User:Eubot/Hatnote formatting
Eubot is converting unformatted hatnotes into templates ({{dablink}}, {{for}}, {{otheruses}}).
This has two purposes. First, it makes the formatting of the hatnotes consistent. The style of the templates is given by the "dablink" css style. Ideally, all disambiguation hatnotes should have a "dablink" style parameter, so that style changes can be implemented by just changing the css file.
Also, having all hatnotes in a template would make it possible to detect them with a bot. There are thousands of "orphaned" disambiguated pages on wikipedia: pages of the form Something (foo), that are not linked with a hatnote from Something. I want to make a list of these pages, and add the appropriate hatnotes. To do that, I have to be able to recognize these hatnotes easily, so they all have to be formatted as a template.
When converting a hatnote, the bot chooses the most appropriate template. The displayed text should not change substantially -- there may be small changes like substituting "and" for "or". If there are significant changes, there is a problem, and you should let me know (and if necessary: block the bot).
This bot task has been announced at appropriate pages (now archived): Wikipedia talk:Hatnote/Archive 1#Converting hatnotes to templates and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation/Archive 10#Converting hatnotes to templates. If you have comments about the operation of the bot, please leave them at WT:Hatnote, or at my talk page.
Eugène van der Pijll (talk) 15:04, 8 June 2008 (UTC)