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.
I didn't find this kind of date among the unit tests, so it isn't a bug. AWB fixes, when there is “of” between month and year, but not when it's between day and month. (Not removing “th” could be probably considered a bug, because AWB usually does that.) Svick (talk) 19:58, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
This has been talked about in the past but the last I remember was that it was decided it was too difficult to do all of it as a standard edit in AWB. There is logic to do some of the #th stuff and the of Month X though. I havent edited in a few months so that may have changed. I can give you some regex code to do some of this if it will help but I am not the best at it so on of the AWB developers would need to look it over.--Kumioko (talk) 01:05, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
I can't remember the detail but I was concerned that changing text like "the 15th of September 2009" to "the 15 September 2009" would not make for elegant sentences. Perhaps we can review this to find situations where AWB can make the change. Rjwilmsi10:03, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
rev 6012 Added, except I'm not going to change when the date is preceded by "the" (e.g. "the 15th of May...") as it will depend on the sentence whether the correct change would be to remove the "the" as well. Rjwilmsi22:08, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
Don't alert "No category found" for Talk pages
Latest comment: 14 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
After a message if you return to AWB it looks like it is still running - says ready to save. It should say "stopped" maybe have an even clearer reminde that it is in an unusual state. RichFarmbrough, 16:14 18 May 2009 (UTC).
AWB has to check for any possible redirect of unreferenced. The easy way is just to add BLP on the beginning of the string. I would prefer the strong to change to BLP unsourced. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:51, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
The other way round (removing BLP from deads) needs two conditions: existence of death category + non existence of living people (to exclude cases of multiple people). I don't imply we should do both directions. The main task is to add BLP warnings. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Enable 1st part of Conversions for all languages
Latest comment: 14 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Atm use of proper codes is only enables for en.wiki. Enable it for all codes. Conversion has to split in 2 parts, where the {{nofootnotes}} --> {{morefootnotes}} and {{unreferenced}} --> {{BLP unsourced}} should remain en-only. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:48, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
6144
Remove break from the end of Image/File description (CHECKWIKI error 065)
Latest comment: 14 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I would like to get results from a tool on the Toolserver into AWB. Ideally I could select this listmaker plug-in, hit the configure button to setup the regexes and counters. Then hit the "Make" button to fetch all the pages. — Dispenser05:44, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
Im thinking this would be a worthwhile thing for me to get done over the Easter.. Be able to parse XML lists/HTML pages.. —Reedy17:50, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
Currently I paste these into a text file and then use "Text file" to import them. A lazy solution would be if one could read directly the toolserver page. Anyways, it already works well in the present way. -- User:Docu
I've posted a patch that will add an option to work with CheckWiki URLs in a new item at the bottom of this page. Should be OK. - Jarry1250(t, c)13:04, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
rev 4474 adds a basic implementation.. About all it gives is between the body tags splitting on the newlines. Needs to be expanded further to accept regexes for matching etc. —Reedy14:40, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
After more requests for something that can do this functionality.... rev 6226 Advanced Regex Html Scraper. Provide a regex, the options you want, and the group you want to return... —Reedy14:05, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
{{intro missing}} isn't dated
Latest comment: 14 years ago14 comments4 people in discussion
Hmm, I think that all cleanup templates that support date parameter and have equivalent parameter in {{Article issues}} should be done. I listed such templates that AWB doesn't date at [1], section “date parameter”. (It's quite a long list.) {{autobiography}} uses unnamed parameter for dating, three other templates are dated in articleissues, but don't support date parameter. These should be dealt with too, but it doesn't concern AWB (yet). Svick (talk) 16:28, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
This a feature request and a not bug. So moved there. I am more on the "won't add" side. Probably is much better to just ask SmackBot to update its list. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:25, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
This behavior breaks merging templates into {{article issues}}: If AWB adds undated template such as {{biased}} into {{article issues}}, it creates something like {{article issues|biased|…}}, that doesn't work, because {{article issues}} doesn't accept unnamed parameters. This could be alternatively fixed by using something like biased=y. (I have no idea how often this really happens.) Svick (talk) 14:45, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
If they are added to article issues they should better be added with a date. I really think they should be very few cases. Is there any tag with high occurrence that we are forgetting? -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:52, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Today's status: Editor has to check every single box in order to Skip if no GF's are made.
Desired Add a button to select all/deselect all GF skip options. If editor wants to skip for all reasons but one can select all and then deselect the specific one. -- Magioladitis (talk) 02:07, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
AWB slows to a crawl when the "Skipped" (and to a lesser extent, "Saved") log(s) gets very large. An option to bypass it, or auto-clear it every XX minutes would be nice. Alternatively, some code optimization? –xenotalk14:42, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Added in revision
I suspect, with skipped being more of a problem than saved, it'll be a memory issue, with the stuff thats saved... —Reedy15:36, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
Per WP:TPL, add a level 2 header to the first comment (i.e. after the banners) if it's missing one. Many editors forget to add it. The title I am using is "untitled". -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:16, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
Added in revision
6200
The structure is as follows: templates, categories, comments. This means after {{foo}} and [[foo]] it should follow a == foo ==. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:23, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
Should be doable e.g. look for regex (?m)$\s*[:\*\w'] as beginning of first comment, add header before it if text before beginning of first comment doesn't have ==. I will need some examples/old diffs though. Rjwilmsi12:47, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Fix ref name- to ref name=. User:rjwilmsi has also been doing a lot of good edits cleaning up citation parameters and some of those, I think could/should be included as well.--Kumioko (talk) 17:31, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
The Edit box right click options Convert list to * List or # List currently add bullets to every line including blank lines between list items. It's very common for users unfamiliar with wiki markup to make lists using blank lines to separate the items, so it would be useful for AWB to correctly handle this situation. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM05:26, 20 March 2010 (UTC))
Added in revision
6343
Blank lines are automatically suppressed, so you must mean lines with only whitespace (i.e. effectively blank). rev 6337 add bullet to start of each line, but not lines with just whitespace. Rjwilmsi13:41, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
It's still not working properly in SVN 6342. For example, on Robert Petkoff, there are several lists in need of bullets, such as in the "Recordings", "Awards", and "References" sections. Those lists appear to consist of items separated only by blank lines (unless there are some invisible control characters I'm unaware of). Highlight any of those lists, right click, and select Convert list to * List. Every line gets an asterisk, including the blank lines. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM07:43, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
AWB sometimes adds a human name-type default sort to pages for music groups. An example is Alkaline Trio -- it added "{{DEFAULTSORT:Trio, Alkaline}}". Every time I've seen this, the article used the template "Infobox Musical artist", with the parameter "Background = group_or_band". When that template is used, could AWB look at the value of the background parameter and recognize that the article is not about a person if the value is "group_or_band"? --Auntof6 (talk) 10:03, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Indeed. Many of the bands have a correct listas. Don't know what the status of the listas <=> DEFAUTLSORT biot sis, but I rather think they are not running. RichFarmbrough, 21:17, 16 April 2010 (UTC).
AWB date tagging
Latest comment: 14 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
When AWB change date to year for the Capture of Guam article it resulted in the year being there twice with the same information. I am recommending the logic be adjusted so that if the date logic results in duplicate info then it eliminates one. --Kumioko (talk) 03:04, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
The auto tag function currently adds templates that does not exist in the Swedish Wikipedia version, eg. {{orphan}} is called "föräldralös" and wikify "ickewiki". My request is to include a funtion that uses swedish templates on the swedish wikipedia and vice versa. tetraedycal, tetraedycal15:46, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
Creating redirects does work, unfortunately, diffrent parameters are used. Therefore, addition of {{orphan|date={{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}}} has to be changed to {{Föräldralös|datum={{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}-{{subst:CURRENTMONTH}}}}. {{Uncategorized|date={{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}}} to {{okategoriserad}} (it isn't dated because there is no backlog), {{Wikify|date={{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}}} to {{subst:wiki}}(template that adds ickewiki with date), and deactivate {{deadend}}, because there is no such template in use on svwiki. thanks, tetraedycal, tetraedycal19:03, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
rev 6391 Introduce support for language-specific template date tagging in Tagger i.e. where setting date={{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}} on en-wiki set datum={{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}-{{subst:CURRENTMONTH}} on sv-wiki. Localiastion added for sv-wiki. Rjwilmsi13:25, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
The current way the tagger works doesn't allow us to specify by language code whether to add the date parameter to an undated tag or not. I would assume that if sv-wiki has no need for {{uncat}} to be dated then the sv-wiki template can be set to ignore any date/datum parameter. Rjwilmsi13:47, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
We've got a bot that adds dates to templates without dates, and the workload isn't very heavy, so you don't have to bother. Thanks alot by the way :) tetraedycal, tetraedycal19:33, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
The fixing up of the date format is also do-able. {{Föräldralös|datum={{#time: Y-m|{{{date|{{{datum|}}}}}}}}}} should do the job. RichFarmbrough, 16:48, 18 April 2010 (UTC).
Database scanner
Latest comment: 14 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
Would like a selection check box for "has references AWB will reorder". I did hack the code for this, but not the interface. RichFarmbrough, 20:58, 16 April 2010 (UTC).
Per WP:DAB: "References should not appear on disambiguation pages. Dab pages are not articles; instead, incorporate the references into the target articles." Add a warning for this case. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:56, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Latest comment: 14 years ago8 comments4 people in discussion
Resolved
Would like a skip option for blank pages. (Seems that the API may return blank on some semi-protected pages - still digging. Would defend against this.) RichFarmbrough, 16:19, 18 April 2010 (UTC).
Yes... possibly, if so a newish one. But we have had "odd" instances of blank pages being written in the past, probably less than one in 100,000, which I put down to the wiki. This looks like a cool belt and braces option against a blank page arriving at AWB for any reason, network, DotNet, Mediawiki, even page blanking. RichFarmbrough, 16:54, 18 April 2010 (UTC).
Generate correct human name sort key for titles with suffixes not preceded by a comma. I do lots of DEFAULTSORT and listas work, and I encounter this all the time. Example: for Steven A. Hickham Jr., AWB currently creates a sort key of "Jr., Steven A. Hickham". (To confirm this, you may right click in the edit box and select Insert tag/Human name DEFAULTSORT.) It should, of course, be "Hickham, Steven A., Jr." It already correctly handles instances where the comma is present (such as Ken Griffey, Jr. → Griffey, Ken, Jr.).
The most common ones are Jr. and Sr. but I've also come across Jnr. and Snr. as well as all of those without the period. There are many more possibilities, a few of which may be seen at Suffix (name), but I would be satisfied if it just took care of "Jr." and "Sr." MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM07:50, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
It doesnt move cleanup tags to the top.. But i suppose, that can be used for sections.. Are there any other tags that really should be moved to the top..? ie {{uncategorized}}. Seems like this will have to be a new "general fix". Does AWB move any tags to the top atm... I cant seem to think/find any. Just puts them at the top when it adds them... —ReedyBoy23:28, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, I am using {{Articleissues}} to navigate through the different tags.
{{Wikify}} and all the others can be used for sections as well. So: no move.
I don't know if this complicates things but all these tags should go under prod, prod2, Afw, Rfd warnings. I don't know if this necessary.
Atm I don't think that AWB does it. I may have seen "uncategorized" moving to the correct position but maybe this was because interwiki and stub tags moved to the correct position. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:55, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
After looking at the available documentation and list of available templates, I have come to conclusion that there are a number of templates that can be used both for articles and for sections, therefore it will not be straightforward to introduce logic that can identify which templates should be moved. If there are still users in favour of adding this functionality then I need much more assistance in what templates can and cannot be moved. Rjwilmsi19:42, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
As I wrote above: orphan, deadend, notability are never applied in a section. Cleanup for sections is called {{cleanup-section}} but some editors may still use the cleanup (I can make a small research). Anyway, at least the three first can be moved at the top under the dablinks (for, seelaso, otheruses, etc.). --- Magioladitis (talk) 19:54, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for implementing that, but I'd like to suggest an additional refinement if it's not too much trouble. If the Orphan tag is already with one or more other maintenance tags which as a group are already at the top, then the Orphan tag should not be moved. Currently (SVN 5208) it always moves the Orphan tag above other maintenance tags, a completely unnecessary move which seems to imply the tag has some extra special significance. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM00:15, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
It's been over 8 months since I left the above note. In all that time, I don't recall encountering a single Orphan tag which was not already either alone at the top of the page, or in a cluster of maintenance tags which as a group were at the top. But it is frequently not the topmost tag within a grouping, so AWB will perform the completely frivolous action of moving it to the top, above other tags. (For an example, do General fixes on Charles M. McKim.) As far as I know, there's absolutely no reason to do this. If it's too difficult to implement my suggestion, I would prefer that Orphan tag moving be disabled entirely. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM22:14, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
'Maintenance tags' is not a list AWB is going to be able to hold and keep up to date, but we can restrict the orphan tag moving to not apply if there are only other templates above it? Rjwilmsi22:41, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
This was the spirit of my original request. We have to be carefull to move it above infoboxes. the correct order is: HATNOTES, maintance tags, infoboxes, text. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:04, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
When using the make-list function for a CheckWiki error, in addition to the articles there are the entries "<pre>" and "</pre>" that need to be removed from the list. Could AWB remove these? --Auntof6 (talk) 06:58, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
I already updated the regexes to reflect your latest changes in dablinks names (rev 6432). I don't like the idea of sending otheruses4 to an RfD right now because it is trancluded in many pages and that would mean a lot to RfD notices in pages. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:13, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
It's already there I thought, and the notice doesn't need to be transcludable. Maybe this can just "run its course" and get tidied up when there's comparatively few left. Least of our worries... RichFarmbrough, 16:19, 18 April 2010 (UTC).
Does that suffice? There is also "WhatLinksHereAndToRedirectsAllNSListProvider". Which has display text of "What links here (all NS) (and to redirects)".. —Reedy16:43, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
The Special makelist should won't work because I want to "Add selected to list from" which doesn't allow Special. The second suggestion won't because there are way too many links other than redirects. (Was trying to compile a list of all redirects to wikiproject banners). –xenotalk16:48, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
AWB currently removes apostrophes from decades (for example, it changes "1980's" to "1980s"). Can it be extended to make the same change when the "curly" apostrophe is used (for example, change "1980’s" to "1980s")? --Auntof6 (talk) 00:55, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
if you just want to use this list for comparing instead of editing maybe there were other ways to do it instead of opening a can of worms and killing some servers
if you need edits from a certain period maybe we should implement User contributions (period) and ask for Start date...End Date.
With the "No limits" element, it'd have to be in the NoLimits plugin. But i can make it user defined. Would this suffice? :) —Reedy16:14, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
We could restrict AWB to only merge references where the named references feature is already in use in the article, but that's not to say we should implement that – the featured articles virtually all use this feature. Rjwilmsi09:25, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
Exactly. I suspect that this is sometimes a quite valid correction to make, even automatically. But sometimes it is not. Therefore make it optable – by the editor of the article. I think opt-out (i.e., default is to do the correction) is satisfactory. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:10, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
To be clear, this correction is not supported by the applicable guidelines - both formats (using duplicates and using the named references feature) are equally acceptable. In general, the guidelines recommend against switching from one to the other: WP:CITE, "Any of these styles is acceptable on Wikipedia so long as each article is internally consistent. You should follow the style already established in an article, if it has one; where there is disagreement, the style used by the first editor to use one should be respected." Christopher Parham(talk)02:45, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
rev 5730 Change AWB genfixes not to implement named references for an article if there are currently no named references in the article. This should appease editors who believe this constitutes a change of reference style, hence contravening WP:CITE rules. Rjwilmsi16:08, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
It seems to me there may be a misunderstanding of the problem. This is NOT about switching reference styles. It is about AWB "fixing" duplicate references (footnotes) by replacing subsequent references with a link to the first reference, all using the same footnote number in the text and the a b c backlinks in the actual footnote. Though I wonder: is this really a matter of AWB trying to enforce consistency in having either no "duplicate" references, or no "named" (linked) references, as if these were different styles? That would strange. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 04:04, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
This should be optional for other projects. In pt.wiki we prefer to use named references whenever there is a duplicate, even if there isnt any named references in the article. Rjclaudio (talk) 21:25, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm hoping this merging of "duplicate" references can be optional at the level of articles. Whether you like it, or not, the point desired is that it's not automatically forced. On the otherhand, I find that I'm now making each reference unique, usually by adding specific page numbers. So perhaps this is really a good "feature"? - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:17, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Yes, the "don't add named references if there are currently no named references" restriction is checked for at article level. The check is only made on en-wiki. Rjwilmsi19:23, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Which is somewhat inelegant, but seems good enough. A more elegant approach would reconsider the use of named references, but that would be a different discussion. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:01, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
Merge DABlinks
Latest comment: 14 years ago14 comments2 people in discussion
{{about|foo|a}}{{for|b|c}} → {{about|foo|a||b|c}} (Note the double pipe) Donerev 6517
{{redirect|foo|a|b}}{{redirect|bar|c|d}} → {{redirect2|foo|bar|a|b|c|d}} (I 've seen only 1 example so far. Let's put it on hold until I have more feedback)
{{for|a|b|}}{{for|c|d|e}} → {{about||a|b|c|d|and|e}} (Note that the 2nd for has 3 parameters) Donerev 6526I've taken it that your about has an incorrect extra pipe at the start.Rjwilmsi 12:20, 11 May 2010 (UTC) True. Fixed it and striked out your comment to avoid confusions. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:30, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
{{Distinguish|a}}{{Distinguish|b}} → {{Distinguish|a|b}} (independent from number of parameters) Donerev 6571
I don't know why there is a difference. If we don't want to touh the code of {{about}} then {{for|a|category:foo}}{{for|b|c}} must to go to {{about||a|:category:foo|b|c}}. We can always change the code of about to work exactly like the for and then make a bot run to fix arguments in about. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:46, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
At the moment the option "Skip if -> only minor replacement made" skips the page when only a minor replacement was made, but not if no replacement was made. I think it should skip if "no or only a minor replacement was made". It is not possible to check the box of "Skip if -> no replacement" at the same time. Schlurcher (talk) 07:11, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Just out of curiosity, would this be only for same-level headings (as shown in this example)? Would it work for same-level other than level 2? --Auntof6 (talk) 12:04, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Yes, it should be only between same-level headings. Sometimes a sections has subsections and we don't want a tag between the section and its first subsection.
General fixes mode will change <REF> to <ref>, how about it changes the case of ref NAME to lowercase name also. Regards, SunCreator(talk)06:04, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
It adds {{Reflist}} after the heading so that the article has this:
==References==
{{Reflist}}
<references>
Could it instead either replace the <references> with {{reflist}} or add the closing slash to it, so that the article doesn't have both? You might want to be sure there isn't already a <references /> farther down in the article (if that even makes sense). --Auntof6 (talk) 04:36, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
Could AWB detect the use of "fl." or "fl" in parenthetical birth/death info only and replace it with [[floruit|fl.]] (appears as "fl.")? Thanks, -- Black Falcon(talk)17:42, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
I noticed this got linked on a dab page, which I don't think it should. Can we exclude dab pages? MOS says "At the start of an article on an individual", and dab pages don't fit that. What do you think? --Auntof6 (talk) 17:05, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
Function identical to the one for DEFAULTSORT. This time for talk pages: If a banner has listas with special character replace it. This FR could be part of KingbotK plugin and limited to WPBiography. -- Magioladitis (talk) 03:21, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
description: if whatlinkshere=0 and there is template:rq in the article, do not add template:orphan (template:изолированная статья), but add parameter |linkless in rq. Thanks! Lvova Anastasiya (talk) 22:45, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Additionally if the See also section is out of order (like after references or External links) it should be moved to the proper location. --Kumioko (talk) 23:36, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
It does it sometimes, but I still refquently find see also sections out of place that AWB does not address. I am not 100% sure how the AWB logic is designed but the next time I find one I will post it here as an example. Here is an example of one that didn't work. 94th Flying Training Squadron. When I did the edit it left it were it was at the bottom below the references. --Kumioko (talk) 16:37, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
In your example the see also section cannot be moved as AWB can't tell which of the templates in that section belong to the section or the end of the article. I have explained this more than once. Rjwilmsi17:11, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
Would it be possible to add that as an alert then if the see also section appears after the Notes, References or External links sections? --Kumioko (talk) 23:06, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
Expand portal cleanup logic in AWB. 1) When editing the 14th Weather Squadron article I noticed that there were 2 of the same portal on theh article but AWB did not do anything with it. I recommend 2 things for this. The first thing is if there are 2 identical portals AWB should eliminate 1. If the portals are not the same then AWB should move them to the see also section. 2) With new improvements that have been made to the logic of the portal template I recommend adding logic to AWB that will add multiple individual portal templates to the portal box template. This should include logic to allow for portal and portalpar. 3) The last recommendation is if there is an image linked in the portal then the image is removed. With the new changes to the portal and portal box template the images are already associated with the respective templates so there is no need to link the image again in the portal on the individual articles. --Kumioko (talk) 14:49, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
6652
box Here is a link to some hacky AWB settings. AWB GF's ahould bring the portals to the See also section (if there is one), the code should combine them into one portal box, and then delete duplicate entries from the box. Shortly (!) I hope that portal will do the job of portal box too. RichFarmbrough, 20:23, 3 June 2010 (UTC).
bring the portals to the See also section Done (exists)
Great, thanks, just as a note the logic to move the portals to the see also section doesn't seem to work in all occasions. --Kumioko (talk) 22:06, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
Add an option to attach rev next to "using AWB". Something like "using AWB (6245)" would do. This is usefull for bots and fixing bugs. This options could go to the preferences window under the "supress using AWB" checkbox. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:27, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
6682
Remove <pre> and </pre> from list when making list from a CheckWiki error, redux
Latest comment: 14 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
I'm not sure what you mean. When the list is built, it consists of one line for each article it found, plus a line at the top consisting of "<pre>" and a line at the bottom consisting of "</pre>". If those are the "whole lines" you mean, then yes, it should remove the whole line. Right now it doesn't appear to be removing any part of it. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:17, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
Just wondering but why not go ahead and add the logic to move it to the see also section. If we were willing to do it for the External links it only makes sense to allow it to go to the location the Layout stipulates IMHO. --Kumioko (talk) 02:57, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
I often selectively copy entries from large categories such as Category:Living people to paste into my AWB list. This works fine when I copy pages which are all a portion of the same column. But if I copy all of the entries in a column, or part or all of more than one column, all of the pasted pages end up in AWB prefixed with "* ". This does not appear to happen with Internet Explorer, but I always use Firefox. (Things like Twinkle don't work in Explorer.) When Firefox copies portions of a column, each entry is preceded with "# ", which AWB correctly handles. For full columns or parts of more than one column, the entries are prefixed with " * ", and AWB discards the leading spaces but keeps the asterisk. Implementing a fix shouldn't cause any confusion with valid pages which begin with an asterisk, because they can't start with a space. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM21:15, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
Thanks! A little thing like this will be a big convenience for me. Your speedy response on this and other matters is very much appreciated. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM00:16, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
Move punctuation before refs
Latest comment: 14 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion
While I personally agree with this it would contravene WP:REFPUNC to do it blindly. We might do it only if the majority of references in the article used 'punctuation before refs'. Rjwilmsi07:09, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
I think we had it, but it was pulled because it changed all articles, even if articles used the other convention across the board. If we bring it back it should only do it if the majority of references in the article used 'punctuation before refs'. Rjwilmsi18:33, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
When I type my password in the Quick login, which I use at my secondary computer, when I hit enter it doesn't click the login button. Instead I have to use my mouse to click the button. I know this seems a little petty, but is definitely a standard feature for login windows on the web and on most passworded programs. It would be a pretty useful, and I would think simple, interface adjustment. Sadads (talk) 11:39, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
[...] I've noticed that many references in WP articles have duplicated periods, one before the ref tag and then a superfluous one after it (Macropsia#Epilepsy (note 20) and Macropsia#Viruses (note 24) are a couple of examples I've left uncorrected so you can see what I mean). Is deleting the extra period a task that might be added to SmackBot's chore list?
Similarly, in a stupefyingly large number of cases, ref tags are placed before punctuation rather than after it, where MOS:PAIC recommends they be placed. Superfluous spaces before punctuation marks are another abundant eyesore. Are these potential SmackBot-y tasks? Perhaps the consumption of resources outweighs the benefits of large numbers of trivial changes, but as a reader I find that poor copyediting damages my impression of an article's credibility, whereas even seemingly trivial improvements, if they contribute to an article's professional appearance, can considerably enhance it. Cheers. -- Rrburke (talk) 15:51, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
The first case could be usefully added to general fixes for WP:AWB (which is the program behind SmackBot almost all the time), the second has, I think been turned down, for the case where one wants to ref a phrase or word, rather than the whole sentence. RichFarmbrough, 20:16, 3 June 2010 (UTC).
Per WP:LAYOUT "Links to Wikimedia sister projects should appear in this section. Put the {{sisterlinks}} or similar interwiki template at the beginning of the “external links” section, so that it floats at the upper right of this section."
Check for a possible list in Category:Interwiki link templates. I am mainly interested in wictionary which is usually misplaced. Check my example. —Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])
Added in revision
6610
rev 6610 Initial implementation. Over to you to update WikiRegexes.SisterLinks to add the others you want moved. Rjwilmsi
Remove Template: from talk pages if it's located before the first section
Latest comment: 14 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Till now we remove the refix only in mainspace to avoid potential errors in talk pages. I suggest an expansion to the leading section of talk pages. (Example) -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:35, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
6934
Fix "See also" the same way we do with "Main"
Latest comment: 14 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Links starting with en: are quite often used among interwiki links (sometimes commented-out), so the right thing to do in that case would be to remove it completely. Svick (talk) 20:51, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Commented out en-wiki self interwikis are already removed by MetaDataSorter. rev 6929 Remove self interwikis in the interwikis list. rev 6930 Reformat self interwikis to be standard links. Only applies to self interwikis before other interwikis (i.e. those in body of article). Rjwilmsi09:23, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
Hatnotes above tags
Latest comment: 14 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion
Related earlier request is over dablinks. Probably we just need to use a list of all hatnotes instead of only dablinks, so need somebody to provide a list of all templates defined as hatnotes (including any of those templates' redirects). CSV or plain text list with one template per line would be ideal (no regex in it). Then we can use NestedTemplateRegex to generate the hatnotes regex based on a CSV of template names. Rjwilmsi22:51, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
I actually oppose the premise -- I'm of the opinion that hats should be below tags. There doesn't seem to be any objective reason for either way, so it would seem like a matter of preference, and not something that should be applied wither way across the board via scripts. Equazcion(talk) 02:01, 16 Apr 2010 (UTC)
Summary: accessibility issue. Screen readers should inform people that it might be the wrong article before listing its limitations. RichFarmbrough, 21:15, 16 April 2010 (UTC).
When AWB adds templates like {{Reflist}} and {{Multiple issues}}, it does not use a capital letter at the start. Some bots are programmed to correct this but it would be much easier if AWB did it. McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 11:20, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Fixing excess white space incorrectly removes whitespace around endashes e.g. "19 March 1960 – 20 March 1961" changes to "19 March 1960–20 March 1961". endashes between two pieces of text containing spaces are always meant to have spaces around the endash. Only emdashes are always meant to be unspaced. McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 13:02, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
When adding or moving a stub template, AWB automatically puts two blank lines between the template and the categories above it. Remove excess whitespace then removes one of these lines. It seems pointless to have two blank lines between, why not just make it one? McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 01:33, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
rev 6962 In RemoveWhiteSpace don't do three newline fix when article has stub tag, to keep requisiste number of newlines before stub tag. Rjwilmsi10:56, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
Convert hyphens between months to endashes
Latest comment: 14 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
A blank line should be inserted above a section heading if it does not already have one. It needs to work for section headings with any number of = signs. McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 05:07, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Well, I do, and we have to allow for any exceptions anyway, even if they are unlikely to ever be important. Thanks, I wish I knew how to change these things myself. McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 10:33, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
rev 6992 After discussion we're going to take a slightly different approach an ensure the sorted text is trimmed on the category namespace rather than disabling the sorting altogether, which fixes the issue reported here. Rjwilmsi13:39, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Populate person data
Latest comment: 14 years ago8 comments3 people in discussion
I would like to suggest that logic be added to AWB to populate the persondata metadata template. I am not necessarily asking that the template be added by AWB, although that would be nice as well but if the data in the persondata template is missing and it is contained elswhere such as the infobox it could be added. This precedent has already been set by generating categories and I think this would work in a similar manner. --Kumioko (talk) 18:02, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
I am not opposed to doing it as a plugin but I don't see how populating the persondata would slow down the program any more than adding a category does currently. --Kumioko (talk) 17:32, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
How do you want it to be added? To all persons automatically? Blank? with name, yob, yod? At the moment, right click -> "Insert meta data template" does part of the job. If we need to add info in the meta-data we will need more job. --Magioladitis (talk) 17:40, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
I believe that adding it to all persons would be best and populated with DOB, Birth place, DOD, and Death place if possible. I understand that determining the persons notibility would be extremely difficult or impossible so I would recommend if its missing just adding a message like we do for dead links or unbalanced brackets. If this is too hard I understand though and I will settle for whatever functionality can be added regarding persondata. Even a small improvement would be better than manually doing them all. --Kumioko (talk) 17:54, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
Redirected templates make it trickier (ie. you have to follow the redirects and check the target page's categories), but I don't think it's impossible by any means. And if that's too complicated, one could just generate a list like xeno suggests above. Jafeluv (talk) 12:02, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
That was the original proposal, if I understand correctly. You're probably right that adding the feature to AWB might not be worth it if the speed cost is significant, considering the little added benefit. Jafeluv (talk) 13:38, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
Yea, my idea was that having this built in to AWB would benefit all users of Kingbotk. It could be put onto that module itself; I simply thought we were moving stuff like this into GFs. –xenotalk15:07, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
We do but it's better to have stuff that require some regex and not calling a huge list. I am working in the standarisation of wikiproject banner names lately. Maybe things get easier in the short future. -- Magioladitis 20:02, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
I'd say it's a pretty safe bet that anyone running AWB on article talk pages is probably doing WikiProject tagging. If it does slow things down, it should be toggleable. Perhaps as a middle ground we could restrict it to banners of the form WikiProject.*? or WP.*?, and include some of the more popular non-standard ones like MILHIST, and the like. Anything inbetween is likely a banner as well. –xenotalk20:02, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
← Even better, just look for any template with a \|[ ]*class[ ]*=[ ]* inside of it. I've got a find/replace regex that seems to be working well. If there's anything in between the WikiProject Banners that gets caught in the Shell, it still displays and a human editor will know it needs to be moved out. Projects without standard names and without at least an empty class rating will also get left out if they are the first or last header. An acceptable concession to keep it simple, imo. –xenotalk01:45, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
All WikiProject banners, apart from only 3, are now in the form "WikiProject foo". This makes things much easier for this request. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:06, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
For this I'll need you to provide a list of all the valid parameters. The list will be case sensitive. If new parameters are added to the template somebody will have to remember to update AWB's list too. Rjwilmsi14:22, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
advert|autobiography|biased|blpdispute|citations missing|citation style|citecheck|cleanup|COI|coi|colloquial|confusing|context|contradict|copyedit|criticisms|crystal|deadend|disputed|essay|examplefarm|expert|external links|fancruft|fansite|fiction|globalize|grammar|histinfo|hoax|howto|inappropriate person|incomplete|lead missing|lead rewrite|lead too long|lead too short|in-universe|jargon|laundrylists|laundry|likeresume|long|newsrelease|notable|notability|onesource|OR|or|original research|orphan|out of date|peacock|plot|POV|NPOV|pov|npov|pov-check|primarysources|prose|proseline|quotefarm|recentism|refimprove|refimprove BLP|restructure|reorganisation|organize|review|rewrite|sections|self-published|spam|story|synthesis|inappropriate tone|tone|travelguide|trivia|unbalanced|unencyclopedic|unreferenced|unreferencedBLP|update|weasel|wikify
rev 7039 Added with this list of parameters. I've given Magio a list of results from the March 2010 db scan to see if the list needs any amendments. Rjwilmsi07:17, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Validate categories added via the "Add category" function
Latest comment: 14 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
When using the "add category" function (e.g. ctrl-T), could AWB check to see if the category specified actually exists? Of course, if the request above about displaying the categories is done and we can see whether the categories are red or blue links, that would tell us this as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])
In the login screen, after you type your password, it would be handy if you could press <Enter> to login - other software will have the Login button work when you press the <Enter> key. GoingBatty (talk) 01:48, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps we should add a wiki page in the same vein as user talk templates where users can list template redirects to bypass. It doesn't seem worth adding single ones individually. Rjwilmsi12:28, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
This is partially implemented. We have an option to bypass all redirects and we also bypass some of them automatically. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:32, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
Usability improvement to AWB updater
Latest comment: 14 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
If the user has the latest version, the AWB updater reponds with 'Nothing to update'. This is a negative phrase which at first I assumed was a failure to find the right file. It might give the user more confidence if it explicitly states the two versions (the user's version and the latest version), then provides a positive phrase such as: 'You have the latest version'. Also the label 'Press close to exit' is redundant and should probably be removed to declutter it.
I strongly support the former, and the latter, but the latter doesn't seem to have consensus to be done using automated tools (some articles purposefully use the first style, for some reason). I don't see anything wrong with the former. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 17:04, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
We already do the former (grab a snapshot). The latter is the MOS preference, but some articles go against it. I don't think AWB should be doing that one, at least for the moment. Rjwilmsi17:09, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
At least in simple cases, e.g. where there is a h2 external links section followed by ==References== <references/> AWB could invert the two. (sample page). -- User:Docu (April 18, 2009)
Added in revision
rev 4227 and rev 4228: implemented but to a limited extent: only operates when there is another section following the references section, as if references is last section, AWB can't readily tell if there are navigation footers etc. that the external links still need to be above, and just moving ==References== <references/> wouldn't work when additional citations were in the references section. Rjwilmsi21:16, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, I think it's a good start if the other section has the same level.
Less complex cases might be where there is nothing after ==References== <references/>, or only categories, interwikis, {{lifetime}}, etc. -- User:Docu
Would it be possible to set this so if there is a template of any kind before categories and after references it would make the change. If not there are a few others that I commonly see besides defaultsort. Especially the lifetime template and the Persondata termplate.--Kumioko (talk) 14:17, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
"Any kind" is likely to be too large, as ==References== can include templates. If there is a way to name the class "stub templates" and a few specific ones, e.g. {{coord}} or {{coord missing}}, {{persondata}}, this might work. For {{lifetime}}, one might just use subst .. -- User:Docu
I understand, and this is certainly a very good start, my only concern is that there are a lot of templates that are placed between the references and the categories including defaultsort, lifetime, persondata ones you have identified. Some examples are the navigation boxes that are used for politicians and compaign boxes that are frequently placed such as gettysburg. Please don't let my comment keep this from going through I just wanted to mention it as potential future additions.--Kumioko (talk) 17:33, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Is this one supposed to re-order? Probably as I recently worked on longer articles, I haven't seen any section re-ordering yet. This one works fine. -- User:Docu
It won't, because AWB's logic is limited to reordering when references is not the last section. Rjwilmsi21:42, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Previously, I could have just a space for the Summary and supply my entire portion of the edit summary from a module. Now it will only add the module's summary if the "main" Summary is something other than a space.
Also, it now adds a comma before the module's summary, which it didn't used to before. Users should be in full control of their own edit summaries, and can add their own comma if desired.
rev 6245(bugfix) Use custom module edit summary even if trimmed main edit summary is blank. Haven't changed comma use, Reedy to comment on that. Rjwilmsi17:20, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. In the second example (Arabic), I have no idea. I will ask a friend who might know Arabic and report back. Or maybe I'll try Wikipedia's reference desk. I suspect they can just be removed, but I know you need more to go on than my suspicion.
Some additional enhancements to the New persondata logic
Latest comment: 14 years ago9 comments3 people in discussion
First I want to take the time to say awesome job on the new logic for populating persondata. I know it wasn't a trivial thing to change and I know you spent a lot of time and quite a few change numbers to make sure it was right before you implemented it. That will chop a lot of time off of getting that populated on the articles.
A few recommendations for further enhancements to the new persondata logic.
single space Recommend we eliminate the comment with ten spaces between it and the word Persondata?
Not done Recommend we eliminate the space between the pipe and the Persondata parameters
Not done Recommend we eliminate the spaces between the Persondata parameters and the equals signs
exists Add logic to catch dates in infoboxes that are not built into templates. Some examples are: Born= 4 digit year, Born= Day month year, born=Month day year, same applies for died and lived parameters.
If an infobox is not present can we populate the birth and death dates of the Persondata template with the birth and death years of the Births/Deaths categories?
Done When the AWB user right clicks the mouse in the edit box and then selects Insert and Metadata template the template does not populate. Can the template be made to populate somehow using the logic that has now been added for populating persondata?
Not sure Can the short description parameter be derived (better to have something vague than nothing in my opinion) based on the Infobox and the nationality or country. For example if the member has a Military person infobox and the allegiance is United States then it could say something like United States military person. or United States politician if its a politician related infobox. (These are just examples) Some infoboxes have a known for parameter that could be used as well.
In cases were the infobox is not present can logic be added to look for Article title (September 24, 1969 – April 4, 2003) or (September 24, 1969-April 4, 2003) and populate the Persondata birth and death dates? Most bio articles are formatted in this way so it should be fairly consistent.
Not done The logic usually places dates in Month day, year order but occasionally it does it like this 1920-06-17 such as the case of William Levery[22]. Not sure why but I thought I would let you know.
Not sure I have seen a few cases were reparsing will break the persondata template. As soon as I find another one I will add it here.
Not done It appears that in some cases AWB will add the Persondata template even when its empty (except for the article name). I recommend that if the Persondata template is empty except for the article name then AWB does not place it. Here is an example of that [23].
Thanks again, I requested a comment about the usage (do we need the comment and extra spaces or not) Wikipedia talk:Persondata. 4 doesnt always work, when I catch another one Ill let you know an example. I see your point on 9 and 11. --Kumioko (talk) 19:38, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Could avoid adding trailing spaces after the = - this is something I have thought about before and decided that adding trailing spaces after blank parameters in block formatted templates is not generally a win - in fact I now remove them, along with other trailing white-space..
public const string PersonDataDefault = @"{{Persondata <!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]]. -->
| NAME =
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
| SHORT DESCRIPTION =
| DATE OF BIRTH =
| PLACE OF BIRTH =
| DATE OF DEATH =
| PLACE OF DEATH =
}}";
Here is what I thought it should look like. I just don't think adding a bunch of spaces in the template is necessary. And, although I don't think the comment is necessary either, the example shows it so I can live with it.
Persondata <!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]]. -->
|NAME =
|ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
|SHORT DESCRIPTION =
|DATE OF BIRTH =
|PLACE OF BIRTH =
|DATE OF DEATH =
|PLACE OF DEATH =
}}
Some group boxes exist without anything outside the group. In such circumstances, a group box consumes space, makes the interface noiser, and gives you an additional task of naming the group. These can usually be eliminated. Group boxes in a vertical stack can be replaced with vertical separator lines that use less space. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa511459.aspx. In the main AWB interface, the 'Make list' group box is an example that could be eliminated at no cost. Lightmouse (talk) 13:04, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
I have a WikiProject Banner tag that I'd like to apply to the talk pages of every essay on Wikipedia. It would be nice if I could make a list of every talk page of every page in Category:Wikipedia essays. Either by making the list and then having a button that refactors the list with the talk pages of the items currently in the list, or just a "Category talk page" option under the "Category" option. ɳoɍɑfʈ Talk!03:30, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
This feature already exists. Either right click on a list of pages or click on "List" in the menu. Then select "Convert to talk pages". MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM03:57, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
Skip if no tagging made
Latest comment: 14 years ago8 comments2 people in discussion
This should maybe be default behaviour, but certainly an option. Loading image pages sometimes occurs for reasons unknown, which shouldn't happen. Normally the edit form is loaded straight away, but sometimes the image description page begins to load beforehand. This is undesirable behaviour because it slows down the client. —Mike.lifeguard|@en.wb14:31, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry but I don't understand the problem here, would somebody please provide a clear example of the current problem and what the correct behaviour should be. Thanks Rjwilmsi19:09, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
No, but in order to add "accessdate" with a certain date it means that someone really accessed the link at that date. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:38, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
For 1 and 2 we'd have AWB looking up external websites. I'm not sure people would agree to that. For 3 it should be |work= if anything, but adding a blank parameter seems of little use. Rjwilmsi16:59, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
"Delink dates" description to display and number the types of changes made
Latest comment: 14 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion
AWB should add a count of any date changes that it made after the description "Delink dates". It should do this in a similar way to the results produced by the User:Full-date unlinking bot, e.g. the description should include a count of the format(s) delinked (e.g using the same summary codes to indicate BR, Euro- or US format.) This will avoid editors having to go back and check that each AWB edit was appropriate to European, American or British date formats for the specific article. Ephebi (talk) 13:08, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Added in revision
AWB has no core logic to delink dates, so we can't help with the edit summary of date delinking. Please contact the editors concerned directly. Rjwilmsi14:25, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
If AWB isn't intelligent enough to know what its doing when it unlinks dates, then it should stop & let Full-date unlinking bot do the work, which its much better at. Its annoying chasing after AWB errors. Ephebi (talk) 18:15, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
I would like to be able to write the file name to the file directly and then modify it with find and replace including regex. I would like a facility to use the file name on the page, in the find and replace, and in the regex. Snowman (talk) 21:11, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
This capability already exists, using AWB keywords. For example, for this page, Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Feature requests, the following keywords would have the values:
Twinkle is a separate application. AWB can delete a page with a single button press, but on en-wiki you have to be an admin to have access to the button. Rjwilmsi11:22, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
General search of active text i.e. unsaved edit-box text
Latest comment: 14 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I can search the text on any page using Internet Explorer including the edit box if I have pressed the edit button. If you are checking a long page and find a false positive on a typo but there are many good fixes besides, you want to search the false positive and fix it manually without losing your page. (typos can be made on purpose for instance "ie" is often used in IPA articles. Even better you could search out the false positive and stick a {{typo}} template on it without moving off the AWB. Another way of doing this would be undo option for each suggested change in the diff-style preview. Don't know how complicated that sounds but generally a search-text within AWB raw edit box and a refusal button for each suggested change, on a paragraph basis perhaps, in the diff-preview without skipping the whole page (could be a "keep old version" button on the original paragraph?). Probably a 2.0 feature or re-request but just suggest it, thanks.
Added in revision
AWB has a search box on the Find tab, and in the diff window you can double click a line to undo changes on that line. Rjwilmsi07:49, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
A function for remove comments (also empty) from a string, e.g. from the string "word#1 <!-- xyz --> word#2 word#3 <!-- -->" obtain "word#1 word#2 word#3".--B3t (talk) 12:05, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
The ability to import and export the find and replace rules would be very helpful for defining rules of replacement.--Altt311 (talk) 16:57, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
As I have been editing recently I have noticed a number of articles that have empty sections and I wanted to propose that logic be added to AWB to delete or at least hide/comment out these empty sections. I have fixed a lot of them manually (Most recently in articles regarding United States Air Force units). --Kumioko (talk) 18:56, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, heres an example of one. [24] In this edit I removed a stray external links section at the bottom of the article. --Kumioko (talk) 19:42, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
Ok, I thought about this on my hour long drive home and I might have a couple suggestions but I don't know how hard they would be to program so Ill just throw them out for considerations.
If a section is followed immediately by a defaultsort or Categories it could be either deleted or commented out.
If a section (regardless of the level) is followed by the same level section and its either on the very next line or there is nothing between the 2 but blank spaces, then it could be deleted or commented out.
Since I admit that there could be occasions were this might be valid, maybe an alert would be possible. --Kumioko (talk) 00:13, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Sometimes empty sections are placeholders. That's the reason we have {{Empty section}} which we recently added in Auto-tagger. Auto-tagger is much better than alert. See 1608 in Quebec for example. Articles named xxxx in YYYY follow a specific pattern and need to be expanded. Empty references section is usually by New articles' Wizard but in the general we shouldn't be blindly deleting empty sections. I don't think we are gonna implement this one. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:38, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Ok no problem thanks, I understand the reasoning but I have to admit I don't really agree with having empty sections in the articles. If we don't have the information yet then we shouldnt have the section. Its kinda like having a talk page for an article we don't have yet. I also think that I saw that somewhere in the MOS or something that said you should avoid having empty sections with no information in it. I can't find it at the moment though. --Kumioko (talk) 10:36, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
It;s true that we have to avoid empty sections but sometimes articles are under construction, etc. Moreover, blindly deletion may cause problems to redirects targeting to specific sections, etc. What I would do is first gather some information. For example, how many articles have empty sections, how many empty sections there are, etc. AWB should implement only stable stuff. There is always WP:CHECKWIKI. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:21, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Server OS Compatibility
Latest comment: 14 years ago8 comments3 people in discussion
I don't expect this to go anywhere, but... Any chance that future versions may include Windows Server OSes? (Of if anyone knows how to get AWB to work on a Server OS, short of using WinXp on VirtualBox...) I expect that an extremely small number of people (probably only me) edit from Server OSes, so this is not really critical or anything. Avicennasis @ 08:33, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
On the server, it throws up communication errors. I have put it in my routers DMZ, disabled all firewall/security software, and port-scanned it from another machine within my network and from an external website. All of this shows it should not be an issue. I have encountered similar problems with other programs, and usually this means that the program is not able to understand the network configurations on a Domain Controller. Works fine on my WinXP machine. Avicennasis @ 17:37, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
I've run it fine on Server 2k3 before now, and 2k8 for that matter. There shouldn't be any difference, bar maybe some more advanced network configs. What sort of communication errors? —Reedy21:47, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
Dialog box title:network access error
Content:Unable to connect to the remote server
Then, Dialog box title:Error connecting to wiki!
Content:An error occurred 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 "en.wikipedia.org/w/" (including path where index.php and api.php reside). Error description: Unable to connect to the remote server
Then, repeat exact same Dialog box title:Error connecting to wiki!
Then, repeat exact same Dialog box title:network access error
2k3 as a domain controller, no fancy network configs (ISA etc), just straight out via the router. 2k8 was just a file server. Are you using some form of a proxy? —Reedy17:12, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Nope. It may be something in my setup, then. I will install a Clean Server 2003 in VirtualBox and try AWB. If it works, I'll tweak my settings bit by bit until I find what is breaking it. I'll update here as I test. Avicennasis @ 00:47, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Re-created it on a virtual machine, turns out for some reason my DNS was losing forward lookup zone entries. It works fine on the OS platform. Avicennasis @ 05:32, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
Unicode Ndashes
Latest comment: 14 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Non-existent categories attached to an article should be deleted as well as "[[Category:]]".
Added in revision
Not really. Sometimes the name was typed incorrectly and we only need to fix one letter. Sometimes the red link is caused by vandalism. So deleting is not safe. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:10, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
It wasn't working for me because I was testing it on my user page. Why doesn't it work on user pages? Everything else seems to. From now on, I'll stick to the AWB Sandbox. McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 10:01, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, I haven't noticed that before. But it's a bit inconvenient to have to do that every time. Why can't it just be automatic like every other fix? McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 09:53, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
Remove space before line
Latest comment: 14 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion
I know but I don't think that would ever be used in an article. I don't think you would ever use AWB in Wikipedia namespace because it could also contain a lot of what not to do info that AWB would try to correct. McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 12:36, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
AWB's fix excess whitespace should not remove spaces before equals signs (=) in the various forms of {{infobox}}. The spaces that line up the equals signs are added for readability and it is very irritating when they are removed. McLerristarr/Mclay105:48, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
The whitespace is excess. As I've said before, the fix excess option is only run manually. It's designed to be run on a selection of text at user discretion, this is one of the reasons why. Rjwilmsi13:45, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
New lines in replace text
Latest comment: 14 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion
Allow for a new line character to be used in the replace field. Right now, the only method is to capture a "\n" to create a new line in the replacement text. For many cases, this is fine, but it would be great if we could simply use something like "$n" instead (or even "\n" itself and "\\n" to escape). The reason I'm asking for this is I have a regex to replace a single line of categories ([[Category:A]][[Category:B]][[Category:C.]]etc.) with each category separated by a new line ([[Category:A]]\n[[Category:B]]\n[[Category:C.]]\netc.) but it's difficult to always capture a new line to use (some pages don't even have one if all the contain is categories). Rocket000 (talk) 06:20, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Hey, it does work! I swear I just tried it earlier and "/n" returned "/n"... I don't know what I was doing. Thanks. I guess we can close this. Rocket000 (talk) 03:02, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
The default sort key in Tourism in Punjab, India isn't the same as the title: "in" is capitalised. Every word in a default sort key should be capitalised. If no modifications or capitalisations can be made to a title, then the default sort key should be removed if it is the same as the article title. McLerristarr / Mclay103:26, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
Hi. My two cents: The biggest problem with using AWB is that I cannot clearly identify what differences it has made to the text. If I have general fixes turned on, it slows me down enormously having to manually identify what it has done. - Richard Cavell (talk) 07:04, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
Me too. If the diff is very long I wave my pointer over the "edit summary" control in the bottom centre panel to see the tooltip preview of the edit summary, which will list any spelling corrections. If I still can't see where these changes are being made I turn the Genfixes off temporarily, process the page again, review the spelling corrections, turn the Genfixes back on, review the Genfixes, and only then "save". Messy. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:35, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
I did that with typo fixing too. So often it's "etc." and hard to spot. There is an Edit Summary tag now though, doesn't that help?
I don't find the "Edit Summary" tab useful, because AWB flips back to the "Edit box" tab whenever it thinks there's something important for me to see there. I don't think we're going to come up with anything precise enough here to be called a "feature request"... -- John of Reading (talk) 18:47, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
We are limited by the MediaWiki diff support. You can try my style.css by saving the page contents to style.css in the same directory as AutoWikiBrowser.exe, and reloading AWB, to see if that's more helpful. Rjwilmsi14:09, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
Dismiss button on "You have new messages"
Latest comment: 14 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Dismiss button "X" or something on "You have new messages"
Added in revision
Reason: I have to look at the message on another machine, where I am logged in as the bot. This means I can get a bunch of un-necessary windows open, especially if I forget that I haven't actually read it with my "bot" head on, or Femto has tidied it, or I tweaked it myself. RichFarmbrough, 14:53, 12 October 2010 (UTC).
I yesterday discovered a new trick. Login to wikipedia as Rich and to secure.wikipedia as SmackBot. Every time you get a new message use secure.wikipedia to read the message.
Ah cool. I always used Firefox for me and IE for SmackBot but IE has broken. Of course you still can't edit just because you dismiss the box, (which I do by pressing view) it just pops up again - you have to at least view the page logged in. RichFarmbrough, 18:29, 12 October 2010 (UTC).
Feature added in next release
Done
Resolved
