Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/UnitBot
Operator: — Hyperdeath(Talk)
Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic
Programming Language(s): PHP
Function Overview: Automatically fix articles where unit conversions are made to a ridiculous degree of precision.
Edit period(s): One time run. (Initially)
Problem to be solved: A vast number of Wikipedia articles are blighted by unit conversions which are quoted to a degree of precision far greater than that of the original quantity. To give one example, 1000 feet is formally equal to 304.8 meters. In many articles (including Trans National Place, Dan Osman, Laurel Creek Gorge Bridge, Newburgh-Beacon Bridge, Ceiling projector, Panama Canal expansion project and Altitudinal zonation) this precise conversion is used. To give a distance as 304.8m, however, implies that the value is highly precise and must lie between 304.75 and 304.85m. For this to be correct, the original figure of 1000ft would have to be accurate to within 2 inches, which is not true for any of the above cases. Therefore overprecise conversions are not just bad style, but a subtle form of error. A casual search will reveal similar errors for almost every unit, including those of distance, area, pressure, temperature and more.
Function Details: UnitBot (which has yet to be written) will automatically search for such errors and correct them. It would:
- Systematically trawl through articles (restricting its activity to off-peak times with low server lag).
- Search for quantities given in multiple units.
- Quit if the unit conversion appears to be a definition. (e.g. "1 meter is equal to 3.2808399 feet.")
- Quit if the quantity appears to be a precisely defined standard. (e.g. "The offical boundary of space is at 100000m (328084ft) above sea level.")
- Quit if the article is about overprecise units.
- Quit if the units appear as part of a quotation.
- Assign a score based on overprecision. (For example 500 meters = 1640.41995 feet would receive a high score, whilst 500 meters = 1640 feet would receive a lower score.)
- Amend the score based on context. For example, use of the adjectives "nearly", "over", or "approximately" to describe the quantity would boost the score, whilst use of "exactly" would reduce it.
- Fix the article if the score was high enough.
Discussion
I am personally happy to give this a short trial for the following reasons: 1) It hasn't been coded yet, so it's hard to get a feel for how it will work in practice. A small trial will no doubt alleviate concerns 2) Find out if there are any large inaccuracies / impossibilities. 
Approved for trial (20 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. - Jarry1250 (t, c) 17:26, 22 March 2009 (UTC)