Commons:Bots/Requests/PereBot

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Operator: Pere prlpz (talk · contributions · Statistics · Recent activity · block log · User rights log · uploads · Global account information)

Bot's tasks for which permission is being sought:

  • Tasks: Create categories from a manually edited lists.
    • The bot creates categories in Commons from a list of category names and category descriptions. The lists has previously been edited manually using a draft list by another bot by gathering data from cultural heritage monuments lists in Catalan Wikipedia. This will be nearly the same work I've been doing manually since WLM2011.

Automatic or manually assisted: The bot doesn't ask confirmation for every change, but when activated it will do only a few edits in a row, that must be reviewed in order to check edits and fill the categories.

Edit type (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): One time run (e.g. activated just to make a few edits).

Maximum edit rate (eg edits per minute): Python default, and only a few edits in a row. Not sure how may edits in a minute is this, but maximum a few or a few tens per day.

Bot flag requested: (Y/N): I don't know.

Programming language(s): Python.

Pere prlpz (talk) 22:53, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

By creating categories I assume you mean category pages. Does your list include the applicable parent categories for the newly created cats? If so, can you do a test run of the bot for 3 category pages? --Dschwen (talk) 01:09, 18 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I mean category pages.
The bot is intended to create categories for cultural heritage monuments. The parent category always exists. Anyway, it could be created by adding it in the list or could be created manually.
The way I plan use this bot to create category pages is very similar to the way I use Commonist to upload images. Just like in Commonist, some tasks are more easily performed with other tools like Cat-a-lot or Hot-cat after the category page has been created.
I did create a few pages and filled them with images.--Pere prlpz (talk) 09:05, 18 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Are category names are really untranslatable to English? However this is not a problem of this bot, but category naming for cultural heritage for many countries. I don't think that languages which uses non-Latin alphabet should be denied same right as Latin-based one. As result who will be able to find right category? --EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:54, 18 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  1. This is an interesting issue but it is not related to the way category pages are created. I created categories in bot test editions in the same way I've been creating them by hand. Then, I think this issue shoudn't affect this request.
  2. Anyway, choosing names of categories for cultural heritage monuments is difficult. The rule of thumb should be "the name used by references in English", but references in English only mention the most important monuments (let's say only a few tens or hundreds in the several tens of thousands of cultural heritage monuments listed in Catalonia). Furthermore, it's hard to tell what part of the name in official lists is made of common nouns and which part is made of untranslatable proper nouns (for example, in Paris we could say in English "North Station (Paris)", "Nord Station" or "Gare du Nord" depending on what part we take as proper noun). For important monuments like Gare du Nord we can check references in English, but for lower order monuments such references don't exist. As far as I can see, the most usual way to deal with this subject is to take a great part of the name as proper noun, as you can see in Category:Monuments historiques in Alpes-Maritimes (churches), for example. I usually try to avoid this problem by leaving only the most language-independent part of the name, when it doesn't cause disambiguation problems. For example, I try to remove parts like "house in" or "church of" from category names.
  3. Probably, worldwide practical rules to name cultural heritage monuments would be very useful, and I'm sure a lot of category names worldwide should be improved. A general discussion on rules would be very interesting, and particular discussions about category renaming would be interesting, too. I watch all categories I created or edited and I set the bot account to watch all edited pages, too. Then, I expect to see you soon in any category renaming discussion you would start.
Anyway, as previously stated, the name will be the same not depending if I write the name in a list or in the search box to create categories one at once.--Pere prlpz (talk) 16:53, 18 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Addendum: please notice that this edition [1] copypasted by hand from the same list the bot uses, is indistinguishable from the test bot edits. So allowing this work to be done by bot doesn't make any difference to the resut. It just eases a little the work of doing it.--Pere prlpz (talk) 19:57, 18 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Any other objection?--Pere prlpz (talk) 15:22, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This request is listed as "waiting for operator reply". What else am I expected to reply?--Pere prlpz (talk) 09:34, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So far, I never noticed problems with Pere prlpz, on the contary, and most categories have been created anyway by now, and granting or not the bot status would not make any difference. There are some categories, such as train stations that I would like to see more in English. As noted, the naming discussion should probably take place elsewhere.
What I fear as potential problem is the more that Catalan names are used, the more risks we have on naming conflicts with the surrounding Spanish speaking community. Often in Spain with its many official languages, the English requirement is a blessing that avoids a lot of fights.
Anyway, its frustrating how many images are still hanging in categories like "wiki loves ..." and "cultural heritage monuments of ..." without any deeper categorisation, so even when he was using categories in Chinese, it still would be a major improvement. --Foroa (talk) 11:55, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It might be a great help for all of us to include interwikis in the categories. --Foroa (talk) 11:58, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Since I'm collecting data with bot, I include Catalan interwiki in the newly created categories. When the same article in other languages exist, I see other bots using the Catalan interwiki I put as a guidance to put other interwikis, and as those specialized bots do this job quite fast and efficiently, I don't try do do it by myself. Anyway, please notice that most of cultural heritage monuments which have images in Commons don't have an article in any wikipedia.
  • There is plenty of work to do in putting iw in Commons - for example, I see a lot of geographical categories that don't have iw to the equivalent categories in wikipedia when those categories exist. I plan to work on this and put iw based on Commonscat templates in wikipedia categories, but this would be another request for another bot - a bot that I haven't still written.
  • About category names, this is an issue for monuments and buildings all over the world that should be worked globally. Probably, some guidelines for some common kinds of buildings would be useful. Stations are probably among the easiest names to translate, although they aren't translated very often: see for example Category:Train stations in Ille-et-Vilaine. Anyway I'll try to stick to more standard names. For other buildings, when standard English names can't be found, I try to make the name as language-independent as possibly, usually losing clarity, too.
  • I think categorizing cultural heritage monuments is important to better use these images, but it means a lot of work. Using a bot to gather information from lists and another to upload descriptions just allows more human time for the less repetitive tasks: checking descriptions, categorizing monuments and classifying images.--Pere prlpz (talk) 14:51, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
So we basically agree. --Foroa (talk) 08:09, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with not having a bot flag. Category descriptions aren't more evident than hand written ones - since they are nearly hand written from an automatic compilation of hand written sources. This bot editions need the same revision as all my other edits would need.--Pere prlpz (talk) 00:53, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Unless there are further concerns, I suggest we close this as approved. This is a reasonably low-volume bot (a few tens of category creations per day). Perhaps don't flag it, so that other humans can review the new categories? --99of9 (talk) 00:32, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Approved (without the flag, per agreement above) --99of9 (talk) 11:42, 16 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]