Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Ow0castBot

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 Request Expired.

Operator: Ow0cast (talk · contribs · SUL · edit count · logs · page moves · block log · rights log · ANI search)

Time filed: 01:50, Thursday, November 14, 2024 (UTC)

Function overview: Replace external links to wikipedia with wikilinks

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Supervised during trial, automatic afterwards

Programming language(s): Python (pywikibot)

Source code available: Yes, upon request

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): I do not believe that discussions are required for this action, as this is the entire point of wikilinks

Edit period(s): Continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: Large burst at approval/during trial, then 25/day at the highest afterwards.

Namespace(s): Mainspace

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes

Function details: The goal of this task is to replace "external" links to wikipedia pages with the proper wikilinks.

• Watch Special:RecentChanges for edits containing "https://[*].wikipedia.org/wiki/[*]", then replace the external link with a wikilink.

Example: "Python https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programming_language) is cool" → "Python is cool."

Many articles contain external Wikipedia links to templates, policy pages, and discussion, usually added as comments. On average, about 20 of these kinds of links are added per day, with 95% of them as commented-out text. Replacing these links would only lead to cosmetic changes, which should be avoided per WP:COSMETICBOT, as commented-out text are not visible to readers. For the remaining 5%, using a bot isn't a good idea, as these minor edits can be easily handled by a human editor. Currently, over 62,000 pages have these types of commented-out links, and none need replacement based on your criteria. This suggests that these types of external links are fixed regularly. – DreamRimmer (talk) 14:32, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I do not want to pile-on, but for "en.wikipedia" this task wont be much useful like DreamRimmer explained above. However, in case the link is to some other wikipedia eg "de.wikipedia" (german), or "es.wikipedia" (spanish), this task would be useful, but again, the occurrences are extremely low, and they are generally handled/repaired by editors as soon as they are inserted. Also, bot operator is new (not extended confirmed), so this might get denied under WP:BOTNOTNOW. But this is actually a sound request, my first BRFA was outright silly. —usernamekiran (talk) 15:45, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

DreamRimmer, I think CheckWiki #90 would probably be more useful for finding the number of pages affected by this; at the moment it's sitting at ~4500 pages so this probably does require some sort of intervention. Primefac (talk) 20:19, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Ow0cast: Given there are around 4500 pages, this is indeed a useful task. Would you be able to program it to handle the subdomains? Similar to the example I provided above? —usernamekiran (talk) 20:25, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Usernamekiran: Yes, I should be able to make it handle subdomains. /etc/owuh $ (💬 | she/her) 20:29, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Approved for trial (100 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Primefac (talk) 20:39, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Should I run it on Special:RecentChanges or the pages listed at checkwiki? /etc/owuh $ (💬 | she/her) 22:26, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Ow0cast: pages listed at checkwiki would be the optimal choice. —usernamekiran (talk) 00:18, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

{{operator assistance needed}} I see the bot made some successful edits, but then stopped. Are you still working on the task? —usernamekiran (talk) 20:18, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To be completely honest, I stopped working on it after getting stumped on people using wikipedia as a ref, then completely forgot about it and wikipedia (lot of family related things happened, plus exams and holidays) until I saw the notification. I probably won't be working on this again, but if I do, I'll just have it modify files on my PC and copy them to wikipedia manually, unless you (or someone) else want my terrible code to implement into another bot. /etc/owuh $ (💬 | she/her) 03:35, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

{{BotWithdrawn}} I am marking this as withdrawal for the time being. If you plan to continue, you can either file a new request or reopen this one—whichever works best for you. Just make sure to request a new trial if you decide to reopen it. – DreamRimmer (talk) 06:01, 28 January 2025 (UTC) Reopened at the user's request. – DreamRimmer (talk) 15:42, 19 February 2025 (UTC) [reply]

Requesting a new trial. /etc/owuh $ (💬 | she/her) 13:59, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Feel free to continue. Primefac (talk) 14:26, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Should I continue with the number of edits from the previous trial? /etc/owuh $ (💬 | she/her) 14:31, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you have changed your backend code, then yes, please start again. Otherwise, you can continue where you left off. Primefac (talk) 14:33, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A user has requested the attention of the operator. Once the operator has seen this message and replied, please deactivate this tag. (user notified) What is the status of this? * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 16:06, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Request Expired. No issue with re-opening as-is or filing a new task. – DreamRimmer ■ 06:47, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard.