User:SpellingBot

This user, run by TimR, is currently being used to undertake assisted editing specifically to contribute some corrections to the very large number of spelling errors in Wikipedia articles. Although formal bot approval is not required for assisted editing, the intention is to submit it for approval once sufficient contributions have been made to demonstrate responsible editing.

All edits made by this user are assessed by human interaction: the owning user takes full responsibility for this user's changes.

What this user is not for

• controversial spelling changes
• changing spelling from one dialect to another (without good reason/consensus)
• correcting spellings in signed individual contributions (e.g. on talk pages)

Current spelling corrections

The current list of misspelled words which the bot is looking for is available on a separate page.

Software

The bot software in use is custom-written in Perl using a version of CPAN's WWW::Mechanize modified to handle Unicode correctly. Both the bot source code and Perl module modifications should be made available once the author isn't ashamed to put his name publicly to them….

Known problems

Some edits on 9 April 2008, such as this one managed to break some symbols and accented characters, despite significant, previously successful efforts to get this right. Some of these edits have been spotted and corrected. Sorry. I believe that I have tracked down and reverted any such errors not picked up by others. I will not make any further edits until I have worked out what's gone wrong. Thanks to Richard Harvey and Rollof1 for pointing this out so graciously.

Useful links

• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (spelling)
• Wikipedia:Spellchecking
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style: National varieties of English
• Wikipedia:Lists of common misspellings
• Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos
• Cupertino effect: the tendency of spellcheckers to replace a misspelling with a completely inappropriate phlogiston

Disclaimer

Nobody's perfect: I wouldn't be at all surprised to find the odd spelling mistake on these pages. I'm not claiming that I'm better at spelling than anyone else, just more fussy. :-) If you find a mistake here or, more seriously, an incorrect "correction", please fix it and let me know.