English Wikipedia @ Freddythechick:Bots/Requests for approval/BattyBot 53

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.

BattyBot 53

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

Time filed: 03:33, Monday, December 21, 2020 (UTC)

Function overview:

• Remove maintenance categories Category:Year of birth missing or Category:Year of birth missing (living people) when year of birth exists
• Remove maintenance categories Category:Date of birth missing or Category:Date of birth missing (living people) when full date of birth exists

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: automatic

Programming language(s): AutoWikiBrowser

Source code available: AWB

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Category documentation

Edit period(s): Monthly

Estimated number of pages affected: Thousands initially, fewer each month

Namespace(s): Articles

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes

Function details: Use AWB's general fixes to remove the maintenance categories when the year and/or date of birth exists.

• Load all articles from Category:Year of birth missing
• Skip the article if the category is no longer on the article (e.g. someone else removed the category while the bot was running)
• Skip the article if the category is not removed
• Use a default edit summary that states "Removed Category:Year of birth missing and other general fixes"
• Repeat for the other three categories

Discussion

Question: the DOB in BLPs is one of the most inappropriately-added bits of content (from a sourcing perspective) and I don't know if having a bot automatically removing pages from these tracking categories is a good idea; while I don't necessarily know if people are using said cats to find pages where there might not be a sourced DOB, it seems like enough of a possibility that I would be concerned about having this task. What are your thoughts on this? Primefac (talk) 13:56, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

@Primefac: My understanding of these categories is that they should only be used if the YOB/DOB is missing, not if it is unsourced. If the YOB/DOB is unsourced, then it may be appropriate for a human to add {{citation needed}}. GoingBatty (talk) 17:45, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

I guess my point is more that the sequence goes 1) someone adds an unsourced DOB, 2) the bot removes the cat, 3) someone removes the invalid DOB, 4) the cat is re-added, 5) repeat steps 1-4. With no bot edit, only 1 and 3 are enacted (saving two edits to the page).

Don't get me wrong, I understand why the category exists, but if any rando chucking a DOB into an article causes the cat to disappear (assuming that no one notices the cat was removed and thus don't re-add it) it almost makes it seem like a pointless addition. Primefac (talk) 17:54, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

@Primefac: I'm hoping the sequence would go like this:

1. Someone adds a DOB
2. Someone reviews the edit and removes the DOB if it's invalid (and the bot would skip the article)
3. If the DOB is still there, the bot removes the category
4. Reviewers notice the bot's edit summary and have another opportunity to review the DOB
5. If needed, add {{citation needed}} or remove the DOB and readd the category

In case it would be helpful, here is a list of articles for people whose last name starts with "G" where the bot would remove the cat:

GoingBatty (talk) 19:48, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

{{BAG assistance needed}} Happy New Year! GoingBatty (talk) 19:45, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

• Hmm. Personal 2c: I don't think this task is too problematic, and I'm also not sure it's too helpful.
  Not too problematic because: (a) these are no worse than other unsourced info, if the DOB is problematic; (b) if it's a problematic DOB, the person could've just removed the tracking cat in the same edit; (c) Category:Year of birth missing (living people) has 141,310 pages - safe to say nobody is using it; (d) we have 712 for this.
  Not too helpful because: Category:Year of birth missing (living people) has 141,310 pages - safe to say nobody is using it. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:16, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

  PR, would you say then that it might be worth pursuing the removal/deletion of this category? If so, and it fails, where would your thoughts on the appropriateness of this task fall? If not, is it still worth running? I find myself largely in the same camp (i.e. not really useful, not really harmful), be good to think long-term on it. Primefac (talk) 20:27, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

  I think CfD seems to be the way to go. This is kinda like Category:Pages using deprecated image syntax (CfD) -- too large and too minute to be useful. Unlike Category:Living people it has no real technical purpose either afaics. Last batch CfD seems to be 2007 - NC.

  Re bot: On the one hand, a tracking cat which is incorrect is useless. If it were populated by a template updates would be automatic regardless of sourcing, so this should probably be treat the same way. OTOH, I'm not sure removing a few thousand articles changes anything, it's still useless. I guess the task falls closer to useful than useless, but it's indeed very much near the middle. May be useful to get some thoughts from Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography -- if anyone is actually using this, they're probably there. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:28, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

@ProcrastinatingReader: Per your suggestion, I added a note in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography#Notification of bot request. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 23:29, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

{{BAG assistance needed}} I appreciate the feedback received so far. What's the appropriate next step to resolve this request? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 15:12, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Approved for trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. At some point it sounds like a few of us were going to do this anyway and dropped the ball. Doing so now before I forget again. Primefac (talk) 20:47, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

@Primefac: Trial complete. with link to results. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 04:43, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Six diffs into the review and this is a situation we were worried about: bot adds cat for unsourced year, editor removes the unsourced year but doesn't touch the cat, and we're left with an unsourced cat. Wondering if we need a companion task to remove a DoB cat (or at least flag it somehow) if the corresponding statement in the article is removed? Another thought I had earlier but did not mention: the problematic DoB was added less than a month before the bot came through, so maybe have the bot not do anything until the DoB has been stable in the article for some period of time? OTOH, this adds complexity without really solving the problem. I'm not sure what to do here. — The Earwig ^talk 03:25, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

@The Earwig: As far as I know, AWB doesn't have functionality that allows bots to skip articles if they have been edited in some recent period of time. If that's a requirement, then I will have to withdraw this request. GoingBatty (talk) 03:40, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Not a requirement per se, just trying to brainstorm. — The Earwig ^talk 05:36, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

{{BAG assistance needed}} Thank you! GoingBatty (talk) 04:01, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Just as a note, I'm leaning towards declining, since the main issue I found with this task popped up very quickly in the results. I'll give other BAG members an opportunity to weigh in first, though. Primefac (talk) 14:22, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

I started a proposal at VPR for a "companion bot", something of a Hail Mary pass: Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Bot to remove year of birth/death categories when the claim is removed from the article body. If this can be done, I think I would support this task as well. — The Earwig ⟨talk⟩ 16:32, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

My proposal has not received a ton of interest, but one instance of tentative support so far. Nevertheless, my understanding is that the proposed BattyBot 53 is only running genfixes that plenty of other existing bots are already running, though not as their primary task. For this reason, I have difficulty seeing why we should decline this, unless we want to also push for this task being disabled in genfixes. Would anyone argue for that? — The Earwig ⟨talk⟩ 09:17, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Throwing my support behind the companion bot idea. And yes, it's true that this bot is basically just running genfixes, but I'll say that this specific genfix is one that I am normally hesitant to apply en masse. This proposal would definitely help alleviate that concern. Ionmars10 (talk) 17:13, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

{{BAG assistance needed}} GoingBatty (talk) 00:04, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Approved for extended trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. if the issue I was concerned about doesn't pop up again, I do not see any reason not to accept. Primefac (talk) 13:40, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

@Primefac: Trial complete. with link to results. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 17:03, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Here is an example where the bot gets reverted, but not in the way we were worried about last time; if anything the bot might be enabling users to catch the problem. — The Earwig (talk) 04:13, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

{{BAG assistance needed}} GoingBatty (talk) 04:18, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm sorry it's taken so long to make progress on this. Reviewing the edits after almost a month, I don't see any other problems. Primefac, any objections to approval? — The Earwig (talk) 05:19, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

No, I'm reasonably satisfied. On that last point (i.e. catching problems), though, if you could please not mark the edits as minor, that would likely increase visibility of the changes and decrease the likelihood that the problematic back-and-forth happens.

 Approved. Primefac (talk) 17:12, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

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.