AutoSpell[edit]

Transcluded from User talk:Symplectic Map/AutoSpell

Ideas for improvement[edit]

Hello! First of all: thank you for writing this great script. :) I would like to propose an additional common spelling mistake to check for: "80's", "90's", "1970's", etc. This should be easy to fix. Also, how about checking for repeated words ("the the", "and and", etc.) as well? —Quibik (talk) 15:16, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the WP:LCM does have a list of repeated words, as well as a section with numbers. I will check over that list in a bit. There is a big trade off between "completeness" and "speed" and "false positives". Going forward, I believe the best solution will be to have a core set of words, then a feature which allows users to add his/her own to an individualized list. Another option, which I will have to get help with, would be to have the script automatically annotate the WP:LCM pages (if you have the script installed). It should be possible in theory for the script user to see a list of "correct this typo" links next to each word on the list. Any user could create a page with such a list of misspellings and the script would automate the correction process. I will have to talk to a more skilled script writer to see if this is possible. The advantage is that the script would be much shorter, and each link would only correct one typo at a time, which should reduce inadvertent false positives. Best Regards. Symplectic Map (talk) 14:33, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome[edit]

Welcome!

Hello, Symplectic Map, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! Ixfd64 (talk) 00:40, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reply[edit]

Hello, Symplectic Map. You have new messages at Plastikspork's talk page.
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Spell check[edit]

I don't know why you invited me to try your spellchecker - although my gnome persona has adopted "retreived" and "rhythym"

Unfortunately, being the sort of dinosaur who believes in correct spelling, I am also the sort of dinosaur who uses Windows IE.
Notwithstanding this, I tried your code - it gives the spell tab as described, but picking articles containing known A-Word errors ("Assasin" and "Adition") - it found neither.

I am not sure if this is:-

Due to my stupidity
That it doesn't work with IE
That you haven't included these words on the list it corrects

Best of luck, and please keep me informed.
Arjayay (talk) 08:02, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much for the feedback. I found your name while checking the edit history on WP:LCM. I will blame it on an IE problem for now, but this is an issue which I would really like to solve. I have been following discussions about other scripts and it appears the browser problem is common. In particular, most developers seem to be using Google Chrome and Firefox, but much of the world uses IE. I believe this issue can be solved, but I will have to pull out my Windows laptop and start debugging. Thanks again and I will keep you up to date if there is a resolution. All the best. Symplectic Map (talk) 20:18, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I was finally able to get it to work in IE on my computer at home. There are some subtle differences between javascript on the various platforms. If you want to give it a try again, replace all the lines in your User:Arjayay/monobook.js file with the following single line

importScript('User:Symplectic_Map/spell.js');

Once you have saved the page, hold down the ctrl key while clicking on the reload button. This will force a reload of your browser cache for that page. You should then be able to navigate to my User:Symplectic Map/sandbox and click on the spell tab at the top of the page. This page is a copy of all the misspellings listed on the 'A'-list, with the ones that I am not currently fixing indented. When I tried this at home, it was able to correct the spellings of all the unindented misspelled words to match the corrected versions. Hopefully this will work for you. I plan to add the rest of the alphabet later, but this may make the script a bit slow, so I may have to prune some of the more obscure words. Please let me know if it's still broken and/or there is anything else I can do to help. I have started a documentation page for the script at User:Symplectic Map/AutoSpell, but it's a work in progress. Best Regards. Symplectic Map (talk) 02:27, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Sym.
It works well on IE, although has thrown up a couple of oddities on Hay Island (Connecticut) and Rockaway, Queens - I have left these unaltered and don't know if this is just on IE?
Having tried pages with known errors, I tried 50 random articles. The only error it found was a deliberate misspelling by a hardcore band - maybe the standard of spelling on Wikipedia isn't as bad as I thought!
You probably do need more words on the list - I found errors (not on your list) by eye on some pages - when the autocheck finds several different words it draws my attention. The speed is certainly acceptable at the moment, although a bit slower on very long articles.
Keep up the good work.
Arjayay (talk) 10:44, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just tried it in IE on the two pages you mentioned, and on Hay Island (Connecticut), it found nothing to correct. On Rockaway, Queens it added a {{sic}} template since the misspelling was in the filename and cannot be safely corrected. This template obfuscates the misspelling in the wikitext to prevent autospellers from trying to correct it. Yes, I need to add more words. The current list is heavily biased on the 'A'-words, and can be used in conjunction with the WP:Lists of common misspellings/A page. I will move on to the 'B'-words next. If you have a favorite misspelling, let me know and I will add it as soon as possible. I plan to create a complete testpage which lists all the misspellings corrected by the script, and the list of ones not corrected (due to false-positives for example). Best regards. Symplectic Map (talk) 17:54, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hay Island (Connecticut) was corrected manually by User:Ftbhrygvn at 13.04 on 29 May. The manual correction (Aeriel → Aerial) produced the same changes as your script (highlit the entire article, not just the change, and moved it up) - does your script also remove redundant lines?
Arjayay (talk) 08:01, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can tell, it doesn't remove extra newlines. There are other scripts which do this, like WP:AutoEd, for example. (Responding as another user of the script). Keep up the good work and it would be great if you are able to add more words from the WP:LCM list. Thanks. Plastikspork (talk) 15:40, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's correct, it shouldn't be changing newlines. Symplectic Map (talk) 21:59, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sym
On Gerald Edelman your script is auto-changing "editor" to "publisher", totally incorrectly, as the publisher (the Nobel Foundation) is given later - can this be disabled?
Arjayay (talk) 16:23, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oops. Sorry about that. I was testing a conversion of foreign language citation templates and I forgot to turn it off. It should be fixed now. You may have to reload your cache on User: Symplectic Map/spell.js to force it to reload the version with this part commented out. Best Regards. Symplectic Map (talk) 21:59, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Spell tab[edit]

Clicking the spell tab just takes me to the edit box and nothing else. Using FF 3.5b4. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 15:35, 22 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what broke, but it should be working again now. I was in the process of tracking down the IE bug and I must have broken something in the process. I'm going to try to debug it in IE again in the morning. Symplectic Map (talk) 03:04, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hopefully it's now fixed (see above). There are some subtle differences between javascript on the various platforms. I have created some limited documentation at User:Symplectic Map/AutoSpell and a test page for the 'A'-words at User:Symplectic Map/sandbox. I plan to add more words later, but I want to test it a bit more first. Thanks again. Best Regards. Symplectic Map (talk) 02:30, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, still doesn't work. Following error is given

Error: document.editform is undefined
Source File: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Symplectic_Map/spell.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript
Line: 11

Strange, I am not able to reproduce the same error on FF 3.0.10 on Linux. Are you using Linux or Windows or Mac? I copied your exact monobook.js into my monobook.js, reloaded the cache, then navigated to User:Symplectic Map/sandbox and pressed the spell tab, and everything worked fine. If I am able to debug it on your exact browser configuration, I would be willing to try. Thanks again. Symplectic Map (talk) 19:40, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 on Windows Vista

I tried it on Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 on Windows XP, and I was not able to reproduce the bug. However, I did change the 'document.editform' to 'document.forms.editform' as an attempt to at least generate a different error message. If you have some spare time, it would be great if you could let me know if that does anything different. Thanks again. Symplectic Map (talk) 00:11, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No errors now, but still just goes straight to edit page. Isn't it supposed to be telling me what spellings I can correct? OrangeDog (talk • edits) 00:33, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Did it change the edit summary? You can invoke it in one of two ways. The most direct ('two-click') method is to first press the 'edit' button to open the edit window, then press the 'spell' button to invoke the spelling corrections. It basically runs a search/replace on the edit window, and if the edit summary is changed, then the script completed. If the edit summary is not changed, then the script must have died somewhere. The one-click method, pressing the 'spell' tab in view mode, must first load the edit window, so could potentially fail even when the first method works. If the 'two-click' method is not working for you, I could mock up a somewhat annoying debug version which would popup windows at each step so you could track where the script is failing. I realize that this is asking you to do some work, which you may not have time for. The good news is that it appears to be working for other users, so I am sure the problem can be eventually solved. Best Regards and thank you for your feedback/help. Symplectic Map (talk) 18:01, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh right, it would seem to be working then. I was expecting some kind of interactive "do you want to change this word" feature. Just globally find-replacing isn't very useful. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 20:42, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Breaking links to images in commons[edit]

If you correct the spelling of image file names included in links to wiki-commons you will break the links even if your spelling is 'correct' and the spelling in the file name is 'wrong'. Is this what you want to do? I am not beyond correcting other folks' spelling myself, but I hope (at least on a good day) I engage brain and look at what I am doing first.

Of course in a perfect world we would all spell 'correctly' every time when creating file names. And we would all agree about which language to use. And Brits and Americans would all agree about spelling English words. But ... surely that would be a bit dull....?

And it would tend to remove the point of wiki-commons which makes images available to more than one language version of an article. In other words, if I upload a new version of an image with a corrected file name spelling I risk messing up entries in languages other than those that I can follow.

Regards Charles01 (talk) 06:42, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Don't let him get to you, Sym. One error out of hundreds of good edits isn't that bad at all. It's a good idea to keep things like this in mind, but most people will understand if you make an occasional mistake or oversight. Last time I checked, we're all human! ;) Keep up the good work! --spazure (contribs) (review) 07:14, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for the feedback. It took me awhile to figure out which edit went wrong, and I am working on a method to prevent the script from changing words in filenames, but it's a bit more complicated than I anticipated. All of my edits are quickly reviewed by a human (me) before I commit the edit, but sometimes I do make mistakes. I am of the strong opinion that this sort of thing must be supervised by a human for this exact reason. As a way to prevent this from happening in the future, you can use the {{sic}} template, to obfuscate the word. For example, {{sic|aval|iable|hide=y}}, will appear as avaliable in the text. Of course, as you said, it would be even better if the spelling error could be corrected in the filename. The whole American vs. British English thing doesn't bother me very much as I have lived in both places and sometimes find myself mixing the two, which can be a problem. Please do let me know if you spot any other mistakes. Best Regards. Symplectic Map (talk) 15:05, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Copley[edit]

Wonderful! Many thanks. - Biruitorul ^Talk 01:33, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Afficionado[edit]

I undid this change. As you can see in Google books, the title of the book in question uses the two-f spelling. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:51, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I will mark it with a {{sic}} to prevent this from happening again. Best Regards. Symplectic Map (talk) 05:52, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Bailed and Baled out of an aircraft[edit]

This is a debatable question and generally, US usage is "bail" and other countries, especially England, use "bale". FWiW Bzuk (talk) 23:52, 4 June 2009 (UTC).[reply]

Thanks. This should probably be noted on the WP:LCM page which lists this as a misspelling. Best Regards. Symplectic Map (talk) 09:16, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Image spellings[edit]

Hi, Symplectic Map. Please be mindful that you should not be changing the spelling mistakes of image file names when running your script, as you've done here, here, here, and here. Thanks, --auburnpilot talk 16:15, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I've reverted your edit to Cara Saunders as it "corrected" the spelling of a word that was not spelled incorrectly. --auburnpilot talk 16:18, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, the edit to Cara Saunders was a mistake. I will do my best to avoid making mistakes in the future, but it's bound to happen occasionally. The first four edits were merely obfuscations of the misspelling in the filename to help reduce the number of false positives on the WP:LCM. I'm not sure why this was a problem since it didn't interfere with the functionality of the link? Thanks for your feedback! Symplectic Map (talk) 14:22, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My first concern with the changes to image links was simply that doing so is a departure from normal procedure and is being done without discussion or consensus. My main concern, however, is how adding templates within a file name will effect the operation of bots. CommonsDelinker (talk · contribs), for example, is a bot that removes links to images that have been deleted on commons. Do we know if that bot will still be able to find and remove an image if the file name has been altered as was done in the above links? I'd recommend posting on one of the Wikipedia:Village pumps before making these changes. Thanks, --auburnpilot talk 14:53, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Will do, thanks! Symplectic Map (talk) 15:56, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How to use spell checker[edit]

Hello! I would like to use your spell checker script to help spell check, but since I'm not very experienced with scripts, I don't know how to install it. I looked at the directions and I got confused. Please help explain it. Thank you, Airplaneman (talk) 00:03, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Step 1 - Edit your User:Airplaneman/monobook.js page to include the line

importScript('User:Symplectic_Map/spell.js');

Step 2 - Save the page and reload your browser cache (method depends on your web browser).

Step 3 - Go to User:Symplectic Map/sandbox, and you should see a 'spell' tab at the top of the page.

Step 4 - Press the 'spell' button and it should correct the spellings on that page.

If all this works, then it's working! If not, I can try to help you fix it.

Here is how I currently use the script

Step 1 - Go to WP:LCM and start clicking on the 'misspelling' search links on the A, B, or C page.

Step 2 - Use the 'spell' tab to correct the spellings on each page that the search finds.

Note that I haven't had a chance to add every misspelling listed, but I'm working on it. If you have a favorite misspelling, let me know and I will add it sooner. Symplectic Map (talk) 00:09, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much! It works perfectly!--Airplaneman (talk) 00:16, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

William Parente[edit]

Hi! You might be interested in the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/William Parente (2nd nomination). Thank you. Alchaenist (talk) 20:04, 8 July 2009 (UTC) (Using {{Please see}})}[reply]

AutoSpell modifications[edit]

Recently found your very helpful AutoSpell script. Thanks for that. I wonder, however, if you would mind if I made an unadvertised copy to my own userspace where I would make a couple changes. Specifically, I want to tweak the edit summary, remove a few of the misspellings that return (for me) a lot of false positives, and (if my weak js abilities allow it) make it so it doesn't look at words surrounded by hyphens (so as not to change URLs). I would, of course, credit you clearly and link back to your page (including in the edit summary). As it doesn't look like you've made an edit since 2009 I may end up taking a non-response as assent :) but I'll link to the changes on your talk page to give a heads up. --Rhododendrites (talk) 14:00, 4 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom elections are now open![edit]

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:01, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom elections are now open![edit]

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:11, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]