Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SmackBot XVI

The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. The result of the discussion was Approved.

SmackBot XVI

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Operator: Rich Farmbrough

Automatic or Manually assisted: Auto

Programming language(s): AWB

Source code available: AWB

Function overview: Remove deprecated ":" from redirect pages. Reason: this non-canonicalicity is known to have broken an number of tools in the past, also its presence means it gets copied, thirdly if MW want to move from deprecating to obsoleting the syntax, we will be ready.

Edit period(s): One off, with occasional tidy-up re-runs.

Estimated number of pages affected: About 1000

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Y

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): Y

Function details: s/(#REDIRECT):/$1/i

Discussion

really nothing much to say about this one. Rich Farmbrough, 22:46, 19 August 2009 (UTC).

Could you provide any examples of tools being effected by this? Thanks, - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 13:33, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

1. An academic research project had to re-work because this syntax was discovered late.
2. AWB had a bug that meant t did not recognise such pages as redirects (and hence wsa labelling as orphan etc).
3. Some regexes what I wrote.

Rich Farmbrough, 16:26, 22 August 2009 (UTC).

Since a good case has been made for changing this, and I cans see no harm coming out of it. Approved for trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Keep your edit rate fairly low - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 13:19, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Sample here. Rich Farmbrough, 06:02, 25 August 2009 (UTC).

Those edits seem fine. But I spotted an edit to a page I had watchlisted here, and noticed that you were converting the REDIRECT to Redirect. Would it be possible for the bot to run around after itself clearing these up? Cheers - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 06:08, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Don't bother with changing that unless it's easy. Other than that we are good to go - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 06:24, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Note: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SamuraiBot also fell afoul of this syntax. Rich Farmbrough, 16:02, 25 August 2009 (UTC).S