MatrixBot (talk · contribs)

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

Bot's tasks for which permission is being sought: Fix lint errors in signatures using a find and replace method, with a page for signature submissions which will be reviewed by me.

Automatic or manually assisted: Automatic

Edit type (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): Continuous (until we run out of signature submissions/lint errors)

Maximum edit rate (e.g. edits per minute): 20 edits/min

Bot flag requested: (Y/N): n/a

Programming language(s): Pywikibot on Toolforge

—Matrix(!) _{ping one}^{when replying} {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 20:40, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

Discussion

Source code is here. I will make some changes like changing site URL. For an in-depth discussion on whether fixing lint errors is useful, see this RfC on enwiki. —Matrix(!) _{ping one}^{when replying} {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 20:40, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

Please make test run. EugeneZelenko (talk) 12:55, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

@EugeneZelenko:  Done (10-20 edits) . —Matrix(!) _{ping one}^{when replying} {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 17:37, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

I think will be good idea to link to this page instead of using see my user page in edit summaries. EugeneZelenko (talk) 12:59, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

@EugeneZelenko: Ok, I'll do so in any future test runs/if this is approved. —Matrix(!) _{ping one}^{when replying} {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 15:49, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

Please make another test run, preferably on other kind of error(s). EugeneZelenko (talk) 15:32, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Will do tomorrow —Matrix(!) _{ping one}^{when replying} {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 17:49, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

@EugeneZelenko:  Done, I did tt -> span instead of font -> span this time, see mw:Help:Lint_errors/obsolete-tag#Deprecated_elements (section for tt tags) . —Matrix(!) _{ping one}^{when replying} {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 18:27, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Looks OK for me. EugeneZelenko (talk) 14:18, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

Generally supportive. However, I've noted that so far all test edits the bot did was correcting @Rhododendrites signature. Could you include a broader set or lint errors that the bot will be tackeling? Also, approximately how many edits are we talking about here? --Schlurcher (talk) 15:26, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

@Schlurcher: the way the bot works, as mentioned above is that I find the lint errors and put it into a file with the parameters search URL, string to find, string to replace with, it just finds and replaces stuff (no logic on how to identify a lint error or anything). I could do other signatures as well (I plan to create a submissions page similar to w:WP:Linter/Signature submissions if this is approved), it's just Rhododendrites' signature was the first one to come up on Special:LintErrors (as well as Moheen for the first test run). The bot will mostly target the "Obsolete HTML tags" one, but a few others will likely also be fixed by fixing this one.

As for approximately how many edits, there are 4.5M lint errors, but many pages will likely have multiple, and a lot of them could be from templates that are transcluded, so 500k-750k pages sounds realistic. —Matrix(!) _{ping one}^{when replying} {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 18:52, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

Approved. --Krd 02:51, 20 October 2025 (UTC)