User:LemmeyBOT

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This user account is a bot operated by Lemmey (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.

1 Open Source
2 Awards
3 What LemmeyBOT does
- 3.1 References

[edit] Open Source

LemmeyBOT has gone open source

LemmeyBOT.py Runs RefHistoryFix on each article in the broken references category
- RefHistoryFix.py Attempt to fix broken references on the specified article by looking at article history
LemmeyBOT2.py Runs RefHistoryFix2 on each article in the broken references category
- RefHistoryFix2.py Attempt to fix broken references on the specified article by looking at current versions of linked articles
RefHistoryFix3.py Attempt to fix broken references on the specified article by looking at a specific article or text file
Whoipedia.py A magical replacement of the Wikipedia class that doesn't require an editor to login
basic.py An example bot that uses the whoipedia class. Finally a bot that anyone can edit (with)...
TheDaily.py A method for posting current events to the proper pages.

LemmeyBOT
LemmeyBOT (Talk · Contribs)
Operator:	Lemmey
Flagged?	Yes
Task/s:	Restoring Lost reference names from article history
Edit period/s:	Daily
Automatic or manual?	Automatic
Programming language/s:	Python
Exclusion compliant?	Yes

This Bot restores missing references by searching the article history for the missing reference content.

Emergency robot shutoff button

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

Non-administrators can report misbehaving bots to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents.

[edit] Awards

		The Wikipedia Bot Builder Award
		I'm not much for barnstars, especially for bots, but in this case I'll make an exception, as LemmeyBOT does exceptional work. What a great bot! Fanstastic job. MrPrada (talk) 08:55, 11 May 2008 (UTC) _{(moved from user talk page to user page, orig:[[1]])}

		The da Vinci Barnstar
		For LemmeyBot, a brilliant and well-implemented idea. Equazcion •✗/C • 21:43, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

		The da Vinci Barnstar
		For LemmeyBot—Brilliant!! This will save me a lot of drudgery. Boracay Bill (talk) 21:57, 26 May 2008 (UTC) Boracay Bill (talk) 21:57, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

		The Resilient Barnstar
		For your consistent contributions to Wikipedia and resilience in the face of bureaucratic idiocy and wikilawyering. Madcoverboy (talk) 16:11, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] What LemmeyBOT does

[edit] References

LemmeyBOT fixes pages in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting.

[edit] Task 1

LemmeyBOT removes any blank references it finds. A blank ref is defined as <ref></ref>. This includes any number of blank spaces between <ref> and </ref>. This task is considered insignificant and mostly harmless. Therefore it was not put forward to the BAG, nor will it be.

[edit] Task 2

This task explanation uses the analogy that named references (i.e. <ref name = Larry>) in an article act as a family. The explanation uses crude but clear language to effectively describe the task.

Parent Reference <ref name = Larry> reference source or cite tag </ref>
Child Reference <ref name = Larry/>
Siblings all mentions of <ref name = Larry/> are siblings to each other
Orphans any child reference that does not have a parent reference
Bastards any child reference that does not have a parent reference in any previous verson of the article
Inheritance the copying of content of a dead parent to an orphan reference, the Orphan becomes a Parent to its former siblings

Guidelines of behavior

Orphans are bad. They produce produce red line errors in the reflist and can not be seen by readers. They can not be linked to from the reflist. They appear to give a statement a source but it can not be verified by readers. Orphans must be fixed.
Bastards are really bad. Though they may not be intenetional they are giving false sense of authority to a statement. They should be replaced with Fact tags that can be filed in (or the entire statement removed) by editors. Bastards must be destroyed.

[edit] Task 2a Orphans

LemmeyBOT scans references looking for Orphans. When it finds one it scans the article history looking for the Parent. If a parent is found, the child 'Inherents' the reference content from the parent. The child is now the parent and any previous siblings now look to the parent for their content. The reference is now fixed.

[edit] Task 2b Orphans with BlackListed Parents

If a parent is found but cannot be restored because it contains a url that is now considered spam (blacklisted) the child and any of its siblings will be replaced with Fact tags. This encourages other users to find acceptable sources for the statement.

[edit] Task 2c Bastards

LemmeyBOT does not currently change Bastards. This is only for future tasks. This tasks will be submitted to the BAG for comment prior to being run automatically

Bastards must be destroyed by replacement with fact tags. Though they may not be intentional when reading the paragraph the footnote says "This is true, here is the source", when in fact no such source has ever existed in the article. Bastards are lies and hurt wikipedia. Replacing Bastards with fact tags encourages other users to find acceptable sources for the statement or to remove it if it is contentious, dubious, or harmful.

[edit] Task 3

Identify open hanging and nested refs, write to an external file to aid in manual fixing

[edit] Task 4

4a Combine unnamed references into named references
4b Combine named references replaceing duplicate parents with childern
4c Combine references with identical content (named or unnamed)

[edit] Gallery

The wreck of the American Star (SS America) seen in July 2004, before restoration by LemmeyBOT	Example of a misaligned reference as it appears in the article.	LemmeyBOT prepares to replace a lost reference(at the top of the wheel) with its historical counterpart (at the bottom of the wheel, in the lake of memory).	LemmeyBOT has the ability to replace a large number of errors, much like how the US helped to replace Iraq as the 4th largest military in the world back during the Gulf War.
LemmeyBOT is undaunted by large edit histories.	LemmeyBOT remembers history.	LemmeyBOT puts the finishing touches on another article.