Operator: Phuzion ( talk · contribs · SUL · edit count · logs · page moves · block log · rights log · ANI search)
Time filed: 22:42, Tuesday, May 26, 2020 ( UTC)
Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: automatic
Programming language(s): AutoWikiBrowser
Source code available: AWB
Function overview: Fix 1000+ instances of {{Infobox television | and remove blank invalid/deprecated parameters.
Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):
Edit period(s): One time run, with occasional runs afterwards
Estimated number of pages affected: Approximately 5,000 initially, dozens to hundreds down the road
Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes
Already has a bot flag (Yes/No): No
Function details: The maintenance category
Category:Pages using infobox television with unknown empty parameters has a very large backlog of invalid parameters, many of which are simply syntax errors from a long time ago that have never been cleaned up. Specifically, at some point, many hundreds, if not thousands, of infoboxes were added with the improper syntax of {{Infobox television |
followed by a newline and | name
or any other first parameter. As an example, see
here where there is a trailing pipe after {{Infobox television
. The next parameter in that example also includes a pipe at the beginning of the line, which causes a warning, "Warning: Page using Template:Infobox television with unknown parameter "1 = ". See Infobox instructions. (this message is shown only in preview)."
Additionally, there are a number of deprecated or invalid parameters that are causing additional edit warnings, and I would like to remove the blank ones. I am opting to leave the non-blank parameters because that information could potentially have useful information that could be moved to other parameters. The parameters I would remove when empty are: asst_producer, co_exec, co_producer, co-producer, cons_producer, consulting_producer, slogan, story_editor, supervising_producer, and status. This list of parameters was based on what I have found by manual searching. If there are any that I missed, I would be happy to add them. The regex used for each of these parameters is \|\s*PARAMETER\s*=\s*\n
where PARAMETER
is the deprecated parameter to be removed.
My bot is a simple AWB regex find/replace that does all of the above. None of the find/replace are prioritized above any other, so the bot will edit on any hit. I do not believe this qualifies as a WP:COSMETICBOT, as this would fall under the category of "maintenance of the encyclopedia"; fixing an error and thus removing the article from a maintenance category. There is precedent for a bot designed to fix or remove deprecated parameters with DFB having multiple successful BRFAs to do just that.
Denied. Per the above. Please seek wider consensus. -- TheSandDoctor Talk 06:47, 28 May 2020 (UTC) reply