User:Polbot/refFAQ

What is Polbot doing?

Polbot makes improvements to the formatting of external links and references within articles. This task, Polbot's eighth, was approved by the Bot Approvals Group here.

What sort of improvements does Polbot make?

The most prominent thing this bot does is name external links, similar to the way that DumZiBoT does. But wait, there's more! She also makes other improvements, to wit:

1. Convert the <references /> tag to the {{reflinks}} template, as [[Wikipedia:AutoWiki Browser|AWB]] does in its auto-fixes.
2. If there are <ref> tags but no {{reflist}}, it'll add a {{reflist}}.
3. Fix the double bracketing like [[http://www.example.com]], also inspired by AWB auto-fixes.
4. Change [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example] to [[Example]] and [http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example this] to [[:pt:Example|this]].
5. When there are bare links to a few known sites (such as IMDB, New York Times, Google Books, etc.), this bot changes the link to use the proper template. For instance [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099700/] changes to {{imdb title|0099700|Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)}}, and [http://books.google.com/books?id=Pa8JAAAAIAAJ&dq=up+from+slavery&client=firefox-a] becomes {{cite book |title=Up from Slavery: An Autobiography|author=Booker T. Washington|year=1902 |publisher=Doubleday, Page & Co.|isbn=|pages=330 pages |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=Pa8JAAAAIAAJ}}
6. Turn previously-unnamed bare external links (BELs) to references by putting them in <ref> tags.
7. If there have been any changes needed due to the above, then Polbot will perform misc other cleanup tasks at no extra charge.

Can I see some examples?

Sure. Here are some examples of the bot's changes to local copies of Paducah, Texas, Paducah, Kentucky, Adyashanti, Íngrid Betancourt, Internal combustion engine, and Peace movement.

What if I think it looked better before?

Feel free to revert; it won't hurt Polbot's feelings. If you think Polbot is making bad decisions, please let me know. If you want to make sure Polbot doesn't touch a certain page again, simply include {{nobots}} or one of the other bot exclusion templates to the page.

Can I request certain pages? Can I make suggestions for improvement?

Yes, please! Just leave me a note at User talk:Quadell.