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Operator: R'n'B (talk)

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic, unsupervised

Programming Language(s): Python, using Pywikipediabot framework

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): TBD, depending on need (i.e., how quickly the maintenance category fills up again); certainly no more often than once a day (currently running twice a week on en:)

Bot flag requested: (Y/N): Y

Functions: Empty out Category:Non-empty category redirects by moving the contents of redirected categories into the new target category specified by {{Category redirect}}. This function is already running on several other wikis (en:, no:, and simple:). P.S. after posting the above, I see that this is essentially the same function that has already been proposed lower on this page by User:Category redirect bot. I'm happy to defer to that user if he/she/it is approved.


My bot is already flagged, just no user has closed the request yet. --O (висчвын) 15:41, 24 August 2008 (GMT)

Categories are critical and at the same time the most vulnerable spot for vandalisme and category structural destructions. See the other bot redirect discussions for operational modes. Anyway, about changing redirects and moving, there is a need of a detailed specification what and when it does certain actions before we can accept that a bot performs substantial modifications on category structures. --Foroa (talk) 18:10, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

The full bot code can be inspected at To summarize what it does:
  1. Identify all pages in the category: namespace that are (hard) redirects; if these point to a valid category, then convert them to a soft redirect using {{category redirect}}, if not, log them for manual inspection.
  2. Load all categories that are members of Category:Non-empty category redirects, and identify their redirect targets.
  3. Load all the target categories, making sure they actually exist. If any target category is also a redirect, fix the double-redirect if possible, and log any redirect loops for manual inspection. Also log any redirects that point to non-existent categories.
  4. For each category that was loaded in step 2, and not ruled out in step 3, check whether the category page was edited within the past six days. If it was, skip it. (This is to avoid ping-ponging pages between categories due to edit wars.) If not, try to move all of its contents to the target category. If any page cannot be moved because it is protected, try to leave a message on the corresponding talk page (excluding User talk: pages).
--R'n'B (talk) 20:29, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
I don't see any problems in your contributions, but you did mention that you'd defer it if O's bot was flagged, which it is. So do you want the flag or not (that is, are you going to run this bot or not)? Thanks, Patrícia msg 19:49, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
It doesn't look like O has run his/her bot since the flag was granted several weeks ago, so I think the answer is yes, I do want the flag and I am going to run the bot. --R'n'B (talk) 20:23, 15 September 2008 (UTC)