Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive 23

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 20

Archive 21

Archive 22

→

OBJECTION TO ONE USE OF AWB

I object to the indiscriminate, unconditional use of AWB to remove duplicate references. My reasons are discussed here: Wikipedia:Bot_owners'_noticeboard#Concerns.2Fcomplaints_about_bot_tasks_and_practices

And, here:

Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Request_for_guidance_on_policy

At this second link, i attempt to demonstrate that routine merging of duplicate references violates the only Wikipedia policy that provides for a preference in citation methods, in that absent consensus otherwise, the existing citation method is preferred.

I do not use AWB, and am not familiar with its capabilities/limitations. I would appreciate knowing if it is possible to protect articles from AWB, or from some capabilities of AWB (specifically, merging of duplicate references).

regards, Richard Myers (talk) 19:59, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Richard Myers (talk) 17:45, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, if an article has no references with names, ie nothing like <ref name="something">...</ref>, then the current version of AWB will not add any names or merge any duplicates. This is the rationale for my edit to Anti-union violence, and it is documented here.

Since there are already discussions at two venues, I suggest that we don't start a third discussion here about whether this AWB function is a Good Thing. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:33, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Richard Myers (talk) 20:19, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

AWB Proxy

When at school, I need to use a proxy.pac to connect to the internet from my laptop. Is there any way to set up AWB through this? I ask because everything I've found says to use IE's default proxy settings, but I don't have IE. Any help? Thanks. Sellyme^Talk 01:31, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, if you have Windows, you have IE (even if you don't use it). If you're not on Windows, you can't use AWB anyway.—Chowbok ☠ 01:43, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I use AWB with either Unix or Windows and Mozilla Firefox myself. I rarely use IE except at work. What is the error code you are getting when you try and use AWB. --Kumioko (talk) 02:28, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Does bot mode present challenges to BAG definition of 'automatic supervised'?

A while back, bot auto mode used to run a 'Show changes'. I haven't done a test recently but something makes me think that 'Show changes' is no longer available in auto mode. If so, this might be in conflict with BAG approvals constrained to 'automatic supervised'.

I have never seen a definition of 'automatic supervised' but it could mean "human sees the diff of each edit". If AWB doesn't present 'Show changes' when running as a bot, then many bot operators will have to go to the contributions list to open up all of the diffs individually. I hope I'm wrong. What do you think? Lightmouse (talk) 09:48, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Trivial changes

Is it correct to state that edits like this one violate the AWB terms of use? Thanks. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:43, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I personally wouldn't save an edit as trivial as this one, but I have seen too many threads at ANI and elsewhere to risk a definitive answer... -- John of Reading (talk) 20:42, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I thought "Avoid making insignificant or inconsequential edits such as only adding or removing some white space" was pretty clear, but... How about the hundreds of surrounding edits that violate "Don't edit too quickly", many of which are not much more substantial than the example above?? --SarekOfVulcan (talk)

Yes, they are problematic. However, you're obviously not the best person to be dealing with this Sarek - his edits at ANI make it clear he's not likely to listen to you with much respect for any problems you do bring up, and stalking his contribs page like this isn't helping matters for yourself or him. I left a message to TT about this before, I'll talk to him again. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 20:52, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Hardly stalking, it was going on when I reminded him about WP:OVERLINKING before. It just took me a while to decide where and whether to raise the issue.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:58, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps not, "stalk" is probably the wrong word. I guess what I'm saying is he's going to - rightly or wrongly - disregard any issues you bring up about him, so there is nearly no point in you doing so, especially when it's already been brought up. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 21:11, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

The question is, what do we call checking for yet more mistakes of a user (in this case TT). The "wikify" tag when applied by him via AWB seems to be problematic as well at least some of the time. (does this happen with other people who use this tool?) And I've seen concerns raised by other users on the talk page. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:07, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Just wanted to snipe my 2 cents here. Replying to Sarek's comment above about editing too quickly. Although I would agree the example you present appears to be inconsequential I looked through a number of his edits and most of them seem fine. Looking at the timestamp it appears to be only 2 or 3 edits a minute. Hardly what I would consider quickly. Aside from that, it sounds like this users has some history that I am not familiar with. --Kumioko (talk) 03:16, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

5 edits at 10:44, 10:39, 10:34, 10:33... in that run, he made 950 edits over 5 hours, averaging 3.1 edits a minute.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 03:40, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

For ten edits that correct a typographical error (for example), there are ten that do nothing mor than remove blank lines and blank spaces. Although I have already made it plain on more than one occasion that I do not consider such edits problematic, there are others who would see these as such. I think those same editors likely to object would see a problem with running AWB 'naked' but for general fixes, and I think it would be helpful if we dealt with Treasury Tag in a manner consistent with our treatment of Kumioko or Rich Farmbrough. That is all I am after, for it would be poppycock to say that it's OK for one editor and not others. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 05:39, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
- Where are Fram and Xeno when you need them? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 07:44, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
  - Rd232 and others have already discussed this with TreasuryTag, and he hasn't started making similar AWB edits again since. No need for me to pile on for the moment. I'm quite busy tagging other problems ;-) Fram (talk) 08:05, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
    Indeed, please back off guys. The hardline approach some of you (e.g. Rd232) are taking is not going to help with this editor. 3.1 edits a minute is perfectly acceptable, and TreasuryTag appears to be running the TypoScan plugin, so not just GenFixes. As Fram says, people just need to back off, and give him some breathing room. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 09:30, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
    - I wasn't being hard on the details (no judgement on whether what he was doing was OK or not), but on his attitude, which because of Sarek's involvement was seemingly to not take the issue seriously. Rd232 ^talk 23:50, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Could I use AWB for removing "It should be noted" from articles

Hey, I recently stumbled upon Wikipedia:It should be noted and from the searches at the bottom say that there are several thousand instances of this prase being used on wikipedia. I started removing some of them manually, but realized this is basically the same every time (remove "It should be noted (that)", capitalize first letter of the next word). Is this something that could be automated with AWB so I would just have to check the edits and accept them? If so, how would I do that? (disclaimer:I have no clue how AWB actually works). Yoenit (talk) 08:56, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Obvious editorialising ought to be removed. You could equally do a search for words like 'reluctantly', obviously', 'unfortunately' and remove those too. But you need to be on the lookout for instances within quotes. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 12:50, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
- Ofcourse, that is why I am here rather the the bot request page. My question was mostly whether it is technologically possible to do this with AWB. Yoenit (talk) 13:29, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
  - Technologically is possible. Yes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:41, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
    - Thank you, going to request acces then. Yoenit (talk) 13:48, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
      - If you want to do it manually, ti won't be a problem. If you want to use a bot to do it, you 'll have to contact WP:BOTREQ. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:53, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
        Yes yes, I want to do it manually with AWB. Yoenit (talk) 13:55, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
      Magioladitis, how do you upcase the next letter? From memory, I thought the \U didn't work. Of course, one could create 26 replacement rules, one for each following (unaccented) letter... -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:56, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
      Good point. the regex should probably also include the possibility of 'that' as the fifth word. –Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:28, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
      JHunterJ try [a-zA-Z]? -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:39, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
      That would match an uppercase or lowercase letter, but there'd be no way to replace it with its uppercase version. Yoenit needs a match-side [a-z] and a replacement-side [A-Z] that corresponds to the match. Perl has \U (e.g., s/It should be noted (?:that )?([a-z])/\U$1/; should work, but I don't believe the \U can be used in AWB. -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:11, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
      
      I am afraid that "You'd need to do a custom match evaluator in a custom module or plugin" (quoting Reedy). -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:20, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
      
      I change a letter that should be capitalized to "CAPITALIZE", but of course that only automates finding the problem, and requires my manual intervention to fix it. Art LaPella (talk) 23:25, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Is AWB what I need to use?

Hi, I have started to come across articles that need seriously wikifying in terms of respecting italics for film titles, foreign words and so on (notably anything from the Category:Tokusatsu where I did the main article Tokusatsu manually and also some stuff about Islam and Islamic concepts Rada (fiqh), Mahram), and also I just joined the cetaceans project because there is a huge lack of consistency in the articles, where one finds Steller's sea cow and Steller's Sea Cow, the same at something something M/manatee and so on.

So is AWB the tool to use to automate this rather repetitive and time-consuming task? If so I will make a request on the appropriate page. Thanks. CaptainScreebo ^Parley! 14:48, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

AWB could be helpful with this job. Using AWB, you could set up some find and replace for common words, and then process all the articles in the category. You'll need to check each edit to make sure it's correct before saving it. Good luck! GoingBatty (talk) 23:45, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Right, thanks, just wanted to make sure that I was in the right place. Cheers. CaptainScreebo ^Parley! 00:29, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

If you need any help or have any questions just drop a note out here and sooner or later someone should be able to help. --Kumioko (talk) 01:37, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I certainly will. I'll put my request in this weekend, I guess, cheers. CaptainScreebo ^Parley! 13:34, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Banned or inactive users with access to AWB

I noticed that a banned user, Perseus8235 still has active access to AWB. I'm not sure what the procedures are if any for removing accounts like this but I would recommend if the user is banned their access should be revoked. If at some point in the future they get unbanned then it could be restored but I think these cases are fairly rare.

I also think that if a user has been inactive for a long period of time (a year maybe) then their access should be removed. If they come back they could always get it back but a lot of changes happen in a year to Wikipedia and to the software so IMO if they haven't edited in a year they probably shouldn't be using the software. At the very least we should ensure that the software has been updated to a more current version. --Kumioko (talk) 15:16, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Just checked Perseus8235 is blocked and not just banned. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:19, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Ok thanks. I realize in that case he can't edit anyway but it still seems like we would remove those anyway. --Kumioko (talk) 15:27, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Version not enabled issue

I recently downloaded version 5.3.0.0, and used it successfully yesterday. Today when I tried to log in, I got an error stating that the version is not enabled. The AutoUpdater didn't find any update, so I installed SVN 7734, but am still getting the same error. Since Wikipedia is online, what else should I check? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 17:12, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Until someone with a little skill shows up to help you, let me just say that I downloaded 7734 earlier today from http://toolserver.org/~awb/snapshots/ and have been using it with no difficulty, so it doesn't look like it's a problem with the AWB version or with Wikipedia itself. You might try rebooting your operating system. I am using Windows Vista and IE 8.0.6001.19048. Good luck! Chris the speller ^yack 00:25, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, it's working now. Don't know if it's because I rebooted or because I'm connecting to the Internet from another location. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 00:44, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Articles without talk pages

How can I generate a list of articles that do not have a Talk pages based on another list of pages generated? And then create a talk page with specific templates and parameters? --Traveler100 (talk) 09:44, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Thats kind of a vague question and could depend on several things including what those parameters are. Basaically though if you use a generated list, right click on it and switch to talk pages. Then go to the skip tab and say skip if page doesn't exist it will tell you what the blank talk pages are.

With that said you should first start by determining if any of the list are redirects. You can do that by going through the generated list of articles by saying either skip if does or does not contain #REDIRECT. Depending on the parameters you want to add you may need to proecess it a little farther from there.

You could also write a Module that could do some of it as well or submit it as a bot request. --Kumioko (talk) 12:06, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Advanced settings changes now minor replacement

Hi, I just noticed that with 5.3.0 all changes performed by "advanced settings" are now minor and the page will be skiped via "skip if only minor replacement made". Is this a bug or a new freature? Or: Is there a way to define the advanced setting rules not as minor replacements? --Schlurcher (talk) 10:30, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Controlling the interval between two bot edits

Is there a way I can choose the interval between two edits in bot mode? The 'delay x seconds between edits' doesn't appear to do what it says, it appears to actually be 'delay x seconds prior to save'. Thus:

Other delays associated with processing multiple articles
Process article
Start timer
Timer exceeds x seconds
Save article

I'd like it to work this way:

Other delays associated with processing multiple articles
Process article
Timer exceeds x seconds
Save article
Start timer

Does that make sense to anybody? Lightmouse (talk) 20:59, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I've just noticed that the delay is imposed even when there is no change. It would be good if the delay only applied between edits. Lightmouse (talk) 23:05, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

This makes perfect sense to me; your suggestion is exactly how a process like this should be moderated. Chris the speller ^yack 01:29, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Removal of hidden vandalism

Thanks to someone vandalising a template, over 200 "current events" pages have a possible WP:BLP violation hidden inside the HTML comment at the top - see this diff for one I cleaned up manually. I'd like to whizz through these with AWB. Since this edit "has no noticeable effect on the rendered page", I'm posting here to see if anyone objects. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:30, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Support - IMO this falls into the category of we need to do it regardless of the rendering but I realize my view on that is somewhat tainted by my history on the subject. --Kumioko (talk) 11:34, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

This seems to be an obvious case where your actions are appropriate John, but given that it's a gross BLP violation would it not be better to get an admin to suppress the revisions? Or is it not possible in this case?Rjwilmsi 12:57, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

OK, I've made the edits. If revdel is needed, this revision of my sandbox has the list of pages that contained this text in mid-March, the date of the database dump I'm working with. This would be very tedious! I've left a message asking Fetchcomms to look at this thread. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:20, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Given that these were only in hidden comments, I don't think that RevDel'ing them manually is necessary, but removing them certainly is. If someone can get an adminbot approved to RevDel these (if that's even possible), then that might be OK, but this will involve deleting all revisions except the current one. I'm not even sure what the attribution vs. BLP vio-in-hidden-comment balance is. Perhaps raise this at WP:AN? /ƒETCH COMMS / 22:42, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

It just looks like childish vandalism akin to, "My friend joe bloggs is gay," which should indeed be removed but doesn't need rev-delling. IMO. ╟─Treasury Tag►District Collector─╢ 22:45, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Problem with "replace with" happening twice

Using a "find" expression like (( *\| *)map(?<e> *= *).*) and a "replace with" expression like $1\n$2mark${e}Green pog.svg results in the part of the "replace with" expression after the new line being added twice. This only seems to happen when the rule is a subrule if an "In template call" rule. Is there a way to avoid this. –droll [chat] 21:49, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

You'll get better results if you reports this at the page for reporting bugs.--Auntof6 (talk) 22:04, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

It's not a bug, it's just that the regex is messed up. Droll, can you explain what exactly you're trying to do, and perhaps I can work out a better regex for you? - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 23:02, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks all. Kingpin13 mentioned that it was a problem with the regex. I went back and came up with something that works. –droll [chat] 01:59, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I get this sometimes myself when I upgraded to the new version but it doesn't always do it and I haven't figured out exactly why its doing it. I am not even using regex sometimes and it still does it using the Prepend/Append text feature. --Kumioko (talk) 03:20, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I just wanted to mention that this still seems to be happening. It only seems to occur with regex that I added to the Advanced find and replace since I implemented SVN 7680. If I use the older 7660 SVN it works fine. --Kumioko (talk) 15:30, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Since updating today all my scripts are executing replace twice. Some of these are a number of years old and never had a problem before.--Traveler100 (talk) 09:46, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Has anyone find a way round the advance replace not working? --Traveler100 (talk) 14:14, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Possible problem with working with lists of articles

I have noticed that when I paste a list of articles into the list maker box AWB takes a very long time to add the list or the app crashes completely however if I paste that list to the list maker in the list comparer module it does it almost immediately. --Kumioko (talk) 03:47, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Paste is slow if you have sort alpha/remove non-mainspace enabled because the list is sorted/filtered each time a page is added, rather than after adding all of them. I have looked at this before and it wasn't obvious to me how I could improve the behaviour. I'll have another look. Rjwilmsi 13:06, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

rev 7751 Fix was obvious when I looked again. Rjwilmsi 13:35, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Older versions download

Resolved

Where can I download an older version of AWB. Since updating last week to 5.3.0.0 SVN 7728 non of my programs are working. Basically under Advanced options, replace adds text twice. I have tried 5.3.0.1 rev 7734, but this still has the problem. Where can I download an earlier version?--Traveler100 (talk) 07:47, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

never mind. Found it [1]--Traveler100 (talk) 06:27, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Localization

Resolved

I was trying to find how to localize the edit summaries in Hebrew and couldn't find it. Where can i do it?

Thank you. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 08:55, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

You can go to the Options menu and choose Summaries... and then type in whatever edit summaries you want. Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 23:00, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

I saw this window and i don't understand how to use it. It is just some plain text. How can i translate the strings "replaced" and "using AWB" that are used in the edit summaries? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 17:50, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

How is "using AWB" in Hebrew? I can add it to AWB's code. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:53, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

"using AWB" – "באמצעות AWB"

"replaced" – "החלפה"

It would be nice to be able to translate it to all languages using http://www.translatewiki.net/ . --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 07:20, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Is it not "AWB באמצעות"? -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:31, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

The correct string is "באמצעות AWB". You see it in reverse here, but in the Hebrew Wikipedia it will appear correctly, because it already has dir="rtl" applied to edit summaries. Just copy it this way. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 08:24, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

rev 7752 mSummaryTag in Hebrew. We don't have something for "replaced" nor "removed" yet. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:50, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Changes to AWB?

Resolved

I was opening up AWB a few minutes ago and it told me there was an update to it. Does anyone mind telling me what changes there are compared to 5.0 or perhaps point me to a page where I can view a list of changes per version like you have for some programs' articles in the mainspace. Cheers, 122.106.6.27 (talk) 05:56, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

WP:AWB#Versions would be the place. --Izno (talk) 06:15, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I missed the little drop-down arrow. Cheers, 122.106.6.27 (talk) 10:25, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Check also WP:AWB/H. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:13, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Removing bolding within a section

There has been discussion that brand names of medications do not need bolding as they already start with a capital. We however have section such as this Paracetamol#Available_forms and Metoprolol#Brand_names that contain many bold words. Is it possible to remove all bolds within a section with AWB?--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:16, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Are there many articles that need this? seems like a simple search and replace, but the problem is that AWB will apply changes on an article-wide basis, as it cannot limit itself to sections only. If there are many articles to precess, it might be simpler to do a manual S&R. Alternatively, a simple script can be written for the job. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 07:33, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Probably a few hundred articles... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:14, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Copy/paste weird behavior in svn version

I paste a list of talk pages into the list maker box. The list in the SVN 7756 version is indented to the right instead of the usual left edge. When I hit, "convert from talk pages", it does the first entry, but non others. Example of a list of talk pages can be found at Category:Biography articles without living parameter. A weird aspect... from Category:Biography articles without listas parameter, copy all the D's or E's and after pasting, the list is indented to the right. Copy a handful from the middle of the H's and it pastes correctly. Bgwhite (talk) 22:58, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Related to rev 7751. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:03, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I think the difference is browsers, not AWB version. I see no problems when pasting from Firefox, but a slight and different problem with Internet Explorer 8. Bgwhite, what browser are you using? Rjwilmsi 07:28, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Could this be related to the browser behavior which I described in WT:AutoWikiBrowser/Feature requests/Archive 7#Facilitate pasting from a category in Firefox? MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 08:31, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm using Firefox 5.0b3 as a browser on Windows Vista. Using AWB SVN7728 does work correctly in Firefox and SVN 7756 does not. Bgwhite (talk) 06:13, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Pagename find and replace

Hello I am an admin at the Yoruba Wikipedia and I will like to know how I can replace a word in the title of collection of articles, like find all title with the word "akojo" and replace with "atojo". Thanks demmy (talk) 13:36, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

You could use a database dump to scan for all pages with a certain word in the title - that would make you a list. However, I don't believe AWB will move pages automatically - that part would still have to be done manually.

I did scan YoWp, and the only page I found that contained "akojo" was yo:Àdàkọ:AkojoBabel, assuming that's what you wanted. I could check for other words/letters for you, as well. If you want/need help, feel free to leave me a message. :) ^Avic _ennasis @ 22:47, 13 Sivan 5771 / 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Also, it looks like m:Pywikipediabot could move pages automagically. Between the two, I would think this could be done fairly easy. ^Avic _ennasis @ 23:02, 13 Sivan 5771 / 15 June 2011 (UTC)

What's the regex literal for double quote mark?

Resolved

I'm trying to target instances of lengths written as:

height = 5'7"

to replace them with the convert template. Using:

ArticleText=Regex.Replace(ArticleText, @"(?i)(height\s?=\s?)([\d\.,]+)\s?\'\s?([\d\.,]+)\s?\"", "$1{{convert|$2|ft|$3|in}}");

However, the above regex fails. I also tried:

ArticleText=Regex.Replace(ArticleText, @"(?i)(height\s?=\s?)([\d\.,]+)\s?\'\s?([\d\.,]+)\s?[\"]", "$1{{convert|$2|ft|$3|in}}");
ArticleText=Regex.Replace(ArticleText, @"(?i)(height\s?=\s?)([\d\.,]+)\s?\'\s?([\d\.,]+)\s?["]", "$1{{convert|$2|ft|$3|in}}");

But they failed too. Any ideas? Lightmouse (talk) 10:37, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Don't you need to double up any double quotes that are inside an "@" literal string? Csharp tutorial page. Disclaimer: I haven't tried anything like this myself. -- John of Reading (talk) 11:16, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

That works! Thank you very much. Lightmouse (talk) 21:02, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Identify stubs?

Can AWB identify stubs and tag them with a specific stub template? Gnevin (talk) 23:28, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Two of the AWB general fixes are:

Appends {{stub}} if article has at most 300 characters (comments, categories and persondata are excluded from character count).
Appends {{uncategorized stub}} if article has no categories and is a stub.

Is this what you were looking for? GoingBatty (talk) 16:58, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Does AWB include infoboxes, portals, interlanguage links and succession boxes in the count as well? If so it probably shouldn't. --Kumioko (talk) 17:21, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Kumiko, we discussed excluding infoboxes and interwikis in a previous feature request. You may want to add another feature request for your more detailed suggestion. Good luck! GoingBatty (talk) 00:20, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Sort of. I want to tag as a certain type of stub but I could us the preparse mode to identify the stubs, then take a second run at it . Gnevin (talk) 17:50, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Gnevin, another way to do it with one pass could be to turn General Fixes on to add the {{stub}} template, and then set up a Find and Replace to change it to the specific stub template you want after General Fixes. Good luck! GoingBatty (talk) 23:44, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, will give that ago Gnevin (talk) 14:27, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Watchlist

Is it possible to get the own watchlist so that last edited articles would be on the top of list? -->Typ932 ^T·C 10:52, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry but neither with our current listmakers nor with our list comparer. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:38, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Quirk in %%pagename%% and %%basepagename%% with parentheses?

At Wikisource, I am undertaking some simple match and replace and while %%pagename%% and %%basepagename%% work for the bulk of the replacements, there is either incompetence on behalf of the keyboard operator or a quirk in the match process.

I have the page s:United States v. Moore (53 U.S. 209)/Opinion of the Court where I am looking to replace

title    = United States v. Moore (53 U.S. 209)

with

title    = Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser

script that I am using is

(title\s*\=\s*)%%pagename%%  →  $1Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser

with regex turned on. I now it isn't the neatest regex, however for the task at hand it is adequate and caters for the alternatives in formatting within templates. Anyway, that replacement fails. Yet, in the same regex, if I have s:United States v. Morehead/Opinion of the Court the replacement works fine. If I try with basepagename it similarly fails and works in the examples given. So is it a quirk or am I missing the obvious or the cunning? — billinghurst sDrewth 10:52, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Possible bug or Feature request

I wouldn't call this a bug or a feature request so I am posting it here for review. I think the code is working as designed and this is what I would consider an exception to the logic that might be hard to work around but I have seen on occassion were AWB tries to "fix" brackets incorrectly such as the case of the edit I did here to show the issue. In this case I tries to "close" a couple of { brackets thinking they are templates but they are not. Not sure what can be done about this if anything and I admit its rare but I wanted to mention it anyway. --Kumioko (talk) 17:19, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Known rare bug. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:48, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, thats what I suspected. --Kumioko (talk) 16:21, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Using MathMl can prevent recurrence, or {{Sic}}. Rich Farmbrough, 15:14, 29 June 2011 (UTC).

Latest enwiki dump damaged?

I downloaded and uncompressed pages-articles.xml.bz2, and have ended up with a file containing 27,556,012,593 bytes. This is 10% smaller than my previous dump, from April. When the scanner progress bar reached 100% I got an XML error "The 'text' start tag on line 403127032 does not match the end tag of 'mediawiki'. Line 441777624, position 3." It looks as if the dump is damaged. What is the date and size of the latest dump that people are using successfully? -- John of Reading (talk) 08:24, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed it was smaller. I was worried but it works correctly. My copy of the uncompressed file says 26,910,169 KB but I don't know what 'KB' means in terms of bits or bytes. Lightmouse (talk) 14:12, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

1 KB = 1,024 bytes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:46, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

There was a note on the mailing list that the (slightly incorrect) format <tag/> would be used instead of <tag />, but I don't hink this would make that much difference. If you are concerned, and have the space, you could try pages-meta-current. Rich Farmbrough, 15:12, 29 June 2011 (UTC).

Wikimania

Are any AWB developers coming to Wikimania, by any chance? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 23:10, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:31, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

While not an AWB dev, I will also be there, and up for any AWB/Bot discussions! Rich Farmbrough, 15:17, 29 June 2011 (UTC).

Woot!!! --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 13:18, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm not an AWB dev, but I am a fan of it and I have developed a plugin for AWB for ne.wikipedia , I am attending Wikimania. --RajeshPandey (talk) 11:10, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I wanted to attend, but it was late when WMF announced what staff members were going (very limited places this year), and flights, hotel, etc in total were too much when I looked into it :( Reedy (talk) 16:23, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

DEFAULTSORT

The collation bug has been fixed, the new behaviour is case insensitive, and apparently space collapsing, but not diacritic insensitive (this is a local configuration requirement).

The ramifications are somewhat complex, but for AWB primarily mean that many DEFAUTLSORTS no longer require adding.

Rich Farmbrough, 15:10, 29 June 2011 (UTC).

This means that edits like this are entirely without effect. Please could a general note could be sent to AWB users, inc. bots. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:46, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

I've checked the AWB option to "Restrict {{DEFAULTSORT}} change/addition" until the AWB software has been updated. GoingBatty (talk) 20:17, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Good idea. I just did the same. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:19, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

How do I....

How do I get AWB to ignore names like Theodor Heuss on de.wikipedia? AWB always tries to make Theodor Heuß out of it. Drives me nuts... :) --Hedwig in Washington ^(TALK) 14:22, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Looks like a typo rule on de:Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos#Grammatik. I suggest you post your concerns on the associated discussion page. Good luck! --GoingBatty (talk) 14:50, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Thought that might be a more general problem. T. Heuss is only one example, I bet there are tons of names in en:wiki that AWB tries to change? There is no skip this word list or is there one in AWB? --Hedwig in Washington ^(TALK) 21:23, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Many of the rules in en:WP:AWB/Typos are written conservatively so as to not change proper names. If you find a rule that makes an improper change, please post to its talk page so someone can change the rule. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 22:43, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

I never noticed that you can ignore things within the typo list. Guess I really have to study regex more. Thanks for all your help! --Hedwig in Washington ^(TALK) 23:02, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Possible problem in Login/Profiles

I have noticed lately that if I click on one of the column headings in the profile tab in AWB it will lock up and crash the application. I don't know if thats just on my computer though so before I submit it as a bug I thought I would just mention it and see if anyone else has that problem. --Kumioko (talk) 20:18, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Mc/Mac sort keys

In October, after a very brief discussion, the sort key guideline for names of the form "Y McX" was removed. This reverted the guideline of many years which stated that those names should be sorted as "Macx, Y", so that they should instead be sorted as "Mcx, Y" (or, now, equivalently, "McX, Y"). I figured someone would come along and restore the previous guideline, but that hasn't happened yet, so I guess AWB should stop generating that sort key which is no longer correct according to current guideline. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 23:59, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

There is some discuss somewhere on that. I'll check where it is and what the outcome was. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:31, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I brought that up on a discussion on Magioladitis' talk page. I gave some references on how changing mc -> mac is no longer used. There is also another discussion listed. I've noticed most of the time (I don't want to say all because I don't remember if that is the case) AWB will add DEFAULTSORT that doesn't do mc ->mac, but all the time, adding listas does. Bgwhite (talk) 18:51, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

How do I use AWB to disambiguate DAB links?

I can find the disambiguation links section on AWB, but I cannot choose any of the links or disambiguate them. Ryan Vesey contribs 22:38, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Ryan - Per Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/User manual#Disambig, did you fill in the Disambig tab, then load a page list of articles that link to the disambig page, and then click Start? If so, could you please be more specific as to exactly what issue you're having? (I prefer to use WikiCleaner or Reflinks to disambiguate links instead.) Good luck! GoingBatty (talk) 22:51, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

What about Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Real_user_manual#How_to_fix_links_to_disambiguation_pages? -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:14, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I was going about this backwards. I was choosing a page, and trying to disambiguate links that were on the page. Ryan Vesey contribs 23:17, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

One drawback of AWB is that you can only use its features to disambig one link on a page. The tools I mentioned about are better suited to disambiguating all the links on a page. GoingBatty (talk) 23:29, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Break

Does AWB replace   by  , and if not, should it? I think it should. Debresser (talk) 14:05, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

All of our code is run through HTML tidy before being sent to users, so there is no need to do this sort of thing in the wiki code. It happens automatically when the page is rendered. The devs make sure that the output HTML is standards compliant. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:07, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

AWB only fixes cases where the wrong slash is used as instructed by CHECKWIKI error 2. We don't touch   nor  . -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:18, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

  is correct for HTML;   is correct for XHTML. Wikipedia pages as received by browsers begin with

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" ...>

so technically the   form is correct, but MediaWiki does indeed adjust any  . --Redrose64 (talk) 15:55, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

I think Tidy does not operate in the Mediawiki namespace, so invalid XHTML can cause issues. HTML Tidy does not support HTML 5, so it will be disabled when we switch, but HTML 5 supports both   and  . Tidy also fixes ,   and <br.> but we should continue to fix those with AWB. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:13, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

On a side note, is also correct XHTML; the reason we add the space (to all self closed tags) is so that legacy browsers (coughIEcough) interpret the tag correctly. --Izno (talk) 00:20, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Even if indeed there is no problem, it is still a matter of trying to use an optimized style throughout. That would be my main argument, even apart form the question whether perhaps in some cases there might be more technical arguments. Debresser (talk) 16:34, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

I am still not sure, is it a good idea to place a request for this change? Either to avoid technical problems, or as a minor fix to use one style. Debresser (talk) 23:14, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Better not. This is minor and break tags are added every day with both styles. Most of them are useless anyway. I spend some time everyday to remove break tags where not needed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:24, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

It seems that Gadget850 holds it is not always minor. That part of them are useless is of course not related to the question. Debresser (talk) 00:49, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Even if is disabled, Mediawiki renders as so no change will be needed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:55, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, no change is needed, but I would not object to anyone changing to the correct form while other changes are done. Personally I don't like to see (X)HTML markup in wiki pages per "Use HTML and CSS markup sparingly". Rich Farmbrough, 09:05, 17 July 2011 (UTC).

Mass deletion

Resolved

How do you use AWB to delete all articles/images in a category? (this is for spore.wikia.com, not this wiki).--Technobliterator (talk) 11:21, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

First, make a list with source "Category" and specify the category. Next, go to the More... tab, and in the Categories section, choose "Remove category:" and specify the category. Good luck! GoingBatty (talk) 22:30, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

That removes the articles from the cat. The question as posed, is to actually delete them. Rich Farmbrough, 09:07, 17 July 2011 (UTC).

You're right, Rich - sorry for misreading the question. GoingBatty (talk) 20:19, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

AWB can't do that but use WP:TWINKLE. After you install it go to the category and press "D-batch". -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:56, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Ok, but how do I use it on a non-wikipedia wiki?--Technobliterator (talk) 12:45, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

From WP:TWINKLE: "There is comprehensive information about Twinkle at the documentation page. If that page does not answer your question, consider asking at the talk page." Good luck! GoingBatty (talk) 22:16, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Why is AWB being used to take out spaces in edit mode for section breaks?

Resolved

The actual displayed text is the same whether a space is left after a section header or not (in edit mode). The MOS allows doing either. Many editors prefer the space (it is actual manuscript form, if you typed the thing...and also it keeps the text from running together as much in edit mode). I'm not trying to conflict with anyone who wants a different version in articles they are working on. But when an AWB bot runner comes through (not even working on the article) and just changes this, it is annoying.TCO (talk) 06:12, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't think this is default AWB behaviour. Have you contacted the operator directly? –xeno^talk 16:27, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, he was doing other things to piss me off, too. Must be the man, not the method. :-) TCO (talk) 16:56, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

This is not a default behavior of AWB and is probably a custom edit. Im not sure who is doing this and I stopped doing it because I got tired of people whining about me removing the useless spaces but personally I prefer the sections without the useless spaces. Having extra spaces makes it harder to read, edit and it takes up space. For what its worth I don't think the system should be adding them by default either. --Kumioko (talk) 17:53, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

On a laptop, edit window is PAINFUL in its smallness and how things are run together (for example all the inline formatting code). Also, correct manuscript formatting (read an article on writing theses or research papers) separates a header by a space from the first para. Certainly, the two are more separate from each other than the first para is from the second para!TCO (talk) 18:08, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I once opened a discussion here about this. I am very much in favor of this space as well, which is the Wikipedia default (as can be seen when opening a new post on a talkpage), but some editors, notably User:Rich Farmbrough and his User:SmackBot do this regularly. Debresser (talk) 14:02, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Resolved from AWB's side. Not an AWB feature. -- 09:07, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

DEFAULTSORT:Title Case

Resolved

From Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/General fixes#DEFAULTSORT insertion and fixes (SetDefaultSort):

Corrects casing in {{DEFAULTSORT}} to Title Case (for example {{DEFAULTSORT: Foo bar}} to {{DEFAULTSORT: Foo Bar}}, trims whitespace.

Why does it do that? I find that annoying, and remove {{DEFAULTSORT: Foo Bar}} as useless clutter whenever I encounter it. I don't see a plausible case where the default (i.e. absence of DEFAULTSORT) would cause mis-sorting. Even if there is one, it should be fixed in MediaWiki software, rather than cludge it in wikitext. I urge for removal of this feature. No such user (talk) 08:34, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

It's fixed in Mediawiki now and the new version of AWB won't fix the casing in DEFAULTSORT. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:06, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Should I {{sofixit}} the Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/General fixes, then? No such user (talk) 09:32, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Done. We are releasing soon. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:44, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Now that this has been fixed in Mediawiki, should AWB also be changed to remove DEFAULTSORT templates that are no longer needed? Since this would have no noticeable effect on the rendered page, maybe it could be a minor general fix that could be done when other significant changes are being made to a page? GoingBatty (talk) 16:32, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Maybe, but since they do no harm let's let people get used to the updated MediaWiki behaviour first. Rjwilmsi 17:56, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Private space

"Page has character in Unicode Private Use Area" - all well and good, but I don't want to skip it? Rich Farmbrough, 11:55, 20 July 2011 (UTC).

These characters caused to us many problems with false saves. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:57, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

How come? They should be saved as they are loaded. It would, though, be a good bugzilla to avoid allowing these characters to be saved, somehow. Rich Farmbrough, 12:49, 20 July 2011 (UTC).

Similarly maybe we should encapsulate them as a fix - {{Unicode private use area character|FFEEh}} or soemthign. Rich Farmbrough, 12:49, 20 July 2011 (UTC).

The C# RichTextBox seems to truncate a text string at the first Unicode PUA character (for many but maybe not all of these characters), so we skip to avoid this truncation. I did a scan and there were < 100 pages that had a legitimate use for such characters. Rjwilmsi 17:55, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

How to teach AWB a lesson :)

Generic question: How do you teach AWB to ignore a specific word? Let's say you want AWB to skip the word Boing in typo fixing? Just the capitalized version of Boing?

I tried: <Typo word="Boing" find="\b (B|b)oing\b" replace="$1oing" />

That's not working, but I thought that would skip lower and upper case of Boing. It doesn't. Darn RegExp. Why can't I just spell that out in English? :-)))

2. Version: <Typo word="Boing" find="\b (B)oing\b" replace="$1oing" /> Upper case only. I screwed that up, too.

At what point is my lil brain taking a break? Any idea? Thx!! --Hedwig in Washington ^(TALK) 02:19, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

A fiendishly clever way is to temporarily move "Boing" out of the way before running Typo fixes, then move it back afterwards. This technique was developed independently by me and Art LaPella, probably first by Art. Set up a Find & Replace rule to change "Boing" to something that's extremely unlikely to be found in a WP page, and also run a Find & Replace rule "After fixes" to reverse the action. So when Typos runs, it won't find any cases of "Boing" to change.

For example, have a F&R rule to change "\b(B|b)oing\b" to "$1oiqkqkng", and also have one to change "\b(B|b)oiqkqkng\b" to "$1oing", with the "After fixes" box checked. This will, of course, create a rather zany edit summary if you have checked "Add replacements to edit summary", so better not check that box. I have used this technique to force a number of specific exceptions to a general Find & Replace rule (not Typo rules), but it should work with Typos, too. Chris the speller ^yack 04:09, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

You can set up exceptions to a general rule by coding them into the regex. The syntax is pretty obscure, though, and I've never tried it. There are examples in the typo list such as the ""Emm-" rule. "Change EmmFoo to EnmFoo unless you happen to be looking at one of these special cases..." -- John of Reading (talk) 06:24, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Chris! Works like a charm! Still drives me nuts! ;) Hey John! I tried RegEx, but learning to speak Chinese backwards seems way easier. I really need to learn more, not enuf time and not enuf drive..... Thanks for the help folks!!!!! --Hedwig in Washington ^(TALK) 20:08, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Using AWB with LDAP domain login

Question: I have a MediaWiki server which authenticates user login (for editing pages) using LDAP. I cannot get AWB to request this LDAP login successfully. It just comes back with "the password you provided is incorrect". Capturing the relevant Ethernet packets shows that AWB performs an HTTP Post with username and password fields, whereas Firefox performs an HTTP Post with username, password and domain fields. So my question is: can AWB request login to a MediaWiki server which authenticates login using LDAP? If not, has anyone successfully modified the source code? Even a kludge to put in a fixed domain name would be fine for me. I don't want to use AWB on any public MediaWiki servers (on the Internet).

Many thanks from Graham Ward at Ericsson TV. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.154.109.115 (talk) 09:59, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Wait

When I wait with saving a change for more than some 30 seconds, the page reloads when I press the save button afterwards, and changes I made in the edit-panel are lost. This is very annoying. How can I turn this off, or set the time to a longer one, let's say at least a minute? Debresser (talk) 16:07, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Also discussed here. But you have to copy to the clipboard before you hit save; it's too late if you see the ten seconds counting down. Art LaPella (talk) 21:22, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. That was a feature request, wasn't it? It just isn't really to me clear what the request is. I'd want that pages shouldn't reload at all. Actually, I fail to see the reason for this reloading at all. I agree that AWB isn't for major editing. But even to fix a few small things takes a minute or two, and the reloading is very irritating. I mean, I really get pissed of having to redo a few minor edits, just because I didn't make the 30 seconds (or whatever). Debresser (talk) 21:59, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

It seems obvious at that request entry that this is something that should be changed asap. Debresser (talk) 00:33, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Possible violation of use of AWB

Although 98% of his edits are fine I recently commented to User:Colonies Chris that I felt some of his edits were a violation of AWB and generally uneeded. In particular are edits where all he does is delink what he considers to be general terms like United States. As I mentioned to him I agree that overlinking is a problem but having one occassion of these linked in an article is helpful rather than a nuisance. Additionally, since nearly all the other related articles have these items linked, when he delinks them, it causes the articles to be inconsistant. My general complaint is that I feel that having one occassion of these linked in the article, regardless of what the MOS might state to the otherwise, is useful to the readers. I do not desire to get into an edit war of this but since he seems to have no intent of stopping I felt I should leave a note hear about his actions. I should feel compelled to note that although these changes do seem to meet the requirement that they change the rendering of the page I feel that these types of edits fail Rules of Use for AWB 3, 4 and 6. --Kumioko (talk) 16:44, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Kumioko seems to have a bit of a bee in his bonnet about my unlinking of "United States", (to quote him 'regardless of what the MOS might state') and he's trying to impose his opinion, against the MoS, by this underhand method of claiming it's against AWB rules. Even if I were only unlinking that one link (but I'm not, I'm actually doing a lot more), it would still be within AWB rules as it's making a noticeable improvement to the article. Colonies Chris (talk)

Is this a realistic complaint? It seems to be based on the premise that the style guides (and well-established practice) should be breached. Tony (talk) 17:07, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Well I just don't really think that the MOS's intent is to delink the term United States from every US related article, delink Wsahington DC from every DC related article, etc. Specifically, these edits which I undid and then Chris redid again against my objections. The MOS is a guide, nothing more and although it is a good "guide" to use when writing articles it is not, nor has it ever been, beyond reproach. I would further point out that in this edit Tony linked several words that appear to be in contrast to Chris. For example, Chris delinked China but then Tony linked Shanghai, Tony also additionally relinked Parris Island, South Carolina to Parris Island which is a redirect to Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island and changed Norfolk, Virginia to Norfolk, Virginia. Undoubtedly someone will come by later and "fix" some more links. These types of edits are the ones I consider unhelpful and uneeded. Additionally that noticable improvement is a matter of opinion. I admit that the one edit you did to fix Port au Prince was useful, the others not so much. --Kumioko (talk) 17:23, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

"I just don't really think that the MOS's intent is to delink the term United States from every US related article" Correct. WP:OVERLINK says "Unless they are particularly relevant to the topic of the article ...", but the California article is an example of where linking to the U.S. is what they had in mind, certainly not every article on a U.S. citizen (well OK, this guy was military so his country was important to him, but unlinking United States there surely isn't a scandal that needs to be exposed.) We've debated what WP:OVERLINK really means before. "Chris delinked China but then Tony linked Shanghai". I'm not so sure about linking Shanghai, but surely China fits the description of a "major geographic feature" better than Shanghai does. And yes the MOS is among WP:GUIDES, but that policy states "Editors should attempt to follow guidelines, though ...", which makes it difficult to reproach someone for following it. Art LaPella (talk) 21:15, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough then I suggest if it is to be the standard to delink these "common terms" from the articles that we add to the standard edits available in AWB. Perhaps a page similar to how we do the template redirects or typos is in order. If these "common terms" should be delinked according to the MOS then it seem that the MOS would be justification to establish these as standard edits. I doubt that the community desire to massively delink these entries is that strong however and I suspect that were we to start massively delinking these we would find ourselves in a position similar to teh great Date delinking debacle of recent history. --Kumioko (talk) 23:41, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Delinking terms like "United States" is in my AWB Find and Replaces, but if you made it a standard edit, then exceptions like California become more important. Standard edits should have very few exceptions. "were we to start massively delinking these" We have; that's how I know some of the standard debate surrounding it. Of course if delinking common terms is too controversial then it doesn't belong at AWB, but that doesn't explain why you are part of that controversy. And although this opinion isn't universal, the date delinking debacle occurred mainly because the debate couldn't be quarantined to the Manual of Style talk page. Argue guidelines at their talk pages, let the rest of us continue with writing an encyclopedia, and if the guideline changes, then we can change when the time comes. Art LaPella (talk) 01:10, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Im not sure what your trying to say here but the bottom line is that we should NOT be mass delinking United States, Washington DC, etc from the articles. I think the reason that its not a general edit is because IT IS a controversial edit. If its in the article multiple times then I agree we should only link it once (with the exception of maybe one more in the infobox if applicable). We should not be mass removing links to all these "common terms". You all can be mad at me if you want, you can think I am a crackpot or a sourpuss or whatever. These edits are controversial and they need to be refined and not just done enmasse as they have been. I brought it up here because AWB is being used in what I believe is a controversial way. If you want to delink these then fine do it without AWB. --Kumioko (talk) 01:54, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Oh, maybe. The way to decide if it's "controversial" is, I suppose, to ask people who watch political pages more than I do. If the guideline is what is controversial, then change it. Anyway, delinking "United States" can't be a general edit for the same reason uncapitalizing "summer" isn't a general edit; there are too many exceptions. When making those edits as Find and Replaces, the editor takes responsibility for reverting inappropriate changes. Art LaPella (talk) 02:24, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

False button?

Resolved

The Start section of the AWB User Manual mentions a False button. I've never seen this button on AWB, and it doesn't appear in the user manual's screenshot. How does one enable this functionality? GoingBatty (talk) 01:08, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

View -> Display false positive button. Please update the manual. I wont do another screenshot unless you torture me. -- Magioladitis (talk) 04:30, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. Although I see now that this piece of info is in the View section of the manual, I've updated the Start section as well. I won't torture you for a new screenshot, as I think that the screenshot should match the default AWB settings. I look forward to trying out this functionality! GoingBatty (talk) 17:02, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Batty, for finding this little gem and dragging it out into the sunlight. Now, if I could just find out where the "AWB directory" is, so I can use the "False positives.txt" file that should have been created. Chris the speller ^yack 19:17, 3 August 2011 (UTC)\

Never mind, I found it after a long search; it's in whatever folder AutoWikiBrowser.exe is (which is likely to change every time you download a new version of AWB). Boy, I'm gonna have fun now! Chris the speller ^yack 19:25, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Linking program

Hi, I'm not sure if this is better suited for here or the feature requests page, but I thought I'd try here first. I am looking for a way to make it so that AWB will look through a page for strings that match pagenames. If there is not already a link to that on the page, it will add brackets to it, thus linking it. Is this possible? CookMePlox (talk) 21:01, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Are you looking to do this with specific pagenames, or with any? Also, if you are planning on using very specific pagenames, you could use regex. I.E., \bVerySpecificPageName\b >> [[VerySpecificPageName]] would find all examples of VerySpecificPageName in the text and add brackets around it. Obviously, this won't work if the pagename you are looking to link is a common word - else you'd end up linking a ton of things that shouldn't be linked. ^Avic _ennasis @ 05:20, 8 Av 5771 / 8 August 2011 (UTC)

It's on a wiki that doesn't have too many common page names, but that's not really the issue -- I want to be able to do this with all, or at least most, of the pagenames, not just specific ones. 24.41.47.147 (talk) 05:25, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Making variables to move pieces of text

I was wondering, is there a way to let AWB make a variable out of a certain piece of text, and put that piece of text to a new page? I'm hoping to let AWB put all documentations of templates on a /doc subpage of that page, but I don't know if that is possible at all. I've googled a bit and searched through your archives, but couldn't find anything useful. If there is another way to do such thing, please let me know. Thanks, Joeytje50 (talk) 20:38, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Could you give an example of one that you want to do this with? Its possible to do but I'm not sure I completely understand what your trying to do. --Kumioko (talk) 00:08, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

For example in this template I want to move everything within <noinclude> tags to a /doc subpage.Joeytje50 (talk) 11:11, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

An answer would be nice ;) Joeytje50 (talk) 15:26, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Tagging orphan articles

Wikipedia:Orphan#Criteria currently recommends tagging with the orphan template only when there are no incoming links. Perhaps, the default on AWB should follow this. Possibly, even remove other options. Snowman (talk) 21:39, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

This is the default already. -- Magioladitis (talk)

awb is not only about English Wikipedia. Maybe some projects need the other option. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:42, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

AutoWikiBrowser to AutoWikiEditor - New name?

I am here to question the name of AWB. As you hardly ever actually see the page that you are editing, this programme is mainly for editing. Not browsing. Therefore the name is misleaded. I would change it to AutoWikiEditor or something like that, but you must admit AWB has a certain ring to it. Please gather your thoughts below this. Rcsprinter (talk) 09:23, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Very interesting. We're accustomed to the existing name but it's a bit of a mouthful. Eight syllables for the full word and five syllables for the abbreviation. I've sometimes encountered potential users were aware of it's existence but didn't know it did what they needed. A more self-explanatory name would help turn some of those people into actual users.

That's just in English, I don't know what it's like in other languages. I agree that 'browser' isn't as near to what it does as 'editor'. I'm definitely open to renaming if there is agreement on what the name should be. Lightmouse (talk) 10:28, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't want any new name to come close to "wikEd". Chris the speller ^yack 12:51, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

"AutoWikiBatcheditor" =) –xeno^talk 14:03, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
Personally I think the name is fine as is. Whether we actually edit the article or not we are still using the application to "browse" it, or using the application to "browse" through the categories, links or various other ways we can pull in article lists. Remeber if we change the name we need to change a whole lot of documentation, its coded into millions of edit histories, etc potentially confusing future editors. Just my 2 cents--Kumioko (talk) 14:40, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I think AWE has its own sort of ring; AWE at the power of a semi automated GUI. :^) --Izno (talk) 17:00, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Wouldn't that be AWEtomated? =] –xeno^talk 17:03, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Also, I'm never sure. Should I pronounce it Ay-doubleyou-bee or orb? Rcsprinter (talk) 17:04, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

In my head, I say eh-double-you-bee - but I rarely get a chance to actually vocalize it, so the pronunciation never struck me as particular important... –xeno^talk 17:06, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I also say aye-double-you-bee. --Izno (talk) 06:19, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Same difference. :D --Izno (talk) 06:19, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

AWEtomatic for the people, baby. Bearcat (talk) 06:08, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Reference cleanup

I've had a recent edit brought to my attention, which I thought I should follow up on here. AWB applied some ref tag cleanup in this diff, but as you can see if you scroll down to the visible text, its "fixes" actually fuddle duddled them up substantially worse than before. I don't know if this is a bug or if there's just something I'm not seeing about this particular instance which would make otherwise correct fixes behave abnormally, but I thought y'all should know anyway. Bearcat (talk) 06:03, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, happened because of a }}{</ref> stray curly brace, causes AWB not to find a match for the {{reflist}}. The brace was cleaned up in a later edit. Rjwilmsi 10:26, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Ah, okay. Thanks! Bearcat (talk) 14:22, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Suppress Error Dialogue

I just filed a bug here which triggers an error dialogue to appear while trying to load every single page I'm trying to use AWB with. Click "Continue Working" closes it and AWB works fine. Is there a way to suppress error dialogues like this so that I don't have to keep clicking the button for every page I edit. Thanks. --Sagaciousuk ^(talk) 01:42, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Open IME

When I right click in the normal find and replace there is the option "Open IME". Screenshot: [2] What does IME stand for and what does it do? Thank you. Igottheconch (talk) 01:18, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Does it stand for Input Method Editor?[3] Input_method#Relationship_between_the_methodology_and_implementation. What does it do? Igottheconch (talk) 01:21, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Batch Find and replace

Resolved

This is from the archives:

It seems that the inputs to 'Find and replace' must be fed one line at a time. Is there a less cumbersome way, like being able to substitute an entire block of F&R rules by externalisation (a la typo), copy and paste (as per Custom modules) or import/export? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 08:01, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

They are saved to the "settings" file as XML, so you could try to edit them there. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:35, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, John. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 10:36, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

My question is, where would the settings file be? I cannot find it. My autowikibrowser is not in the program files folder, it is in an independent folder, C:\Users\j\creating website\AutoWikiBrowser5200 Searching that folder, I don't find a settings.xml file. Do I need to reinstall the program? Thank you so much in advance. Igottheconch (talk) 01:39, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

is settings.xml regularly in the documents folder? I don't currently see it there... Igottheconch (talk) 01:50, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

found it in archives:

Where are my personal settings saved? How do I save my settings when a new version is being installed? Is this done automaticaly? Perhaps have this question in the FAQ. Debresser (talk) 20:36, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

They are saved (with me) on C:\Documents and Settings\Myusername\Local Settings\Application Data\AutoWikiBrowser\Default.xml and that is not overwritten with a new install, so settings are kept automatically. Debresser (talk) 22:25, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks anyway! My computer is Vista, and the file is in C:\Users\j\AppData\Local\AutoWikiBrowser\Default.xml Igottheconch (talk) 01:54, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

If you could describe what your trying to F&R maybe we can do it with advanced F&R or a custom module. --Kumioko (talk) 01:56, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you kumioko. What I am trying to do is very basic. Adding the same parenthesis to 48 words on my wiki. So for example:

TV

Would become TV (Help)

Rug

Would become Rug (Help)

Advanced Find and Replace seems like to much work.

Appreciate you guys' time, as always. Igottheconch (talk) 02:00, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Got it, using Microsoft Word advanced find and replace:

<Replacement>
       <Find>TV</Find>
        <Replace>TV_(Help)</Replace>
        <Comment />
        <IsRegex>false</IsRegex>
        <Enabled>false</Enabled>
        <Minor>false</Minor>
        <BeforeOrAfter>false</BeforeOrAfter>
        <RegularExpressionOptions>IgnoreCase</RegularExpressionOptions>
      </Replacement>

Thanks again! Igottheconch (talk) 02:08, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm using Vista, and my XML settings files are in C:\Users\myusername\Documents. The settings files seem to be saved in different places for different users, even if they use the same operating system. To do the editing, firstobject.com has a free XML editor that is easy to use; in some places it is called "foxe". Chris the speller ^yack 02:23, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

thank you! Good to know, for me and other people visiting the site. I will check out http://www.firstobject.com. Best wishes. Igottheconch (talk) 03:38, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

For those who are still looking for their settings files, (this works on Vista, and probably other Windows versions), in AWB's menu, select "File", "Save settings as", and look at the address bar at the top of that window. One-stop shopping. Chris the speller ^yack 21:14, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

How to edit all but the first instance of a string in a page?

I'd like to be able to unlink all instances of foobar but the first one. Is there a way to do it? Lightmouse (talk) 11:35, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I think a feature request would be in order, perhaps to add a new column to the checkboxes in F&R rules to only fire the rule on the first match on the page. With that feature, you could use one rule to unlink all instances, and then a "change first match" rule to link just the first one. For now, you could use a F&R rule to unlink all and then manually link the first instance before saving. I don't have any feel for how much use this would be to you, or to other editors. On the other hand, you may get complaints from editors who have linked a subject more than once, "where the later occurrence is a long way from the first". See WP:LINK#Repeated links. Chris the speller ^yack 14:25, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I see where this could be useful but it sounds like the best use would be for mass delinking which I think is too contentious to do with AWB. I also think you will have to take into account things like the links appearing in Infoboxes, lists, persondata templates, citation and other templates, etc. I think that this would be very difficult to do safely. Thats just my opinion though. --Kumioko (talk) 14:58, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Infoboxes and templates can easily be shielded by the Hidemore function. I just wondered if anyone had a working module that could count instances of anything, not just links. Lightmouse (talk) 17:26, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Delinking like this sounds dubious, but maybe that was just an example to explain the requirement. You've got a couple of options with a regular expression: 1) loop through all matches, keep count and skip replacement on the first one 2) get the first match, save value; do a Replace specifying only one replacement to some dummy text; do a Replace for everything else with the real desired value; replace dummy text back with first match. Rjwilmsi 20:32, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Rjwilmsi, I use modules. I understand the concept of counting but I don't know how to implement it with regex. I also understand the concept of using dummy text (I already use it to skip certain strings entirely) but I don't know how to implement it so it will edit a single instance. Can you be kind enough to modify User:Lightmouse/AWB/scripts/dummy so it will edit one instance of 'foo' in User:Lightmouse/sandbox? Lightmouse (talk) 12:46, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Could someone please demonstrate how to use Hidemore with F&R? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 23:15, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

There have been a few users going around doing delinking like this. In fact I could name at least 2 off the top of my head that have and I admit that in many cases there are too many of the same link to the same topic in an article. But I think that some users are taking the delink campaign too far and seem to be devolving many of the articles back to a state of near linklessness for the sake of "making the links more important" or some such nonsense. --Kumioko (talk) 13:03, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Error 407: Proxy Authentication Required

I get this error, although I have proxy settings set up in IE (and WinXP control panel). Other browsers like IE, FF or Chrome work wihout a need to provide authentication. I am in enterprise environment. I would note that in the past I usually got to authenticate when opening IE or Chrome (FF worked wouthout auth laways - kind of strange to me), but now since some time I do not need to. Yesterday AWB worked without problems though.--Kozuch (talk) 09:30, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

I have been getting this a lot myself. Especially if I leave AWB alone idle for a while I wil frequently have to close and restart the application completelety to get it to work again. --Kumioko (talk) 13:00, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Unable to connect to the server

Every time I have tried to use AWB today I get the same message:

An error occured while connecting to the server or loading project information from it. Please make sure that your internet connection works and such combination of project/language exist. Enter the URL in the format "wiki.riteme.site/w/" (including path where index.php and api.php reside). Error description: Unable to connect to the remote server

I haven't changed any of the settings (it worked fine a couple of days ago) and obviously my internet connection is fine. Can anyone suggest a solution? Cheers, Number 5 7 21:30, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I have deleted the programme and reinstalled today, but am still having the same problem. Does anyone have any idea what may be causing it? Number 5 7 16:55, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

What do you have under Options -> Preferences on the Site tab, and are you trying to connect to the English Wikipedia or something else? Thanks Rjwilmsi 08:48, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Bizarrely I cannot even access that section. If I click on preferences I now get the message "The type initializer for 'WikiFunctions.Parse.SiteMatrix' threw an exception." But yes, I was trying to access the English Wikipedia. Cheers, Number 5 7 11:43, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Next try File->Reset to default settings, then see if you can get into the Preferences screen. Rjwilmsi 12:04, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Unfortuntely I get the same error as originally reported if I try to reset to default settings! Now I have reinstalled, I also get a "Unable to connect to remote servers" before the original one also comes up. Number 5 7 18:08, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

OK, I've managed to resolve the issue. My firewall had decided to start restricting the programme - now it has been set to allow it, everything works fine. Sorry to waste your time. Number 5 7 00:45, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

A question about the preview window

I suppose the preview window is generated by some version of IE. Does anyone know which version. I've noticed that the {{Location map}} template places its marks strangely in the preview window but works well on all the recent versions of browsers on which I've tested it. This isn't a complaint. I'm just curious. –droll [chat] 03:47, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

It's the C# web control browser, which is something like a trimmed down version of IE6. Obviously a trimmed version and IE6 mean that overall as you've found it's not a great browser! Not sure we can do anything about it though. Rjwilmsi 08:46, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Another user has commented that {{Location map}} misplaces things on IE6 so now I have a testbed. I might try to figure out were the problem with the template is and if it can be fixed. I'm not going to waste much time on it though. –droll [chat] 16:19, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Here's a way to move multiple F&R rules from one AWB settings file to another

If you don't want to use a full-fledged XML editor to splice rules from one AWB settings file to another, here's HTML code to let you have the equivalent of a bunch of one-line clipboards.

<html><!-- Multiple small clipboard boxes -->
<head>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Multiple clipboard boxes</h1>
<input type="text" size="15"> &nbsp; <input type="text" size="95"><br />
<input type="text" size="15"> &nbsp; <input type="text" size="95"><br /> <!-- duplicate this line to your heart's content -->
</body>
</html>

Save this as, perhaps, MultClip.html and then open it with your regular browser.

This gives two rows of boxes (4 boxes total). Duplicate the line as noted; you may want 20 lines or so. Change the size of the boxes if you like. The smaller box on each line can be used to hold a name or other reference, or you can put "Replace with" text in the smaller box and "Find" text in the larger box.

If you adjust AWB to take up the left half of your screen, and your browser to take up the other half, you can quickly copy and paste rules into the boxes, then open a different settings file in AWB, insert new lines and then copy and paste from the clipboard boxes.

You could also use Notepad or some other editor to create lines in a text file, but this clipboard HTML file makes it less likely to inadvertently add or drop leading and trailing blanks. Chris the speller ^yack 20:26, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Page removal from list failed

I seem to be getting this particular error message a lot more frequently lately. When I edit certain pages i get a message box saying "Page removal from list failed" and then "AWB failed to automatically remove the page from the list while skipping the page. Please remove it manually." Here is one example that seems to be due to a cross namespace redirect:

List of people from Phoenix, Arizona. --Kumioko (talk) 18:22, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikify tag

It is impossible for a bot of any sort to analyze an article in a correct way to remove the {{Wikify}} tag. Should AWB be reconfigured so it no longer removes the tag? Ryan Vesey Review me! 01:31, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Support as requester AWB should no longer remove {{Wikify}} Ryan Vesey Review me! 01:32, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
Comment: I ask all editors who wish to involve themselves in this RfC to make sure they read the section below, the discussion Magioladitis links to, this and this. Otherwise I think it'll be easy to make knee-jerk comments (in favor of either "side") without knowing the whole background. Thanks! Nolelover ^Talk^·^Contribs 01:41, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
Further comment: I would like to request that the discussion limit itself to the removal of {{wikify}} and not the use of the template or discussion on what templates should be used instead. Ryan Vesey Review me! 01:54, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
Support as a matter of practicality—how is it possible for the bot to calculate sufficient wikification, especially if an article that has all sorts of syntax codes and links is probably gawdy and needs to be toned down a little? hare j 02:08, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
Question: Are you seeing human AWB users incorrectly removing the wikify template? If so, what is their response when you have brought this to their attention? GoingBatty (talk) 02:32, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
Did you notice the third link posted by Nolelover? In addition, I have removed the wikify tag while using AWB before with this edit which led me to start this section. Ryan Vesey Review me! 02:37, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
Hi Ryan - I reread the third link posted by Nolelover, and don't see any comments saying SMasters (or anyone else) was incorrectly removing the wikify tag using AWB. Although you demonstrated that it is possible to incorrectly remove the wikify template using AWB, I have faith that you would not otherwise make incorrect edits with AWB. Are you concerned because there many editors who are currently using AWB to incorrectly remove the wikify template, or are you concerned because it could happen in the future? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 03:03, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
Other than the removal that I made, I haven't analyzed many of the edits other editors using AWB are making. So I believe it is fair to say that I am more concerned about the potential for a user using an automated tool to remove {{wikify}} without checking. I did a trial where I tried to make some general fixes to articles in Category:All articles that need to be wikified and there were many occasions where AWB would have removed the tag. Ryan Vesey Review me! 03:10, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Slightsmile, Shawn in Montreal and I all said that some of the articles shouldn't have had their {{wikify}} tags removed, so I'm not sure what you're seeing. Nolelover ^Talk^·^Contribs 03:13, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
Got it now, Nolelover - your quote "I must admit that some of the articles should not have had the wikify tag taken off without a couple minor fixes." Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 03:24, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict) No prob. :) Also note that I specified in the next line that the wikilinks weren't the problem. In other words, AWB did its job by taking off the tag because there were three links present. However, it couldn't measure the "odd section headers or needed bold/italic fixes" that were also needed. That, in essance, is the reason for this RfC. Nolelover ^Talk^·^Contribs 03:31, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
Question 2: Are you seeing bots using AWB incorrectly removing the wikify template? If so, what is the response you received when you have brought this to the attention of the bot owners? GoingBatty (talk) 02:34, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
- No bots, since bots wouldn't be using AWB (I think?). Nolelover ^Talk^·^Contribs 03:14, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
  - I see 62 bots in Category:Wikipedia bots using AutoWikiBrowser, although I don't know how many (if any) remove the wikify tag during the course of their other duties. GoingBatty (talk) 03:29, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
    - After looking through the contribs of those bots, I only found one that had added a wikify tag in his last 50 edits...and UnCatBot hasn't edited since March of 2009. I can say with 99% certainty that the others didn't - its generally pretty easy to see what a bots task is, and none of them involved tagging articles with wikify. Nolelover ^Talk^·^Contribs 03:53, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
      - I found one questionable removal from Locobot. It was a long time ago and I accidentally deleted the page and lost the link. The page had sections; however, the lead could have been improved, more wikilinks would have been desired, and an infobox would have been usable. Ryan Vesey Review me! 04:12, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
        But FWIW, Locobot has made one edit since February 2010. Nolelover ^Talk^·^Contribs 04:17, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
Support - While I don't mind so much AWB tagging articles, I think that any criteria for removing the tags won't ever quite be enough. Nolelover ^Talk^·^Contribs 03:27, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
- We're not gonna get any more activity on this, are we... Nolelover ^Talk^·^Contribs 13:01, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
  - Not without trying to bring in some people who aren't watching this talk page. Perhaps start a thread on one of the pumps. –xeno^talk 13:04, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
    - Thanks for the suggestion Xeno. :) Nolelover ^Talk^·^Contribs 13:14, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
      - Per Xeno, I have left a message at the village pump. Nolelover ^Talk^·^Contribs 13:24, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
        Comment to keep from being archived. Nolelover ^Talk^·^Contribs 14:35, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
Support I think the best solution would be to temporarily disable the function for the next release until a consensus can be reached on how to programmatically handle the tagging and untagging of articles. Given that this is a discussion that been ongoing for nearly a year, I think it is important that it be made possible that this function is at least split out of the genfixes function and made able to be turned on/off at the user's discretion. Phuzion (talk) 01:02, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Threaded Discussion

Wikification is much more complex than the amount of Wikilinks a page has. I am not sure if the criteria for addition of a wikify tag should stay the same, but it needs to be set so it does not remove a wikify tag just because links exist. Ryan Vesey Review me! 18:35, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Check discussion in wikify tag page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:40, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Could you at least supply me with a link, your current response didn't assist me at all. I can't find a wikify tag page. Do you mean Template talk:Wikify? Nothing on that page deals with AWB incorrectly removing the Wikify tag from articles. Ryan Vesey Review me! 21:49, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Please check Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Wikify/Archive_3#AWB_changes and provide an example of incorrect removal. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:31, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I have checked. The discussion never established consensus for anything so hopefully we can do so here. First, here is an example of an incorrect removal I made myself. Wikification is a complex process which requires manual oversight. There is no formula which can create a good reason for a tool to remove the tag. The example I provided could have had more wikilinks and probably a lead section with section headers. My proposal is that AWB can no longer remove Wikify tags for any reason. Ryan Vesey Review me! 01:07, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Support - whenever I see that AWB is about to remove a wikify tag, I turn off the autotagger and process the page again. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:42, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

So, I revive the proposal a bit modified: a page should be considered wikified when:

Wikilink counts as usual
The article has at list one word enbolden
If about person then it has an infobox

For other specific problems there are proper tags. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:08, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for not writing more detailed messages. I have limited internet access these days. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:18, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I think this is too subtle for software to do. Before removing a wikify tag from an article, I would look at the talk page to see if specific issues were raised there, and would remove the tag only if those issues had been addressed. If there was nothing on the talk page, I'd look in the history to see what the article looked like when the tag was added, and see if the layout and formatting had improved significantly since then. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:39, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I disagree with your proposed parameters. First, there is no way for AWB to tell if the lead of the article adequately summarizes the article. There are subjects outside of people (businesses, buildings, science related articles, etc.) which can benefit from infoboxes. Some articles need multiple sections added, some stubs do not. I know that one day I was using AWB and a message popped up saying the next article was tagged with an in use template. Please consider skipping it. I wouldn't be against a message which stated "This page may not meed the criteria for articles which need to be wikified. Please review the article and its talk page and consider removing the tag." Ryan Vesey Review me! 13:22, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

When an editor adds a wikify tag without specifying why, they should not be surprised if another editor (using AWB or editing manually) has a different set of criteria to determine if an article is sufficiently wikified before removing the tag. I agree with Madioladitis: using {{lead missing}} and {{sections}} would be better. GoingBatty (talk) 16:29, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

If you look at {{wikify}} you will notice that it has a list of requirements for a page to be considered wikified. Wiki markup should be used in place of html markup where available, wikilinks should be added, the lead should be formatted, section headers should be arranged, and an infobox should be created. All of these things vary by page; however, the tag is designed for pages which have problems with wikilinks and/or more than one of these issues. Yes, if a page is only missing sections it should be tagged with {{sections}} but when more than one of these issues exist wikify is the correct tag. If an editor wants to remove the tag and replace it with {{sections}} they can do that. AWB is not capable of human reasoning to decide exactly when to do this. Ryan Vesey Review me! 16:49, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi Ryan - I agree that AWB is not capable of determining when the article is sufficiently "wikified" based on the {{wikify}} definition. It's challenging enough for humans to try to guess what the person who tagged the article thought needed to be done. That's why I think it would be better if {{wikify}} would only be used for articles with insufficient wikilinks, and use other tags for other issues. However, it seems that I'm in the minority. GoingBatty (talk) 18:22, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I agree with you. If I had my way, I'd make all 'under construction' tags invisible in read mode but that's a different issue. Lightmouse (talk) 18:55, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps we should consider Hysteresis. One threshold for addition of the tag, another for removal. Lightmouse (talk) 13:26, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I actually think the current threshold for addition is fine. I just don't think there is an adequate threshold for removal which will only remove correctly wikified tags. The current threshold for removal isn't even adequate just on the basis of wikilinks. The article I pointed to earlier was not even close to being adequately wikilinked when the wikify tag was removed. Ryan Vesey Review me! 13:30, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Does this sound crazy - how about AWB not remove wikify tags at all? That's my personal opinion; style issues (and whether we like it or not, {{wikify}} has become a catch-all for style issues) can't be measured by a bot or program. Thoughts? Nolelover ^Talk^·^Contribs 01:17, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
I am starting a request for comment on this so consensus can be gained for a change or otherwise. Ryan Vesey Review me! 01:31, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Do we really need the Warning banner

Do we really need the stupid Warning banner at the top of the AWB page? The presence of this banner isn't going to stop a person from using the tool and its not going to stop an admin from blocking them. I also highly doubt that anyone is going to ask them before blocking "Did you read that big warning message at the top of the page?". To me this is just an insulting jab to all of us that use the tool and come to the page. Especially considering that the determinition of blocking a user is completely subjective and although it can be overturned is completely at the discretion of the person doing the block. --Kumioko (talk) 18:17, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't like this banner neither. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:02, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Was this thing added based on some discussion or was it just arbitrarily dropped? If they can't read the rules a few inches below I don't theyll notice this banner and even if they do its doubtful it would stop anyone who wanted to edit. --Kumioko (talk) 00:58, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

FYI, I posted a message on the talk page of the editor who added the template, so he was aware of this conversation. GoingBatty (talk) 16:15, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I saw that thanks. Just a note that on his talk page he mentioned that these messages are frequently put on template and that this discussion is funny because his perception is that we are taking this the wrong way. My reply to that is this isn't a template, templates don't have defined criteria required for usage and most templates don't have the instructions again 6 inches below the message. To me this is just another example of some users negative tone towards AWB and the editors who use it. --Kumioko (talk) 16:21, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi Kumiko. The warning banner is displayed by the template Template:Tool warning. I interpreted his post as explaining that in addition to appearing on Wikipedia:AWB, {{tool warning}} is used to add the banner to other Wikipedia pages for other editing tools such as Wikipedia:Huggle and Wikipedia:Twinkle. Maybe I don't feel insulted because I don't think we're the target audience for the warning, as we already understand and follow the AWB rules of use. Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 02:47, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Cleanup needed in user list

Below is a list of just a few of the users appearing to have AWB access that shouldn't. These accounts have been blocked, deleted, have been abandoned or are nonexistent. I only looked at a few but there are a lot more. I recommend removing any user, including bots that is blocked, has abandoned their account (I would say anything more than `1 year of inactivity). I would have just done the change and been bold but the page is protected and I am not an admin.

There also appeatrs to be several names with Bot in it that are not under the bot section and probably need to be moved there if kept at all.

95j (talk · contribs)
AaronS (talk · contribs)
Acidburn24m (talk · contribs)
Aguerriero (talk · contribs)
Agyle (talk · contribs)
Arual (talk · contribs)
Badlydrawnjeff (talk · contribs)
Barkeep49 (talk · contribs)
Bdj (talk · contribs)
BonesBrigade (talk · contribs)
Calaschysm (talk · contribs)
Calgacus (talk · contribs)
Choij (talk · contribs)
CO (talk · contribs)
Codf1977 (talk · contribs)
Combination (talk · contribs)
DeluxNate (talk · contribs)
~~Deonbot (talk · contribs)~~
~~GoblinBot (talk · contribs)~~
Rootology Bot (talk · contribs)
Shappy (talk · contribs)
Slf67 (talk · contribs)
Smbarnzy (talk · contribs)
SpeednatAWB (talk · contribs)
Squirepants101 (talk · contribs)
StormBringer (talk · contribs)
SunCountryGuy01 (talk · contribs)
Thedjatclubrock (talk · contribs)
TimAWB (talk · contribs)
Toffile (talk · contribs)
~~ToffileBot (talk · contribs)~~
Tohd8BohaithuGh1 (talk · contribs)
Tuspm (talk · contribs)
Vagish (talk · contribs)
Yskyflyer (talk · contribs) --Kumioko (talk) 13:48, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Bots in the approved user section

All of the below AWB users appear to be bot accounts but they appear in the Approved users section. Additionally severl appear to be abandoned or inactive. I recommend they be moved into the Bots section if kept at all.

Admrbot (talk · contribs) -Last edit February 2011
AusTerrapinBotEdits (talk · contribs) - Last edit October 2010
CapitalBot (talk · contribs) - No edits since October 2007
DigitalmeBot (talk · contribs) - No edits since June 2006
FlagBot (talk · contribs) - No edits since June 2009
Flubecabot (talk · contribs) - No edits since September 2007
I Jethrobot (talk · contribs) - Active use as of September 2011, doesn't appear to be a bot though aside from the name
JoeBot (talk · contribs) - No edits since october 2006
J-stanbot (talk · contribs) - No edits since December 2007
Larbot (talk · contribs) - No edits since November 2008
Lucasbfrbot (talk · contribs) - No edits since March 2010
Planktonbot (talk · contribs) - Last use July 2006
Reubot (talk · contribs) - Active use as of September 2011
Rob110178bot (talk · contribs) - No edits since September 2007
Sanns bot (talk · contribs) - No edits at all in history
SeventyThreeBot (talk · contribs) - No edits since May 2007
Slowbot (talk · contribs) - No edits since April 2006
TypoBot (talk · contribs) -No edits since April 2008 --Kumioko (talk) 15:46, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

In order to be in the bots section they must have AWB approved tasks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:50, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Good to know, Some are approved though. Admrbot is here and Typobot is here but I would just remove Typobot. I didn't check the whole list though cause most are inactive anyway and should probably just be removed. --Kumioko (talk) 17:06, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I was thinking about this some more and the more I think about it the more I have a problem with someone using AWB as a bot but without AWB approved tasks. This too me seems like its subverting the bot process. --Kumioko (talk) 20:34, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Request for removal from approved list

I find no use for this tool, and find myself doing a lot of work to clean up after those who do use it. To express my disdain for this state of affairs, I request that my ID be removed from the approved list. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:41, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Just out of curiousity I looked through your edits back to July and I couldn't find any signs of this "clean up" need so although your welcome to stop using it I see no evidence of this disdainful comments purpose. --Kumioko (talk) 16:29, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Done removed as per request. — Ganeshk (talk) 17:09, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Minor error in delete tags

Resolved

When you want to delete a page through AWB, the first suggested deletion reason is "tagged for proposed deletion for 5 days". However, ProD takes 7 days, not 5 (changed quite a while back actually). Perhaps this can be corrected in a future AWB release? It's not really urgent, of course. Fram (talk) 08:50, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

rev 7841 Message updated. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:55, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Fram (talk) 09:46, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Ignoring content in <nowikify> and <pre> tags

I'd like to make AWB ignore any content between such tags, as the things that would usually be mistakes could very well just be examples (like "Don't use <center>, use <div style="text-align:center;">"). There, the <center> should not be replaced, as this would make the example very weird. Is there an option in AWB that makes it ignore text in such tags? Thanks, Joeytje50 (talk) 09:43, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi Joeytje50! Could you please give examples of articles where AWB suggests edits that are not correct? I'm wondering if it's due to general fixes or find & replace rules. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 03:36, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

AWB proxy problem

I am tryig to connect AWB (AutoWikiBrowser 5.3.1.0) to wikipedia from seatting behind proxy. I have IE configured for the proxy and the login name and password is also saved in the authentication box of brouser but it gives 407 Proxy Authentication required error message when i start AWB. Please help. Rahuldeshmukh101 (talk)

Read only option

Is there a read only option? I'm using AWB in pre-parse mode to create some interlanguage lists (Wikipedia:WikiProject_Turtles/Interlanguage), some wiki require a bot authorisation for AWB to be able to scan pages. Is it possible that a read only mode could be set? Would save having to apply for bot authorisation. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 15:37, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

For read only, could you uncheck all the boxes on the Options, More, Disambig and Skip tabs; and restrict DEFAULTSORT change/addition on the Options menu? GoingBatty (talk) 17:28, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Unticked all options and option restrict DEFAULTSORT is on. Set preference to site language = fr. Set source to category (recurse user defined), entered category "Testudines", hit >>Make list<< and enter depth of 4. A valid list is returned. Clicked start tab and >>Start<< button - it now asks for a login name and password, so entered one for User:SunCreator and press >>login<<. Now says "SunCreator is not able to use this" and opens webpage here. Bottom left of WP:AWB is wording "Software disabled". 18:17, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Looks like you're on the list of approved users for en.wikipedia, but not for fr.wikipedia. On the French checkpage you linked to, click "Demande d'autorisation pour utiliser AWB" ("Request permission to use AWB") to take you to fr:Discussion Wikipédia:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage. Click "Ajouter un sujet" ("Add a subject") at the top of the page, add {{subst: AWBUser | SunCreator}} then complete the missing information. Good luck! GoingBatty (talk) 01:12, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Please, did you read my first post? Did you click the link posted? The request is for AWB to have read only access. And by the way no I do not have bot access to en or any other wiki. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 01:53, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I read your first post and attempted to provide you with a read only option with my first response.

Yes, I clicked on the link you posted. It appears your issue with using AWB on fr.wikipedia.org is not related to your desire to use AWB in read only mode, but the fact that you have not received permission to run AWB on the French wikipedia. All human editors (even those like you and I that do not use bots) must request permission to use AWB on each different wikipedia site. On March 8, 2010, you requested access to use AWB on en.wikipedia with this edit. I hope you can click on the link you posted and follow my directions to request permission to use AWB on fr.wikipedia.

If I'm still not explaining this sufficiently, I hope another editor will join the conversation to provide assistance for you. Good luck! GoingBatty (talk) 02:30, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

How disrespectful to hijack this thread to talk about a subject not asked for. If you went into a public library and asked for some library books and someone turn to you and suggested you travel to the next city and buy some in a bookshop then you would think they are rather missing something, yet this is what has been done on this thread. If I wanted to know how to gain bot access on other language wiki's I would of asked for it. The reply given is not much sense either "All human editors (even those like you and I that do not use bots) must request permission to use AWB on each different wikipedia site.", so as can be seen in this link given in the first post, why does it work fine on other wiki's such as the German, Spanish, Italian and Polish wikis? No, don't answer that. All I want to know is how to make AWB work in read only mode or have the option added(perhaps automatic when pre-parsing is on). Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 18:36, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi SunCreator. In your first post, you asked "Is there a read only option?" and my first response answered that question. Thank you for letting me know that my suggestion worked on the German, Spanish, Italian and Polish wikis!

In your second post, you documented an issue you encountered when you tried my suggestion on the French Wikipedia. Even though you didn't specifically ask a question in your reply, I presumed that you wanted to know how to resolve the issue. I apologize for stating that "you must request permission to use AWB on each different wikipedia site" if that is not the case for the German, Spanish, Italian and Polish wikis. I'm sorry if you don't understand the answer that two of us have given you about the French wiki. This will be my last post on this topic, as I am hurt by your lack of civility towards someone who has only been trying to help you. I wish you all the best on your continued efforts to use AWB to improve Wikipedia! GoingBatty (talk) 19:38, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

If you had checked the this link from the initial post you would of always seen results for German, Spanish, Italian and Polish Wikis and now looking at the time stamp you can tell that before this thread was created I had already got AWB working on the German, Spanish, Italian and Polish Wikis. So you haven't helped and hence no credit was due or given. For the apology however, thank you. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 21:34, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Essentially, I believe the problem is that you need to be approved for AWB on FrWp, even for read-only/parse-only access. ^Avic _ennasis @ 17:28, 22 Elul 5771 / 17:28, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Some Projects have their own approval page. Fr.wiki is one of them. In these projects a request must be done there. Some other projects don't need an approval page. In these projects anyone can edit with awb without getting any separate permission. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:44, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Thing is, no editing is required. It is simply a scan through some articles. I take it from Avic's reply that read only with AWB is NOT possible. So my request is to allow AWB to work in read-only mode without a login requirement. Besides I'm not sure a possible 250+ languages requests for bot access to edit nothing is going to translate well or be understood. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 21:34, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

It's not a 250+ request. Many projects need no pre-approval to enable you using this program. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:09, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I did say "a possible 250+ languages", I don't know how many at this point require authorisation. Do you know? Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 11:27, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I suggest you create a feature request for this. — Ganeshk (talk) 22:56, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Have done. Thank you! Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 11:27, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

duplicate of a entry

I am from ta.wiktionary and using AWB(CSVloder) for TamilBOT(SUL Info).When i expand an article, How can avoid duplicate entries such as a category, a template?If already exist, never write second time --தகவலுழவன் (talk) 06:29, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

We have a feature that removes duplicates categories. after adding a category press F5 to reparse. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:34, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I learned. Thank you. --தகவலுழவன் (talk) 05:01, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Pages that have an external link

At RSN, it was determined that a website is not a suitable source or link from articles. There are over 200 articles that link to the site.[4] I don't see a way of creating an AWB list based on the inclusion of an external link. Am I missing it? Any suggestions for using AWB to clean-up these links? Will Beback talk 00:42, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

How about saving the result as a text page, cleaning it up using your favorite word processor, and then make a list using the text file as the source? GoingBatty (talk) 02:34, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

That'd work. As it happens, the removal of the links are going to require so much finessing that I'll probably end up doing it by hand anyway, but it's come up before so I thought I'd ask if there was a better way. Will Beback talk 03:23, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Source -> Special page -> Link search. Mr Stephen (talk) 18:33, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks - that worked. Will Beback talk 20:30, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

How can I detect first instance of an item?

I use AWB modules. But I've never managed to be able to count instances within a page. Can anybody tell me how to identify and edit the first instance only? Lightmouse (talk) 17:31, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Is there anyone/anywhere else I could ask? Lightmouse (talk) 18:12, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Capitalization on sorts

I'm confused. Well, ok, I'm always confused. Should AWB be changing sort values of McDonald to Mcdonald? I thought sort values were now case-insensitive and AWB wouldn't be doing this change anymore. I'm using the latest SVN version. Bgwhite (talk) 00:39, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Confirmed that AWB SVN 7852 wants to change the DEFAULTSORT for Joe McDonald (third baseman) from "McDonald, Joe" to "Mcdonald, Joe". In July, Magioladitis wrote "the new version of AWB won't fix the casing in DEFAULTSORT". Maybe this wasn't done, or maybe the fix didn't include caMel caSe? GoingBatty (talk) 01:57, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't work on other cases. Here's a case on Robin O'Donoghue where AWB produced Robin Odonoghue. Also failed on Talk:NeonSeon and Talk:Dave O'Callaghan. Will file a bug report

I think the removal of the apostrophe in {{DEFAULTSORT:Odonoghue, Robin}} is correct per WP:MCSTJR. GoingBatty (talk) 02:15, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it is correct, but I was talking about the uppercase D becoming d. Bgwhite (talk) 05:10, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

rev 7784 did "Do not add DEFAULTSORT if case insensitively the same as article title". What is missing is to not change an existing DEFAULTSORT just to change the case. Rjwilmsi 10:12, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

rev 7856 Do not change article's DEFAULTSORT only to change casing. Rjwilmsi 10:38, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

AWB proxy problem

I am tryig to connect AWB (AutoWikiBrowser 5.3.1.0) to wikipedia from seatting behind proxy. I have IE configured for the proxy and the login name and password is also saved in the authentication box of browser (IE) but it gives 407 Proxy Authentication required error message when i start AWB. Please help. Rahuldeshmukh101 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:43, 15 October 2011 (UTC).

There is an open feature request for this. — Ganeshk (talk) 15:49, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

This mins at present AWB will not work from setting behind proxy? or is there any way out...! Rahuldeshmukh101 (talk) 15:58, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

API queries to AWB, or the output of such for "make list"

I have to do a fix on a series of pages at enWS. AWB doesn't give me the fine-tuned ability to run a suitable query, so I have worked out how to grab the relevant pages from the API, but cannot find an easy way to get that into AWB. Is there an easy means to run an API query for "make list" from within AWB? Alternatively, what is the best means to get an API output (ie, which format option?) so that I can import a list into AWB, either without all the superfluous info paraphenalia, or so that it can be ignored. Thanks. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:08, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

You should get some mileage out of the HTML Scraper or HTML Scraper with regex options, maybe if you post an example of the API output we can advise further. Rjwilmsi 18:07, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

HTML scraper is new to me, and I will need to play to understand. Here is one output api query xml output — billinghurst sDrewth 11:05, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

<api>
  <query>
     <recentchanges>
        <rc type="new" ns="104" title="Page:The Steel Flea.djvu/40" rcid="3423124" pageid="1195378" revid="3487039" old_revid="0" timestamp="2011-10-18T11:07:05Z"/>
        <rc type="new" ns="104" title="Page:The Steel Flea.djvu/39" rcid="3423123" pageid="1195377" revid="3487038" old_revid="0" timestamp="2011-10-18T11:04:16Z"/>
        <rc type="new" ns="104" title="Page:The Steel Flea.djvu/38" rcid="3423121" pageid="1195376" revid="3487036" old_revid="0" timestamp="2011-10-18T11:02:04Z"/>
        <rc type="edit" ns="104" title="Page:The Maclise Portrait-Gallery.djvu/81" rcid="3423118" pageid="1195116" revid="3487033" old_revid="3486322" timestamp="2011-10-18T10:55:49Z"/>
        <rc type="new" ns="104" title="Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 04.djvu/9" rcid="3423103" pageid="1195372" revid="3487018" old_revid="0" timestamp="2011-10-18T09:43:35Z"/>
        <rc type="edit" ns="104" title="Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 1.djvu/38" rcid="3423072" pageid="1195368" revid="3486988" old_revid="3486986" timestamp="2011-10-18T07:58:31Z"/>
        <rc type="new" ns="104" title="Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 1.djvu/38" rcid="3423070" pageid="1195368" revid="3486986" old_revid="0" timestamp="2011-10-18T07:54:56Z"/>
        <rc type="edit" ns="104" title="Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 1.djvu/37" rcid="3423069" pageid="1195367" revid="3486985" old_revid="3486984" timestamp="2011-10-18T07:50:19Z"/>
        <rc type="new" ns="104" title="Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 1.djvu/37" rcid="3423068" pageid="1195367" revid="3486984" old_revid="0" timestamp="2011-10-18T07:49:29Z"/>
        <rc type="new" ns="104" title="Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 1.djvu/36" rcid="3423067" pageid="1195366" revid="3486983" old_revid="0" timestamp="2011-10-18T07:45:35Z"/>
    </recentchanges>
  </query>
  <query-continue>
  <recentchanges rcstart="2011-10-18T07:39:27Z"/>
</query-continue></api>

Advanced HTML scraper will do it, something like title="([^"]+) and group=1. Rjwilmsi 11:24, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I obviously don't have the syntax correct,

https://en.wikisource.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=recentchanges&rcnamespace=104&rcstart=2011-10-18T00:00:00Z&rcend=2011-10-17T00:00:00Z&rclimit=500&format=xml and for regex I tried

title="([^"]+) and group 1 → ZERO
title="([^"]+) and group=1 → ZERO
title="([^"]+) group 1 → ZERO
title="([^"]+) → 500 looking like title="Page:English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the nineteenth century.djvu/298

— billinghurst sDrewth 11:52, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Okay this idiot has had to go and actually research and learn a little about lookbehind<gasp> and I got a list with (?<=(title="))([^"]+), though I would like to know the other means that you indicated with group — billinghurst sDrewth 12:20, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I am an idiot :-), use the form box labelled group and change to 1 <deskthunk>

Limit issue, when I run the query (yes, with a bot account, or with admin account), I am expecting between 500 and 1000 results, about 700 if I guess, however, I am finding that the query tops out at 500. Would that be AWB or the regex that is dying? — billinghurst sDrewth 12:43, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Added a screenshot of the HTML scraper with the title regex as I think that is a likely further example. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:53, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Re limit: if you run the query in a browser do you definitely get > 500 results returned then? Rjwilmsi 13:55, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes; 711, confirmed by adding the time period as a series of three components to grab those of interest.

When you run the query from the HTML scraper it's not going to be executing an API query logged in as you, just via anonymous access, so the standard user 500 article limit will apply (enforced by API). Rjwilmsi 20:05, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Preview not working properly

Is it just me, or is the preview not working properly? Mr Stephen (talk) 10:29, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

In which version/revision? -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:15, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

5.3.1.0 Mr Stephen (talk) 11:32, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

What are you seeing? I've recently been seeing the preview not formatted to look like the article does when viewed in Wikipedia. --Auntof6 (talk) 19:05, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

The nearest I can suggest is the print copy without images. Images don't display and references that contain URLs show the URL at the end of the reference. Mr Stephen (talk) 20:10, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I've been seeing the same thing. It happened a few weeks back at the exact same time of the 1.18 Wikimedia upgrade. I ignored it thinking it was one of the gazillion things wrong after the upgrade. A couple days later the previews came back. Last time and the start of this time, only the images went bye bye. Now there are no images and the formatting is all off. I'm using SVN 7852. I'd place my bets on something WMF is doing on their end. Bgwhite (talk) 20:33, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

white space removal

Removing the white space after a heading is harmful, as it makes it harder to visually spot headings. Yet people are doing this with AWB. The guideline is broken where it says "Avoid making insignificant or inconsequential edits such as only adding or removing some white space" because if you both change the while space and make other changes, those other changes become very hard to review in the diffs, due to the way diffs work. Why are we allowing the removal (or insertion) of blank lines after headings with AWB? Dicklyon (talk) 21:18, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

MOS:HEAD states "Include one blank line above the heading, and optionally one blank line below it, for readability in the edit window." Could you please provide some examples where AWB added or removed blank lines after the headings? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 22:41, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Some diffs would help. AWB seems happy to leave the blank lines in (e.g.) Anne Compton. Mr Stephen (talk) 22:53, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

The most recent one I noticed was this one. The removal of an extra line break before a heading made sense, but removing the single blank line after did not. In this case, there were no other complications. If AWB is choosing this spacing configuration automatically, that's a bug I suppose. Can someone who understands it tell me how it happens like this? Dicklyon (talk) 23:38, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

The standard fixes look like this. Maybe the editor made some changes by hand? Mr Stephen (talk) 23:56, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm glad it's not a standard AWB thing. I'll talk with the editor. Dicklyon (talk) 00:04, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I have been making some additional changes while using AWB. These are general fixes including the kind of changes that AutoEd might make, such as standardizing whitespace style. As far as I have been aware this was the preferred style on Wikipedia. I have tried to avoid making trivial edits so have combined this kind of edits with other edits using AWB. I have been wondering though whether this is the best way as it does as Dicklyon says make it hard to tell which edits were made with an automated tool and which were not. However, if one does not combine edits, then one would become trivial. Lmatt (talk) 00:17, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion, blank lines before and after headings is preferred. Officially, there is no preference. So don't be squeezing out those lines; same with the spaces by the equals, I think. Dicklyon (talk) 01:52, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

MOS:HEAD states "Spaces between the equal signs and the heading text are optional, and will not affect the way the heading is displayed." GoingBatty (talk) 01:59, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

white space removal

Removing the white space after a heading is harmful, as it makes it harder to visually spot headings. Yet people are doing this with AWB. The guideline is broken where it says "Avoid making insignificant or inconsequential edits such as only adding or removing some white space" because if you both change the while space and make other changes, those other changes become very hard to review in the diffs, due to the way diffs work. Why are we allowing the removal (or insertion) of blank lines after headings with AWB? Dicklyon (talk) 21:18, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

MOS:HEAD states "Include one blank line above the heading, and optionally one blank line below it, for readability in the edit window." Could you please provide some examples where AWB added or removed blank lines after the headings? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 22:41, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Some diffs would help. AWB seems happy to leave the blank lines in (e.g.) Anne Compton. Mr Stephen (talk) 22:53, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

The most recent one I noticed was this one. The removal of an extra line break before a heading made sense, but removing the single blank line after did not. In this case, there were no other complications. If AWB is choosing this spacing configuration automatically, that's a bug I suppose. Can someone who understands it tell me how it happens like this? Dicklyon (talk) 23:38, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

The standard fixes look like this. Maybe the editor made some changes by hand? Mr Stephen (talk) 23:56, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm glad it's not a standard AWB thing. I'll talk with the editor. Dicklyon (talk) 00:04, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I have been making some additional changes while using AWB. These are general fixes including the kind of changes that AutoEd might make, such as standardizing whitespace style. As far as I have been aware this was the preferred style on Wikipedia. I have tried to avoid making trivial edits so have combined this kind of edits with other edits using AWB. I have been wondering though whether this is the best way as it does as Dicklyon says make it hard to tell which edits were made with an automated tool and which were not. However, if one does not combine edits, then one would become trivial. Lmatt (talk) 00:17, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion, blank lines before and after headings is preferred. Officially, there is no preference. So don't be squeezing out those lines; same with the spaces by the equals, I think. Dicklyon (talk) 01:52, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

MOS:HEAD states "Spaces between the equal signs and the heading text are optional, and will not affect the way the heading is displayed." GoingBatty (talk) 01:59, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Removing field from infoboxes

I've tried various formulas of regular expressions to remove some deprecated fields from infoboxes but can't get the hang of it. So, how can I get AWB to remove the field as below?

| fieldname = value

Sometimes there will be a cite after the value. Like I said, I've tried various things to get it to stop at the newline but nothing has worked for me so far. Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 23:44, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Try this

ArticleText = Regex.Replace(ArticleText, @"{{\s*Infobox(.*?)\|[ ]*fieldname[ ]*=[ ]*value[ ]*\|(.*?)\s*([\|}<\n])", "{{Infobox$1|$2$3");

It still may not be 100% but I hope it helps. --Kumioko (talk) 00:09, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

The field name won't always be "fieldname" and in my current case it really isn't. And the value will change from article to article. About the only thing that I can count on is that there will be a pipe at the beginning and a newline at the end. Dismas|^(talk) 02:29, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Thats not a huge problem. Could you give me a couple examples?

For example, If you add a parenthesis and additional fields as I have done below we can find multiple fields concurrently.

ArticleText = Regex.Replace(ArticleText, @"{{\s*Infobox(.*?)\|[ ]*(fieldname|fieldname1|fieldname2|etc)[ ]*=[ ]*value[ ]*\|(.*?)\s*([\|}<\n])", "{{Infobox$1|$3$4");

We can also modify the value like below to eliminate that as shown below.

ArticleText = Regex.Replace(ArticleText, @"{{\s*Infobox(.*?)\|[ ]*(fieldname|fieldname1|fieldname2|etc)[ ]*=(.*?)\|(.*?)\s*([\|}<\n])", "{{Infobox$1|$4$5");

--Kumioko (talk) 17:23, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Just a note I have found that its easier for me to just go ahead and add a line for each different field rather than add them in parens. It makes it easier to account for different names of the same field across multiple Infobox templates and its easier to find problems when I don't have to dig through 50 lines of different fieldnames. In some cases its even easier to add a separate line for the same field to distinguish between one that has no value (like a space) and one that has a value. An example is:

//Delete some deprecated WikiProject banner parameters


ArticleText = Regex.Replace(ArticleText, @"\|[ ]*nested[ ]*=\s*\r*([\|}{<\n])", "$2", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);

ArticleText = Regex.Replace(ArticleText, @"\|[ ]*nested[ ]*=[ ]*(Yes|No|n|y)\r*([\|}{<\n])", "$2", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);

--Kumioko (talk) 17:46, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

And I put these in the Find/Replace pane? Dismas|^(talk) 20:51, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

You can but it would probably be better to do it as a custom module. Either way it should work. --Kumioko (talk) 00:27, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I made some code to fix this and its on my talk page. I think the message will explain it ok but if you have any questions please let me know. Sorry I haven't had much time to play lately. --Kumioko (talk) 14:59, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Regarding orphans

Please note the change at Wikipedia:Orphan#Criteria: An orphan is now 'officially' defined as being an article with zero incoming links. I am still seeing AWB users placing the orphan tag on articles that do contain one incoming link. An update to the code may be needed. -- œ ^™ 08:35, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

There is an option in AWB under the "options" menu to, "Restrict orphan tag to linkless pages". I don't know if that is the default option or not as I have it checked to do that. Personally, I wouldn't mind if that becomes the default with no option to undo it. Bgwhite (talk) 22:22, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi OlEnglish - you might want to log this as a feature request. Good luck! GoingBatty (talk) 01:37, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Recall that AWB is not an e.wikipedia only tool. It provides feautures for the English Wikipedia and the users are responsible for how they use the settings. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:39, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Replace

Hi, I used AWB for a non-wikipedia project. I wish to find an replace all years.

Exemple : find and replace [[1800]] - [[1801]] - [[1802]] and so on and replace by the same without link : 1800 - 1801 - 1802 and so on.

How can I do ? --62.147.241.53 (talk) 18:11, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Find: \[\[([12]\d{3})\]\]

Replace with: $1

-This will delink all years from 1000 to 2999. Make sure the Regex box is checked. Chris the speller ^yack 20:33, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks a lot Chris ! --62.147.241.53 (talk) 21:20, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

You may want to expand this slightly to \[\[([12]\d{3}s?)\]\] if you also want to replace [[1800s]] with 1800s. Good luck! GoingBatty (talk) 02:37, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

There are a number of ways people usually link years. Regex to unlink many of these can be found here. Do string search (control-f) from your browser for '// decades and years'. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:42, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks a lot !--62.147.241.53 (talk) 21:37, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Preview not working properly

Is it just me, or is the preview not working properly? Mr Stephen (talk) 10:29, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

In which version/revision? -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:15, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

5.3.1.0 Mr Stephen (talk) 11:32, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

What are you seeing? I've recently been seeing the preview not formatted to look like the article does when viewed in Wikipedia. --Auntof6 (talk) 19:05, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

The nearest I can suggest is the print copy without images. Images don't display and references that contain URLs show the URL at the end of the reference. Mr Stephen (talk) 20:10, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I've been seeing the same thing. It happened a few weeks back at the exact same time of the 1.18 Wikimedia upgrade. I ignored it thinking it was one of the gazillion things wrong after the upgrade. A couple days later the previews came back. Last time and the start of this time, only the images went bye bye. Now there are no images and the formatting is all off. I'm using SVN 7852. I'd place my bets on something WMF is doing on their end. Bgwhite (talk) 20:33, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Is there any resolution for this? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 18:30, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Trivial question

Hello. I know this would be a very trivial question for you but could you please refer me to some guidelines how to use AWB for placing WikiProject banners on talk pages? Thank you in advance. - Darwinek (talk) 13:39, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I use "Prepend text" and "skip if contains...". -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:26, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. - Darwinek (talk) 15:03, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Another regex question

The next little project that I'm looking at learning is figuring out how to get the website field in an infobox to use the {{URL}} template. The line in infoboxes looks something like:

| website = http://www.example.com

What I'd like to replace it with is:

| website = {{url|http://www.example.com|Official site}}

I've been trying to use the find and replace function for this and I've almost got it but can't quite nail down the last of it. What I have is:

To find:

(| website = )(http:\/\/www\.?[a-zA-Z0-9_]+\.com|\.net)

Replace with:

$1{{URL|$2|Official site}}

That works fine... except it also replaces all the URLs in every ref tag with the URL template and I don't want that. I only want the URL in the infobox changed.

Your help is appreciated but please, when you supply an answer, explain where I've gone wrong. I'd like to learn from this rather than just being handed the answer. Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 06:17, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

You must escape the pipes in your regex, i.e. \| instead of |, otherwise the pipe means alternation. Rjwilmsi 18:40, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

If you mean the first pipe before the word 'website', that didn't work. What else am I missing? Dismas|^(talk) 22:41, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest some caution on this one. As someone who has on many occassions been accused of doing contentious changes I think this one might cause some stir among the community. There are some that argue for and against the use of the URL template within templates like this and it might be fought by some. --Kumioko (talk) 00:11, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Noted. Thanks! But back to the question, what am I doing wrong? Dismas|^(talk) 01:03, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

I think you need to add some code for a lookahead or behind to not include citations in the find and replace. These can be really tricky though and I am not really very good at them. --Kumioko (talk) 01:29, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Could you please give an example of an article where your find/replace would incorrectly change a reference? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 03:39, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Sure. Tina Cheri for one. It has a URL in the website field as well as numerous references. The find/replace tries to convert every one of them. That's with my original code as seen above. If I escape the pipe character before the word "website", AWB just zips past every article without suggesting any changes to any article. For my list, I'm using all the articles that transcludes the template {{Infobox adult biography}}. Dismas|^(talk) 03:53, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Try (\|\s?website\s*=\s?)(http:\/\/www\.?[a-zA-Z0-9_]+\.com/?|\.net/?) - simply escaping the first pipe in your regex didn't work because there are multiple spaces between "website" and "=" in this article. Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 04:11, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

(\|\s?website\s*\=\s?)(http://[\w\.\-\/]+) also works, and doesn't limit you to websites ending with .com or .net. GoingBatty (talk) 04:15, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Not authorized. Bug?

Hi. I requested (and received) permission to use AWB some time ago, and I appear on the list of approved users, however, when I try to log in via AWB, I receive the following error: "Mann jess is not enabled to use this." Notice that in the error message, it is written "Mann jess" with no underscore, whereas my username contains an underscore. Is is possible there is a bug with underscores in usernames? Is there something else I should check? I am able to login perfectly with my alternate account User:Jess, but not with this one. I have not tried to log in with this one in the past. Thanks. — Jess· Δ ♥ 01:31, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

No, the software thinks your user name has a space. See, for example, the recent history of this page, where it is displayed as "Mann jess". The list of approved users is a protected page, so...

This edit request to Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

...please will an admin change "Mann_jess" to "Mann jess" on the AWB user list. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:26, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Done - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 12:50, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

I see. Thanks, both of you, for the explanation and help :) — Jess· Δ ♥ 17:38, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Persondata

The persondata template is automatically filled from the infobox? However, in the infobox, information is often piped, while this is of course completely unnecessary in Persondata. Is there a way to change this so that Persondata only gets the target article, and not the piped link to it? See e.g. this, where the info from Birthplace is copied completely to Persondata. Fram (talk) 13:33, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Dashboard

So for the dashboard about images, could you change it to "Files" since it counts other things too. ~~Ebe123~~ → report on my contribs. 16:49, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Questions about template redirects and capitalization

I have a few questions about AWB that I want to check up on. I am not sure where to look to find documentation for these things, and I can't run it myself to find out - no windows. I'll number the questions.

In this edit [5], {{Infobox Book}} was changed to {{Infobox book}}. But I do not see that template listed on Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects, and I couldn't find any task like this in the general fixes page. The same thing happened in this edit [6] with "Infobox River". Are AWB's changes like that documented anywhere?
In this edit [7], AWB changed {{mergeto}} to {{Merge to}}. Is that part of default AWB? I don't see that template listed on the redirects page.
Separately, I thought AWB did not capitalize the first letter of a template call anymore, like [8] does - is that right?

Sorry for the long list, — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:43, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

All four of these edits were done by the same person. Have you checked with him to see if he's using special code in his edits? GoingBatty (talk) 04:23, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

In the end, that's the question. However, it seems more prudent and less confrontational to ask AWB experts here whether these really are features of stock AWB, to make sure that I am not making a mistake. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:30, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

None of the above changes would be generated by AWB genfixes in default settings. AWB would make the two infobox changes if there were template redirect rules for them, but there are no such rules. On casing, it's explained on the notes on the template redirects rule page "The first-letter case of the redirect is kept in the new template name, except for acronym templates (first three letters in uppercase) where first letter uppercase is forced." Rjwilmsi 07:59, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the explanation. I do realize that the redirects would be replaced if they were added to the redirects page; the question was whether there was some other logic that might do it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:51, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Clarification needed

Its pretty clear at this point that there are strong emotions on both sides about making changes of casing for the first letter (example: infobox to Infobox). What isn't as clear is casing within the template beyond that first letter (example: Infobox Military Unit to Infobox military unit). I just reverted a change made by FRAM where he argues that these types of casing are not allowed but I don't agree so in the spirit of getting this clarified I thought I would ask the question here.

Should we allow the changing of casing within the template beyond the first letter such as the examples given above or should we clarify that these are not allowed. Another example would be something like this: Infobox nrhp to Infobox NRHP. --Kumioko (talk) 16:07, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

WP:AWB/TR states "You are reminded that making page edits solely for the purpose of bypassing template redirects may be considered 'trivial editing', and therefore contravene the AWB rules of use. Normally you should not make page edits just to bypass redirects unless there is an agreed need to do it." Based on this reminder, I would press Skip anytime AWB suggests such a change. GoingBatty (talk) 18:03, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

We are not alking about that now. We only mean alongside some less trivial edit. Debresser (talk) 11:33, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Why isn't {{mergeto}} in the list of redirects that AWB replaces? There is, after all, no such word as "mergeto", and it should really be "merge to", leaving aside the issue of the capital. Debresser (talk) 11:33, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Where is it said that template names should be words? Template:Navbox, Template:Bigredbox, Template:3OR, even Template:Rfc: many of our templates are not words, despite some users moving many of them to longer, "wordy" versions. Fram (talk) 11:41, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I just wanted to clarify that as Debresser said these should only be done when other more substantial edits are done. I would say that there are a few exceptions to that statement but by amd large we don't need to make these changes alone. --Kumioko (talk) 14:29, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I just updated WP:AWB/TR so that AWB will replace {{mergeto}} with {{merge to}}. Feel free to add others you see are missing. GoingBatty (talk) 17:37, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Suggestions for Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Rename template parameters

I have a couple suggestions about the fairly new functionality page Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Rename template parameters.

Due to the page length I think it would be beneficial to create a tracking category for the Cite templates (like Cite templates with invalid parameters) or something so that we can remove some of these from the list as they are dealt with. - Denied per discussion due to the complicated nature of the template --Kumioko (talk) 16:12, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
It seems like a lot of these could be grouped using some regex logic or something similar to the way we do the typos page. That would greatly reduce this list. I realize that this won't be practical in all cases. - Typos logic is specifically ignored for templates and quotations --Kumioko (talk) 16:12, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
I would like to add some parameter checks for some WikiProject issues. Does anyone object to that? There are about 30 or so currently but the list grows periodically.#I would like to add some parameter checks for some infoboxes. Again this list is already fairly long and growing.

I posted the questions here since more people watch this page that the talk page for the Rename template parameters page. --Kumioko (talk) 22:29, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

No objection to you adding more checks to the page, as it doesn't seem to slow down the time it takes when using AWB. GoingBatty (talk) 23:46, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Timeout

I would like to go back to the connection timeout issue.

After how many seconds does the connection time out?
I remember a proposal to change this, where many editors expressed their feelings about this issue in a clear way. Nevertheless, the last version I recently downloaded still has the same behavior in regards to the timeout. Is there anything being done to change this behavior of AWB? If so, what?

Debresser (talk) 15:55, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Is there any reason nobody posted an answer here? Debresser (talk) 14:26, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure, I get two problems, one where the page reloads (often loosing a lot of manual editing), and one where I have to re-log-in. Both are server-side, although the software could "out-think" them. Rich Farmbrough, 21:51, 5 December 2011 (UTC).

It is the first I was referring to in this post. Haven't noticed the second problem of late, but did suffer from that in previous versions. Debresser (talk) 07:53, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

The proposal is at Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Feature_requests#Preserve_manual_edits_when_page_reloads. I see an initial careful reaction by Rjwilmsi, who is if I am correct related to the programming of AWB, four editors agreeing with it, and one comment which also seems to recognize the problem as such. So think the question really should be asked: what is happening with this problem after almost two and a half years?

When a timeout occurs try: right click in edit box "Replace text with last edit". Rjwilmsi 19:19, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip. I'll try that. But that doesn't solve the issue. Debresser (talk) 19:54, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

The timout is due to the API returning a bad token error (or at least was when I tested it today, if you don't have a valid token the API rejects any edit/write action), nothing in AWB is enforcing a timout. Rjwilmsi 20:18, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

That doesn't mean too much to me. But since it obviously does to you, can you tell what can be done not to get the timeout? Debresser (talk) 23:22, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't know the API's rules on how long an edit token is valid once the page is fetched. I've found myself that if you save the page within 90 seconds of opening it there is no timeout. Rjwilmsi 07:47, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't know who makes this API, could that be Windows? I have XP on my computer, hardly anything exotic. And I find that I have about 20 seconds. Which is unacceptable. Very inconvenient. Rich said above, that the software can be made to ignore this. I think, that would be necessary. Debresser (talk) 10:36, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

It's the MediaWiki API. When Rich says "server side" he is referring to the API. Maybe you can take this up on the Technical village pump. Rjwilmsi 11:51, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure if its related but ever since the upgrade I have had a lot of problems with the connection to Wikipedia being extremely slow and sometimes taking more than a minute just to go from page to page. Especially, for things that use java like watchlists and pages with lots of pictures. I complained about it at the Technical pump and even stopped editing for a couple months in frustration at being so slow. I heard a lot of excuses about how it was the size of my watchlist, my browser, internet provider, script bloat, etc. Since its only been occurring since the upgrade, I use multiple browsers, multiple internet service providers, different computers, all with the same problem, I am convinced its the "upgrade". I stopped complaining and now keep between 3 and 5 internet tabs up for wikipedia in order to edit. I rotate between the 5 tabs, making my edits and then moving to the next one. Otherwise I have to sit there and wait for the page to load. I was just thinking that these might be related. --Kumioko (talk) 18:10, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

The fact that you and me have different times till timeout (me about 20 seconds, you about 90) still strikes me as odd. I am not against taking this to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical), but at the same time, if the software can be made to ignore this, isn't that a good idea in any case? Debresser (talk) 16:00, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

RfC on Template redirects

AWB replaces lots of template redirects with the actual template names. The list can be found at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects. I asked a year ago where the consensus for this was (Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects#Consensus.

I would like to discuss a) whether AWB should be doing this, and if so, b) in what cases and c) by which procedure. Fram (talk) 08:55, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

Above was the neutral statement, these are my thoughts on this. For the moment, AWB replaces any and all template redirects that are added to Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects, no matter if that is actually wanted or needed (or even correct, the current version[9] contains e.g. {{Infobox Military}}, {{Infobox National Military}}, {{Infobox military}}, {{Military}} → {{Infobox station}}, which should be {{Infobox Military}}, {{Infobox military}}, {{Military}} → {{Infobox national military}})

My question is: in which cases is it necessary to replace templates (these should be kept), and why would we do the other cases. These replacements don't improve the encyclopedia, don't help readers or editors. Variety isn't a bad of harmful thing. Wikipedia:Redirect has some info on template redirects, but this seems to be incorrect: if a template is moved from X to Y, no articles need to be changed, only all template redirects, just like with any other move.

In general, AWB should only make edits that truly improve pages, and leave the rest alone. No preferences should be imposed, no unnecessary changes should be made. This keeps the diffs more simple to read, and reduces the risk of introducing errors (as with the incorrect infobox replacement I showed above).

These template replacements are in general not tested, not discussed, just implemented in a rapid-fire, widely used tool, seriously increasing the potential risk. Fram (talk) 09:09, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

There are three reasons I know of why a template redirect should not be replaced en passent

The redirect is a redirect with possibilities
The target is actually a bad name that we haven't changed yet
We choose to explicitly retain the redirect

In case 3 there is only one example I am aware of, and that is {{Infobox officeholder}}. I'm not sure that it is a good example, though, because if you want to add an infobox to an officeholder all you need know is {{Infobox officeholder}} - keeping the redirects implies that it is more complex than it is - that one need to know an infobox for each of maybe hundreds of offices.

Rich Farmbrough, 11:13, 1 December 2011 (UTC).

If a template was renamed or redirected, that implies that there was community consensus to do so. Meaning that the new name is the name that the community decided should be used and not the old one. So AWB is performing a useful function, namely implementing community consensus, when it renames templates. Not doing so would imply a reluctance to apply community consensus.

Of course, since everything is working fine with the renames also, we make edit of such a cosmetic nature only "en passent", alongside a more important edit. But that is only to save workload from the servers, not because community consensus has intrinsically less value to us when things are working fine without that edit as well.

If there are some practical improvements that Fram would like to propose to avoid problems which he may have witnessed in the past, then let him do so, but to come here and make statements about what does or does not "truly" improve, what constitutes "imposing", and what is "unnecessary" is just more of the same drama we have seen him post on a valued editor's talkpage lately. Debresser (talk) 11:27, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Debresser, I am having this RfC to reduce the drama and to get an actual consensus. If you can't stand people using proper, neutral venues to try to get a resolution, then stay the heck out of them. Otherwise, please comment on the issue at hand, and not about editors. Fram (talk) 11:33, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

My first two paragraphs give a very matter-of-fact and analytic reply to the questions you raised. My third paragraph was an addendum inspired by the less than neutral tone of your post at the beginning of the discussion section and elsewhere. Debresser (talk) 11:37, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Having redirects only means that there are multiple possible names: the template syntax can only have one, but that doesn't mean that the others aren't accepted just as well. Your first reason is thus incorrect. Your second reason is based on your first one, so it isn't a good reason either. As for your third, I gave my opinion on why such replacements are unwanted, without referencing any editors. What you read in it is your problem, but please don't introduce external drama here when all I want is an open discussion about these changes, not about any editors. Fram (talk) 11:45, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Your argument ignores the simple fact that even if two or more names are acceptable, only one has been decided upon by the community as being the location for the template. That is its name, so that is what we should call it. Apart from the fact that often redirects come from less correct names that are not completely acceptable. Debresser (talk) 12:34, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I ignore that simple fact because it isn't a simple fact. We have Template:Org-stub because both Template:Organisation-stub and Template:Organization-stub are acceptable. Redirects are not "less correct" per se, but the syntax can only be kept at one place, even when there are two or more equally acceptable names. Your argument isn't accepted for article redirects, so why would it be correct for templates? Fram (talk) 12:45, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I repeat, there are cases where more than one name is acceptable. But there are also cases where the redirected names was definitely less than acceptable And even where the redirected name was acceptable, it most often was less preferable. Debresser (talk) 13:14, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

You do give the impression of looking for "things that Rich does and ways I can stop him doing them". Rich Farmbrough, 11:51, 1 December 2011 (UTC).

Thanks, both of you, for the open mind with which you approach this. This is an RfC for everyone, about everyone. This is not about what you, or I, or whoever else can do specifically. It is intended to get rid of the current unclear situation, where people add and remove items from the list at a whim, introducing errors (like in the example I gave above), all (in my opinion) for little to no benefit. If the consensus is that such replacements are to be actively encouraged, then we (you ,anyone) can add more redirects to the page. Now we have the ridiculous situation that you get a complaint because "you changed "Infobox Military Unit" to "Infobox military unit"."[10], and a supporter of you then adds these the very same day to the AWB redirects page[11]. Either these type of changes are encouraged (with or without prior individual discussion), and added to the AWB templates page, or they are discouraged, but not this haphazard, personal approach. If this RfC shows consensus for this, you will get less drama, less complaints, more freedom to do such things. I don't know what the RfC will give, but I am willing to give it a shot. But the extremely defensive and negative behaviour from you two is totally unwarranted here. Fram (talk) 12:18, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

It's not server workload that is the potential problem, despite some very ill informed postings elsewhere by people who should know better. The main reason to keep the number of edits down, all else being equal is to achieve the same level of improvement while creating less events to be monitored. A secondary reason is to not inflate history dump sizes - speaking as someone who uses these both for work and "pleasure" that is not a totally negligible reason to me. Rich Farmbrough, 11:51, 1 December 2011 (UTC).

(ec)Other possible reasons include the potential for future de-merging of templates, e.g. Template:Cite document is now a redirect to Template:Cite journal, but I see no reason why they couldn't be kept separate (a document is quite distinct from a journal). Fram (talk) 11:30, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually that is exactly what I mean by #1, and I have not been happy about that replacement. Rich Farmbrough, 11:52, 1 December 2011 (UTC).

Tagged and removed. Rich Farmbrough, 12:06, 1 December 2011 (UTC).

While I agree with you in this case, this is exactly what I mean: two people here don't like it, so it gets removed. Presumably one or more people thought it necessary (and added it in the first place), but they aren't heard in this. The process by which these things are decided is really a bad thing. Fram (talk) 12:21, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Nonsense. The idea of a wiki is to be fast and agile, constantly improving, not bogged down with discussions. If some one disagrees, we discuss it then, not before. Rich Farmbrough, 13:28, 1 December 2011 (UTC).

Yes, someone made a fast and agile improvement long ago, we disagree, and you discussed it. Or no, wait, you didn't discuss it, you just removed it. On the other hand, when CBM does the same, removing one he feels isn't needed, you just revert it, and claim that he must discuss it first. I'm trying to find the applicable rule here, and how this helps us in improving this. Perhaps, if these additions (or some general rules for them) had been discussed at first, things would have been a lot better and clearer... Fram (talk) 13:44, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

The general principle is that redirects are not broken and there is no reason to replace a redirect by its target just for the sake of uniformity. The claims that this aids in maintenance also don't hold water.

An unfortunately common situation is that the replacements are often directly caused by edits the same AWB user has made. For example, they might decide (with no previous discussion) to rename template A to template B, and then to go through and replace all invocations of A with B using AWB.

In particular, the claim that there is any sort of strong consensus behind the renames doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Often enough the moves are completely unannounced, and since they apply to templates they do not show up on watchlists to be noticed. One positive aspect of the AWB template page is that it brings this practice out of the shadows so that other people can actually see it. Unfortunately, there still is not a process by which positive consensus is obtained before things are added to the page. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:50, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Thats not exactly true. There have been several cases with template redirects where a redirect does not work or does not work correctly with sister wikis, with other sites(such as mirror sites or facebook), where other templates or redirect names where very close and got mixed up. Its also beneficial from a standardization standopoint to make it easier to edit the articles, especially to new users. So there are some very good reason why we should limit the use of template redirects. Its the same reason all stop signs are red with the same shape, why we use a standard color scheme for stop lights, schoolbuses, most firetrucks and ambulances, etc. so that they are clearly identifiable and the meaning clear to all who see it not just the one who made it. With that said I also don't think that most of them need to be done as a standalone edit but doing them along with other edits, to me, is perfectly acceptable and if the editors want to go ahead and use a shortcut form to edit or create the articles then thats fine and some helpful bot can come along behind them and clean it up just as we do for so many other things. --Kumioko (talk) 14:39, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think comparing the replacement of template redirects with templates with things like stop signs, fire trucks, and so on is really helpful. Security and safety is slightly less of an issue here... I agree that in those cases that a template redirect really, demonstrably causes problems, it should be replaced (probably faster than through occasional AWB edits even). This discussion is mainly about the vast majority of cases where there are no such problems. This leaves us with the "easier to edit" arguments. Is it? Does it help editors that "why?" is replaced by "why" or vice versa? Do new editors even use templates like "SYN" (sorry, that should be "Syn"). What is the advantage of {{Redirect from alternative name}} → {{R from alternative name}}? The main problem for new editors is that {{Infobox X}} actually means Template:Infobox X: once you know that, the software automatically takes you from the redirect to the target, if needed. I have never encountered any editor who in reality had the problem that they couldn't get the correct template "because they had seen a redirect to it", more often people couldn't find the right template because some redirect didn't exist yet. Why can't we limit the replacements to the ones that are really wrong, problematic, or veru unclear, and leave the other ones alone? Fram (talk) 15:05, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I would agree that we don't need to replace things like why with why because that doesn't change anything. I can also accept that there is no consensus for changing things like cite web to Cite web. I could even agree that changing things like Infobox Military Unit to Infobox military unit are probably low value. What I don't agree with is the statements that any template redirect is just as good as the template itself. Particularly in the cases where the 2 are nothing alike. I still think that through standardization it will be much much easier for the 99%ers (sorry couldn't resist using that one. :-)) If everyone knows that a WikiProject banner starts with WikiProject, an Infobox starts with Infobox and a stub ends (or starts with preferably but thats another argument) stub, Navbox's start with Navbox, etc. then its pretty clear to anyone who sees it what the purpose is. Even the most novice editor would figure it out in short order. But when we have a dozen or more variations to some templates, with some of the variations even being in another language (spanish for example), it is not only very confusing but gives the presentation of being disorganized and sloppy. Has this gone on for years? Yes! Should it continue to go on for years to come? No! Will it take a bunch of edits to get away from it? Yes! Should we do them as stand alone edits? No, at least until we get down to a small number that we can eliminate and after people are used to the standard naming. Will this be an easy transition? For some, and harder for others. But it is something that will need to be done eventually. Ging back to the comment that someone said earlier that its been like this for a long time. When WP had 100, 000 articles or even a million it wasn't a big deal to have a bunch of different nameing. Now that we are getting into the millions, with dwindling editor participating and more effort being expended to keep and recruit new editors we need to do these things to make it easier to train and keep people. Just like in a business you need some structure and guidlines we do here too. --Kumioko (talk) 15:29, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Can I summarise your position as template redirect replacement is a good thing in a number of cases, but the current list includes a fair number of unnecessary ones (and probably misses some good ones as well)? If that turns out to be the consensus (and so far positions on either side of yours have been expressed), how do you propose to improve the list? The current situation, with everyone adding and removing whatever they want, hasn't produced really satisfactory results. Fram (talk) 15:47, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

It sounds more like you are interpretting what I said to meet your conclusions. I think the results that have been produced are fine, I do agree that we shouldn't do the edits without some other significant action and I also agree that there are certainly a lot of templates not on the list yet. There are more than 1500 WikiProject Banners and most have multiple redirects, very few of these are on the list yet. --Kumioko (talk) 16:31, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

When I see an edit changing something like "cite web" to "Cite web" (or is it vice versa?), I halfway expect the next edit to be the opposite. I don't know of such an edit war occurring yet, but a link to a list of someone's preferred names would at least reassure us that such a war is unlikely to break out, or that the war can be confined to that list's talk page. Art LaPella (talk) 17:11, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Oops, I just found it at WP:AWB/TR. But how many other people have found that list? Art LaPella (talk) 17:43, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Please note that WP:AWB/TR considers redirects as first-letter case insensitive, e.g. {{cite web}} and {{Cite web}} are treated as identical, and one isn't changed to the other via this functionality. GoingBatty (talk) 18:19, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I've updated WP:AWB/TR quite a bit, so I went back to look at why:

I added many template redirects to take advantage of AWB's ability to merge templates into {{multiple issues}}, which has a positive impact on how the article is displayed.
I recently added {{Citenews}}, {{Cite new}}, {{Cite newspaper}} → {{Cite news}} to take advantage of the AWB functionality to replace invalid template parameters, which also improves how the article is displayed.
I have also added template redirects to make the code more clear for editors (e.g. {{wi}} → {{Wiktionary redirect}}, {{dn}} → {{disambiguation needed}})) One of the replacements I like best (which someone else added) is {{EngvarB}} → {{Use British English}}.

Hope this helps! GoingBatty (talk) 18:12, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you thats very helpful. So if a redirect says Military unit and points to Infobox military unit, and there are parameters fixed on the logic wouldn't know that Military is the same? I hope that makes sense.

Also, do you happen to know what order AWB processes these edit pages? Does it do the template redirect before the Rename template parameters or the other way around? --Kumioko (talk) 18:38, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

AWB processes the template redirects before the rename template parameters, which is great. If WP:AWB/RTP contained fixes for {{Infobox national military}}, those fixes would not be processed for {{Military}}, unless WP:AWB/TR first changed Military → Infobox national military. Hope that answers your questions. GoingBatty (talk) 23:50, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh my, I hadn't seen that WP:AWB/RTP monstrosity yet. Oh yes, it is so extremely useful to have AWB chaeck every time if this replacement is needed: {{cite web}} |worklmppokopkp= → |work=. Just a random example, it seems as if someone added every typo (or vandalism) that happened once, to a page for semi-automatic work on thousands of pages. Perhaps, just perhaps, AWB wouid work a tiny bit faster if we kept such checks to a realistic, regularly occurring level? That page needs some very serious scaling down... Fram (talk) 08:48, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Strangley I find myself in partial rare agreement with Fram's statement that it needs scaling down. I think the functionality and concept is very good though unlike his monstrousity comment. I attempted to start scaling it down here by asking that a group at a time be added to the template so that I can start weeding some out but they told me no and since I am not about to take the time or have the technical ability to mine through hundreds of thousands of articles looking for them, I moved onto other tasks until someone takes it seriously. As a related issue, having that many templates on one page is going to be a factor at some point soon because its going to hit the templates per page limit of WP at some point. I had suggested that some regex be used for some of it (like changing the parameters with an uppercase first letter to lowercase and deleting those from the list) but AWB specifically ignores "typo's" for templates. Which is a good thing but meant I wasn't able to do that. --Kumioko (talk) 14:06, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Fram - it's great to see your concern about making AWB work more efficiently! While starting with a database dump of every existing incorrect parameter is a reasonable starting point (and something reasonable to redo every so often), I agree that the list doesn't need to be this big all the time. I removed the example you provided and a few others (after checking to make sure they've been corrected), as I've done in previous edits. Although this functionality doesn't seem to make any noticible difference in AWB's processing time (if there was, I would have been lynched for copying the cite web entries and pasting in a cut down list for cite news), your help in improving the list would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 18:11, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I have improved the list by removing 165kB of uncommon typos from it. At first glance the loading time (certainly the initial one, when opening AWB) has been reduced. Please only readd common misspellings to the list, not every conceivable one. Fram (talk) 12:02, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I reverted it and heres why. Although I am somewhat ok with the culling of the list I was not ok with adding a bullet to the rules of use without discussion. Especially were there seems to be clear disagreement here as to what need to go in it. Additionally, he removed these things from the Rename parameter list not the template redirect list and they are distinctly different. Personally I wanted to make sure that there are no articles with these invalid parameter names but when I tried to make the chanhe to the template to add a few at a time to cull the list I was told no, so its clearly not a very important problem and if Fram hadn't added that bullet I would have let the edit stand. --Kumioko (talk) 14:58, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

With that in mind, I have reinstated the edit without the offending part. Fram (talk) 15:03, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Thats fine, if needed we can always add some back in later. As mentioned I had wanted to do it right by adding a dozen or so at a time to the template to make sure they were added to an invalid parameter list so that we fixed them before culling the list but knowone wanted to add the code to the cite news template and expected me to go through all the articles so its clearly not a very important task, therefore not important enough to spend my time to go through them all and thus perfectly fine with me for you to cut the list down to a more managable number. --Kumioko (talk) 15:29, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

One more reason why I've updated WP:AWB/TR is to take advantage of AWB's ability to automatically date templates. GoingBatty (talk) 02:33, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Variety considered as harmful

Fram says "variety isn't a bad thing" and of course he is quite correct. Wikipedia is a celebration of variety, if all plants were the same we would have one article, Plant. And bird instead of 10,000 articles on birds. And indeed we would only have English Wikipedia instead of hundreds of Wikipedias, and we would have only one type of editor (Belgian comic addicts perhaps?). And instead of thousands of stubs and hundreds of FAs we would have 19 pretty good articles. But there is a place for variety and a place where it is damaging. For example we only have one approved scientific name for a bird at any given time, although many synonyms may have existed, and local common names are a deep cultural heritage. We only have (ideally) one way of measuring out drugs, although we could use hundreds, and in some cases where two methods have been used side by side deaths have resulted. Of course with article names we get the best of both worlds, we can redirect from all the synonyms that mean "sparrow" to Sparrow. Why then is the matter different for templates? The answer is simply that article names are (by and large) natural language, whereas template names are a construct. We can simply add all the synonyms for sparrow, but how can we add all the synonyms for a template? There are several common ornithological variations "Green-breasted" vs "Green Breasted" and a few cases where "Yellow-throated" might be "Yellow-banded" or "Gold-throated", but we do not have to cover "Green-fronted" unless that is an actual name, because our writers will not (we hope!) be guessing at bird names. But we have sometimes to guess at not-quite remembered template names, is it "unreferenced section" "unref-sect" "unrefsect" UnrefSect" Unreffed Sect" etc...? and we have created a lot of these redirects to help editors - if we allow these redirects to stay indefinitely in text they become "correct" and the variations on them form the frustration zone, unless we create those redirects - eventually we would have either frustrated editors, or thousands of redirects per template (and even this wouldn't fix things for other reasons). This is, in the terms of the other sort of RFC why it is a good thing for Wikipedia to accept as wide variety of valid input as reasonably possible. However we should show editors as far as possible a canonical version, so that they if they, wanting to add something on another page, remember a template name accurately or slightly inaccurately they will succeed. (For example it is always {{Cite foo}} and never {{CiteBar}}, though if you put {{CiteBar}} it might still work.) And by presenting a consistent set of template names they will learn by osmosis, and not worry about "should the words run together, should I use underscores, should I use title case, should I use all caps etc." We just make everything plain simple English with as little jargon as possible (although we are all, of course, prodigious programmers used to algol 68 and FORTRAN, and just know that any identifier beginning with I,J or K is an integer). Consequence: if we do this, more and happier editors, who can use templates, if we don't, less editors as they are put off by arcane Wiki-markup.
Rich Farmbrough, 13:07, 1 December 2011 (UTC).

Hear, hear. Debresser (talk) 13:11, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Not convincing, really. Baseless scaremongering, predicting the creation of "thousands of redirects per template". When? After ten years of Wikipedia? Oh wait, that's where we are now... This just won't happen, there is a very slow growth of template redirects to the well-established templates. I don't believe that bots and scripts running around changing Citebook to Cite book will result in happier editors, more editors, or less template redirects at all. I don't get any happier by knowing that Uncategorized is "preferred" (by some) over Uncat, and I see no reason to start using the longer version. I don't have to worry about "should I use this or that", although the "corrections" of my edits by bots or AWB can give the false impression that I should worry, if I didn't know better. Fram (talk) 13:28, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Now who is using WP:IDONTLIKEIT? You seem to forget that there are people who do like it, and that it is easier for the less experienced user. Not to mention that a self-respecting and respectable encyclopedia should be well ordered, and not look sloppy. Debresser (talk) 13:32, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

It is not easier in any way or shape though. And the contents need to be good, the names of our templates are of no concern for our respectability. Fram (talk) 13:35, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

As for IDONTLIKEIT: when we get a baseless prediction that PEOPLEWILLLIKEIT, I have every right to reply that I at least don't. Fram (talk) 13:36, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I may add that in my opinion, this includes the replacement of all types of inferior names by their more correct variations. Like "Merge to" instead of "mergeto", "Merge To", and even "merge to". Provided that such improvements are made alongside some more valuable edit, as per consensus. Debresser (talk) 13:18, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Inferior? I don't really see how {{Catmore}} → {{Cat more}} is going from an "inferior" one to a "superior" one, or {{Geo-dis}}, {{Geodab}} → {{Geodis}}. Please explain why we have {{Which}} → {{Which?}} but {{Who?}} → {{Who}}, if this is based on inferiority vs. superiority. Our template names are for the most part utterly arbitrary, and there is less superiority or inferiority involved in them. Fram (talk) 13:35, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

There's nothing "inferior" about {{mergeto}} compared to {{merge to}}. The name of a template is simply an identifier, it makes very little difference what the identifier is called. Of course we wouldn't call it {{sdfdsdf}} but things like spaces, underscores, etc. are not significant in any way. If the trouble is that people can't remember which one to use, make a redirect and they can use both. But once the redirect is made, there's no reason to go back and change the prior uses to use the redirect name, since neither name is really any better. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:45, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

There are no such words as "mergeto" and "catmore". I keep stressing and you keep not hearing that for "computery types" running words together is second nature, but for real people™ it isn't. Rich Farmbrough, 13:48, 1 December 2011 (UTC).

Indeed. To reply to Carl's post above. The inferiority or superiority is not in the function, since obviously a name like "hgfuyt" will work as well as any. It is the logic of the name and overall consistency and understandability of names like "Template:Merge to" and "Template:Merge from" that are important in this project. Do not forget that since every person on earth is a potential editor, we should have consistency and especially understandability amongst our first priorities. Debresser (talk) 13:51, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

To illustrate this, the name "Template:Merge to" could technically be the name of the "Merge from" template and visa versa. But that is definitely a Bad Idea. Debresser (talk) 13:53, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

No one is arguing to keep such really contradictory or utterly meaningless redirects. Mergeto vs Mergeto is not confusing. The examples I gave above of current forced "corrections" are a lot more confusing than just keeping the different varieties. Fram (talk) 14:04, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

(ec*2)Please file a request to rename Wikipedia to Wiki Encyclopedia, to help those poor "real people". And perhaps, once they have all been renamed to "Information box", the "real people " will finally be able to use infoboxes. Fram (talk) 13:57, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Dishcloths, pancakes, and keyboards are not waterproof. In other words real people run words together too. It's a normal part of English. The names of the templates are far from the most important thing, but in any case we can just create redirects if people can't find the right name. The issue not about having names people can find, it's about the needless replacement of redirects with their targets. The point of redirects is that it doesn't matter what the "real" name is. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:07, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

To CBM: I think your about half right here CBM. It doesn't matter if we change mergto to Merge to or Infobox Military Unit to Infobox military unit, it matters quite a bit if we change some thing like IMU to Infobox military unit or Combine to Merge to. It also matters if there is another template very close in name but different in purpose, or of the template uses a lot of complex logic that may not work in sisterwikis and outside applications (this seems to mostly be areas of formatting and things like tables for some reason in the past). The point isn't to make it easier for one or 2 editors who like tradition and want to keep doing things like the good old days.

To Fram: One could also present the argument that things like this are what has caused our numbers to dwindle over the years. Complex rules, differing guidlines, ambiguous templates and categories, anitquated markup, etc. --Kumioko (talk) 14:56, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

One could present that argument, but I would prefer some facts to back it up. Fram (talk) 15:51, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I spend my first years in Wikipedia patrolling and adding tags to newly created articles. For some time I was adding tags but could not really what the names of the tags stand for. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I am not a native speaker. This was one of the reasons that I later got involved with redirects to discover that some typo redirects could actually found in the body text of some articles. From this point of view, when I read a code I would like to understand what the template is about without having to actually open a new page in my browser. I second Kumioko on that. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:13, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I think this argument applies to things like "RE" for "Reflist", but not for "Further information" to "Further" (or many of the other replacements). This goes back to the original question of the RfC: "I would like to discuss a) whether AWB should be doing this, and if so, b) in what cases and c) by which procedure". It seems (so far, still early days) that most or all people agree that there are cases where this is needed. Template redirects which are too cryptic or confusing can best be replaced with more clear variations. How do you feel about the other ones that get currently replaced, but where no such argument can be made? Fram (talk) 10:34, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I would also like to point out that the existance of many redirects are because at one point in the past WP did not have a spellchecker and did not have a search feature so if you created a piece of content you then had to create some logic redirects in case someone didn't type it in correctly. Thats not the case anymore so many of the redirects are pointless with that functionality now fully implemented. Additionally, some have gone on redirect creating campaign's in past creating piles of redirects both plausible and implausible in the off chance someone types it in wrong. So although some would argue that a redirect is a redirect I would argue that when we are redirecting because of a typo then we need to fix it. Just leaving a typo redirect because it works just fine is just lasziness and bad practice even if it still works from a technical and functional standpoint. --Kumioko (talk) 14:10, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Which leaves us with a debate of what is a typo. Is Mergeto a typo? I don't think so, others probably disagree. Looking at one example Template:BLP unsourced, this has 29 redirects, none of them an obvious typo. The vast, vast majority of those was created in the first year, very few have been added afterwards (so the unlimited growth theory is not really supported in this case at least). At least one of them currently gets changed by AWB but should well be left alone, Template:Userspace BLP (which is a very specific instance of this template). Fram (talk) 14:27, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I think your combining apples and oranges here. The redirects aren't all lumped into one group, there are multiple groups/reasons why we should change the template redirect to the actual location including typos, but not every reason is going to fit every template redirect. Some may meet all of them where some may only fit one or two. The template you give as an example has been around for a long time and predates the spellcheck and search functionality being implemented I believe by about 2 years. So this is a good example of what I was talking about. When it was created a multitude of possible redirects were created to make sure that it was easily found and used. Now its not so hard to find or recognize so the need for the redirects have diminished. I also don't think I agree that the Userspace BLP is different. Yes its in userspace and anyone who sees the content starting with User will plainly see that so I don't think there is a huge value in spelling it out in the template itself. If they see it in the category or if they pull it into AWB its easy to either focus on that, or ignore it based on the need at the time. Just my opinion though. I know that some think that we should have separate templates for different namespaces but I admit I am in the camp that doesn't really think its necessary. --Kumioko (talk) 14:57, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Just to give an extreme example, in one case two redirects differing only by case were to two different clean-up templates. This problem caused me to investigate and I found hundreds more templates where a simple change in spacing or casing completely changed the meaning of the template. Many of those were fixed by volunteers, but it gives the lie to this idea that casing and spaces are too trivial to worry about. Those of us who have spent years working on this problem do, in fact, know what we are talking about. Of course we welcome new insights, what we do not welcome is perpetual pick-pick-picking by some close minded editors who just (if we are charitable) don't like it. And moreover we have gone to great lengths to patiently explain to those editors the reasons for what we do, time and again, instead of thanks for the education, they ignore the explanations and respond "Baseless scaremongering" and the like. Let me stress, the only unsupported assertion I am making is that newbies find it difficult to deal with mark-up. There may be good evidence of that or there may not. (I think it is what contributors have said when surveyed, which is not the same thing, of course.) Nonetheless it is received wisdom, and not unreasonable. Given that and no other reason these types of change are a Good Thing. We can have conversation about the fine detail, just as we do with typo-fixing, where not all the typos on the AWB list are actually typos. But really, the King Canutes need to take off their shoes and socks, roll up their trouser legs and paddle back to shore, where, they will find several thousand new articles have been created, hundreds of vandals have been reverted, new improved systems and scripts have been implemented and the Encyclopaedia is progressing quite nicely. Rich Farmbrough, 23:08, 2 December 2011 (UTC).

No need for namecalling, please keep this civil. Disagreeing with you (and patiently explaining why) doesn't mean "ignoring" your explanations. The "baseless scaremongering" was about the supposed explosive growth of redirects to common templates, which in reality doesn't happen: after an initial flurry of new redirects, this then slows down considerably and very few new redirects are created for older templates. This also indicates that the newbie question isn't the only unsupported assertion you make. When two differently capitalised templates (or template redirects) have two different meanings, AWB won't solve this; what needs to be done is making sure that the two different capitalizations point to the same template. No one here has argued that "such" variety is beneficial. That doesn't explain why "why?" has to become "why" or why "who" has to become "who?" of course. Fram (talk) 08:49, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I think your still missing the point Fram. There is no reason to have 20 different redirects of a template with 50 articles on it, there's no reason to have template redirects for every consievable spelling error (regardless of how implausible), etc. It has been explained repeatedly to you and others why we shouldn't have a million redirects but you and others are still stuck with this if it isn't broke don't fix it mentality. It is broke. It may physically work yes but it cause more problems than it fixes not to mention confounding junior editors or bots. Some redirected templates also have problems in sister wikis, mirror sites and a variety of other things. All these things have been mentioned before as well as others but its just not sinking in. Again, 3 editors not agreeing does not mean that the change doesn't have consensus . The fact that its the same (only 3 or 4 out of hundreds or thousands of editors) indicates that the "problem" isn't as big as you make it seem. --Kumioko (talk) 14:42, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

For the umpteenth time, I am not talking about spelling errors. I am talking about plausible alternatives, which may offend some people who believe that a template name should be imaginary MOS compliant, with separate words, "proper" capitalization, and so on, but which are not confusing or problematic for most people. Replacing "Cite Bok" with "Cite Book", fine, but why would you replace "Citebook" with "Cite Book" or vice versa? Replace those that are true errors, replace those that truly give problems and can't be solved otherwise, and leave the rest alone. But please don't try to claim that I am missing the point when the thing you explain isn't my point at all. Fram (talk) 14:50, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I am willing to concede that there is little need to replace "Cite Book" with "Cite book" but I think its quite stupid and confusing to have "Cite Book", "Cite book", "cite book", "Citebook", "citebook", and ten others for the same thing. Its confusing, its difficult to program changes too, it looks like crap and is even more confusing when you have multiple different versions of the same template on the samer article (I have seen as many as 5 versions of the same template), etc. The biggest problem I have is that when you and others have made decusions for the rest of us in the past its unilteral and is black and white with no gray area. Frankly I'm tired of getting painted into a corner because some narrow minded editor fights every single change that someone suggests no matter how good or bad it is. And that is the perception I have of you. I am sure you have your perceptions of me as well and that is fine. But when the same 2 or 3 editors are crying wolf all the time and screaming that they are the majority and there is no consensus its frustrating and irritating. Especially when some of those editors do less than 20 edits a week. --Kumioko (talk) 15:08, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I wonder whether people who can't cope with the concepts of synonyms and spelling variations are really fit to edit here. Your post is mostly IDONTLIKEIT; the vast, vast majority of people never notice that we sometimes have "Citebook" and sometimes "citebook", it doesn't look crap at all since it is only visible in editing mode, not in the actual encyclopedia. Please explain how wanting to change a variety of synonyms to one single acepted version is not "narrow-minded", but wanting to keep the variety is "narrow-minded"? Please also indicate where I have opposed every single change someone suggests? I only see that kind of behaviour from other people, I have indicated multiple changes I have no problem with. I have noticed two people (not you) balking at the very concept of having an RfC over this, so please redirect your criticism to those worthy of it, and not towards people who try to have a reasonable, open-minded discussion about it. As for your final line, Wikipedia:Editcountitis much? Even though that statement was not about me (I hope I match your arbitrary minimal amount of weekly edits), I prefer people making twnety quality edits over people making 10,000 useless ones, or people making 10,000 nearly useless ones which introduce 100 serious errors. The cost-benefit ratio of edits is much more important than the actual edit count. Fram (talk) 15:22, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

To be honest I would normally have absolutely no problem with describing in detail why having 10 variations of the same template is confusing and stupid but as I and others have told you at least a dozen times I doubt one more would cause the information to sink in. But for those others who may read this I will spell it out a little more.

Beginner confusion - One big reason is that its confusing for beginners to edit using these template when there are ten or 12 that all look the same, especially when they appear multiple times on an article in different forms (I have seen the same template as many as 5 times in differnet ways on the same article).
Its hard to program bots. In order for most bots or scripts to do their work they need to know what the templates called. Rather than be able to do this simply though we have to factor in the multitudes of variations of template names. This isn't a big deal when your talking about 1 or 2 templates but when you want to do something with all 1500+ WikiProject banners that becomes very very difficut when most of them have at least 1 and in many cases multiple, redirect names.
It looks messy on the article
Template redirects have been known to cause problems with sister wikis, mirror sites and other sites like Facebook that use Wikipedia data.
Its more crap we have to maintain, potentially tag for a project, watch for when its written up for deletion, merge or whatever
Plenty more reasons

Here is a list with counts just for Cite news. Some are not even in the template namespace (which has its reasons and isn't necessarily a bad thing). As you can see there are about 300, 000 total trasnclustions making cleaning up issues with this template too much for a person. It would need to be done by a bot. Now multiple that by hundreds or thousands of templates each with multiple redirects and you end up with a frustrating nightmare. Frankly I directly contribute the state of many of our articles and the declining editor rate to this kind of mess. I can't prove it of course but when people are confronted by unnecessarily complicated, disorganized and confusing things like this they either tend to find something else or they attempt to clean it up. I chose the latter.

Cite news = 0
Citenews = 0
Template:Cite news = 290544
Template:C news = 0
Template:Cit news = 26
Template:Cite News = 29
Template:Cite article = 1015
Template:Cite new = 383
Template:Cite news-q = 1
Template:Cite news2 = 4
Template:Cite newspaper = 1144
Template:Cite-news = 12
Template:Citenews = 2217
Template:Cute news = 7
Wikipedia:Cite news = 0

I hope this helps a little but I'm sure you'll just blame me for. No that comment was not dircted at you regarding edit count and I do appreciate that many editors do other things which take a lot of time (like programming bots) that don't reflect in edit count. However, when onen editor is doing almost zero edits and then criticises another that is doing thousands for making a mistake here and there or adding a couple of trivial edits I find it hypocritical and irritating. I also think that our definiton of a useless or nearly useless edit is quite different so that is also a matter of differing opinions more than facts. --Kumioko (talk) 15:46, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Alphabetizing "Mc" as "Mac"

The other day I commented on Wikipedia talk:Categorization of people about how many names that begin with "Mc" are alphabetized as if they began with "Mac". So, for example, John McCain has a DEFAULTSORT as "Maccain, John" and Paul McCartney has one as "Maccartney, Paul". I noted that this was an outdated alphabetization practice and the modern standard is to alphabetize "Mc" as "Mc" just as it is spelled: see The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, Cite It Right by Johns & Keller, Writing the Research Paper by Winkler & Metherell, The SBL Handbook of Style, etc. User:Bgwhite noted that Wikipedia guidelines no longer stated that "Mc" should be alphabetized as "Mac" and suggested that AWB might be responsible for adding the DEFAULTSORTs to list the "Mc" names under "Mac". I don't know much about AWB myself, so I would like to ask: (1) Is AWB involved with the current practice of alphabetizing "Mc" names under "Mac"? (2) Can this practice be changed to have those DEFAULTSORTs removed and allow "Mc" names to be alphabetized literally as "Mc"? --Metropolitan90 (talk) 06:16, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I believe we did add logic to AWB to do the Mc -> Mac conversion in DEFAULTSORTS as this met the guidelines at the time. Please link to the revised guidelines. Rjwilmsi 09:17, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

The guideline WP:MCSTJR used to state "For a surname which begins with Mc, the category sort key should always be typed as Mac with the remainder of the name in lowercase—for example, Macdonald, Maccluskey or Macmorris—regardless of how the surname is actually spelled."

This guideline was removed in October 2010 (though the shortcut's name still reflects that it was meant to provide guidance on Mc, St., and Jr.). I support Metropolitan90's request. Chris the speller ^yack 16:02, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

AWB does do the Mc -> Mac conversion in DEAFULTSORT and listas. I too support Metropolitan90's request. Among other sites that support this are The Chicago Manual of Style [12], American Library Association, The MLA Style Manual, The Indexing Companion [13], ISO 999 [14], The Cambridge Handbook for Editors, Authors and Publishers [15]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bgwhite (talk • contribs) 18:52, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

If this is approved could I suggest a one time bot run to fix it and be done with it. --Kumioko (talk) 22:15, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

In addition to fixing DEFAULTSORT, could you also please consider fixing the |listas= parameter of {{WikiProject The Beatles}}? I just added a note on Template talk:WikiProject The Beatles/doc about this conversation, as the template documentation also references the old WP:MCSTJR guideline. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 03:29, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

rev 7868 Drop Mc -> Mac conversion in DEFAULTSORT/listas generation logic. I can submit a bot request to change any existing DEFAULTSORT, persondata NAME and listas if editors would like? Rjwilmsi 12:14, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Really this needs to be sorted out at a MoS venue. I have no bun in this fight, but citing any manual of style other than our own is not conclusive. Rich Farmbrough, 17:57, 7 December 2011 (UTC).

For any bot requests, could the bot run once now, and then once more after a new version of AWB is published? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 18:05, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Subject of Mc -> Mac was brought up at Wikipedia talk:Persondata. I'd think people there would like persondata NAME changed by a bot. This subject was originally brought up at Wikipedia talk:Categorization of people, the MoS venue where stuff like this is discussed. I'll leave a note about this discussion there. Bgwhite (talk) 18:45, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I also agree that a bot run would be the most appropriate way to expedite this change. --Kumioko (talk) 19:26, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

combining find and replace options

I have two sets of find and replace options which are quite long. I would like to combine them into one set of find and replace options-- without having to manually and correctly re-key hundreds of lines. Can I do this? How? Hmains (talk) 05:25, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I assume you have them saved in two separate settings files? Then open the settings files in a text editor and you will see the find and replace section: copy entries from one file to the other and save it as a new settings file when done. Basic familiarity with XML will probably be needed, otherwise post both here and somebody can merge for you. Rjwilmsi 07:45, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, they are in two separate settings files. I will try. Thanks. Hmains (talk) 19:18, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Unwanted edits by AWB due to unusual transclusions in templates

I committed this edit calculated by AWB, which amongst other things added the {{Reflist}} template. This was however already transcluded from the {{MonasticFooter}} template. AWB did not spot this, and unfortunately neither did I.

I'm not very clear if this is a problem with AWB, or whether {{MonasticFooter}} breaks some kind of rule? It seems to me to be some kind of timesaver boilerplate that I might expect to be substituted. Clearly the current situation is undesirable as the potential for messing up such pages inadvertently with tools such as AWB seems very large.

I'd appreciate some advice on this matter. --MegaSloth (talk) 10:00, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Such templates shouldn't contain the references template. The problem is not with AWB but with the "monastic footer" template (which is rather huge anyway). Fram (talk) 10:20, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

We have {{Template reference list}} for templates that contain references in footnotes. But this is a somewhat different case, where the references are part of the text of the template, and do not come as footnotes. Personally, I think that is a bad idea. For this very same reason. The right thing to do would be split this template into two. And one part should be only references. Then the article can use {{Reflist}} as normally, and the specific references template can be added afterwards, and no confusion. Debresser (talk) 10:31, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I am the editor who reverted the OP. The article is on my watchlist because I did exactly the same thing about a month ago ... Mr Stephen (talk) 18:08, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I have alerted the two editors who edited {{MonasticFooter}} to this discussion. Debresser (talk) 16:08, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

The template is transluded on a series of articles, 1 per ceremonial county, I cannot see a problem of the references being in a template rather than in the article, I think it is done in other templates as well. I do not think there any restrictions on the placement of references in the manuals unless someone can point to it. Keith D (talk) 16:18, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

The problem is not with the references, but with the fact that the template calls on {{Reflist}}. Debresser (talk) 16:22, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

If recursive template calls causes an issue, the issue is certainly not deleterious in this instance. The inclusion of the {{Reflist}} within {{MonasticFooter}} works perfectly well for the purpose. The only issue is to remember that when running bots which add the references clause to the article, the references clause added by the bot needs to be removed. Other than that there is no issue. JohnArmagh (talk) 16:42, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

(Nested rather than recursive.) It's not just bots that will say "Where's the Reflist?" Also it means that removing the template breaks the article, which is bad. And suppose two people come up with the same idea and want, say "Ireland footer" as well as "Monastery footer". The last problems that spring to mind is that editors loose the freedom to have Footnotes section instead of refs, and to change the refs to (say) 2 columns. (They may even find themselves editing the template - I haven't looked at the details.) Basically this qualifies as a good idea that causes more problems than envisaged, just as putting content categories in infoboxes or navboxes seems appealing but is actually appalling. Rich Farmbrough, 18:27, 10 December 2011 (UTC).

Indeed. The problems are manifold and can easily be avoided, so why do it? I repeat the suggestion to split the references from the main template, and not use Reflist in templates. Debresser (talk) 20:44, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Giving people the freedom to change the format of one article in isolation from the rest of the articles in a series of so that it does not conform to the others in the series is a bad idea - it is unencyclopaedic. JohnArmagh (talk) 08:46, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Meaning? The proposal is to change the template and to make all the thirty or so articles that use it use the new template in the same way. Debresser (talk) 13:45, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

I do take your point, (although unencyclopaedic is too strong a term) but you have to remember that freedom to edit is critical. Preventing this leads to ossification. Moreover "articles in a series" is something I have always had a problem with. For example List of monastic houses in Bedfordshire from your POV is in the series "Lists of monastic houses". Someone else might see it as one of a series on "Lists of buildings in Bedfordshire"

Rich Farmbrough, 01:57, 12 December 2011

I fixed this even more simply, without the need to split the template. See the new Template:Monastic footer and List of monastic houses in Bedfordshire. Am now doing the other articles as well. Debresser (talk) 13:56, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

{

Done Please comment. Debresser (talk) 08:27, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Mass rename/move of pages?

I am trying to use AWB for a private wiki running on mediawiki. We have a large number of pages (200-300 at least) that we want to move to different name spaces. This is easily achieved by simply Moving the page and putting "Namespace:" in front of the existing page name. Is there any way to accomplish this task with AWB? If not, does anyone know of any other extensions or bots that could do this based on a list of pages? 202.49.72.36 (talk) 21:25, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Use of nbsp before units

I believe that AWB is mistaken in the section Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/General fixes#Fix non-breaking spaces (FixNonBreakingSpaces). Specifically, there is no MOS or printing convention that dictates the use of   "between amount and unit for common units". In fact the MOS (and printing conventions) require the use of a non-breaking space in the following places:

in expressions in which figures and abbreviations (or symbols) are separated by a space
in other places where breaking across lines might be disruptive to the reader – WP:NBSP#Use

In other words, where a symbol or abbreviation such as "ft" might otherwise begin a new line, then a non-breaking space is used to avoid that. There is no such need to avoid starting a new line with common units such as "feet" – or any other normal English word – and the use of   before "feet" is neither recommended nor desirable.

Please note the distinction between a unit (such as "kilogram") and a unit symbol such as "kg". In MOS:NUM#Unit symbols, the requirement:

Values and unit symbols are separated by a non-breaking space

is given, but nowhere is there any similar injunction for the case of a value and a (non-abbreviated) unit.

If you remain sceptical then consider the output of {{convert}}, which is the result of considerable deliberation. Compare:

{{convert|10|m|ft}} which produces "10 metres (33 ft)" - actually "10 metres (33 ft)" if you look at the resulting HTML in the page source; with
{{convert|10|m|ft|abbr=off}} which produces "10 metres (33 feet)" which does not contain a non-breaking space.

The proliferation of undesirable non-breaking spaces not only makes the edit box cluttered, but yields ugly results in a browser, especially where the line length is short. I'd therefore ask you to please revise AWB so that it no longer inserts an unnecessary   before "feet" and any other unabbreviated units, as it enjoys no rationale within our MOS, and has no sensible other reason. --RexxS (talk) 17:16, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

There's an earlier discussion here which fizzled out with no action taken. I agree that AWB must abide by the MOS. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:24, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Should this be reported as a bug instead of a feature request? GoingBatty (talk) 18:08, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

With the exception of Micro$oft software, I usually consider a bug to occur when the software doesn't work as intended, and a feature when the software does work as intended. I'm quite certain that inserting   before fully spelled out units or other normal English words is an intended action (and is documented as such). --RexxS (talk) 19:41, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Excellent point, RexxS. I agree that the specific documentation matches the software's actions, and therefore it's reasonable to not consider it a bug. Maybe it's more of a difference of opinion on how to interpret and apply the MOS. For example, WP:NBSP#Use shows £11 billion as an example of inserting   before a normal English word. Good luck! GoingBatty (talk) 02:17, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Ah yes, the £11 billion is a bit of an oddity. The reason why a non-breaking space is a good idea there is not because "billion" is disruptive at the start of a line, but because 11 should not be left hanging at the end of a line when 11,000,000,000 is the actual number intended. There are probably numerous exceptions to the generalisation that we don't need a non-breaking space unless it could result in a new line beginning with an abbreviation, but that's almost certainly why the MOS is silent on the matter. All the more reason why AWB is exactly the wrong instrument to enforce one idiosyncratic interpretation. --RexxS (talk) 02:46, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

rev 7887 Don't add non-breaking spaces for unabbreviated units. Rjwilmsi 19:42, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks. --RexxS (talk) 23:13, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Removing templates

How to remove irrelvant templates from various pages. Could somebody throw some light on it. —Commander _{(Ping me)} 10:01, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Could you please specify, perhaps with some example? Debresser (talk) 13:48, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I assume you know the name of the template. If so under advanced settings find {{Template name(.*?)}} , leave replace blank and switch Regular Expression on. --Traveler100 (talk) 18:33, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Bot requests

Moved from Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Tasks

Isn't this page redundant when bot requests exists? — Ganeshk (talk) 23:58, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion, requests for edits that require human review would be better placed here. GoingBatty (talk) 01:26, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:23, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

OBJECTION TO ONE USE OF AWB

AWB Proxy

Does bot mode present challenges to BAG definition of 'automatic supervised'?

Trivial changes

Could I use AWB for removing "It should be noted" from articles

Is AWB what I need to use?

Banned or inactive users with access to AWB

Version not enabled issue

Articles without talk pages

Advanced settings changes now minor replacement

Controlling the interval between two bot edits

Removal of hidden vandalism

Problem with "replace with" happening twice

Possible problem with working with lists of articles

Older versions download

Localization

Changes to AWB?

Removing bolding within a section

Copy/paste weird behavior in svn version

Pagename find and replace

What's the regex literal for double quote mark?

Identify stubs?

Watchlist

Quirk in %%pagename%% and %%basepagename%% with parentheses?

Possible bug or Feature request

Latest enwiki dump damaged?

Wikimania

DEFAULTSORT

How do I....

Possible problem in Login/Profiles

Mc/Mac sort keys

How do I use AWB to disambiguate DAB links?

Break

Mass deletion

Why is AWB being used to take out spaces in edit mode for section breaks?

DEFAULTSORT:Title Case

Private space

How to teach AWB a lesson :)

Using AWB with LDAP domain login

Wait

Possible violation of use of AWB

False button?

Linking program

Making variables to move pieces of text

Tagging orphan articles

AutoWikiBrowser to AutoWikiEditor - New name?

Reference cleanup

Suppress Error Dialogue

Open IME

Batch Find and replace

How to edit all but the first instance of a string in a page?

Error 407: Proxy Authentication Required

Unable to connect to the server

A question about the preview window

Here's a way to move multiple F&R rules from one AWB settings file to another

More problems with the Wikify tag

Page removal from list failed

Wikify tag

Threaded Discussion

Do we really need the Warning banner

Cleanup needed in user list

Bots in the approved user section

Request for removal from approved list

Minor error in delete tags

Ignoring content in <nowikify> and <pre> tags

AWB proxy problem

Read only option

duplicate of a entry

Pages that have an external link

How can I detect first instance of an item?

Capitalization on sorts

AWB proxy problem

API queries to AWB, or the output of such for "make list"

Preview not working properly

white space removal

white space removal

Removing field from infoboxes

Regarding orphans

Replace

Preview not working properly