(talk · contribs)
This user account is a bot, 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.
Operator: heyzeuss (t/c)
Approved? yes
Flagged? no
Task/s: Link old appendices to new
Source code: Tasks
Edit rate: 6 edits per minute
Edit period/s: TBD
Automatic or manual? Manual login and manual execution of a batch file. One page per line in the batch.

Proper noun edit

Deep Thought

  1. (computing) A machine built to return The Answer to the Great Question, of Life, the Universe and Everything.
    "Forty-two,' said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.

Tasks edit

  • categorize entries in accounting and finance
  • link outdated inflection appendices to newer ones, making it easy for contributors to find them and manually replace inflection templates within entries.
    python add_text.py -page:"Wiktionary:Finnish inflection types/nouns/paperi" -text:"<small>KOTUS type [[Appendix:Finnish declension types/paperi|paperi]]</small>" -summary:"kotus type" -except:"Appendix:Finnish declension types" -putthrottle:06

Example edit

Wiktionary:Finnish inflection types/nouns/paperi - diff

The problem edit

I would look up a word in Finnish and find that it does not have an inflection table. Instead, it has a link to a generalised inflection table, and the link is produced by an old inflection template. The link to the appendix is helpful, but the appendix is from an outdated model of Finnish grammar. The 78 inflection patterns were organized differently in the past and I don't know the new one. There are too many steps involved in updating the inflection table:

  1. Open the link Wiktionary:Finnish inflection types/nouns to get the matching inflection pattern. It belongs to one of 78 inflection templates. This is the step that I aim to bypass with my proposed bot.
  2. Open the link to the appropriate template.
  3. Click the edit tab.
  4. Copy the template.
  5. Copy the template from the example given in the appendix and insert the word.
  6. The consonant gradation doesn't match. Plug in the gradating consonants. This is the part that an ordinary bot cannot do. Somebody would have to put a lot of time into building it.
  7. Return to the entry in question.
  8. Click edit
  9. Replace the old template with the new one.
  10. Preview and save.

The solution edit

A bot for updating the templates is probably not feasible. Instead, I want to use a bot to link the old inflection appendices to the new ones in order to remove guesswork, keystrokes, and mouse clicks by contributors.

Difficulty with replacing templates edit

The old Finnish inflection templates might be rather difficult to replace automatically. The bot would have to be able to recognise all of the 78 different conjugation and declension patterns as well as the 14 different kinds of consonant gradation that take place. That is quite a few lines of code and I don't know anyone who can or is willing to tackle that project. For that reason I want to facilitate manual replacement of Finnish inflection templates.