Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/General fixes

Archives

This page has archives. Sections older than 28 days may be automatically archived by when more than 3 sections are present.

Square bracket mismatch[edit]

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T354120

It looks like <nowiki>[</nowiki> isn't being correctly treated as an opening square bracket, for the purpose of finding mismatched opening/closing brackets. For example, see this AWB edit, which changed

<nowiki>[</nowiki>[[sub-creation]]]
- which renders as: [sub-creation]; to:
<nowiki>[</nowiki>[[sub-creation]]
- which renders as: [sub-creation

Could be worth running a replacement on <nowiki>[</nowiki> to use {{!(}}, {{Square bracket open}}, or better yet {{Bracket}}, for clarity, instead? --Yodin^T 16:14, 29 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As long as a matching nowiki-closing-bracket exists, GenFixes doesn't remove the 3rd closing bracket, e.g.

<nowiki>[</nowiki>[[Gustav Stresemann|Gustav]]<nowiki>]</nowiki>

on World War I. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 16:45, 29 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, I wonder if this is because it considers neither of them as brackets? Whatever the reason, as there are 2,839 articles with <nowiki>[</nowiki>, and 4,149 articles with <nowiki>]</nowiki>, there are over a thousand articles which don't have matching nowiki closed brackets; having logic to detect these would prevent GenFixes breaking these in future. I'd also still recommend replacing them all with {{Bracket}}, as it improves code clarity. --Yodin^T 16:57, 29 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think the problem arises when the left bracket is enclosed in nowiki but the right bracket isn't, because a right bracket at that position usually has no wikitext-syntax significance and appears harmlessly as ]. Perhaps AWB needs to be conservative and treat a bracket in nowiki as optionally matching a bare bracket, so the current nesting level is a range (2–3 here) rather than a single number (2 because the bracket in nowiki wasn't counted). That may be easier said than done. Certes (talk) 17:29, 29 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thinking about it a bit more, what would be the potential problem with treating nowiki brackets as identical to ordinary brackets? I can't think of any cases where it would cause problems. --Yodin^T 21:42, 29 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure the order that GenFixes are applied in, but would it also be possible to just match any <nowiki>[</nowiki> with the first unopened ] (or <nowiki>]</nowiki>), and change it to {{Bracket}}, before running the unmatched bracket check? Surely this would also solve it without resorting to very complex nesting levels, etc. ? --Yodin^T 21:49, 29 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Yodin: could you report this issue at Phabricator per Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser#Before you post, and use {{Tracked}} here as needed? Reminder for me to do that with the post below... ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 17:11, 30 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Done @Tom.Reding: 👍 --Yodin^T 19:22, 30 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I took this search of ~2835 pages (at the time; permalink to initial results) containing <nowiki>[</nowiki>, and found ~400 pages which did not have a closing <nowiki>]</nowiki>. I tested WP:GenFixes on those ~400, and ~60 would have had a trailing ] erroneously removed, so I balanced those 60 to prevent any mistakes in the near future (until more instances inevitably crop up). The remaining ~340, which GenFixes did not alter in a way relevant to this discussion, was due to the presence of a template between the normal, double, closing ]] and the last ], like on Old testament:

through <nowiki>[</nowiki>[[Jericho]] ({{Circa|1400 BC}})],

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T354150

Then, I took this search of 4146 pages (at the time; permalink to initial results) containing <nowiki>]</nowiki>, and found ~1700 new pages. Of those, only ~3 needed balancing to avoid GenFix errors, and 2 oddballs I couldn't figure out, Nolamba dynasty, Pickering Airport Lands. There was 1 page, however, John Simon, 1st Viscount Simon, where GenFixes breaks the currently functioning succession box by removing a balanced bracket (diff), which happens on both v6.2.1.0 & v6.2.1.1. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 22:49, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for doing this! --Yodin^T 01:39, 8 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

{Improve categories} & {Uncategorized} moved from below categories to above categories[edit]

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T354582

Instead, they should be placed immediately after categories, or as a hatnote at the top of the page, per MOS:ORDER. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 03:30, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note that these were templates added to MOS:ORDER in Dec 2021-Feb 2022, after the last official AWB release. GoingBatty (talk) 05:56, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

True... perhaps then this is more of a feature request than a bug report... ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 12:49, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

How to disable ReorderReferences fix?[edit]

Sometime reference order has its own logic, and ReorderReferences breaks it. Is it any way to disable this and only this fix? A.sav (talk) 22:59, 26 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This was disabled eons ago, no? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:05, 26 January 2024 (UTC) Do you have a diff?[reply]

I updated the WP:AWB/GF#ReorderReferences (ReorderReferences) documentation to indicate this function was removed from en.wiki in 2017. GoingBatty (talk) 00:26, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This works in ruwiki/ukwiki (diff). Any way to disable in local preferences or I need to push Russian/Ukrainian adminstrators? --A.sav (talk) 07:20, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The change to disable it covered en-wiki only. If there are other language wikis that would like it disabled then please raise an AWB phabricator ticket - you should confirm on the ticket that there is consensus on each wiki to do that - we're not in a position to verify ourselves any wiki discussions in other languages. Otherwise/in the meantime you can configure your own AWB to run genfixes via custom module - see here and disable the ones you don't want. Rjwilmsi 09:33, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

👍 Thanks a lot! A.sav (talk) 11:01, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is it possible to disable this with nogenfixes property in WP:AutoWikiBrowser/Config ? A.sav (talk) 21:54, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@A.sav: WP:AutoWikiBrowser/Config only contains pages on the English Wikipedia. You would need to request additions to pages on the other Wikipedias, such as ru:Википедия:AutoWikiBrowser/Config and uk:Вікіпедія:AutoWikiBrowser/Config. GoingBatty (talk) 22:01, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I understand it. Is it technically possible to disable this feature and is it possible to read documentation about WP:AutoWikiBrowser/Config syntaх and features? A.sav (talk) 22:07, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@A.sav: As Rjwilmsi indicated above, it's possible for the developers to disable the feature for various wikis, but you have to make a request by going to Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser#Before you post and click "filing a new task", and provide a link to a discussion on that wiki that there is consensus to disable it. Rjwilmsi also mentioned that it is possible for YOU to disable it in your version of AWB by loading a custom module into your AWB - see Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Custom Modules#Customised "General Fixes". There is some documentation of the config page at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage format. GoingBatty (talk) 22:38, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, Wikipedia works in the opposite way. First developers must obtain consensus to make changes, and then they can make a tool that implements them. Sneeuwschaap (talk) 17:01, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the makers of Vector 2022 got that memo. Certes (talk) 18:47, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Sneeuwschaap: I agree that consensus has to exist before developers make or change a tool. But it's OK for a user to suggest a change to a developer and quote existing consensus. There are dozens of examples of this in the AWB Phabricator board. GoingBatty (talk) 21:29, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]