Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Feature requests/Archive 8

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Archive 5 Archive 6 Archive 7 Archive 8 Archive 9 Archive 10 Archive 12

Implemented

Clean big tags inside headers

Status Feature added in next release
Description diff.

==<big>foo</big>→==foo. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:24, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Added in revision 7288
rev 7288 FixHeadings to remove <big> tags from headings. Rjwilmsi 08:52, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

IFD image removal in galleries

Status Feature added in next release
Description when removing an image that is within <gallery></gallery> AWB should remove the whole line and not just the image itself, as right now it leaves the image caption while removing the image. ΔT The only constant 00:09, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision 7282
rev 7282 Done. Rjwilmsi 18:53, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Citation date cleanup tweak

Status Feature added in next release
Description Currently, when there is a |date=August 2008, |year=2008, and |month=August, only |year=2008 is removed. It should also remove |Month=August. I haven't checked the behaviour with |day=, but that should also be removed when appropriate. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:56, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision 7278
rev 7278 Redundant |month= removed too. Rjwilmsi 13:55, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Empty Gallery tags

Status Feature added in next release
Description AWB should automaticlly remove all empty <gallery></gallery> tags in articles as a genfix. these rements are useless. ΔT The only constant 00:11, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
rev 7279 Done. Rjwilmsi 14:46, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Re-parsing to check if {{wikify}} and {{deadend}} are still needed

Status Feature added in next release
Description When initally evaluating an article, AWB adds/removes {{wikify}} and/or {{deadend}} (and/or the associated parameters in {{multiple issues}}) as needed. When re-parsing an article, could AWB make the check again, since the editor may have added links as part of their clean up?

For example, in this edit, AWB automatically added both templates. I added wikilinks and re-parsed, but AWB did not remove the templates. I saved the article and then immediately scanned it again and AWB removed the templates since they were no longer necessary. GoingBatty (talk) 16:49, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Added in revision 7274
Please retest when the new release is out, I have already fixed a coulple of issues with re-parsing. Rjwilmsi 10:55, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
Looks like I accidentally submitted this as a bug and feature request. Did rev 7274 solve this? GoingBatty (talk) 03:18, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Populating Persondata dates

Status Feature added in next release
Description When Category:xxxx births and/or Category:xxxx deaths exist (and especially if AWB is adding them), could AWB also add the appropriate values in the {{Persondata}} "DATE OF BIRTH" and "DATE OF DEATH" parameters if they are empty? See this edit for an example. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 02:23, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision 7340
I think this has mostly been done as well in the more recent versions. One of the developers mentioned to me a while back that they deliberately restricted the logic for only full birth and death dates though. --Kumioko (talk) 17:45, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
We should discuss at WP:PERSONDATA what the desired behaviour is. I expect we would prefer year rather than nothing if the full date is not available, but I think it warrants discussion first and a clarification of the WP:PERSONDATA documentation. Rjwilmsi 10:51, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
The examples on WP:PERSONDATA and Wikipedia talk:Persondata indicate to me that year only is perfectly acceptable. By automatically adding the years, it would highlight those fields as changed, which may encourage editors to add the month & day as well. However, if you think a discussion is more appropriate, would you like to start it? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 03:39, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
In this edit, AWB found "(5 September 1878 - 13 April 1941)" in the lead and added Category:1878 births. Could the same logic be used to add the FULL dates to the Persondata template? GoingBatty (talk) 00:43, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
Similarly, since AWB can identify dates when fixing People life date ranges (e.g. this edit) can it populate those dates into the Persondata template? GoingBatty (talk) 03:00, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
rev 7340 Initial version of logic to catch unformatted birth/death dates. Rjwilmsi 20:05, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Convert coauthor to coauthors for {{Cite web}}

Status Feature added in next release
Description Can we add some logic to convert |coauthor to |coauthors in {{Cite web}}. I haev found at least 20 or 30 occurances of this in the last few days. Here is the code I came up with to catch it:

Find \{\{[ ]*(Cite|cite)(.*?)\|[ ]*coauthor[ ]*= Replace {{$1$2|coauthors= --Kumioko (talk) 20:06, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Added in revision 7330
Careful with this one - if one of the other author parameters isn't used (required to make the coauthors value visible), then it may be better to convert |coauthor to |author. GoingBatty (talk) 00:09, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
Thats true but I cant think of how to write logic to capture that. This is just fixing broken code so it will display correctly not trying to intuitively determine where the data should go. If you can think of a reason we can program in though I am open to trying to figure out how to code it. --Kumioko (talk) 00:38, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
The safe way would be to have an alert stating "Invalid citation parameter(s) found". More difficult would be if parameters author, last, or last1 exist, then convert |coauthor to |coauthors else convert |coauthor to |author.GoingBatty (talk) 00:09, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
We already have an alert for that. --Kumioko (talk) 03:08, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
|coauthor= and |coauthors= appear to be treated the same in the {{cite web}} source, so I assume Kumioko didn't actually check whether the parameter name correciton made any visible difference to the page. However, it's sensible to use the documented names so rev 7330 we'll rename |coauthor= to |coauthors= for {{cite web}}. If there's no author to go with the coauthors then that's a separate problem. Rjwilmsi 08:21, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Remove capitalization changes from auto-tagger

Status Feature added in next release
Description There is not presently consensus that templates should always have Ucfirst, so auto-tagger should not apply unnecessary changes like this [1] [2] ({{dead link}} → {{Dead link}}; {{citation needed}} → {{Citation needed}}, etc.). I believe these rules were in there to bypass redirects but this should now be handled by WP:AWB/TR. –xenotalk 13:07, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision 7272
Right, let's be clear:
  • There has never been logic in core AWB to change the template capitalisation of cleanup tags when the |date= is not added. Therefore your two diffs are Rich's concern, not mine.
  • What AWB does have is logic that as a side-effect, changes the template capitalisation when adding |date=. Before AWB 5.1 it changed to lower case (nobody ever cared then), in 5.1 it changes to upper case.
  • I have already done rev 7272/Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Dated templates for the next release. Rjwilmsi 14:58, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. It's hard to keep track what rules are custom and what rules are in-house. –xenotalk 15:00, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
The majority of templates in WP are capped, and the vast majority of those that begin a line (Infobox is some 99 % I think 97.7%), or are cleanup tags. This despite the fact that it is easier to type lowercase shows a clear preference. I for one use "wfy" and "cu" safe in the knowledge that they will be made to look reasonable by a passing bot. I can sympathise with maintaining lowercase for in-line cites and convert, but to actually start an article with a lower-case letter verges on barbarism. Rich Farmbrough, 16:06, 22 October 2010 (UTC).
Good thing the article starts with a curly bracket then =) –xenotalk 16:13, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Just a side comment: It turns that everybody in Wiki becomes lazy. We spend all of our energy to debate on the case of cleanup tags and seems they are very few people really fixing the pages. I also see no action to reduce unreasonable tagging that is one of the sources of the problem. I'll try to make a list of editors who create pages by adding stub, expand, unreferenced, nofootnotes all together to pages by not giving any instructions how to really cleanup. I tried to work with pages tagged with {{Tense}} recently and simply was impossible to fix because I couldn't even find the problem.

So instead of people coming here with cool ideas of how to improve our tagger and reduce tags on pages, we keep having requests on the casing of tags that aren't supposed to stay on a page anyway.

One other thing that really upset me is that recently I used AWB to quickly open pages that have problems with citations, I manually fixed them doing some WP:GNOME job and I got a message that I may violate AWB's rule of use by making minor edits. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:22, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree that it does not make sense to not be able to make minor edits with AWB. If a page has no major problems, just a few small things that could be fixed, there is no reason not to fix them. Who cares if it clutters watchlists. There is an option on watchlists to hide minor edits anyway. McLerristarr / Mclay1 09:07, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
A templates with a lower case first character is not broken. –xenotalk 02:41, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Remove space before hash in links

Status Feature added in next release
Description Change [[Foo #bar]] to [[Foo#bar]]. McLerristarr | Mclay1 16:30, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision 7334
rev 7332. Done. Rjwilmsi 09:12, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
Could you remove a space after a hash as well? McLerristarr | Mclay1 13:56, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
rev 7344 You might have asked for both fixes the first time round. Rjwilmsi 20:57, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Fix date error

Status Feature added in next release
Description This edit incorrectly removed the spaces between a date and "present" when converting a hyphen to an endash. In date ranges, "present" should never be capitalised either as far as I'm aware. McLerristarr | Mclay1 16:36, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision 7331
rev 7331 Endash spacing bug fixed. Rjwilmsi 08:57, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Infobox automobile platform and engine

Status Feature added in next release
Description Update the redirect Template:Infobox Automobile platform to point to the new Template:Infobox automobile platform title.

Update the redirect Template:Infobox Automobile engine to point to the new Template:Infobox automobile engine title.

These changes follow the same conventions as the earlier ones as documented here. OSX (talkcontributions) 04:13, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Added in revision
You can do this yourself by adding them at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects. You may also want to comment on that talk page in favour of template redirect bypassing. Rjwilmsi 07:22, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
Thanks and done. OSX (talkcontributions) 03:01, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
To be honest, priority are cases where the word "Infobox" isn't the first word. Just changing case isn't a big deal. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:48, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Improvements to the New Alert box I

Status Feature added in next release
Description Thanks for making the Alert box into a text box like the Wikilinks box. I would like to suggest a couple of further improvements if possible.
  1.  Done First I would like to suggest adding a horizontal scroll bar. Some of the alerts scroll off the box to the left and you cant read the whole thing. I think someone already suggested a vertical one.
  2. Also, would it be possible to include logic similar to that used by wikilinks to take you to the that line if clicked. Currently it lists the alerts but its sometimes difficult to locate the problem the user is alerted too.
  3.  Done Lastly would it be possible to add a count to the number of times that problem occurs in the article like the wikilinks does. For some alerts such as unbalanced brackets or invalid citation parameters its hard to find all of them.
  4. It would be nice if AWB could be set somehow to search for specific ones, for example if I wanted to search for Dead links I could select that alert, perhaps under options somwhere and AWB would let me know when it finds one.
  5. The next is kind of a high hope but I think it would be useful if there was a way we could add our own Alerts in much the same way as the find and replace but rather than find it and replace it, it will just let us know if there is one. The idea I had was to add the ability under the find and replace Normal Settings option and maybe the advanced option to Alert Only as maybe a checkbox. Sorta like how we identify it as a minor edit. Then when AWB finds it it shows it as an Alert rather than process it as a change.
--Kumioko (talk) 20:05, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
  1. When working with talk pages could an alert be added to notify the user if the talk page is empty or if there are no wikiproject banners present. Currently if AWB is being used to scan talk pages for problems and articles talk page is empty or contains no banners it simply moves on. --Kumioko (talk) 15:09, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
rev 6712 gives horizontal. Vertical will appear when needed. Reedy 20:28, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, do you have any comment on the other two suggestions? --Kumioko (talk) 21:51, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
rev 6840 Add count to end of multi-item alerts. Rjwilmsi 19:52, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Capitalise first letter in date parameter

Status Feature added in next release
Description |date=november 2010 is a common mistake and this is what has to be done -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:36, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision 7414
rev 7414 TagUpdater: first word to first character uppercase in date field. Rjwilmsi 13:30, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Transclusions with the Template: namespace prefix

Status Feature added in next release
Description You might want to add a check for underscores in the regular expression you are using for removing the Template: namespace prefix from template transclusions. For an example, see the "Template:Data_Erasure" change in this diff: [3] --Tothwolf (talk) 01:57, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision rev 7533

Remove empty name inside references

Status Feature added in next release
Description Remove empty |name= inside references. Example. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:13, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision rev 7534

Consolidate multiple {{See also}} templates

Status Feature added in next release
Description Consolidate multiple consecutive {{See also}} templates. For example, change:
{{See also|Foo}}
{{See also|Bar}}

to

{{See also|Foo|Bar}} GoingBatty (talk) 03:29, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision 7537

I like this one. -- Magioladitis (talk) 03:55, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

rev 7532 MergeSeeAlso preliminary version that works only in zeroth section. TODO: Merge {tl|See also}} in any section. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:59, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

rev 7537 MergeSeeAlso enabled for the whole article. MergeSeeAlso2 for {tl|See also2}}. TODO: Merge procedures in one. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:05, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Remove {{Unreferenced stub}} |auto=yes

Status Feature added in next release
Description AWB changes {{Unreferenced stub}} to {{Unreferenced}}, but does not remove |auto=yes. If the article is really unreferenced, remove the parameter so the template is visible. If the article is referenced, then remove the template completely. GoingBatty (talk) 02:26, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision rev 7535
If the article is referenced, then remove the template completely. exists
If the article is really unreferenced, remove the parameter so the template is visible. rev 7535
Currently ~55,000 pages in Category:Articles automatically tagged as unreferenced. Somewhat of a backlog. Rjwilmsi 15:00, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Smarter keywords

Status Feature added in next release
Description %%title%% to be escaped when it is part of a regex. Rich Farmbrough, 01:15, 18th day of January in the year 2011 (UTC).
Added in revision rev 7555
EG, page name contains "C++", will currently error, A+ will not match A+ etc... Rich Farmbrough, 01:15, 18th day of January in the year 2011 (UTC).
rev 7555 Escape title for %%title%% and %%fullpagename%% when calling ApplyKeywords from F&R or advanced F&R. Rjwilmsi 21:38, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

make %%title%% available for external processing

Status Feature added in next release
Description make %%title%% available for external processing Rich Farmbrough, 06:59, 30 December 2010 (UTC).
Added in revision rev 7569


psi.Arguments = psi.Arguments.Replace("%%title%%", title);

Or whatever at the appropriate place. Rich Farmbrough, 06:59, 30 December 2010 (UTC).

Or better
psi.Arguments = ApplyKeyWords(psi.Arguments);

or whatever the syntax is. Rich Farmbrough, 09:49, 30 December 2010 (UTC).

I would like to add that I think that this new feature would be very useful. It should be able to pass either the file name of an image or an article page name. Please make the solution user friendly. Snowman (talk) 12:35, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
rev 7569 Apply Tools.ApplyKeyWords to External Processing arguments. Rjwilmsi 09:04, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Do replacements before AND after genfixes

Status Feature added in next release
Description Current status Replacements are done before OR after genfixes (based on a checkbox)

Idea Add a new column "After genfixes". Default: off. If checkbox is off then do the replacement before genfixed if it's on do it after.
In this way we can do replacements before and after genfixes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:27, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Added in revision rev 7574

Don't add Wikify, dead end, stub to pages with Template:wi

Status Feature added in next release
Description Don't add {{Wikify}}, {{dead end}}, and {{stub}} to pages with {{wi}} (such as Pourquoi) GoingBatty (talk) 20:59, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision 7595
rev 7593 Exclude redirects to wictionary from stub tagging
rev 7594 Prevent wictionary redirects from being tagged as uncategorised

-- Magioladitis (talk) 20:01, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

rev 7595 Excluded wiktionary redirects from any kind of tagging. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:12, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Add {{GOCEinuse}} to logic to skip in use pages

Status Feature added in next release
Description Please add {{GOCEinuse}} to the logic used to skip "in use" pages. GoingBatty (talk) 21:00, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision 7596

Allow for "Image" or "File" class in WP:Plugin++ for file pages

Status Feature added in next release
Description Some projects use "Image" class (I presume some would use "File" class as well). Option would be nice, right now WP:Plugin++ puts these as "NA" by default. –xenotalk 21:28, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision rev 7722-rev 7727
<puppy dog eyes> –xenotalk 16:48, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
rev 7722-rev 7727 -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:01, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
rev 7731,rev 7733, rev 7734. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:09, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
rev 7757 -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:47, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

{{Link GA}}

Status Feature added in next release
Description In en.wiki AWB moves {{Link GA}} template to be above the interlanguage links: please fix it also in foreign languages (in it.wiki {{Link VdQ}}, in es.wiki {{Bueno}} etc). Thanks. --AttoRenato (talk) 17:21, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision rev 7743, rev 7746, rev 7747, rev 7756 Magioladitis (talk) 20:57, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Updated the it.wiki. Es.wiki was already fine. If you give me a more detailed list I can do more of them. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:57, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

rev 7746 Added the ro.wiki ones. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:54, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
rev 7747 Added the vi.wiki ones. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:04, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
rev 7756 Added some more. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:09, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Space + comma, should lose the space

Status Unknown
Description When a comma is preceded by a space, ditch the space. I have done thousands of articles with this as a F&R rule, and I don't remember a single false positive. Many times a space is also lacking after the comma, but that's a separate consideration. The easy part, removing the preceding space, is usually all that's needed. Chris the speller yack 23:14, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision
How about you add this as a grammar fix in the typo rules? Rjwilmsi 16:44, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
I have done as you suggested. I plan to return here in 4 or 5 days and withdraw this request, if all goes well. A search for 'uttar' found 12 instances of this in the first two articles, so this is not a rare occurrence. Chris the speller yack 20:09, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
I withdraw this request, as it has been added to Typos, and it seems to be happy there. Chris the speller yack 14:09, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Don't unlink article title in {{Taxobox color}}

Status Feature added in next release
Description When the title of an article is linked in the article itself, AWB unlinks it. This causes a problem with the template {{Taxobox color}}, because that template requires its argument to be linked. I discovered this while editing Rhizaria. Please add code to prevent the delinking inside this template. --Auntof6 (talk) 06:17, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision rev 7782
Looking at the source of {{Taxobox colour}}, I see that the switch caters for both animal and animal, plant and plant, chromalveolate and chromalveolate. Would your problem go away if it was modified to accept both rhizaria and rhizaria? -- John of Reading (talk) 06:59, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
That certainly sounds like a better solution, and it doesn't even look like that much of a change. I didn't even look at the code because I always assume it's more complicated than I think I can understand. (I need to stop being afraid of templates!) I'll ask there if they would make that change (the template is protected). Thanks! --Auntof6 (talk) 07:42, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
The template was changed to accept "Rhizaria" unlinked, but there are still many other arguments that have to be linked. Would it be much trouble to make the change to AWB? --Auntof6 (talk) 21:26, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
rev 7782 Done. Rjwilmsi 15:58, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Allow bot option for RegexTypoFix

Status Feature added in next release
Description Hi! Currently you can't use the bot option if the Typo fixer is enabled. I can see why this was enabled for Wikipedia, but for wikis outside Wikipedia that don't have such policies this would cause a huge, unnecessary workload. I'm therefore hereby requesting the ability to use the bot functions with RegexTypoFix if the used site is NOT Wikipedia, or any other Wikimedia projects. Thanks! 213.93.184.183 (talk) 21:26, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision rev 7812
rev 7812 RETF allowed with bot mode for custom wikis. Rjwilmsi 13:15, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Remove º from DEFAULTSORT

Status Feature added in next release
Description This is a special character and should not be in DEFAULTSORT. This improves checkwiki error 6 fix. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:39, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision rev 7838

Pasting from a category using Firefox

Status Feature added in next release
Description Please restore the ability to correctly paste items copied from a category using Firefox into AWB's list.
• Copying from a portion of a single category column has always worked correctly until I switched to SVN 7774. What happens now is blank lines get pasted into the AWB list rather than the category items. (Copying a single title works fine.)
• When copying all of the entries in a column, or part or all of more than one column, the behavior is now similar to what was happening before I requested and received a fix: the items show up in the AWB list with a leading "    * " (four spaces, asterisk, space).
Note: I've now switched back to SVN 7734, which handles both situations correctly. MANdARAX  XAЯAbИAM 06:45, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision rev 7780
rev 7780, fixed. Rjwilmsi 15:28, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the speedy fix, as usual. MANdARAX  XAЯAbИAM 18:15, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
I just tried it in SVN 7794, and it's still not working properly. The only change in behavior is that the leading spaces are removed. Blank lines are still pasted in the first situation and items have a leading "* " in the second. MANdARAX  XAЯAbИAM 18:37, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
Can this please be fixed? The ability to copy from a category and paste into AWB is extremely fundamental. This is completely nonfunctional when copying from Firefox. The workaround is very inconvenient: copy, then paste to Notepad, then edit, then copy again, then finally be able to paste to AWB. Thanks. MANdARAX  XAЯAbИAM 21:42, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
It works for me on that snapshot build (and you don't have to continue to justify something that's already agreed). Rjwilmsi 22:04, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
Maybe newer versions of Firefox handle it differently. My version copies the first situation as "# Article" and the second situation as "    * Article", neither of which is correctly handled when pasted to AWB. I'll try again when I switch to a newer Firefox. MANdARAX  XAЯAbИAM 22:37, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
A newer Firefox does handle it differently; in the first situation, it no longer adds any leading characters and in the second it just adds some leading spaces, which AWB handles fine. Thanks. MANdARAX  XAЯAbИAM 00:28, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

"Sic" warning—is it really necessary?

Status Feature added in next release
Description Since AWB won't apply typo fixes to stuff in the "sic" template anyway, is it really necessary for that warning popup to come up when there's a sic in the page? I've had that come up for me hundreds of times, and not once has there been a false positive with a sicced word being corrected. I think it'd be safe to get rid of it, or at least put in an option to suppress it.—Chowbok 13:50, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision rev 7863
We might make it an alert. Rjwilmsi 09:54, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Agreed. Since bots can't do typo fixing and typo fixing isn't done inside sic templates automatically, there is no reason to pop-up windows. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:02, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
If there's a {{sic}} template then no warning is needed. But if the article has a literal "[sic]" then, by experiment, I find that no typo fixing occurs at all. This needs a warning, because to get the article spell-checked you have to find the "[sic]", replace it with the template, save, and then ask AWB to re-process it. Dull! -- John of Reading (talk) 09:13, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
If that's the case, then the fix should be to do typo correction everywhere except around the "sic", not to have a popup warning.—Chowbok 12:25, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Most of the times I've seen {{sic}} used, it hasn't been used around text e.g. in Alford plea and Blade Runner. AWB will not skip the incorrect text if it is not inside the sic template. That's probably why the warning message was there in the first place. McLerristarr / Mclay1 11:58, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

The text in Alford plea or Blade Runner would not be fixed by AWB even if the {{sic}} template wasn't there, since the text in question are quotes. Therefore, there's no need for AWB to give a warning when {{sic}} is inside quotes. Also, AWB doesn't try to fix typos like "{{sic|institue}}" or "institue {{sic}}", so there's no need for a warning then either. Could someone please show an example of when this warning is needed, or remove it from AWB? GoingBatty (talk) 21:29, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
rev 7863 Make sic tag warning during typo fixing an alert rather than a popup message. Rjwilmsi 15:55, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Merge {{no footnotes}} into {{Multiple issues}}

Status Feature added in next release
Description Now that |no footnotes= has been added to {{Multiple issues}}, could you please update AWB so it also merges {{no footnotes}} into {{Multiple issues}}? When this is done, please also ensure that |no footnotes= will no longer generate an "Unknown parameters in Multiple issues" alert. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 16:59, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision rev 7885
rev 7874 |no footnotes= is known Multiple issues parameter. Rjwilmsi 19:23, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
rev 7885 {{no footnotes}} is template to merge into Multiple issues. Rjwilmsi 19:29, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Article banners

Status Feature added in next release
Description When AWB adds a banner, such as {{Orphan}}, to the top of an article it automatically puts a blank line between the new banner and the next line, even if the next line is another banner, such as {{Unreferenced}}. Article banners do not need spaces between them. McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 10:07, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision

Why version do you use? -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:05, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I use the latest version. McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 04:43, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
5.0.3.0 or some snapshot? Which revision? -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:42, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
5.0.3.0. Why? McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 08:25, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
I think this is already implemented in latest snapshots. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:53, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

New option to Reset article counters

Status Feature added in next release
Description I would like to suggest adding an option that, when selected, would reset the counters in the footer of the AWB application for Edits, Skipped and New back to zero. I frequently leave my AWB application up and it would be helpful to me if I didn't have to close and reopen the application to reset these numbers. --Kumioko (talk) 18:06, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision rev 7945
This would be useful to me too. Rich Farmbrough, 16:45, 4 March 2011 (UTC).
rev 7945 New option on File menu. Rjwilmsi 17:01, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
Every time these data are reset, info should be send to the server. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:16, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
rev 7946 -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:30, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Interface amendments

Status Feature added in next release
Description .
  1. The term for regex is inconsistent (in the Skip tab, Database scanner, and List filter): 'Regular expressions', 'Regexes', and 'Regex'. I suggest 'Regex' in all three cases.
  2. The terms for testing a match is inconsistent. In the List filter it says 'Matches', 'Keep titles containing' and 'Remove titles containing' (with the equivalent of 'Contains' second). In the Database scanner it says 'Title contains' and 'Not contains'. For text searching, the Skip tab says 'Match', 'Doesn't contain' whereas the Database scanner says 'Text', 'Text Searching', 'Not contains' (with 'Contains' first). I suggest 'Contains' and 'Not contains' for all (with 'Contains' first).
  3. The group label in the Skip tab is 'Match' but I suggest 'Text'. The Text tab has a group label 'Text Searching' but I suggest 'Text'. The text tab has a label 'Page Text Properties' but I suggest 'Page properties'.
  4. The 'More...' tab has a group label 'Append/Prepend text' but I suggest 'Append/prepend text' i.e. sentence case. If you're able to search the whole interface and apply sentence case to group labels, that would be good.
  5. The 'File' menu item 'Log In/Profiles...' should be sentence case i.e. 'Log in/profiles...'. This would make it match the menu item 'Log out'.

Lightmouse (talk) 09:05, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Added in revision

Thus:

  • Please change the Skip tab text 'Match' to 'Text' rev 7776
  • Please change the Skip tab text 'Regexes' to 'Regex' rev 7776
  • Please change the List filter text 'Matches' to 'Title' rev 7915
  • Please change the List filter text 'Regular expressions' to 'Regex'  Not done
  • Please change the List filter text 'Keep titles containing' to 'Contains' and move it up  Not done
  • Please change the List filter text 'Remove titles containing' to 'Not contains' and move it down  Not done
  • Please change the Database scanner Title tab text 'Text Searching' to 'Text' rev 7778
  • Please change the Database scanner Title tab text 'Page Text Properties' to 'Page properties' rev 7778
  • Please change the Database scanner Title tab text 'Title contains' to 'Contains' rev 7916
  • Please change the File menu item label 'Log In/Profiles...' to 'Log in/profiles...' rev 7926 Changed to 'Log in/Profiles'
  • Please change the More... tab text 'Append/Prepend text' to 'Append/prepend text'  Not done
  • Please change the Database scanner Restriction tab text 'Check Restriction' to 'Check restriction' rev 7775

Lightmouse (talk) 12:09, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for progress on these. They're minor but hopefully easy to fix. Any chance of more progress? Lightmouse (talk) 16:40, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
I did some more. at he moment we prefer group boxes against separator line so I won't do the rest unless the other devs think we should use separator lines. -- Magioladitis 18:12, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Moving talk pages

Status Feature added in next release
Description It would be nice if we had an option to move an associated talk page as we do when we move manually. I'm leaving a bunch of talk pages at redirects because they're too time consuming to go back and do manually. — kwami (talk) 23:53, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision 8015
Trivially done. Need to decide if we just do it, or make it optional.. Reedy 18:45, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
Optional. Exactly as in Wikipedia. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:08, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
I believe this now exists following a bugfix to the move article popup. Would an admin check on a snaphsot? Rjwilmsi 09:48, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
The move window has only two options atm: "No redirect", "Watch". -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:31, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

rev 8012: Talk page is automatically moved when it exists. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:58, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

rev 8015: Moving assoc. talk page is now optional. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:07, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Fix redirects with carriage return (CHECKWIKI error 36)

Status Feature added in next release
Description Article contains something like " #REDIRECT

[[Somepage]]"

(note the carriage return). -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:45, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Added in revision rev 7899 by Rjw. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:04, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Remove "NOT" from Multiple issues

Status Feature added in next release
Description Per Template_talk:Multiple_issues#Parameter_removal, since {{NOT}} has been deleted, the code used to merge it into {{Multiple issues}} is no longer necessary. GoingBatty (talk) 05:18, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
Added in revision rev 8083

ASIN cleanup for Cite book

Status Feature added in next release
Description AWB already changes the {{cite book}} parameter |id=ISBN 1234567890 Parameter error in {{ISBN}}: checksum to |isbn=1234567890. Could AWB be expanded to also change |id=ASIN 1234567890 to |asin=1234567890? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 18:34, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
Added in revision rev 8089

Replace DISPLAYTITLE template with the same magic word

Status Feature added in next release
Description AWB already "Replaces the {{DEFAULTSORT}} template with the same magic word." Would it be possible to have it makes the same change for {{DISPLAYTITLE}}, to remove those articles from Category:Pages which use a template in place of a magic word? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 23:43, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
Added in revision rev 8082
rev 8082 Done for all those magic words in the maintenance category. Rjwilmsi 11:51, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Add Incubator wiki to the projects

Status Feature added in next release
Description I'm not sure how this isn't included already? Incubator is a WMF project and should be included. Avicennasis @ 00:26, 2 Tamuz 5772 / 00:26, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Added in revision rev 8102

Provide a warning when AWB cannot handle a page

Status Feature added in next release
Description I filed this as a bug; turns out it's a feature. Not an optimal one, though.

AWB skips articles if "Page has character in Unicode Private Use Area". It was decided to do that here, back in March 2011. The problem is, if AWB simply skips a page, it will likely pass by unnoticed, or the editor will likely conclude that was because the page was excluded by his filter, and the desired changes will not be made.

Could we instead have AWB provide notice that the page needs to be edited manually? — kwami (talk) 20:53, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Added in revision rev 8067
rev 8067 On first occurrence in session of page with Unicode PUA characters, show message box to user advising can't edit pages with Unicode PUA characters, then skip page. Rjwilmsi 09:35, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Lists with parameters (part 1)

Status Feature added in next release
Description Possibility made lists with parameters which may by used in substitutions on replacement operations.

That possibility must be have:

  • possibilities of making list from the more then one category can include parameter with value in where is this page was found;

--Vpovilaitis (talk) 17:26, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Added in revision

You can add list from more than one categories by using a separator. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:46, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Remove spaces between numbers and %

Status Feature added in next release
Description Remove spaces (including non-breaking spaces) between a number and % like here per MOS:PERCENT. McLerristarr | Mclay1 03:05, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision rev 8220

Yes, this is really useful. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:13, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

rev 8220. Now need to exclude false positives. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:14, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Change Portal box logic

Status Feature added in next release
Description Per a recent discussion {{Portal}} and {{Portal box}} were merged into {{Portal}}. It is requested that the AWB logic for portal box be changed to Portal. The discussion can be found here--Kumioko (talk) 23:25, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
Added in revision rev 8230 Magioladitis (talk) 23:22, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

no F&R changes inside quotation marks " "

Status Feature added in next release
Description In 'Find & Replace', provide that changes will not be made inside of quotation marks, "xxxxx". Find & Replace does not make changes inside quote templates, but often (not always) makes changes inside quotation mark pairs. Of course, quotations should not be changed in any way by AWB or anything else. This could be made part of the 'ignore templates, refs, links, etc' option or added as an additional (not replacement) option Hmains (talk) 19:41, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision 7041
This is already done as part of the "Ignore templates..." option. Rjwilmsi 20:30, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Then why are changes continually being made inside " " pairs when I have that option turned on? Hmains (talk) 05:27, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
That does not occur for me. If you'd like me to investigate please post your AWB settings file to a sandbox, and suggest a mainspace page where quoted material is incorrectly affected. Thanks Rjwilmsi 07:50, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
I am sorry I have no idea how to post a settings file to a sandbox. The test article is Kikuchi clan. The only setting I have is to change from 'twelfth century' to '12th century', with no quotes, with the ignore templates option on and with no other special settings--mostly just the defaults provided by AWB. Hmains (talk) 17:16, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Ah, a long quote. I had set a limit of 500 characters for text within quotation marks, so rev 7041 increase that limit to 2000. You should find any quote less than 500 characters is already covered. Rjwilmsi 20:43, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
That makes sense. Sometimes the exclusion worked; sometimes it didn't. Thanks Hmains (talk) 21:05, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
What do you think about text in italics text. Generally, these are the names of objects such as books and should not be changed by AWB either. See Chersonesos Taurica, first item in section "References and further reading" for example. Hmains (talk) 21:26, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I have some related questions:
1. Does this option apply if the code is in a module rather than in Find&Replace?
2. Could there be an option for avoiding text within single quotes?
3. Could there be an option for avoiding text that is indented e.g. by a colon?
Regards Lightmouse (talk) 21:15, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

1, Yes, whenever HideMore is called. 2, single curly quotes are already matched, if we match on a single straight quote we'll match on apostrophes. 3, already done in HideMore. Rjwilmsi 07:58, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. That's very good to hear. I've used HideMore in the past and plan on using it again. I couldn't find a complete list of what it does.
Is the HideMore source code and/or documentation available to view?
Would it be possible to have Hidemore as a checkbox option for module users?
I didn't know the single quote character problem related to apostrophes. That's interesting. Most (if not all) quotes have a non-word character on one side of the single quote. Most (there are exceptions) apostrophes have a word character on both sides. I'd rather have an occasional miss than a false positive. Could we use that distinction for super-cautious editing? Lightmouse (talk) 10:35, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Source code is linked from Awb main page. HideMore can be called in a custom module. I'll check how well it's documented. Rjwilmsi 08:09, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
It wouldn't be super-cautious it would be wrong, for example
  • The president said 'Moses' bullrushes would be preserved in a museum.' he later added 'Next to Jesus' un-seamed garment, in the Presidents' library.' He was speaking in the 'Adan Governorate, where Moses' bullrushes' remains had been found.

Here various levels of nativity would have various levels of fail - i.e. quoted bits seem unquoted and vice versa. This case can be solved correctly however by the following rules:

  1. .' is a closing quote
  2. \w' is never an opening quote
  3. All closing quotes have a corresponding opening quote.
  4. All quotes are either terminated in .' or preceded or followed with a saying verb (asked, added, commented, said etc.)

However it rapidly becomes more difficult after that, some cases will be truly ambiguous.

Rich Farmbrough, 21:32, 6 September 2010 (UTC).
Good points. Based on those, and thinking out loud:
  1. A quote can only be closed if it is open.
  2. Treat \W'\w as an open quote. We contrast a non-word char on the left with a word char on the right. For example, He said: 'blah blah blah ... False positives may occur due to apostrophes, as suggested above.
  3. Treat \w'\W as a close quote. We contrast a word char on the left with a non-word char on the right. It is not an open quote. For example, ... blah blah blah'[1] to the press. False positives may occur due to apostrophes, as suggested above.
  4. Treat \W'\W as a close quote. We see non-word chars on both sides. It is not an open quote. For example, ... blah blah blah?' to each candidate.
  5. Treat \w'\w as neither an open quote nor a close quote. Treat it as an apostrophe.
  6. Treat a new paragraph, or a paragraph end, visible to the reader as a close quote. A foreseeable issue is that multiparagraph quotes (e.g. a quote character at the beginning of paragraph no1 and at the end of paragraph no3) will be closed too soon. But that is better than the current situation where the quote isn't detected. The quote character at the end of paragraph no3 will have no effect.
Can we move this discussion to the FR: "No changes inside single straight quotes" below? Lightmouse (talk) 23:49, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

do not make changes to text in italics

Status Feature added in next release
Description Do not change text that is in italics (surrounded by a pair of single quotation marks). Generally, this includes the names of objects such as books and should not be changed by AWB. See Chersonesos Taurica, first item in section "References and further reading" for example. Hmains (talk) 02:33, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision 7042

What kind of change occurs? Do you mean typo fixing? -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:56, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

rev 7042 Done. Rjwilmsi 08:45, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
thanks Hmains (talk) 03:11, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Rename template parameters

Status Feature added in next release
Description Along the lines of the template redirects and the dated templates features, a feature to rename parameters that have been renamed (but still work with the old name as well). Like template redirects and date templates, the list of parameters to update would be taken from a subpage here and done as part of general fixes for when someone is doing something that actually changes the article! SeveroTC 19:23, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision

You can use our tools in a custom module to rename/remove template parameters. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:02, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but we could do that with template redirects as well... renamed template parameters fall into the same category as template redirects because they are both non-essential general fixes (or am I missing something?). So, it could be helpful to add renamed/deleted template parameters on the same basis as template redirects. SeveroTC 16:04, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
We now have Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Rename template parameters. Rjwilmsi 20:45, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Improve edit summary for "typos fixed"

Status Feature added in next release
Description When AWB fixes typos, instead of adding "typos fixed" to the edit summary, add [[WP:AWB/T|typos fixed]]. This could eliminate the need to encourage people to do this manually in the Attention box that pops up when you start AWB, and reduce the length of each edit summary. GoingBatty (talk) 17:02, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision rev 8255
rev 8255 done for en-wiki Wikimedia projects. Rjwilmsi 08:24, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Remove empty hidden comments

Status Feature added in next release
Description Remove empty hidden comments like here. McLerristarr / Mclay1 17:55, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision rev 8257

We have RemoveComments already. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:19, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

rev 8257 activates it. Removing empty comments seems to be controversial in some cases though. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:57, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Allow editing and using summary from Edit Summary tab

Status Feature added in next release
Description Make the summary in the Edit Summary tab editable and provide a button or check box allowing it to be used as the one submitted. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 23:01, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision rev 8182

After manual edits, automatic summary information from RegexTypoFix, Find and replace, user modules, etc. is wiped out. However, the original, full edit summary is still available in the Edit Summary tab. If users were able to edit this summary, they could annotate their manual changes, remove portions pertaining to undone changes, or use it as is.

(I have on occasion copied the summary from the tab to the Summary field and edited it there, but that's inconvenient, causes problems if I forget to switch my summary back to my default, and clogs up my list of summaries, as it gets added to the list automatically.)

This would definitely be a solution to my feature request Prevent edit summary mistakes above, and would also provide a very easy (although not automatic) solution to Smarter edit summaries. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 23:01, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

This excellent feature has been implemented, so this request may be archived. MANdARAX  XAЯAbИAM 20:43, 4 September 2012 (UTC)


Partially implemented

Regex help

Status This feature is partially implemented
Description From both the Regex tester and Find & Replace dialogs, can we have a button (or URL link, perhaps) to launch the help for regexes? By default this could perhaps do a shellexec of http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hs600312.aspx but as an improvement the user could configure their own preferred document, if they had something better.

ClickRick (talk) 09:16, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Added in revision
If we link to anything then it should be to Regular expression I think. Rjwilmsi 15:20, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
In the FaR one we link to both of those. Reedy 15:22, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
We also have AWB manual (needs a rewrite) and a wikibook. — Dispenser 18:14, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Alerts, click to find as with multiple links

Status This feature is partially implemented
Description When finding alerts such as "Ambiguous citation dates", and "Unbalanced brackets found", to be able to click them and be moved to the area in the same way as when multiple links are found. This could apply to quite a few of the alerts, "Invalid citation" or other problems with refs.
Added in revision
The way we do it is to have the 'highlight errors' option available, and for that to highlight the errors in red in the edit box. rev 6365 Logic updated to handle dead links, ambiguous cite template dates (unbalanced brackets, invalid cite template parameters already included). Rjwilmsi 16:54, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
On page List of doping cases in sport for instance AWB informs me in red writing that there are unbalanced brakcets somewhere but does not highlight them. Unbalanced brackets is one of the most common alerts. In that revision it says that dead links will be highlighted but they aren't on this list. Just the alert. Dead links can be found easily by going to the page but unbalanced brackets on such a long page would require reading half the page to find them. ~ R.T.G 01:03, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
Under the Options menu do you have 'Highlight errors' enabled? Rjwilmsi 07:05, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
rev 6812 Further work: on click on alerts box scroll to next alert after current position in edit box, else to first alert if no later one. Rjwilmsi 21:23, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Add &nbsp before "Hz" and other SI units

Status This feature is partially implemented
Description If I understand this discussion on the Typo talk page, it's AWB code that adds a &nbsp in front of "km". Could it be expanded to do the same for "Hz" and other SI units? For example, see this edit. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 03:40, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
rev 7139 FixNonBreakingSpaces to cover Hz as well as GHz, kHz, MHz. Rjwilmsi 07:08, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

IW link sorting for custom projects

Status This feature is partially implemented
Description Interwiki link sorting for customs projects. --Cizagna (talk) 12:50, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
Added in revision
Provide some examples please. Rjwilmsi 14:27, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
uh?? AWB has an option to "Sort Interwiki links" that is apply with general fixes, based on this list. That i have been unable to trigger on a custom project. I ask and got answer that it only applies for certain projects/languages. still need examples? --Cizagna (talk) 19:38, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
Updating my link as it has being archive --Cizagna (talk) 18:45, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
Interwiki sorting varies from project to project. Every project would need its own page for something like that. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:35, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
Meta has the full list here, and I experience some issues with the Yiddish Wikipedia when it comes to the sorting of interwiki links. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 20:51, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
rev 5659/rev 5660 add a couple more of the predefined ones into use Reedy 21:17, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Change {{Unreferenced}} to {{Refimprove}} if article contains references

Status This feature is partially implemented
Description I have run across several articles lately that had {{Unreferenced}} but the article contained references. I would like to recommend changing {{Unreferenced}} to {{Refimprove}} (or be removed completely if the article contains:
  • {{reflist}}
  • <references/>
  • <ref>
  • <ref name=>
  • a Cite template

This logic should also update the date to the Current month and year. --Kumioko (talk) 14:42, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Added in revision
In addition to the above here are a couple more that might be useful based no the Documentation for the unreferenced template:

Could logic be added to AWB to replace {{unreferenced}} with {{Refimprove}} if the article contains references? In the article Victor French I manually changed the templates because the article contained {{Reflist}} and an inline citation. I think that in some article people are adding {{Reflist}} without adding inline citations leaving an empty section but I think if we look for:

  1. {{Reflist}}, <references/>and
  2. the article contains an inline citation like <ref(.*?)</ref> then we should change {{Unreferenced}} to {{Refimprove}}. Per the instructions for the Unreferenced template it should not be used if the article has even one reference. --Kumioko (talk) 19:40, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
Also, if the {{Unreferenced}} template appears in a section, as it does in the History of Cambodia article it should be changed to {{Unreferenced section}}. --Kumioko (talk) 20:00, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
Maybe this request should be merged with mine above GoingBatty (talk) 00:13, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
After doing a little testing I dont even think we need to look for #1 so I lined it out. If the article has <ref then it should be ok. --Kumioko (talk) 03:05, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I found an article yesterday with {{Reflist}}, <references> (no closing tag) - that would be rather rare though. Rich Farmbrough, 16:32, 22 October 2010 (UTC).

rev 7333 Tagger: rename unreferenced to refimprove if article has existing refs

Date vs year in cite templates.

Status This feature is partially implemented
Description Reverse this logic, replace year= with date=, except when year is a year followed by a letter. The only sensible use of year in citation templates is for creating Harvard refs, and even then it is a bad name for the parameter when it takes a value like 2006c. Date is unambiguous, and unnecessary multiplication of entities does not help, people will be (and indeed have) created templates using both fields. Rich Farmbrough, 01:57, 17 April 2010 (UTC).
Added in revision
In the {{cite web}}/{{cite book}} documentation we have:
a date parameter
* either date: Full date of publication. Should not be wikilinked.
* or year: Year of publication, and month: Name of the month of publication. If you also have the day, use date instead. Should not be wikilinked.

so I think what AWB is doing meets that. We need to have a wider discussion about an update to the documentation if you reckon it causes confusion at the moment. Rjwilmsi 07:36, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

To address the duplication I can make AWB remove |year=YYYY when there is a |date= field containing a full date with the same YYYY (in this case |year=YYYYa etc. would be left alone). Rjwilmsi 07:51, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
That makes good sense. Rich Farmbrough, 05:55, 18 April 2010 (UTC).
 Done rev 6434 Added that logic. Rjwilmsi 13:36, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
I think this ones done too. --Kumioko (talk) 01:51, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

General approval for AWB General Fixes

Status Feature already exists in AWB
Description # How it runs
    • A protected sub page, say Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/General bot fixes contains a list of all general fixes, with an approved or unapproved mark by it.
    • On login when the bot status is checked, the page is loaded from the wiki, and sets an array of flags.
    • When AWB is run in bot mode (i.e. auto-save on) only those general fixes that are approved are implemented.
  1. How it would be set up on-wiki
    • The list of existing gen fixes is set in the page and approval sought for "a goodly chunk" from BAG.
    • Incrementally new fixes are added and approved (or not).
    • Admins can with due cause disable a specific fix -if for example the code has become broken, or a change means the fix is no longer valid.
  2. Permission granted
    • Permission will be blanket for AWB bots to perform the specified GFs WHILE doing an already approved task.
  3. Benefits
    • Less dramah
    • More GFs done
    • Street legal
    • Ability to revoke specific fixes without having to force-upgrade AWB
    Rich Farmbrough, 16:35, 3 May 2010 (UTC).
Added in revision

I suggested this on talk, but the two people who commented seemed not to understand a word of it. Rich Farmbrough, 16:35, 3 May 2010 (UTC).

Judging by my last BRFAs that there were only 3 genfixes on doubt: Stub removal, defaultsort addition, ref ordering.
  • The first is now sorted since we have a large "grey area" of "we don't know if it is a stub or not". Every time we remove a stub we are on the safe side.
  • The second is handled by "Restrict DEFAULTSORT addition". We recommend it to be turned on while doing genfixes.
  • The latter is yet to be sorted.

No more drama I think. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:43, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

The difficulty (and this is not just for bots, although they are an important case) is that I think some AWB users have the viewpoint "If AWB can do it, it's helpful" and so they want to enable as much as possible. I routinely see AWB edits that, despite the AWB rules, do nothing but replace HTML entities or capitalize templates. So, given this impulse to "turn on every option", it would be better to have AWB automatically disable certain features in bot mode, rather than presenting a check box. The features to be disabled would be any that require human judgment to apply. (It would also be nice if AWB automatically enforced the rule against making trivial edits, but that's a separate issue.) The main points, I think, are
  • AWB bots are approved to perform specific tasks; general fixes are just an extra freebie. So there's no reason to include general fixes that have potential negative consequences.
  • Some editors will view AWB changes as having an implicit authority, and be reluctant to undo them. So AWB general fixes should avoid issues where the manual of style allows for individual articles to have different styles.
— Carl (CBM · talk) 16:57, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
I think the solution is "skip if not main task is not performed". Trivial edits should only be following main edits. we have enough skip options in AWB to make this possible. I think we have to discussion in Bot requests talk page the unification of some bots. I think, for example, that FrescoBot is a super bot but it does too little sometimes. I think we have 10 bots doing parts of what AWB can do in once. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:04, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
Apart from the ones I descrived above which others need human observation? We had a lot of discussions and I don't recall any other cases. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:06, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

I updated the manual to show policies/guidelines used for each general fix. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:15, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Aside on SameRefDifferentName beahvour

I don't think so, although I am not sure what the "SameRefDifferentName" fix actually does. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:42, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
I've added a couple of examples to the manual: SameRefDifferentName. Rjwilmsi 19:14, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. I think I understand, but if I do then you have the two diffs backwards. What would the fixer do if it ran into this situation?
Foo.<ref name="Jones">Jones, ''Title'', Publisher, lots of information, p. 71</ref>
Bar.<ref name="Jones">Jones p. 80.</ref>.
— Carl (CBM · talk) 19:21, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
A current example would be Central_nervous_system (ref 5). AWB is going to condense them too. That's not right, so I'll fix it (to not apply when the short ref is a page ref). However, it's not so bad in that the reader doesn't currently see 'p 80' (in your example). Rjwilmsi 19:32, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
Right: It's a broken ref. Do you have any data on what these usually contain? Page refs were the first thing that came to my mind. It might be better to just put a cleanup template at let editors fix the problem, to avoid losing information. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:53, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
Not much of use: whitespace, ibid or some nonsense: results from first 25% of March 2010 db dump, one per line. Rjwilmsi 21:04, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
From that, it looks like just looking for /pp?[.:]?\s*\d+/i would be enough. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:08, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
What I've implemented covers all of that now. Rjwilmsi 12:23, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Change logic for adding {{stub}}

Status This feature is partially implemented
Description One of the general fixes is to append {{stub}} if an article has at most 300 characters (comments are excluded from count). Please also exclude
  • templates (such as infoboxes) and
  •  Done categories from the count. GoingBatty (talk) 23:43, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
  •  Not done Also exclude references inside <ref> tags from the count. GoingBatty (talk) 18:38, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
rev 7513 and rev 7514. Exclude Persondata from character count. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:26, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
References are part of the article. They may be long footnote. AWB tries to stay to the safe side. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:58, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
We should be excluding categories and interwikis. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:19, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
This should be tagged as stub I presume Bharati Bhavan Library, Walter B. Hargreaves. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:37, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I think AWB should tag these articles like these as stubs, since the article content is less than 300 characters. My request is to exclude the maintenance templates, the "References" (which are really just external links in these examples), coordinate templates, and categories as part of the count. GoingBatty (talk) 03:25, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
References and external links shouldn't be excluded. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:15, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

rev 7567. Exclude categories from character count. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:51, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Removing and replacing template transclusions

Status This feature is partially implemented
Description AWB currently has features to remove, replace, and comment out files and to add, remove, and replace categories, but it has no such built-in functionality for templates. The "add" function that is present for categories won't really work with templates because, unlike categories, the appropriate location of templates within an article is not fixed. Also, I can't think of any situation where it would make sense to comment out templates, so I have restricted my request to the tasks of removal and replacement.

Could a feature be added to AWB to remove and replace transclusions of templates? This can currently be accomplished using the "Find and replace" feature, but a built-in feature would be more convenient. Also, could such a feature take into account transclusions which (unnecessarily) include the "Template:" prefix, such as: {{Template:Template Name}}? Thank you, –BLACK FALCON (TALK) 20:30, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Added in revision
Related request at #Generic template removal. Also, please note that, for the sake of simplicity, my request is only for templates transcluded without any specified parameters (such as most navigation templates). –BLACK FALCON (TALK) 20:33, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
Although having a parameter-changing feature would be good too... –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 20:36, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

To clarify, the existing category functionality does not allow category removal by using a blank 'with Category' field. Rjwilmsi 21:25, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Right now (v. 4903) AWB removes the "Template:" prefix. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:32, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
I think this is done with the new Template redirect page and logic. --Kumioko (talk) 01:51, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
We also provide tools to replace/remove templates using custom module. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:29, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Database scanner - usability improvements

Status This feature is partially implemented
Description The database scanner uses the word 'dump' as a tab. This was a bit confusing for me. A more descriptive name for the subject of the tab would be 'Database'. Within the tab, there is a field label of 'Database dump'. The word 'dump' is redundant and it would be better as simply 'Database'. Also, there is an 'About' button there which probably should be removed to declutter it - all the 'About' info is (or should be) accessible from the Help menu. Furthermore, there are three links 'WMF dumps', 'Wikia dumps', and 'Generating Database dumps'. These should be removed to declutter the dialog. The links should be moved to the help file if needed. The title of the database scanner dialog is 'Wiki Database Scanner'. I think the word 'Wikia' could be removed and the words revised to sentence case i.e. simply 'Database scanner'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lightmouse (talkcontribs)
Added in revision
  • "Database" is probably wrong as well, since this can also scan an .XML file generated from Special:Export which is only "partial" database. –xenotalk 19:28, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
rev 7048 Use naming Database and "Database file". Rjwilmsi 09:13, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll try to remember to look when I get it. Lightmouse (talk) 22:15, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I've looked at svn7155. The tab name 'Database' and field name 'Database file' looks good thanks. Any thoughts on the other comments (e.g. the 'About' button, and the three hypertext links)? Lightmouse (talk) 11:36, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

This FR can be closed, the remaining comments have been moved to a new request. See Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Feature_requests#Database_scanner_-_more_usability_improvements. Lightmouse (talk) 17:28, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

A couple more suggestions related to Persondata logic

Status This feature is partially implemented
Description I have a couple more suggestions regarding the persondata logic.
  1. In this edit [4] AWB add the persondata but because there was no DEFAULTSORT or similar templates it did not include the name. Can we use the Article name if this is not available?
  2. or Would it be possible to add the defaultsort, using the same or similar logic as persondata that tells if the article is about a person if there is no defaultsort or equivelant already there? Then we could use this to derive the name for the Persondata template.
  3.  Not done Since determining Short description can be difficult or impossible for AWB to derive could we add an alert to notify the user if there is no Short Description?
  4.  Not done Can an Alert be added to notify the user if there is no name in the persondata?
  5.  Done rev 7187 In this edit [5] AWB added the Persondata with the dates of birth and death but it did not add the Places of birth and death. I assume its due to the infobox for NFL Players not saying its an infobox but Im not sure. Is there anyway this could be added to the logic?
  6. Wikipedia:Persondata states that the persondata template should not contain templates in the birth and death date fields. Can logic be added to replace dates in templates and place the dates in a nontemplate format?
  7.  Done rev 7309 Wikipedia:Persondata states that the persondata template should not contain templates in the birth and death place fields. In the Andrea Leeds article the city state template is used to link the City and State of birth and death. Can logic be added to replace the place templates in a nontemplate format?--Kumioko (talk) 02:30, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision

My opinion on these.

  1. As you see, this would be a wrong entry in your case. You should have "Restrict DEFAULTSORT addition" disactivated when adding PERSONDATA. In future version of AWB the name field will be the PAGENAME if there is no DEFAULTSORT and the name contains no spaces.
    1. Why would I restrict defaultsort when adding persondata. Other than the fact that persondata derives data from DEFAULTSORT they are mutually exclusive templates. --Kumioko (talk) 13:14, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
      1. I wrote "disactivated". AWB must add DEFAULTSORT. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:23, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
        1. On articles without DEFAULTSORT and without Persondata (e.g. Léon-Eugène Méhédin, when "Restrict DEFAULTSORT change/addition" is checked, no DEFAULTSORT is added, and Persondata is added with no value in the Name= parameter. When "Restrict DEFAULTSORT change/addition" is unchecked, DEFAULTSORT is added, and Persondata is added with the same value in the Name= parameter as in DEFAULTSORT. Instead of populating Persondata Name based on the value in DEFAULTSORT, could the same logic that DEFAULTSORT uses to figure out the correct value also be used to figure out the correct Persondata Name? GoingBatty (talk) 17:49, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
  2. Probably yes. But why duplicate the method? This will slow us down.
    1. I don't know what the best way to make it work would be, I just offered that as a possibility. In my opinion though AWB should add the defaultsort template before it adds the persondata. --Kumioko (talk) 13:14, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
  3. No idea.
  4. It could but I don't like the idea of adding an alert for something that obvious while scanning the article.
    1. I have 2 arguments for this. One is that most users dont care or do anything with persondata and in fact it isn't even visible to users unless they actively make it so. The second is that when I am using AWB I usually only scan the changes it makes or the alerts it presents. I don't read the whole article for context on every edit. I have to assume that most other users do it the same way. When making edits without AWB, I may or may not notice if the persondata has short description. --Kumioko (talk) 13:14, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
      1. Until now we used Alerts to give warning on errors we couldn't fix automatically. Adding an entry isn't exactly an error, it's an addition. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:25, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
  5. This can be easily updated. The problem is with these "BirthPlace" and "DeathPlace" parameter names. I am trying to standarise the parameter names in all infoboxes in 2-3 variants. This will save us with similar problems in the future.
    1. I understand, thanks for standardizing those infoboxes. Theres a lot of redundant ones out there that needed to be cleaned up. --Kumioko (talk) 13:14, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
  6. Done in 7105. Check [6].
    1. Based on the description in 7105 Im not sure that was the question I asked. --Kumioko (talk) 13:14, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
      1. Check that birth_date uses Birth date and age and PERSONDATA doesn't. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:23, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
        1. No, Kumioko is asking for existing persondata using the templates to be corrected. This is not yet implemented. Rjwilmsi 07:21, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
  7. This will be done in a future version.
    1. Thanks. --Kumioko (talk) 13:14, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

-- Magioladitis (talk) 06:58, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I just wanted to let you know that I came up with some regex that looks at the persondata and removed the Dates from templates like birth and death dates. I am working on some for city state template. I know that you are able to do it yourself but if you want it I would be glad to give it to you and save you some effort. --Kumioko (talk) 14:23, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Here is some regex to help get rid of the City-state template from within the persondata template:

This will replace the City-state template in the PLACE OF BIRTH field:

Find \{\{Persondata(.*?)\|(.*?)\|[ ]*PLACE OF BIRTH[ ]*=[ ]*\{\{[ ]*city-state[ ]*\|(.*?)\|(.*?)\}\}

Replace {{Persondata|$2|PLACE OF BIRTH = [[$3, $4]]

This will replace the City-state template in the PLACE OF DEATH field:

Find \{\{Persondata(.*?)\|(.*?)\|[ ]*PLACE OF DEATH[ ]*=[ ]*\{\{[ ]*city-state[ ]*\|(.*?)\|(.*?)\}\}

Replace {{Persondata|$2|PLACE OF DEATH = [[$3, $4]]

rev 7309 PersonData to de-template {{city-state}} in PLACE OF BIRTH and PLACE OF DEATH fields. You don't need to take your time to write your own regexes as I won't use them. Rjwilmsi 09:12, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
Thanks thats good to know. Do you use something else besides Regex or is there just a better way of coding it. If the latter is the case I would be interested to see what your version of the code looks like so I can learn. --Kumioko (talk) 12:57, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Better control of uncat tagging

Status This feature is partially implemented
Description I'm not sure what the best way to handle this would be, but I'll put it out for discussion; for all I know, there may even already be a workaround that I don't know about yet. Anyway, I've recently been tagging large batches of articles from the Uncategorized Articles toolserver list, due to a large backlog there (42,000 three months ago!) The AWB-related problem has been that if I rely solely on AWB's automated judgement as to whether an article is categorized or not, it seems to be completely random about it, and misses tagging a large number of them. So I've used the append/prepend text feature to manually add the tag instead — with the result that every once in a while AWB adds a second uncategorized template itself anyway, and I have to remove the second one before saving. Could there be (or is there already) a feature which, if turned on, would force AWB to add the uncategorized tag when I'm doing a batch run on uncategorized articles? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bearcat (talkcontribs) 04:07, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
If adding the tag is the only thing you want to do, then turning off genfixes should turn off the automatic adding of that tag. Also, I think it doesn't tag some of the articles automatically, because they contain templates – in that case, AWB doesn't know, whether the article is already in some categories, through the templates. Svick (talk) 14:12, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

rev 7499 Tagger: when no cats from existing page by API call but genfixes adds people categories, don't tag uncat. I fail to see what more problems could occur since AWB uses API calls to check whether a pge is categorised or not. If a page with categories is tagged as ucategorised please report it in the bugs page. Do the same for pages with no categories which aren't tagged. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:09, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Comment on Template:Persondata deprecated

Status This feature is partially implemented
Description Update the logic of AWB to not add the comment to the persondata template when adding the template to an article that doesn't have it. Per a discussion here everyone agreed the comment is no longer needed and the requirement has been removed from the documentation. I would also suggest that the removal of the comment from existing templates be added as a general fix to be done as a minor edit when other more significant edits are being made. --Kumioko (talk) 02:25, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision
rev 7884 Don't add persondata comment when adding new persondata template. Rjwilmsi 19:15, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Removing a comment would not affect rendered page at all. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:11, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Expand Tagger to rename Improve categories when appending Uncategorized stub

Status Feature added in next release
Description Tagger "Appends {{Uncategorised}} if article has no categories and is not a stub (or renames {{improve categories}}). If the article has no categories and is a stub, could Tagger rename {{improve categories}} to {{Uncategorized stub}} (instead of just adding {{Uncategorized stub}}? GoingBatty (talk) 03:46, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Added in revision rev 7937
rev 7937 Tagger: {{improve categories}} --> {{uncategorized}} if no real categories on page (stub assessment done later). Rjwilmsi 06:31, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Add a new last step to AWB-Updater

Status Feature added in next release
Description Now, the last step of Updating is “Cleaning after Update”. But we do not see when it is completed. Suggestion: Add a new last step of AWB-Updater: “Cleaning after Updating ist completed. You may close this window (AWB-Updater) now.”
Added in revision rev 7991 Reedy (talk) 21:37, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

https support for custom sites

Status Feature added in next release
Description Support for configuring custom sites that use only https and are not reachable via http. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 00:43, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
Added in revision 7989

I have solved this together with adding support for HTTP AUTH protected wikis. Patch can be found here for trunk: User:John Ericson/AutoWikiBrowserHttpAuthAndSslToCustomProjects.patch. I would love to see this commited to trunk. --John Ericson (talk) 08:13, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

"use secure server" in the preference/site menue can not be selected in "custom" wikis; AWB should provide this feature for AWB users in "custom" wikis. --Wvk (talk) 06:11, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I've made some changes to further implement this properly. As WMF wikis now can be accessed via HTTPS simply, I've forced them over and swapped how we do the protcol choosing. Thanks for the patch, most of it was applied as is, some changes around the open in browser code, but that's possibly still broken. Reedy (talk) 21:16, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Support BASIC HTTP AUTH authorization for private custom wikis. If access is denied give user possibility to input user/pass. Patch included!

Status Feature added in next release
Description I would like to have the possibility to access HTTP AUTH protected wikis, that is username/password protected web sites. This is usually done on custom wikis. Right now AWB can't handle a HTTP 401 Unauthorized response from the web server. My suggestion is to display a Login windows where the user can enter username and password to continue. I have developed a patch for trunk that implements this together with SSL support for custom wikis. The patch can be found here: User:John Ericson/AutoWikiBrowserHttpAuthAndSslToCustomProjects.patch. I also added this patch to the Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Feature_requests#https support for custom sites request. --John Ericson (talk) 08:49, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision 7985
Hi, you don't seem to have svn add'ed the new Login.cs files... Could you do this, and then update the diff? Thanks! Reedy (talk) 19:21, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
Thanks Reedy for noticing me of that! Now all the Login-files are included in the patch and I also cleaned it up some extra so it's smaller. You'll find it at the same place. --John Ericson (talk) 21:16, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
The patch is now updated to trunk (revision 7941) as requested by Magioladitis. --John Ericson (talk) 23:38, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
And it's now applied, thanks! HTTPS support tweaked also.. Reedy (talk) 21:17, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Merge more templates into Multiple issues

Status This feature is partially implemented
Description Now that |cleanup-link rot= and |unreliable= have been added to {{Multiple issues}}, please update AWB so it also merges {{cleanup-link rot}} and {{Unreliable sources}}. GoingBatty (talk) 04:59, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision
rev 7781 cleanup-link rot. Rjwilmsi 15:34, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
When updating AWB to merge these templates into Multiple issues, could you please also ensure that they do not give "Unknown parameters in Multiple issues" alerts? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 01:57, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Moved other parameters to bugs page GoingBatty (talk) 14:29, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Support to fix "Category:Articles using Infobox musical artist with deprecated parameters"

Status This feature is partially implemented
Description I would like someone to write the either a core-feature or a plugin/module to automate the fixing of Category:Articles_using_Infobox_musical_artist_with_deprecated_parameters so I can go through and clear this large backlog. It would need to fix the following:
  • Remove |1=
  • Replace |Born= with |birth_date= and |birth_place=
  • Replace |Died= - with |death_date= and |death_place=
  • Intelligently split date and birthplace and move to correct field (Example: |Born= January 1, 1960 in Minneapolis, Minnesota with |birth_date=January 1, 1960 and |birth_place=[[Minneapolis]], [[Minnesota]]
Added in revision
The first three would be easy. The 4th one would be harder because there are a lot of different variations of how that information is displayed in the inforbox. I have seen that data a dozen or more different ways. --Kumioko (talk) 19:46, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
I've created Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Rename template parameters that will allow 2 and 3 to be done. I'm not motivated to be sorting out the date and location splitting. Rjwilmsi 13:46, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

There is a script in User_talk:Magioladitis#Infobox_musical_artist_updates which helps deal with 50% of the current backlog. Feel free to use it. I use it every time I get enough internet access. More from September. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:59, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Category is now empty! Mission accomplished. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:48, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Remove "lang=en" from citation templates

Status This feature is partially implemented
Description FixCitationTemplates "removes |language= when it is English per citation templates manuals." However, it does not remove |lang=en from {{cite web}} and {{cite news}} (as I did manually in this edit). My first preference is to remove the parameter entirely. My second preference would be to have an "Invalid citation parameter found" alert. GoingBatty (talk) 23:05, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision
rev 7672 FixCitationTemplates to remove |language=en as well as |language=English on en-wiki. Rjwilmsi 09:22, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
|lang= is already reported as an invalid parameter in alerts. I don't intend to do any more on this. Rjwilmsi 10:04, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
I reverted my previous edit to confirm that when I load Western Union in AWB SVN 7660, |lang= is not reported as an invalid parameter. GoingBatty (talk) 00:13, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Order appendices

Status This feature is partially implemented
Description Could AWB be used to order appendices per Wikipedia:Layout#Standard appendices and footers, even if only under narrowly-defined conditions? Specifically, if an article has at least two equal-level section headings titled:
  1. "See also";
  2. "Notes", "References", or "Notes and references";
  3. "Further reading"; or
  4. "External links"

then could AWB ensure that the sections are ordered as per the Guide to Layout? If it is possible to make the parameters restrictive enough, then it should be possible to avoid complex situations where mistakes could be made, such as: one appendix is a subsection of another, the appendices have non-standard names, two or more appendices are combined under one section heading (e.g. "References and external links"). –BLACK FALCON (TALK) 19:51, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Added in revision
Related to Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Feature_requests#Place_.22External_links.22_section_after_.22References.22. This logic could be expanded. Rjwilmsi 08:03, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

rev 4619 Move the 'see also' section to be above the 'references' section, subject to the limitation that the 'see also' section can't be the last level-2 section. Rjwilmsi 17:33, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

In accordance with the MOS there is a certain order that sections should be in at the bottom of the articles and in many cases these sections are out of order. Two examples are that the see also section should be above Notes/Sources/References, Further reading and external links. Another example is that Further reading should be above External links. This request would add logic to AWB to reorder some of these sections. I previously submitted this request and in the case of the see also section it was, understandably added as an alert due to the complication of determining were it should go. Through research and experimentation (and the Regex help of another user for the first one) I have found that it is possible to capture at least some and move the section to its proper location. I have provided some code that could be used as a guide. I have tested this no about 20 or 30 articles in the Medal of Honor recipients category without errors but I also admit that it doesn’t capture 100% (usually for the bottom section that has stuff under it like {{Persondata, {{Defaultsort, [[Category:, templates and tables).

I have attempted to correct this case by using (.*)[[Category: to capture everything down to the first category (because presumably most articles will have a category) but I just haven’t figured it out yet. Maybe you will have better luck and if we can't do this case then thats fine but we can at least do some I think. Again the first one is done as an example of what has worked for me.

  • Move See also section above notes section

Find code: ==([ ]*)Notes[ ]*==(.*?)==[ ]*See also[ ]*==(.*?)==

Replace code: ==$1See also$1==$3==$1Notes$1==$2==

  •  Done Move See also above References
  • Move See also above Sources
  • Move See also above Further reading
  • Move See also above External links
  • Move Notes above External links
  • Move Notes above Further reading
  • Move References above External links
  • Move References above Further reading.
  • Move Further reading above External links
  • Move Sources above External links
  • Move Sources above Further reading--Kumioko (talk) 18:24, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Here is an example of one that I recently did that this worked on Thomas W. Hyde. --Kumioko (talk) 01:06, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
Doesn't AWB already do this? McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 01:27, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
Not usually. I think there might be a couple of specific cases but not generally. --Kumioko (talk) 01:35, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
Notes shouldn't always go after See also. For example, List of sovereign states and dependent territories in Europe has a notes section for footnotes from the tables. It wouldn't make sense to put the notes after the see also section. McLerristarr / Mclay1 11:29, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
If we don't intend to add more code to AWB to rearrange sections as mentioned above we can archive this one. --Kumioko (talk) 11:41, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Better handling for {{Dead end}} with |section=

Status This feature is partially implemented
Description In Midnight Bedlam, AWB wants to remove {{Dead end}} with |section=. Since there's only one wikilink in the section, I think it would be better if AWB replaced it with {{Wikify section}}. GoingBatty (talk) 19:41, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision

We have to first clarify what does "wikify" really means and when dead end is supposed to be added. There is an active discussion in Wikiproject Wikify. Please add your idea there first. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:24, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

rev 7542 Tagger: if not dead end page do not remove {{dead end|section|...}} tags. Rjwilmsi 11:40, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Double redirect fix functionality

Status This feature is partially implemented
Description Add a function or plugin that fixes double redirects similar to how pybot does. Nobody likes to do these manually, and some people prefer AWB over pybot. --Charitwo (talk) 21:24, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Added in revision

This bug is partially dependent on bugzilla:14869 Reedy 15:29, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Bug fixed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:44, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Move ArticleHistory under Talk header per WP:TPL

Status This feature is partially implemented
Description It would be nice to standardize the order two main talk page templates are listed, {{talk header}} and {{ArticleHistory}}. Article history is arguably more important than wikiprojects or other notices. so i'd like AWB to autosort these templates (if they exist) as part of the gen fixes in order to have some consistency. there is random placement on talk pages where i've even seen these templates sandwiched between two different project banners. --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 16:09, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision

rev 7577 ensures that WPBs is under talk header even there is a blp on it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:02, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

A couple more suggestions for talk page fixes

Status This feature is partially implemented
Description A couple of suggestions for talk page fixes.
  1. {{Talk header}} should be moved above {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} and WikiProject banners
  2. {{Image requested}} should be moved below {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} and WikiProject banners
  3. {{DYK talk}} should be moved below {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} and WikiProject banners
  4. {{Skip to talk}} should be moved above {{Talk header}}
  5. {{Old AfD multi}} should be moved below {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} and WikiProject banners.
  6. We could use some logic that looks for duplicate templates. I am finding quite a few with more than one of a WikiProjectTemplate (often due to the use of different redirects of the same template), talk header, etc. --Kumioko (talk) 17:50, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
Just for clarification of the above I have no preference as to where above and below as applicable but they should not be embedded in the wikibannershell or sandwiched between wikiproject banner templates. --Kumioko (talk) 17:53, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
Removed 2 already done. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:44, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, They might be bugs then rather than feature requests. I have SVN 7424 and I have seen several cases today where these did not work. The next time I get one I will post a link to the article. --Kumioko (talk) 19:54, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
diff (check and confirm you saw, then I'll delete it). -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:55, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
Recall that talk page genfixes don't work in template talk space. They work only in article, book and category talk space. Moreover, per WP:TPL, {{Oldprod}}, {{Old AfD multi}}, etc. must go above projects. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:00, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
Ok thanks, by their descriptions it made more sense to put them below. You can remove those 2 if I get them again I will resubmit them as bugs with a proper diff. Cant seem to find another one at the moment. --Kumioko (talk) 20:27, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
In this edit AWB added the WikiProjectBannerShell template above the talk header and even when I try to reparse it doesn't move the talk header above {{WikiProjectBannerShell}}. --Kumioko (talk) 21:11, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
I tried and in my case it doesn't add the WPBS at all in Talk:Test page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:32, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
Fixed -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:41, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Succession table

Status This feature is partially implemented
Description Previously, succession tables could be coded in a variety of ways. However, because of print versions, the way to write succession tables need to be more rigourous. Before something like this was fine:
{{start}}
{{s-bef|before=[[Gerhard Schröder]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[Chancellor of Germany (Federal Republic)|Chancellor of Germany]]|years=2005–present}}
{{s-inc}}
{{s-bef|before=[[George W. Bush]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets|Republican Party presidential candidate]]
|years=[[United States presidential election, 2008|2008]]}}
{{s-inc|recent}}
|-
{{s-vac|last=[[Alfonso XIII of Spain|Alfonso XIII]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[List of Spanish monarchs|King of Spain]]|years=22 November 1975 – present}}
{{s-inc|heir=[[Felipe, Prince of Asturias|Crown Prince Felipe]]}}
{{s-new|Championship}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[World Alliance of Mixed Martial Arts#Current Champions|WAMMA Heavyweight Champion]]
|years=July 19, 2008 – present}}
{{s-inc|current}}
{{end}}

Now, this needs to be followed

{{s-start}}
{{s-bef|before=[[Gerhard Schröder]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[Chancellor of Germany (Federal Republic)|Chancellor of Germany]]|years=2005–present}}
{{s-inc}}
{{s-bef|before=[[George W. Bush]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets|Republican Party presidential candidate]]
|years=[[United States presidential election, 2008|2008]]}}
{{s-inc|recent}}
{{s-break}}
{{s-vac|last=[[Alfonso XIII of Spain|Alfonso XIII]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[List of Spanish monarchs|King of Spain]]|years=22 November 1975 – present}}
{{s-inc|heir=[[Felipe, Prince of Asturias|Crown Prince Felipe]]}}
{{s-new|Championship}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[World Alliance of Mixed Martial Arts#Current Champions|WAMMA Heavyweight Champion]]
|years=July 19, 2008 – present}}
{{s-inc|current}}
{{s-end}}

That is:

  1. {{start}} →{{s-start}}
  2. {{start box}} →{{s-start}}
  3. |- → {{s-break}}
  4. {{end}} → {{s-end}}
  5. {{end box}} → {{s-end}}

Fixes 1, 2, and 5 do not fix anything, but they could prevent lots of problem in the long run and should probably be made alongside other edits. However, fixes 3 & 4 are required so the print version displays as intended. Note that this should ONLY affect succession boxes. A good way to ensure that is to search for {{start}}/{{s-start}} and {{end}}/{{end box}}/{{s-end}}. Everything starting with the former AND ending with the latter can safely be considered the "succession box code".

BTW, I know some of these redirect to others, but that is part of the problem, or could become a problem in the future. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:54, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Added in revision

This is more a bot task, isn't it? -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:26, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot was doing a lot of this on the fly... i'll make a note Rich Farmbrough, 23:03, 5 October 2010 (UTC).
It might be more of a bot task, but it wouldn't hurt to incorporate it in AWB as well if possible. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:02, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Steps 1,2,4 and 5 are done with Template Redirects now. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:15, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Step 4 is not done through template redirects as this isn't a redirect. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 22:30, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
I think this one is done and can be archived but I'm not sure. --Kumioko (talk) 20:35, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
Step 3 and 4 aren't done. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:27, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
I think this Feature request was done also so it can be archived. We do these with the template redirects logic. --Kumioko (talk) 11:43, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
I think this is done as much as it can be. I don't think we can do the #3 without contention so this can probably be archived now. Kumioko (talk) 23:39, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Fix excess whitespace

Status This feature is partially implemented
Description Why is the "Fix excess whitespace" feature not done automatically by AWB as it does everything else? If the feature can be altered so that it does not remove the second space above a stub template, then it could be included with the rest of the AWB changes. McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 01:29, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
It would also require other tweaks as well. It could be separated into automatic changes that fix mistakes and far too much whitespace (it could be ticked as an option like Regex) and manual changes that don't really improve the article just remove spaces (like before bullets). McLerristarr / Mclay1 11:24, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Add wiktionary link to disambiguation window

Status This feature is partially implemented
Description Can a line be added to the disambig window so that a link to the wiktionary entry can be added? E.g. emboss would disambig to emboss. Thanks. Wizard191 (talk) 16:46, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
Added in revision

I expected that in most cases wictionary doesn't have a similar entry. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:58, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean? In the case given, sometimes people link a word so that the definition can be understood, i.e. that an embossed surface is a raised surface, not necessarily embossing of a certain type (like the articles on the disambig page). Wizard191 (talk) 01:15, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
I mean that at most times the foo.wiktionary would be a red link. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:04, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Interwiki links never show up as red links, even if there isn't a target page. See wikt:;lkj. Wizard191 (talk) 01:41, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

This is partially implemented. If {{wiktionary}} is in dab page. AWB will grab it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:14, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

I grabs it, but adds "Wiktionary" to the variants, instead of wikt:word. If this feature is considered, I suggest that it be done smartly: if {{wiktionary}} was used, wikt:word is added to the variants instead of "Wiktionary". --Muhandes (talk) 08:58, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Only replace when something else is happening

Status This feature is partially implemented
Description Just a simple option to make replaces only happen when something else is being changed in the article. This could either be for all the replaces or a tickbox next to each find and replace (thats my preference). ·Add§hore· Talk To Me! 20:03, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Added in revision 5.0.0.0
Has been added by the minor find & replace enhancement. Rjwilmsi 17:06, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
This is a more general request: Skip only if F&R is performed and nothing else happens (tagging, genfixes, etc.). Minor fixes works in the context of F&R. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:40, 12 February 2010 (UTC)


Changes to category sorting

Status This feature is partially implemented
Description *Changes to the software mean that capitals and lower-case letters are sorted equally in categories. Could we remove the feature for adding a DEFAULTSORT to a page if only casing is affected?
  • While we're at it, it would be useful to add more logic so that the DEFAULTSORT puts definite and indefinite articles (a, an, the and others in other languages) at the end (e.g. Beatles, The). McLerristarr | Mclay1 06:04, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision

First part is done. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:01, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Was just the explicit request done – simply suppressing the addition of DEFAULTSORT when only casing is affected? If so, this request should be extended:
The sort key generated by AWB, such as the value given to %%key%%, should not change the case. For example, the sort key for LeRon McCoy should be McCoy, LeRon. The one generated by the latest SVN (7910) is Mccoy, Leron. MANdARAX  XAЯAbИAM 19:04, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
Why is that? Since defaultsort is case-insensitive now. Both versions are OK. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:48, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
Well, a DEFAULTSORT of "mCcOy, lErOn" would also be functionally equivalent, but we wouldn't want to use that. Things should not be done without a reason, and there's no longer any reason to change the case of sort keys which users are adding to DEFAULTSORT and listas. In the past, people would sometimes ask why the case was changed, thinking it was incorrect, and we could point them to the relevant guideline. Now all we could say is that it's an obsolete remnant from the Olden Days. MANdARAX  XAЯAbИAM 22:09, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Improve efficiency of list algorithms

Status Feature added in next release
Description This is a very handy tool, but I'm not very impressed with the efficiency of its list algorithms. It takes a lot of CPU time to sort a list or remove duplicates. It takes AWB the same amount of time to sort some 20000 articles as one of my Java programs can sort two million. I'd recommend that the devs look at Quicksort, which seems ideal for AWB's purposes. Appending a list to another list also takes a long time, and I get the impression that much of the CPU time goes into either expanding the size of the underlying array by one and then copying everything over, or there's a O(n^2) algorithm which checks for duplicates. Without looking at the code, I don't know what which it is. If you don't want to use the extra memory for a hashtable, consider sorting the list using Quicksort, and then removing list[k+1] if list[k] == list[k+1]. If you are concerned about memory usage in a dynamic array, consider a hashed array tree. Jesse V. (talk) 17:44, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
Added in revision
One of the developers just did about 10 or 12 changes in the last couple weeks that should fix a lot of this. I'm not 100% sure of course but I believe if you try the next SVN when its released you'll find a significant improvement. Kumioko (talk) 00:18, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
There's a new snapshot available with major performance fixes to removal of duplicates, selection of all items/none in the list, removal of a selection of items from the list, list comparer operation. So, please try out the new snapshot and report any areas where list performance still seems problematic. Thanks Rjwilmsi 20:18, 31 July 2012 (UTC)


Not implemented

{{Stub}}

Status Feature already exists in AWB
Description When adding {{Stub}} add it lowercase {{stub}}
Added in revision

This helps save the stub-sorters time. (Yes Rich asking for a lcfirst template! You saw it here first.) Rich Farmbrough, 18:24, 27 October 2010 (UTC).

I got tired of this kind of FR either lcfirst or ucfirst. -- 18:43, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
We already add stub in lowercase, has not changed since rev 6600 or earlier. Rjwilmsi 20:17, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Remove links to example.com

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description Please update AWB so it removes the following four three links to example.com:

* [http://www.example.com/ example.com] (including the asterisk)
* link title (including the asterisk)
link title
example.com
GoingBatty (talk) 14:33, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Added in revision

I don't get what is the problem and why to do that. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:12, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for not being clear. It appears that there are templates/wizards for creating articles that contain things like [http://www.example.com link title] that human editors are not removing. See this edit for an example I've already fixed. GoingBatty (talk) 15:40, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
I asked for a filter for that some time ago. I think we need a database scan first. AWB can't do that blindly. Maybe they are some occasions that this link is actually used. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:10, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
The domain www.example.com is currently linked 200 times from articles on enwiki [7]. Some of them are correct (Site map, iCalendar, Uniform Resource Locator and probably others), but most of them are not. I think that removing links to www.example.com only from the section External links should be safe (with the exception of Example.com). Svick (talk) 17:59, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
I agree that care is needed, because there are many pages that use the text "example.com" correctly. It's the articles created by the Article Wizard with the formatting I specified above that need to be cleaned up. I've cleaned up many of them manually, but I'll stop so further analysis can be done. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 18:05, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Marked as "no". Care is needed, so it can't be part of general fixes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:12, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
Would you reconsider if I limit the request just to the one specific link above (which I've nowikied for clarification), which is found in the External Links section of articles created by the Article Wizard? I'm cleaning up a lot of these manually again. There are plenty of good links to example.com on Wikipedia, but can you point to an article that has a link with exactly the format above that adds value to an article? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 02:52, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
You could do this yourself with "Find & Replace"? -- John of Reading (talk) 06:28, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
Yup, that's what I did. Was hoping that I wouldn't need to have my Find & Replace always enabled. GoingBatty (talk) 00:09, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Add logic to add Year of birth or death missing categories to articles without them

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description I would like to request some new logic be added to AWB to add categories of Year of birth missing or Year of death missing if the article lacks birth and death year or equivelant categories. I have found numorous biographical articles without these catgories. I usually just ad them but for the sake of emphasizing this need I have left this one without them. See James Lewis (United States Army) as an example of what I am talking about. Now I admit that this article is probably a poor example since it meets notibility guidelines anyway and will probably be deleted at some point in the future. But it shows the problem. In some cases AWB can guess these categories but in cases like this with no infobox it cannot and I think adding the birth and death year cats is a good fix.--Kumioko (talk) 15:01, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
Over the last few months I've added logic in this area, but for the article you cite as an example there is no mention by category/tag/infobox as to whether the subject is living or dead, or when they may have died or been born. How would AWB know? Rjwilmsi 18:43, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Please, don´t. In most the the cases better approximations of the death can be done. For example 20th-cenruty deaths, etc. Right now, YOB missing is used a bit ubder control not helpting really find anf fix the information missing. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:14, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
I admit that adding the Year of birth or death missing cats arent the perfect solution but at least they will have a cat from which we can review. Having no birth or death cat, to me is even worse.

Succession templates out of place

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description I would like to suggest adding logic to AWB to move succession templates to the correct location below Notes/References and External links and above defaultsort or categories. According to the WP:Layout succession templates should be after these sections. In many cases I am finding these succession templates at various places throughout the articles. If it is not possible to program this then perhaps an alert similar to the one recently added for the see also section could be added to notify the users if the Succession templtes are out of place. --Kumioko (talk) 17:12, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
Withdrew this one. After doing a bunch of these myself there is no way for AWB to tell if it belongs at the bottom or in the middle of the article.

remain in place when rejecting changes

Status This feature request is a duplicate
Description Currently, when I double-click on a suggested change in the diff window to reject it, the window scrolls up to the first diff. This is quite inconvenient in e.g. a table where there are dozens of suggested changes, but I can compensate by changing the table class. It would be nice if the window stayed put, so that I could scroll through it just once to delete all the diffs, rather than having to scroll down all over again each time. — kwami (talk) 20:12, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
Duplicate request. See #Double-click shouldn't return diff window to top. MANdARAX  XAЯAbИAM 20:37, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Suggestions for additional logic to talk page general fixes

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description As I have been working with talk pages I have come across several things that I think may be usefull edits or alerts in AWB for those of use that work with talk pages.
  1. eliminate duplicate taskforces within wikproject template. For example if an article contains the Wikiproject MILHIST template and 2 instances of the same Task force (biography for example) one would be removed. I have found a number of articles with multiple identical task forces within the same template. Here is an example edit of one I recently did manually. [8]
  2. add the biography task force to the Wikiproject MILHIST template if the talk page also has the WPBiography banner and the biography task force parameter is not already present. here is an example of an edit were I did that manually [9]
  3. add the military-work-group = yes parameter to the WPBiography template if teh talk page also has the WPMILHIST banner and the military-work-group parameter is not already present
  4. add an alert if the MILHIST banner is present and the article is Start or B class but does not contain the B class checklist
  5. remove the B-class checklist from the MILHIST banner if the article is assessed as a stub and the bclass 1-5 criteria are missing. There is no need to have the checklist if the article is just a stub. This might work best as an alert stating something to the effect of "Stub with B-Class checklist". Here is an example of one were I removed the chacklist. [10]
  6. Remove the Skip to talk template if the talk page contains only Wikiproject banners
  7. add an alert to notify the user if the class of a banner needs assessment. --Kumioko (talk) 19:21, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
  1. Very rare
  2. Very specialised. We need a bot for that
  3. Very specialised. We need a bot for that#
  4. Very specialised.
  5. Very specialised.
  6. Interesting but... we need to document this first.
  7. Our logic for alerts is to notify if article has a problem not just need improvement. We have categories for unassessed pages. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:46, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Skip if talk is a redirect

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description Under the skip tab of AWB there is a button that will allow the article to be skipped if it is a redirect. This doesnt work on talk pages however which frequently have a talk page banner with |class=redirect. I am recommending that if |class=redirect on the talk page and the skip if redirect button is checked then AWB would skip it. --Kumioko (talk) 21:10, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision

Just enable "Skip if contains" and put "=redirect" then. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:31, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

The problem with that is that I am already skipping if Contains United States. I will play with it some more later and see if I can get it to work. Maybe Ill try and do it as a module. --Kumioko (talk) 21:51, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
I think that you should check the "regex" checkbox for the Skip if contains/doesn't contain section, and check for =redirect|United States. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 10:15, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

A talk page that has class=redirect isn't a redirect plus it may not be a talk page of a redirect because the tag may be outdated. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:17, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Use Lifetime template to define if article is about a person

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description If an article contains Lifetime template, then create {{Persondata}} using the Lifetime template parameters the same as Category:xxxx births and Category:xxxx deaths.
Added in revision

Lifetime has 0 transclusions and goes to most 10 during week because a bot replaces it with the categories. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:37, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

OK - missed the line in Lifetime template that says "Automatic bots regularly replace it with the expanded form" GoingBatty (talk) 16:03, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
So just wondering why dont we submit it for deletion then. Is there benefit to keeping this template around. --Kumioko (talk) 16:06, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
Guess it would depend on how many instances the bot replaces each time it runs. If you choose to submit it for deletion, also submit {{BD}}. GoingBatty (talk) 16:17, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
I spent 2 years with TfD, RfD etc. with this template. Lifetime is very useful in adding categories but not good to sty since it hides categories, etc. So we decided to keep it and substitute it regularly. As I said Yobot substitutes 10-20 per week now since Lifetime isn't that popular anymore. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:08, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Alphabetise categories

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description Alphabetise the categories at the bottom of a page for standardisation. McLerristarr / Mclay1 14:32, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
Please link to a discussion where this was agreed as wanted. Rjwilmsi 15:10, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
There is none. I'm starting one now. Other than perhaps being seemingly pointless, there is no reason not to alphabetise them. I do not think it is completely pointless, however. It's easier to read through the categories when they are in alphabetical order. Most established pages have their categories in alphabetical order so clearly I'm not the only one. There is also a userbox dedicated to letting people know one prefers alphabetised categories. McLerristarr / Mclay1 15:54, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
The discussion would have to occur elsewhere. I'd guess there are also articles where categories are ordered by relevance. –xenotalk 16:01, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
That's true. Perhaps just an option to sort alphabetically then for pages that had category lists already in alphabetical order until something like HotCat messed it up. McLerristarr / Mclay1 01:00, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
I think that categories should be in some sort of order. For example, 'Television shows that premiered in 2006' and 'Television shows that were cancelled in 2008' should be in that order. 'Living people' should go somewhere near the end, because it's an unwieldy and blunt category. But yeah, we should discuss this somewhere else. - Richard Cavell (talk) 01:31, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Categorization. McLerristarr / Mclay1 01:45, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
Whether you agree that categories should be in priority or thematic or alphabetical order, when adding Category:xxxx births, AWB should add it before Category:xxxx deaths, which it doesn't do now (e.g. this edit) GoingBatty (talk) 04:43, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
When you say should, what WP policy are you refering to? Rjwilmsi 15:07, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
I apologize for my poor word choice. How about this: In my opinion, it appears to me that any category order that would be agreed upon in Wikipedia talk:Categorization would include placing Category:xxxx births before Category:xxxx deaths. Would anyone see a benefit in sorting these in the opposite order? If we reached consensus on these two category types, could AWB be changed to add births before deaths? Better??? GoingBatty (talk) 22:45, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
I tried in the past but they are many exceptions to form a solid policy on the matter. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:48, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Don't add {{wikify}} if tagged with {{dead end}}

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description Don't tag an article with {{wikify}} if the article is already tagged with {{dead end}}. GoingBatty (talk) 18:08, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision

The documentation implies that both can be used. And a proposal to merge deadend to wikify was speedy closed in TfD recently. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:49, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Add {{Reflist}} instead of {{Empty section}}

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description Could AWB be changed so when it encounters "==References==" without any contents, it would add {{Reflist}} instead of {{Empty section}} (like it did in this edit)? GoingBatty (talk) 20:18, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
In your example there are no <ref>s that require a {{reflist}}, so the change you suggest is incorrect for the page. We already add {{reflist}} when it's needed, so my answer is no. Rjwilmsi 12:53, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Change BLP templates for dead people

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description Change {{BLP unsourced}} to {{Unreferenced}} and {{BLP sources}} to {{refimprove}} (and corresponding parameters in {{Multiple issues}}) if article is in Category:xxxx deaths. GoingBatty (talk) 04:37, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision

Potential problems:

  • Pages about multiple people
  • A section in the page refers to a living person. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:55, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
Many articles will refer to living people. Are you suggesting that any page with an unreferenced reference to a living person requires a BLP maintenance tag? McLerristarr | Mclay1 08:46, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
No. I suggest we should not change BLP unsourced|section. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:53, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
I think pages about multiple people should not have Category:xxxx deaths. If you want to exclude the section templates from my request, that would be fine. GoingBatty (talk) 15:14, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
Sometimes they have. Duos or twins for example. 1 dead and 1 alive. I have a list with exceptions. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:29, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Minor improvement: rev 7536 Changes BLP unsourced|section to BLP unsourced section. -- Magioladitis (talk)

Marked as "no" due to many false positives. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:13, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Remove |bot=yes from {{BLP unsourced}}

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description Remove the deprecated |bot=yes from {{BLP unsourced}}, so it can be merged into {{Multiple issues}} GoingBatty (talk) 15:09, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision

Request a bot to do it? -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:52, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

OK - requested here. GoingBatty (talk) 22:32, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Oh no, wholly not worth a botreq. Remove-on-the fly is what the doctor ordered. Rich Farmbrough, 00:54, 22 December 2010 (UTC).

I removed it from all instances. Maybe there are some leftovers but not many. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:24, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 01:40, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Image: -> File:

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description I think it would be a good idea to replace links to "Image:" with links to "File:", as this is the new namespace and everyone should read that within the source. Thus, having this as one of the general fixes would be good. --The Evil IP address (talk) 15:00, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
See Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Feature requests/Archive 5#Image to File. –xenotalk 15:04, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
Those arguments are rather weak. The reason for that is to ensure usability: You and I know that image has been renamed to file, but newbies don't, and it will then only be confusing when once they see it as an image and once as a file. Thus, changing this as a general fix that you do when you edit anyway would be good to ensure consistency and reduce confusion. --The Evil IP address (talk) 14:48, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
I don't really have a strong opinion one way or the other, just pointing out this was previously closed as WONTFIX. –xenotalk 14:50, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
It wasn't done due to a lack of consensus that it was desirable and useful. If the consensus has changed it can be done. Rjwilmsi 08:59, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
Well, this feature is within the Pywikipedia cosmetic_changes.py, so I assume there is consensus for this change. --The Evil IP address (talk) 14:16, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
If it matters I do this when I do edits but only if there are other significant edits being done at the same time. --Kumioko (talk) 16:46, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
This can be taken off the list too. Doing this change would stir up a fight and we dont need that right now. --Kumioko (talk) 01:51, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

misspellings inside Template:Episode list

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description Permit AWB to search for and indicate misspellings inside this template which hides large portions of some articles. --LilHelpa (talk) 13:19, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
I'm reluctant to add exclusions on a template-by-template basis. Rjwilmsi 13:45, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
Moreover, episode names are likely to have misspellings on purpose. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:09, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
I understand both concerns. I suppose that it's not a big concern on balance. It just seems so inefficient to be correcting errors one at a time, hitting "find" each time AWB passes. Typically the episode name is only in a clearly marked field of the template. --LilHelpa (talk) 20:54, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Delinking dates according to the new format

Status Unknown
Description I think this is a fair request. According to Wikipedia:MOSNUM#Date_autoformatting "linking of dates purely for the purpose of autoformatting is now deprecated". I've seen a script as well. I think AWB must support it as well. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:01, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
Added in revision
The problem is that articles should now be using a consistent date format (i.e. all the same in the article wherever possible) and the format matching the locale of the article (e.g. American dates for American articles) which requires a user decision. So I'm not sure how AWB could do this as a general fix. However, a plugin/option that prompted the user to decide the right date format for the article, then automatically apply it, would be great. Rjwilmsi 11:08, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

As you probably know, the monobook script is coded by me. It permits you to choose 'dmy' or 'mdy' during the edit of each article. If you want to know how to get it working, just ask me.

As you suggest, AWB is used for lists of articles without per article options. I do have AWB code that delinks without changing the format and anyone is welcome to use it. It is at User:Lightmouse/javascript conversion/delink full years. Just go to the AWB 'Tools' menu, select 'Make module' and paste the code in there (delete what is currently there). If you need more help, let me know. I happen to think that delinking even without reformatting is definitely worthwhile.

Furthermore, you can create a list of articles that are likely to be in one format (e.g. all articles about British, Irish, or Australian places are likely to need 'dmy' format), and you can use a 'reformat to dmy' script instead. This is at User:Lightmouse/javascript conversion/dmy and I can make a 'reformat to mdy' version on request. It would be great if we could find a generic AWB solution. So I am keen to read what others say. Lightmouse (talk) 11:31, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I have revived this feature request in accordance with the statement from Martinp23 as follows:

  • "for the time being I have revoked your access to AWB. The reason for this move is that a number of extremely minor, inconsequential edits have originated from your account through the tool. This sort of change, which isn't really important in the grander scheme of the article, is best added to the "general fixes" part of AWB so that the "problem" can be fixed when more effectual bot tasks are run. Please file a bug against AWB to have the fix added to the general fixes".

Martinp23 has also revoked AWB access for Closedmouth on the same basis. I now understand that Martinp23 actually meant 'feature request' rather than 'bug'. I would be delighted if Martinp23's suggestion for AWB inclusion were possible. I offer the regex in User:Lightmouse/javascript conversion/dmy as a start. Lightmouse (talk) 15:30, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

There is not currently clear consensus in favour of mass/automated delinking of all dates. This feature request should be set pending until such consensus is reached. Rjwilmsi 11:32, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I am confused. Martinp23 said it was 'extremely minor, inconsequential' and is best added to general fixes. Was Martinp23 mistaken? Lightmouse (talk) 11:52, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
I agree with you that Martinp23's comments were inconsistent. Still, I don't think there's (yet) clear consensus for this. If and when there is clear consensus it could certainly become part of AWB's general fixes. Rjwilmsi 15:28, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I see that he has removed my AWB permission again just now. Lightmouse (talk) 16:08, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I just wanted to say first that I have disareed with the delinking of dates from the beginning, but it did meet consensus as a change and was posted appropriately to WP:MOS. If anyone wants to vote to change that I would be delighted to join in but until it does get changed then it should be followed and any dates that fall into that policy should be delinked. Furthermore it is my opinion that Martinp23 has exceeded his authority by revoking AWB access. I recommend that the access be restored immediately and Martin be asked to follow proper procedures for revoking access in the future.--Kumioko (talk) 03:44, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

We are not in a position to implement this feature request until there is clear agreement in the community about how date linking is to be handled and all the outstanding discussion about it has been cleared up. Thanks Rjwilmsi 19:14, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Time to resume this? -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:28, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

User:Full-date unlinking bot. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:42, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
I think this has been overcome by events and should be archived. --Kumioko (talk) 01:51, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Improve HumanCatKey: Icelandic names

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description Take advantage of {{Icelandic name}} to set HumanCatKey properly -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:57, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision

User_talk:Mandarax#Icelandic_names. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:52, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually, make that WT:WikiProject Iceland#Sort keys for Icelandic names MANdARAX  XAЯAbИAM 21:25, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
Marking as no. Defaultsort may apply as usual. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:50, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Fix interwikis in curly brackets

Status Unknown
Description Fix something like this one. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:14, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision

Rjw did a scan, there were a few matches, about 20 or so, and some false positives. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:17, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

When AWB removes an expand tag from a stub, then in the edit summary, please explain why AWB did it

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description I noticed that an AWB user was removing expand tags from articles for no apparent reason. Upon reading the AWB manual, I realized AWB's auto-tag feature does this because those articles already have stub tags. Instead of having AWB add "removed expand tag" to edit summaries, please instead add "removed expand tag because stub tag implicitly requests expansion" to edit summaries. Unforgettableid (talk) 18:16, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision

This would make edit summaries longer. At least for me it's obvious that all articles must be expanded, especially when they are stubs. I realise of course that there is a confusion on the subject. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:02, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

"removed expand tag (stub)" ?Rich Farmbrough, 10:56, 11 August 2010 (UTC).

Expand tag is dead. We can archive this. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:28, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Don't count text in blockquotes when determining stubbiness

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description Currently when AWB counts the numbers of characters in an article to determine stubbiness it seems to count text within quote templates and blockquotes. If the article is sufficiently long (including these quotes) then AWB removes the stub tags. The problem with this IMO is that if you have a very long quote, such as the case of the Medal of Honor recipient citations, with very little other text, AWB doesn't think that the article is a stub. --Kumioko (talk) 03:57, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision

I think we have to stay in the safe side and keep counting text there. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:32, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

General Fixes: Interwiki sorting

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description I've just become aware of the fact that AWB sorts the interwiki links strictly alphabetically by their ISO language code, i.e. ar:, de:, en:, etc. There are however certain languages with native names that are quite different from the first letter in the code. One example would be North Frisian language which has frr as a language and interwiki code but the parsed interwiki name is "Nordfriisk" which should of course be sorted somewhere between Nederlands (nl) and Norwegian (no). Other examples include Nedersaksisch (nds) or to be very accurate Japanese, which is called "Nihongo" but has a code jp; that parsed link is however not written in Latin letters so that's maybe not too relevant.

For obvious cases with a native language name in Latin letters I suggest though that the sorting algorithm be changed to the parsed output so we get a properly sorted list of parsed languages in the interwiki bar instead of something like Dansk, Deutsch, English Français, Nordfriisk, Italiano, Nederlands. De728631 (talk) 18:30, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Added in revision

I'm fairly sure AWB already does this. I've seen it happen various times when AWB has decided to sort the interwiki links not by alphabetical order of the ISO codes but by some other order, which I can only assume is by alphabetical order of the names of the languages. McLerristarr | Mclay1 10:55, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

The order of the interwikis is defined by meta.wikipedia. AWB just follows the rules set there. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:45, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

If any such non-ISO sorting occurs then I assume it's for the most common and well-known cases like Finnish/Soumi etc. but some minority languages as mentioned above are seemingly left out of this scheme, e.g see this revision. Do you know how to check the meta feature? De728631 (talk) 17:29, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
meta:Interwiki sorting order. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:21, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the link. That is weird though because in the meta list for en.wiki the frr ISO code is definitely not somewhere among the other f's but behind nl, as it should be for own language sorting. So unless AWB permits some user interaction during editing I don't know how the above revision came about. De728631 (talk) 22:46, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
AWB does allow manual edits to be made, although why anyone would manually re-arrange interwiki links is beyond me. McLerristarr | Mclay1 06:56, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
FYI, the template at the top of every AWB page has a link to the IW order used by AWB. GoingBatty (talk) 01:02, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
If you try running Föhr through AWB again, you'll see that it wants to move the frr interwiki after the other f's - because that's what Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/IW is set to do. GoingBatty (talk) 01:06, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
Aha, frr was simply missing in the Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/IW list. So I've updated it according to the Meta order. Should work now, thanks for the hints. De728631 (talk) 18:43, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Gen fixes request: Declutter convert template by removing settings that are default anyway

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description Gen fixes request: The convert template has several default settings such as 'lk=off', 'abbr=off', see [Template:Convert]. There is no need for these to exist within an article. However, these two examples are commonly seen, perhaps because editors are unaware they're default. I remove these when I see them but it's a never ending task because more are being added all the time. Lightmouse (talk) 09:52, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision

This is better done by bot. I withdraw this request. Lightmouse (talk) 13:40, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Some suggestions for additional functionality

Status New
Description Rather than submit several individual changes I am going to submit them at once.
  1. I suggest adding a check box under find and replace that will allow a change to be applied to talk pages only. Currently users have to either save it as a separate file or check and uncheck items as wanted.
  2. Can functionality be added to AWB to convert links with ship names like USS Ship name (DD-123) to the ship template?
  3. Can functionality be addeded to combine multiple portals on an article to portalbox? --Kumioko (talk) 17:31, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
  1. Do you work with lists that contain both articles and talk pages? Why not separate them?
  2. It seems a plugin is needed for that.
  3. This would be usefull but the functionality of {{Portalbox}} is a bit weird at the moment. I would expect something like the WikiProject Banner Shell instead of having to add the name of the image used and the portal's name manually.

-- Magioladitis (talk) 10:54, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Ok thanks, why would the ship names be a plugin? --Kumioko (talk) 12:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
I think the subject is too narrow. How many articles transclude the ship template and need maintance? (It's a real question. If you have an estimate please write it). -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:22, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
I am not sure to be honest but it exceeds the 25000 limit of AWB. Not only do ships have it, people have it, battles have it, cities where the ships are based out of, the companies that make the ships have it, there all over the place. Here is a link to the template. There are basically 6 scenarios to link for this template Template:USS. I am not necessarily trying to capture every single possibility but I think that we can make a big improvement. --Kumioko (talk) 14:00, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
The functionality mentioned here for combining portals has been done and the portal logic has been completely rewritten but the rest have not yet been done. If they cannot be done I recommend archiving this one but I left it and Ill let you decide to keep it or not. --Kumioko (talk) 01:51, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Remove {{coord missing}} if {{coord}} exists

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description Speaking of Bharati Bhavan Library, could a feature be added to AWB to remove {{coord missing}} from an article if the article also contains {{coord}}? GoingBatty (talk) 03:34, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision

This is more a bot request. Found 2,569 pages. Fixing right away. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:23, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I informed Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Remove_.7B.7Btl.7Ccoord_missing.7D.7D_if_.7B.7Btl.7Ccoord.7D.7D_exists. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:37, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Done. I guess we could add it as a general fix but some coordinates were coming from infoboxes which were transcluding coord. Does it worth to add it? -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:57, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for fixing these. Maybe wait a month to see how many more problems crop up? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 00:41, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description If IsArticleAboutAPerson = true and the article does not have an infobox, add the {{Infobox person}} blank template with basic parameters, and populate |birth_date=, |birth_place=, |death_date=, |death_place= using the same logic as used for adding {{Persondata}}. GoingBatty (talk) 01:01, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision

You have first to gain consensus for that. Possibly in the WP:VILLAGEPUMP? -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:17, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Check Wikipedia:WikiProject Composers#Lead section for instance. It clearly says not to add infobox. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:37, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Not going to be done unless there's a clear change in community policy. Rjwilmsi 09:26, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Article Creation

Status User has withdrawn this request
Description The various rocks in space such as (79990) 1999 FP1 were created with a template, and then another edit would be made to add the DISPLAYTITLE. The creation of those articles was almost automated. It would be simpler if AWB could create articles. Could it ever be done? --Σ talkcontribs 01:59, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision
Have you looked at CSVLoader plugin for AWB? Ganeshk (talk) 02:11, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
It's exactly what I need. --Σ talkcontribs 01:33, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

100 random pages list

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description Please add an option to the "make list" field to add 100 random pages instead of just 10.
Added in revision

I'd like to bring up this request again. I think it's no big deal to implement this feature. And it would really help people who occasionally like to run "Typo fixing" over 5,000 random pages (like I do). --bender235 (talk) 23:03, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Cannot currently be done: the MediaWiki API has a limit of 10 pages for users, 20 for bots (see API documentation). You would have to arrange an API change to get 100 random pages in one go. Rjwilmsi 10:23, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the response. Didn't know that. --bender235 (talk) 00:40, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
Or have (100/number of results that user can get) requests to do that... Reedy (talk) 12:59, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
A workaround I use is to pick a Category (recursive) to make my list, and run in preparse mode to skip if no typos found. Each time you find a typo, do a Wiki and/or Google search to find all the articles with the same typo. That should keep you going for quite a while. Happy typo fixing! GoingBatty (talk) 14:38, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Automaticlly remove missing files

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description Automatically remove missing files, during genfixes, AWB should remove images/files that dont exist. βcommand 19:24, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision

I think this was rejected in the past. Bots finding deleted files used to comment them out. The reason is/was that this gives the chance for a recently deleted file to be reuploaded in a new version. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:17, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't see the point in leaving articles messed up. I'm currently working on a 13k list of deleted/non-existent file links. Leaving an article with red links does not encourage what your trying to do. βcommand 22:50, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
I think these have to be done manually (not automatically). Redlinks are the main way of diagnosing erroneous deletions (like when commons deletes a file that needs to be uploaded locally). — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:05, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
I tend to agree with CBM. We already have the ability to remove or comment out a given file name, which means the AWB user has determined that the file has become a redlink for good reason. Doing this in bulk may not helpful. Rjwilmsi 12:17, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Replace Image: tags with File: by default

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description While there isn't a huge impetus to replace all Image: tags on WP with File:, there is no reason not to add this to the list of general fixes. The benefit is that the wiki will be slightly less confusing for newcomers, as Image: no longer really exists as a namespace. When replacing though, AWB should be careful to only replace active file links; my simple find and replace rule will also attack things like Sharper Image: The Musical. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 18:13, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision
I agree and I have been doing this as well whenever I am there doing a more significant edit anyway. --Kumioko (talk) 02:14, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Not going to be implemented. It has been already discussed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:57, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Removal of superscripted ordinals

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description Requesting amendment so superscripted ordinals are removal (as per WP:MOSNUM#Typography) as part of general fixes by inserting the following regex:(\d)<(?:small|sup)>(?:<(?:small|sup)>|)(th|st|nd|rd)<\/(?:small|sup)>(?:<\/(?:small|sup)>|). For more information, please see this request --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 10:10, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision

As far as I remember there could be false positives. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:26, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

There is a bot doing it. There are false positives and it can't be implemented as general fix. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:47, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Fix redirects with incorrect syntax (CHECKWIKI error 36)

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description Article contains something like "#REDIRECT = [[Target page]]". The equal sign is not correct. Correct is "#REDIRECT [[Target page]]". This partially fixes CHECKWIKI error 36. (Very rare bug though) -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:10, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
I have cleaned up the #redirect: cases a couple of times. : is deprecated but still works. I'll look at the "=" case. Rich Farmbrough, 22:29, 30 September 2010 (UTC).
  • #REDIRECT = 0 matches in database.
  • #REDIRECT= 0 matches in database.

-- Magioladitis (talk) 12:05, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Rare problem. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:33, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Option to selectively not ignore comments

Status This feature request is a duplicate
Description It would be great if there was a way to not ignore comments if they are explicitly match by a regex. Meaning that if you include <!-- and/or --> in your search pattern, it's assumed you do want to edit any comments that matches (unless they themselves are in a comment). All other non-comment matching patterns would ignore the content of comments as usual (unless they were ran after a regex that uncommented a comment). As an example of it's potential usefulness, I have a couple regexes to remove some junk code from pages but since they are comments I can't run it automatically as my other regexes would edit the stuff inside comments I don't want it too. Rocket000 (talk) 00:48, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
Duplicate of Apply_the_four_generic_settings_individually. Rjwilmsi 09:24, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Not really. Even if they were split that wouldn't accomplish want I'm talking about. I want the "Ignore comments" ON, but be able to edit them if a pattern matches the comment itself (by including <!-- and/or -->; which is safe to do since there's no other reason you would search for that syntax if you didn't want to match). I don't see how separating the options would help (although I would like that feature too). Or did you mean that that those four generic options could be applied individually to each search pattern, like multiline, singleline, case-sensitive, etc. can be? That would work although, but kinda be option overload and I prefer it figuring it out itself. Rocket000 (talk) 13:49, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

correct ph to pH

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description also correct ph level to just pH –Lmatt (talk) 22:39, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision

What about "pH value" instead of "pH level" in some (or all) cases? Chris the speller yack 00:59, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

To me, it seems more natural to say "a range of pH values" than "a range of pHs". Chris the speller yack 01:04, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
I think this is best implemented as a new typo fixing rule. Rjwilmsi 07:32, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Provide checkbox options for module users

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description Provide checkbox options for module users e.g. use HideMore. There are lots of good options in Find & Replace that are useful for modules. It would be handy to use checkboxes rather than rediscover the code method each time and/or edit the module. Lightmouse (talk) 14:00, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
There is a three line example of using HideMore. If that's too hard you won't be able to write the rest of the custom module anyway. Rjwilmsi 07:16, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

It wasn't that the example wasn't clear. It was just an extra convenience, particularly when some runs are needed with it on and others with it off. As you say, doing it manually isn't hard. Thanks for considering it anyway. Feel free to archive this request. Lightmouse (talk) 15:28, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Add a couple of Alerts for talk page problems

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description Currently very few if any alerts will trigger in talk pages but I have noticed on a few things that might make a good alert (or if you can think of logic to fix it that's ok too).
  1. If |class= = if the class is equal to something other than stub, start, C, B, GA, A, FA, FL, List, File, Redirect, Category, Disambig, Template, DAB, Disambiguation or Disambig.
  2. If importance/priority does not equal Top, High, Mid or low

In both cases of the over I have seen these switched, equal to yes or no, contain just bad data, etc. --Kumioko (talk) 03:47, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Added in revision

Better use tracking categories for that. For example: WikiProject USA with unknown class/importance. This is because some projects don't have C class, some others don't have importance, etc. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:58, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm fine with it if the answer is no but I just want to clarify that categorization won't fix this. There are too many projects to make that a workable solution. Kumioko (talk) 20:27, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Reflist

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description Replaces <references /> by {{Reflist}} ~~EBE123~~ talkContribs 20:39, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
Added in revision

Does this have consensus? -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:17, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  • That would certainly need to have an explicit consensus before mass-converting them, Wikipedia:Manual of Style (footnotes) does not favor one over the other. It's also more complex than described above: The <references /> tag may be enclosed in {{refbegin}}/{{refend}}, a list of non-inline references might be listed there as well. Amalthea 11:16, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
The appearance of {{Reflist}} is different to <references/> and converting the latter to the former would create formatting problems in some articles. McLerristarr | Mclay1 03:27, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Out-think session timeouts

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description When using AWB manually (or rarely automatically) a session time-out can occur. AWB will continue as if the page had been sucessfully saved. WIBLI it auto-resaved unless the page had been edited, in which case it re-offered the diff? Rich Farmbrough, 11:01 12 May 2009 (UTC).
Added in revision
In regards to session timeouts I am still having a lot of problems with AWB starting the 60 second clock on every edit and on every couple pages when I use the pre-parse mode. Do you think the 2 issues might be related?--Kumioko (talk) 20:09, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
This seems a bit useless now? Reedy 21:22, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Prevent edit summary mistakes

Status User has withdrawn this request
Description Add an option which would help to prevent edit summary mistakes. In my preferred method, an option would be provided to set a default edit summary. Every time a new page loads, the default summary would be in place instead of whatever the previously used one was. A less desirable option would be for a dialog box to pop up, warning when the edit summary is not locked. More info below. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 20:22, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
Added in revision

My usual edit summary in the main window is just a blank, with various actual summaries supplied by a module. I often perform additional manual edits before saving, and I change the edit summary, which would just end up being blank otherwise. The problem is that occasionally I'll forget to restore my default edit summary, and then my next few edits have duplicate or, worse, conflicting summaries until I notice my oversight. When I'm not using a module, I also sometimes accidentally end up with an incorrect summary after similarly editing and changing summaries. This usually happens when saving is slow and I go off in another window while I'm waiting for the page to save, or I'll just get distracted by some shiny object, and when I return to AWB I absentmindedly neglect to restore the summary. I feel that an accurate edit summary is important, and this is just another way that AWB can help to prevent human errors. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 20:22, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I know just what you mean, but sometimes it is useful to have the edit summary carry over. I think that it would help a lot, if the edit summary had a different colour background (a light shade behind the text), if the edit summary was anything else but the default "clean up". Snowman (talk) 13:08, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
I noted in my subsequent feature request #Allow editing and using summary from Edit Summary tab that that would provide a better solution to this issue. That feature has been implemented, so I am withdrawing this one. Thanks! MANdARAX  XAЯAbИAM 19:35, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Remove dateformat= parm from uses of template:cite web

Status User has withdrawn this request
Description Could AWB remove the "dateformat=" parm from uses of template:cite web? It already recognizes it as invalid, and it removes "language = English" when it sees it (at least in the English wikipedia). I've seen "dateformat=mdy", and I think I've seen "dateformat=dmy" (with different numbers of spaces around the equal sign, and before and after the whole parm). There may be other templates where it could also be removed, but this is the one I saw today. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 21:12, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision
Yes it can, but first please point me to a discussion where this has been agreed as wanted. Otherwise somebody else will complain later. Rjwilmsi 21:40, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
It's not enough that "dateformat" isn't a parm for that template? There hasn't been such a discussion that I know of. Do you happen to know where the discussion(s) is/are for other parameters that currently get removed (so I can look at them for examples)? Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 21:53, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
Just go to the talk page for Cite web and start one. Or at manual or style. --Kumioko (talk) 12:15, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
What is the status of this one? Was any discussion in Cite web talk page? -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:27, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
No, I ended up writing my own regexp to handle it. You can consider this request withdrawn. --Auntof6 (talk) 10:50, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
This request was withdrawn. I think it should be archived. --Kumioko (talk) 01:51, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Check typo scan page for updates

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description Currently when changes to the typo page are made, those changes do not seem to take affect in AWB if its running. It requires AWB to be restarted for the changes to take affect. If this is the case and its not just an error of some kind on my part then I have 2 recommendations:
  1. Auto check the page every once in a while for updates and reset the typo list automatically or
  2. Add some kind of prompt that would notify the user of an update and ask if they want it to be typo list reset. Kumioko (talk) 21:24, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
Added in revision

You don't have to restart AWB to get the new changes. Just press Ctrl+R or go to File -> Refresh status/typos. Autochecking once a while is costly. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:53, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I thought so too but it doesn't seem to work. When I did that it didn't update the changes I had made to the Typos list. Kumioko (talk) 00:37, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
That is mystifying. Doing "File -> Refresh status/typos" always does the trick for me. When you do that, does it say "3470 typos loaded", or something similar, on the status line at the bottom of the AWB screen? Make sure you have hit the 'Stop' button and that AWB has stopped before reloading typos. Chris the speller yack 00:58, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
A slight correction: stop AWB before hitting Ctrl+R. It does not have to be stopped to do "File -> Refresh status/typos". Chris the speller yack 01:01, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
I think there must have been a lag in the system or something. It updated and gave me the number but didn't read some. I think its working now though. Maybe I was just doing something wrong. Sometimes I just get a case of the stupids and it overwhelms me. :-)Kumioko (talk) 01:21, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Move portal talk above WikiProject banners like we do with Talk header

Status This feature is not going to be implemented
Description I am going to start this as a bug but if you think its a feature request just let me know and I'll move it. Currently if {{Talk header}} appears below WikiProject template's AWB will move it to the top. However, it doesn't do this for the Portal namespace equivalent, {{Portal talk}}. I recommend modifying the code to look accept Portal talk as a valid Talk header and include it in the Talk page template reorder logic. Kumioko (talk) 03:24, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
Added in revision

Most probably it can be an one-off job (i.e. use WP:BOTREQ). 1,500 pages. Most probably the number of Portal is not increased very often. Moreover, we don't do portal space fixes and the general fix you suggest is not covered by WP:TPL. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:15, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

...but you are currently making an awful lot of edits like this one, where the headers were already in the right order. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:36, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
I just stopped. In most cases Portal talk is in place. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:45, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
I also think we don't need a banner for every subpage. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:49, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

I normalised most of the pages. Now it's really not worth to create a general fix for this. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:26, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Option to enable/disable talk page fixes

Status Feature already exists in AWB
Description I suggest adding an option to the options menu item to enable/disable talk page fixes. This could be similar to the option for "Do not apply WP:MOS fixes. I can foresee that there may be occassions when it may be undesirable to process these while performing other edits. --Kumioko (talk) 15:23, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
Added in revision

You can disable talk page fixes by disabling genfixes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:26, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Good to know, I didn't realize the talk page fixes were lumped into genfixes. I had thought it might be useful but now that I know that I can understand it wouldn't be as easy to do. --Kumioko (talk) 15:33, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
General fixes are customised based on the type of the page: Article, Talk page, Redirect. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:39, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
Feature doesn't quite exist, there might be a situation where a worklist would contain both mainspace and talk pages, where one or the other type of general fix was desirable but not both. –xenotalk 12:57, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
This isn't anything else than a general case, where in some articles we need to do genfixes and in some don't. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:36, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
Deep customizability isn't something we should discourage, but indeed this probably isn't of high priority. –xenotalk 13:39, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
We need something like "Perform genfixes only when..." but exactly this isn't a priority atm. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:41, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
Would the custom module for general fixes solve this issue? GoingBatty (talk) 17:02, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
Yes. Disable general fixes and use the custom module by adding an if condition for the case of mainspace. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:26, 6 August 2012 (UTC)