The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA. The result of the discussion was Denied.

Operator: Phuzion (talk · contribs · SUL · edit count · logs · page moves · block log · rights log · ANI search)

Time filed: 22:42, Tuesday, May 26, 2020 (UTC)

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: automatic

Programming language(s): AutoWikiBrowser

Source code available: AWB

Function overview: Fix 1000+ instances of {{Infobox television | and remove blank invalid/deprecated parameters.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): One time run, with occasional runs afterwards

Estimated number of pages affected: Approximately 5,000 initially, dozens to hundreds down the road

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes

Already has a bot flag (Yes/No): No

Function details: The maintenance category Category:Pages using infobox television with unknown empty parameters has a very large backlog of invalid parameters, many of which are simply syntax errors from a long time ago that have never been cleaned up. Specifically, at some point, many hundreds, if not thousands, of infoboxes were added with the improper syntax of {{Infobox television | followed by a newline and | name or any other first parameter. As an example, see here where there is a trailing pipe after {{Infobox television. The next parameter in that example also includes a pipe at the beginning of the line, which causes a warning, "Warning: Page using Template:Infobox television with unknown parameter "1 = ". See Infobox instructions. (this message is shown only in preview)."

Additionally, there are a number of deprecated or invalid parameters that are causing additional edit warnings, and I would like to remove the blank ones. I am opting to leave the non-blank parameters because that information could potentially have useful information that could be moved to other parameters. The parameters I would remove when empty are: asst_producer, co_exec, co_producer, co-producer, cons_producer, consulting_producer, slogan, story_editor, supervising_producer, and status. This list of parameters was based on what I have found by manual searching. If there are any that I missed, I would be happy to add them. The regex used for each of these parameters is \|\s*PARAMETER\s*=\s*\n where PARAMETER is the deprecated parameter to be removed.

My bot is a simple AWB regex find/replace that does all of the above. None of the find/replace are prioritized above any other, so the bot will edit on any hit. I do not believe this qualifies as a WP:COSMETICBOT, as this would fall under the category of "maintenance of the encyclopedia"; fixing an error and thus removing the article from a maintenance category. There is precedent for a bot designed to fix or remove deprecated parameters with DFB having multiple successful BRFAs to do just that.

• As a note, I was approached about this task and declined it, because there is no reason to remove blank invalid parameters. See this discussion and this followup on a related template.

The argument made against removing these is that Module:Check for unknown parameters can ignore blanks. The argument made for removing these is that there is no real difference between an invalid "blank" parameter and an invalid "non-blank" parameter. I personally view this as a cosmetic task because of the former reason. That being said, I would prefer more conversation as I am somewhat involved in the situation and already have my own opinions on the matter. Primefac (talk) 00:13, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Those DFB tasks appear to be actual conversions of deprecated parameters and their values to newly supported standard parameters. This BRFA is to remove blank parameters, which I don't think I've ever seen approved, because people don't like to have their watchlists cluttered up with that sort of edit. The standard practice with nearly every infobox is to ignore blank parameters. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:03, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• I would propose that this task is not that different from DFB Task 1, wherein DFB not only removes empty deprecated arguments but also removes deprecated arguments with specified values. I agree that a yes/no value is different than a free-form parameter such as the name of a Co-Producer, which is why I am only removing the empties at this time. DFB Task 4 is also quite similar in scope, as can be seen in these examples. In neither tasks 1 nor 4 do any actual conversions occur, just a removal of a deprecated parameter. Phuzion (talk) 03:45, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Agree with the above; this is entirely pointless request. Module:Check for unknown parameters should probably not support not ignoring blank parameters to begin with (and I am, to my knowledge, entirely uninvolved). * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 02:56, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Denied. Per the above. Please seek wider consensus. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 06:47, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA.