User:SmackBot

This user account is a bot operated by Rich Farmbrough (talk). It is not a sock puppet, but rather an automated or semi-automated account for making repetitive edits that would be extremely tedious to do manually. Administrators: if this bot is malfunctioning or causing harm, please block it.

Emergency robot shutoff button
Administrators: Use this button if the bot is malfunctioning. (direct link)

Tools

I use Firefox and WP:AWB at the moment. I also use Perl to scan database downloads. If requested I will prepare lists of articles for other users when I can. Where possible SmackBot will avoid pages with the {{nobots}} tag. I may also start using the python Wikipediabot.

Tasks

Current tasks

Recurrent tasks

Note: due to an MS operating system failure task 3 is on hold.

1. Correct "External link" to "External links".
2. Correct "Reference" to "References".
3. Correct "ISBN:" to "ISBN" to allow wikimagic to prevail.
   • Other minor improvements to layout of ISBN to allow wikimagic to prevail.
   • (Insert correct hyphenation of ISBNs, label articles with invalid ISBNs (too short, too long, lang code, pub code undefined)).
   • Check check digit, categorise articles with invalid ISBNs.
   • Convert to 13 digit code (standard from 2007) see ISBN (currently paused)
4. Add a date to the maintenance tags which put articles in sub-categories of sorted by month - currently (as of February 2007):

   • {{wikify}}
   • {{orphan}}
   • {{uncategorized}}
   • {{uncatstub}}
   • {{cleanup}}
   • {{unreferenced}}
   • {{importance}}
   • {{expand}}
   • {{merge}}
   • {{copyedit}}
   • {{fact}}
   • {{not verified}}

   and their synonyms and near-synonyms. (This should be exhaustive -i.e all occurrences should be dated.)

   Also dating cleanup tags which put articles in categories planned to be sub-categories of sorted by month - currently (as of February 2007):

5. Replace tags {{disambig}} and {{cleanup}} with {{disambig-cleanup}}.
6. Replace birth dates and death dates in Infoboxen with {{birth date}}, {{death date}}, {{birth date and age}} or {{death date and age}} as appropriate.
7. Add defaultsort to people-stubs so they are listed correctly
8. Add references section and appropriate mark of to articles with "ref" footnotes and no such mark up.

Task queue

1. Remove unnecessary capitals from section headers - work on common errors.

   Most common 245 done once. - will probably become a recurring task

   Many now built into AWB as part of "General fixes".

Completed tasks

1. U.S. 2000 census articles into past tense.
2. Initial runs of recurrent tasks
3. Moved Saint Louis categories to St. Louis, and corrected links.
4. Remove unnecessary capitals from section headers - Most common 15 done.
5. Remove unnecessary capitals from section headers - second most common batch c. 230.
6. UK links direct to United Kingdom. Nazi to Nazism.
7. Pipe US to United States replace with U.S.
8. Replace/pipe link Academy Award with Academy Awards
9. In days of the year replace first occurrence of date with templated link, completed manually.
10. More Fix-ups in US Census articles.
11. Remove spurious links to months of year and days of week.
12. Labelled all bad checksum ISBNs.
13. Renamed "invalid isbn" template "please check ISBN".
14. Modified Swiss geog. articles census field to avoid deprecated "as of month year" links.
15. Tidied up album articles (note there is a manual phase which is still going on).

Known bugs

See also Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs

1. There is a bug with the dating of "cleanup-remainder".

Abandoned tasks

1. Fix section headers and templates in Pokémon articles.

   Not started. Probably been done by someone else by now.

2. Clean up piped links

   Stopped probably permanently. Might roll into other tasks.

   Now built into AWB as part of "General fixes"

Approval status for various tasks

• Using AWB notified 5 March 2006 here..
• On 26 March 2006 a request for withdrawing approval from this bot was made Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Archive2#SmackBot_and_AWB_operated_by_Rich_Farmbrough here
  • As a result the flag was voluntarily relinquished, and regained through a new process (see above).
• Approval request for recurrent task 1. Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Archive2#SmackBot task approval Approved.
• Approval request for recurrent task 2. Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Archive2#SmackBot task approval II Approved.
• Approval request for recurrent task 3. Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Archive2#SmackBot task approval III Approved.
• Approval request for one-off task 10. Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Archive3#SmackBot task approval IV Approved.
• Approval request for one-off task 11. Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Archive3#SmackBot task approval V Approved.
• Approval request for recurrent task 3a. Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval#SmackBot Task Approval VI Approved [1].
• Approval request for recurrent task 3b and 3c. Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SmackBot 7and8 Approved.
• Approval request for one off tasks 13 and 14 requests IX and X.
• Approval request for recurrent task 5. request XI.
• Approval request for recurrent task 6. request XII.
• Approval request for recurrent task 7. request XIII.
• Approval request for recurrent task 8. request XIV.

• Note, when Smackbot is using AWB, some of the general fixes options will usually be turned on, to get the most value from the edits. Hence most edit summaries say "and/or general fixes". Again usually, the motivating change will be made or none at all.

Name

Has nothing to do with drugs, or fishing smacks. Think of it as the smack at the end of a Swedish massage, or the smack of a Homer like pate when saying Doh! Whatever makes you comfortable... The name was never intended as a reprimand, although some users have taken it as such, just a passing pun.

Awards

Some also at User:Rich Farmbrough/Barnstars

Thank you, SmackBot, for always cleaning up my messes. Drink up, buddy! --wpktsfs 14:34, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

		The Invisible Barnstar
		Great job with maintaining the tags well! / 17:01, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

		The Working Bot's Barnstar
		Keep up the good work! 13:40, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Messages

Please do not leave messages here leave them at User talk:Rich Farmbrough