matter? Primefac (talk) 21:03, 18 October 2026 (UTC)

I agree it doesn't matter in this context, I was thinking about reverting potential errant bot edits and how the operator would comply with WP:BOTACC, given they would have to make edit requests, etc. Tenshi! (Talk page) 21:07, 18 October 2026 (UTC)

That is indeed what would need to happen, either page-by-page or as a mass rollback request. Primefac (talk) 21:09, 18 October 2026 (UTC)

Non-BAG member comment - WP:BOTPOL states, In addition, prospective bot operators should be editors in good standing[...]. I would argue that a user that indefinitely blocked in article space is not a user in good standing. Additionally, if the bot operator is prohibited from editing article space, one could argue that a bot under that operator's control should not be permitted to make article space edits. My reasoning here is that according to WP:BOTACC, Bot accounts are considered alternative accounts of their operator and according to WP:BADSOCK, Sanctions apply to individual editors as people, not to accounts, unless specified otherwise. Whether the account is operating automatically or by hand, the bot operator accepts responsibility for each and every edit that the account produces. Were I a BAG member, I would oppose new article space BRFAs from Vanderwaalforces until they are no longer sanctioned from editing in that namespace.

To be 100% clear, I do not oppose Vanderwaalforces being a bot operator, nor do I think this particular bot has any technical reasons not to be approved. VWF has shown this year that they have the technical aptitude to run bots, and that they are capable of coming up with and coding useful bot tasks that benefit the community. If they are able to resolve their sanctions, I would love to see them continue to develop bots, and would love to see them continue in the bot operator community. phuzion (talk) 18:34, 22 October 2026 (UTC)

A few thoughts on the above:

• prospective bot operators should be editors in good standing - I think the key word here is prospective. VWF is already a bot operator.
• Sanctions apply to individual editors as people, not to accounts, unless specified otherwise - key phrase here is "unless specified otherwise". I see no reason why we as BAG could not exempt the bot to make edits that it has been approved to make (see my above comments about the sanction being unrelated to this task).

That being said, VWF seems to have a case of ANI flu so there's not really any rush to decide the matter. It might be worth starting a general discussion on the topic at WP:BOTN though.

On hold. (for the bots and tables) for now until some combination of VWF returning, getting their sanctions lifted, or BAG clarifying the above concerns are met. Primefac (talk) 22:38, 26 October 2026 (UTC)