Commons:Bots/Requests/JhealdBot (7)

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JhealdBot (talk · contribs) (7)

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

Bot's tasks for which permission is being sought:

Add a date-key to the file categorisation in an old maps category, where the file information includes a creation date before 1900, and where there is no existing key or defaultsort.

Automatic or manually assisted:

Closely-supervised automatic

Edit type (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run):

Small batches, run from time to time

Maximum edit rate (e.g. edits per minute):

12

Bot flag requested: (Y/N):

Bot already has it.

Programming language(s):

Perl, using MediaWiki::Bot

More detailed explanation:

It's useful for "old maps" categories to be broadly ordered by date. (See eg Category:Old maps of whole Wales (alone) for example). This tends to group like together with like, allows maps from a particular period to be more easily found, and allows the historical flow of treatments of the subject to be seen on the category page -- so, in the Wales category, it groups the early "Cambriae Typus" maps together, before later maps become more divergent.
The ordering is achieved by adding a sort key (ie |xxxx) representing the map's year to its categorisation. (Or, alternatively, via a Defaultsort). A lot of old maps already have this, particular those acquired as part of a systematic batch uploading. But also very many do not.
The present request, which is more for an assistance-tool than a full-on bot, is to help with the adding of such date tags, by seeing whether the map has an original creation date set in its information template, and using that for the sort-key for the target category if possible.
It is not intended that the tool should run freely. Rather, it would run on a single category at a time, adjusting only the keys for that category. Indeed, in its current form, it relies on being fed a list of the files in that category obtained from a manually executed quarry query, such as quarry:query/36370, which needs to be adjusted and then re-run for each new category that is to be done. The script's application also tends to be rather limited, as many many files either have no information template, or no creation date, or a creation date corresponding to when they were uploaded, rather than when the map was actually made. So the process of ordering a category remains primarily manual; but the script I think would be a helpful assist, to take care of the most easy cases.
Furthermore there are some files which are perhaps not best placed in the main date sequence -- for example it may make sense to separately group together old maps with a particular sub-area of the category subject, distinct from the main sequence that depict the whole of the category subject. The script therefore ignores any files that already have a sort-key for the category, or have a defaultsort, leaving these for manual assessment; and it is intended that any actions will be closely reviewed, category by category.
As a result, in a test run on Category:Old maps of the Electorate of Trier, out of seventeen maps, the script only added a single sort-key. (diff); the rest were all added by hand.
Nevertheless, despite its limited application, for the easy cases I think the script could be a useful effort-saver, so I would welcome its approval.

Jheald (talk) 20:25, 23 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Stale. --Krd 17:47, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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