Wikidata:Requests for permissions/Bot/UrbanBot

UrbanBot

UrbanBot (talk • contribs • new items • new lexemes • SUL • Block log • User rights log • User rights • xtools)
Operator: Urban Versis 32 (talk • contribs • logs) Note: A discussion at Wikipedia about this bot took place: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_202#Bot_to_add_short_descriptions_to_articles_in_a_category

Task/s: UrbanBot's task is to mass-add English descriptions to items that don't have one.

Code: Main repository for UrbanBot's code Source code file for task

Function details:

1. The bot operator will first enter a category name from the English Wikipedia. This category will be used to group similar pages (items on Wikidata) which will all have the same description added to them.

2. The bot operator will enter the description to be added to the pages in the Wikipedia category.

3. The bot will follow through these steps for each page:

3a. The bot will check if the Wikipedia page has a corresponding item.

3b. The bot will check if the item already has a description

3c. If the Wikipedia page has a corresponding item and the item does not already have a description, the bot will write the description specified by the bot operator in step 2 into the item.

3d. The bot will loop through to the next page in the category and run all steps in step 3 again.

Due to the bot requiring the bot operator to enter in the English Wikipedia category and the description for the items, the bot is semi-automated. I have already done the aforementioned process using the bot to add descriptions to items a few times to make sure the code was working properly.

Thanks, Urban Versis 32^KB ⚡ ^{(talk | contribs)} 16:04, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

 Support This sounds fine as long as you are aware of Wikidata's style guide for descriptions. Confirm that you've read Help:Description? BrokenSegue (talk) 16:24, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

@BrokenSegue Yes, I have and am aware of the formatting of descriptions. Urban Versis 32^KB ⚡ ^{(talk | contribs)} 03:55, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

 Support Looks fine to me too, at least if you'll be following pretty much the pattern you've tested with. One note - two items with the same primary label cannot have the same description string in Wikidata; I'm not sure if your bot would ever run into that but it might be an error condition you'll have to check for. ArthurPSmith (talk) 20:33, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

 Comment Another approach might be to add the short descriptions to enwiki, which are then automatically copied over here by Pi bot. That might help reduce the number of differences of descriptions here and there in the longer term. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 16:46, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

the style guide for wikipedia/wikidata descriptions are not the same though BrokenSegue (talk) 17:24, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

@Mike Peel Actually, this was my original plan and I discussed it at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_202#Bot_to_add_short_descriptions_to_articles_in_a_category but I was suggested to bring it here as the bot would mainly edit Wikidata and editing Wikipedia would only create extra steps. Urban Versis 32^KB ⚡ ^{(talk | contribs)} 03:57, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

@BrokenSegue, Urban Versis 32: Those are both problems that should be fixed. English Wikipedia seems to want the extra steps, it would be useful if they didn't self-contradict themselves... Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:24, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

those won't be fixed in this request for permission. BrokenSegue (talk) 22:47, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

@Mike Peel Not sure what you mean by English Wikipedia wanting the extra steps, but if an en-wiki article is linked to a Wikidata item with a description, the description takes the place of a short description on Wikipedia. For example, viewing this Wikipedia category with the shortdescs-in-category tool will reveal that some articles have a locally-added short description whereas one page doesn't have a short description but its corresponding Wikidata item did have a description, which took the place of a Wikipedia short description. Urban Versis 32^KB ⚡ ^{(talk | contribs)} 22:50, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

@Mike Peel Actually, I stand corrected. I was looking through the en-wiki Wikiproject Short Descriptions (link here) and it looks like Wikidata descriptions are actually not really used as a replacement for a Wikipedia short description. Therefore, I think I will submit a bot request to en-wiki as you were correct about Short descriptions being a much higher priority on Wikipedia compared to Wikidata descriptions. I will leave this request up however, in case I run into people saying the same thing at Wikipedia as they did before. After the bot (hopefully) gets approved, I will take this one down. Thanks again, Urban Versis 32^KB ⚡ ^{(talk | contribs)} 02:40, 15 July 2023 (UTC)