Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive 29

References are not supposed to be in alphabetical order by 
See this diff. It seems that the bot is putting some refs in alphabetical order. Refs are often placed so that the most relevant ref is first, then the next most important, etc.. Please fix the bot so that it is not putting refs in alphabetical order by default. People using the bot should ask the editors of the page first before doing this. --Timeshifter (talk) 13:59, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * This is a default update by AWB that orders by footnote number. Also, this isn't a bot, but rather a semi-automated editing tool. As for whether the first reference must be the most relevant, is there a guideline for that?  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 14:09, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * You are not a regular editor of the page, and what you are doing is rude. Please stop reverting until this discussion gracefully ends. I have around 49,000 edits on Wikimedia projects, and 51,000 edits on Wikia. There is no guideline requiring references to be in alphabetical order nor in footnote order in the wikitext. That would be ridiculous. --Timeshifter (talk) 14:29, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * One does not have to be a "regular editor" to change an article, and there is nothing rude about the changes I made. What happened is that you reverted without understanding because you reverted before starting this conversation rather than after it.  Also, this playing to experience is getting ridiculous (esp. as I have a lot more). Nevertheless, we're not talking about putting references in abc order.  AWB puts the footnote numbers in numerical order, apparently for consistency/readability.  You will need to ask the AWB devs to explain further.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 14:32, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It is not rude to use AWB. Granted. But it is rude to keep reverting a regular editor of a page you do not regularly edit when I have asked for a guideline saying your choices are better than my choices. Feel free to get the AWB devs to fix their mistake. Or at least to remove their choices from being default choices until this discussion finishes. I assumed this talk page was for doing that. --Timeshifter (talk) 14:44, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I am not going to prolong an argument over who is actually rudest here as that's really in the eye of the beholder; but what I know is that regular editors shouldn't be engaging in ownership-grade complaints. Also, you haven't yet made a case that this specific change is even a mistake. Until you make that case, there's nothing for me or anyone to do.  Last, you're actually on the incorrect talk page for this and the previous discussion -- this one is for AWB typos only.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 14:51, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

(unindent). The way the page was originally was not a mistake. And the reference order being changed by AWB was definitely a mistake as I explained. These were the choices I saw at Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser:

Where should these threads be moved to? --Timeshifter (talk) 14:56, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Here: Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser. That is where general issues with AWB are discussed.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 15:15, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * OK. I moved this discussion from Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos to here. --Timeshifter (talk) 15:24, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Not a dev, just someone getting fed up of the number of conversations that are escalating far higher than they need to this week. The reason the references were re-ordered is so that the article complies with the Harvard Referencing style, judging by the above comments neither of you actually looked at the change it made for the reader of the article. I humbly suggest that you both go and look at what difference the edit made to the article, ignore the source code, look at the article. - X201 (talk) 15:46, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I did look at it and fully understand the change I made. Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 15:55, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * So the difference to the reader in the article is? - X201 (talk) 16:01, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I already stated what the difference is at least twice above. It helps to read the discussion before commenting. The references were reordered and here's the AWB general fix being employed: AutoWikiBrowser/General fixes.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 16:11, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

(unindent)I think what we have here is a conflict between a reference ordering guideline and what editors may see as a necessity to put the most valuable reference first. I don't know if there's a guideline regarding the latter, but it seems like a reasonable concern. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 16:20, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Stevietheman. Reference formats, citation styles, footnote order, etc. are decided by the editors of a page, not by AWB. See WP:CITEVAR. Incarceration in the United States has over 200 references, and does not have one single reference format or citation style. And the footnote order is very important for some of the reference groups. --Timeshifter (talk) 16:28, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't see anything about footnote ordering at the link you gave, but as I said, there is a genuine conflict in my humble opinion. Also, it's not really AWB "deciding" here -- the change is based on guidelines.  Someone not using AWB could order the citations sequentially and be following guidelines. So, how can this be resolved on an ongoing basis?  Anyone?  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 16:39, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * See also: WP:CITESTYLE which is just above WP:CITEVAR. It is pretty clear that between the two of them it says that all reference decisions are made by the editors of the page. Technically, by the consensus of the editors. In actuality there is no consensus. No one citation style is preferred. And good luck enforcing it. Many editors drop in. Footnote order is part of citation styling from what I am reading. So since I gave a good reason why footnote ordering is a problem in some cases I suggest it not be a default setting of AWB. --Timeshifter (talk) 16:49, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't see any mention of footnote ordering. The ordering is not the same thing as the style.  Therefore, I don't see what you're seeing.  Also, I've been using AWB to make this kind of change for well over a year, and this is the very first article for which I've gotten or seen a complaint related to this issue.  Since this is an AWB-recommended change, there is no reason for AWB users to discontinue using it.  What you need to do, as you're the one with the concern, is convince AWB devs to remove this change.  I won't request this because I agree with the change overall, despite the very rare conflict we have here. All that I will do is no longer make this change in this specific article.  And if AWB takes this change out, obviously, that will be another reason for me to not do it.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 17:11, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * OK. I can see why it is not important for most pages. I left a note in this section: AutoWikiBrowser/General fixes. Something along the lines of this: "An article may have a fact that is supported by several references ordered by importance, and not numerical footnote order. This may be the choice of the editors, and so AWB changes may be reverted in this case. See WP:CITESTYLE and WP:CITEVAR." --Timeshifter (talk) 17:25, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't really agree that these links solidly back up your position, but I'm not opposed to the warning in general. If the editors on a specific page genuinely want a specific reference ordering by importance, then a revert is fine by me.  But I would also recommend that you add an HTML comment to the subject article for editors (including AWB editors) to see that there's a preferred ordering there. That way, you will reduce the likelihood of the change happening again by someone other than me.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 17:34, 27 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Refs should be presented in the order they are used according to pretty much every style guide out there. [3][2][5][1][4] is just plain silly, and supported by no style guides I know of. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:41, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

(ec) This comes up from time to time, but I have never seen an external style guide that recommends ordering inline references by importance and nobody has ever linked to one (as far as I remember). So, once again, can anyone point to one? Mr Stephen (talk) 17:44, 27 August 2015 (UTC)


 * This is Wikipedia where it is not uncommon to have 3 to 10 references for one paragraph or set of sentences. There is no guideline on Wikipedia that requires something as silly as putting references in numerical order. I have been editing since 2005. This is the first time I remember having this AWB problem. I suggest that AWB users be advised to listen to people reverting them more. That would solve most problems. It is a little unrealistic to expect hidden notes to stop unexpected AWB changes. So it would be nice if my note, or a variation of it, was left at AutoWikiBrowser/General fixes. Then maybe Wikipedia would lose a few less editors. This type of petty stuff drives away a lot of editors. --Timeshifter (talk) 17:48, 27 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm sure no AWB user wants to upset you or any other editor. But, do you have an external style guide?   Regards, Mr Stephen (talk) 17:59, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Do you have a Wikipedia guideline saying that there is some OCD requirement for numerical order of footnotes? --Timeshifter (talk) 18:22, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Without a guideline, let's instead ask the question of whether it looks consistent and aesthetically reasonable to a reader to see footnote numbers out of order. Also, wouldn't a book publisher ordinarily keep them in numerical order? (I believe they would.)  I'm not sure if there's a wiki guideline that spells this out explicitly.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 18:44, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * No, it is not unrealistic to expect visible HTML notes to stop AWB changes. Despite its name, AWB is not automatic.  AWB users are expected to review their changes before saving.  If I see an HTML note to keep something a certain way, I skip that recommended change.  I also have been an editor since 2005 (2004 actually - heh), and what I know is if one hasn't ever seen this problem until now, then perhaps it's a very, very rare conflict. But, as I stated, I have no problem accepting there's a genuine conflict in this case, but really, put in a comment -- it's easy and can prevent an edit you don't like.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 18:03, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

would a "NoRefFixes" style option in the bots template be a possible solution to this? - X201 (talk) 18:10, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Maybe also, a hidden template I can paste into the article that the bot sees: . I think it is unrealistic to expect AWB users themselves to see the relevant hidden notes. The template will probably be added after a problem, and not before. --Timeshifter (talk) 18:22, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * A workaround requiring no software change is to insert HTML comments between any references that the general fixes must not switch. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:25, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

In many, perhaps even in most, cases where multiple adjacent citations are present, they are simply in the order that editors found and added them, with no particular significance. But in some cases they might be in order of significance, or in some other order intentionally chosen by the page editor(s). In such a case, I would consider this ordering part of the page citation style, and not to be changed without consensus, or at least without discussion. But how is an editor new to the page, whether using AWB or not, to know this? I think the suggestion of an HTML comment, perhaps along with a talk page note, is a good one. If edits are made changing the order of citations without discussion in the presence of such a comment and note, then there would indeed be grounds for complaint directed to the editor making such changes and "it is an AWB standard fix" wouldn't hold much water in my view. AWB users are supposed to carefully reveiw the changes that are to be made before clicking SAVE. DES (talk) 18:35, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Most editors just add additional references after the other references. Usually the more important references are already at the beginning. If the order is important to someone they reorder it. Most of the time the order is not important. But a semi-bot like AWB can do massive changes, and it can mess up lots of stuff at times. Other times the order is not important, and the AWB changes are not a problem. It is only the bots that cause significant problems. Once the problem is seen how about a template specific to AWB. That would be simple to place on the top or bottom of the article page. Functioning in the background invisibly. Similar to the  added to some user pages. See Template:NoAutosign. --Timeshifter (talk) 18:45, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if I like the idea of preventing any ref fixes to a page. Are there really cases where all ref sequences on a page need to be protected?  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 18:53, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * As long as the AWB editor (or any editor) doesn't have to do mind reading or a deep review of the references listed. An HTML note is a clear signal to keep things a certain way.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 18:53, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Another workaround idea: Drop the less important cite. :) I mean, really, if one reference is that much more important than the other, use just that one.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 18:59, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Now you are just being rude again. An edit summary is very clear. It shouldn't have taken mind reading on your part to stop reverting right away, and start discussion earlier, and let it finish gracefully before imposing your AWB-backed changes with further reversions. WP:Bold, revert, discuss. See this history of the page. I don't often edit that page, and I did some intensive editing of references. A very technical task that few people like doing. So I have now wasted a lot of time here on this AWB page. The absolute simplest solution is to put a big note on the top of all the AWB help pages, saying to remember: WP:Bold, revert, discuss. And "don't drive away editors". --Timeshifter (talk) 19:06, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * No, I am not being rude at all. But it does seem like every time someone tries to honestly provide ideas for dealing with this issue, you try to ratchet up emotions.  Perhaps that works with others, but It won't work with me.  No, an edit summary is not clear in terms of informing any editor who may drop by.  I don't see why this simple point is being lost.  Also, just because someone has reverted something with a vague edit summary, that doesn't mean other editors are being rude because they think your position is vague and they are reverting back.  The edit conflict is over -- so drop it.  And my last workaround idea is a solid one.  Consider it.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 19:22, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * My reversions of your initial AWB changes were clear to you, as were my edit summaries. It looks like you have violated these rules: AutoWikiBrowser. Since we are in agreement (among several editors here) that this is something to be decided by the editors of an article and not by an occasional AWB editor dropping in, then in the future I suggest you immediately go to the talk page, and ask why you were reverted. And ask what reference changes are OK, and which are not. --Timeshifter (talk) 19:31, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * No, they were not. They appeared to be reverts due to WP:IDONTLIKEIT and it took a while to get to an understanding of your position.  And now I do.  And as you saw, I didn't violate WP:3RR.  We have discussed this pretty well, I think.  Again, the edit conflict is over, so drop it. I'm sorry if it seems rude because I and others aren't agreeing with every last point that you make here.  You have workarounds to avoid these kinds of edits in the future.  Why not use them?  Besides, this new template idea is a mere proposal right now, and all things being equal, it may not come into being.  Last, all the suggestions you've made to me equal all the suggestions I could make to you regarding your behavior in this matter, so it's a wash.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 19:44, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The onus is on you as the AWB operator. See: AutoWikiBrowser:
 * Do not make controversial edits with it. Seek consensus for changes that could be controversial at the appropriate venue; village pump, WikiProject, etc. "Being bold" is not a justification for mass editing lacking demonstrable consensus. If challenged, the onus is on the AWB operator to demonstrate or achieve consensus for changes they wish to make on a large scale.
 * --Timeshifter (talk) 19:49, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I have followed the guidelines of a Wikipedia editor (which is generally no different from an "AWB Operator" -- we're just plain editors using a tool). We've discussed and settled this.  Your interest in keeping this ratcheted up is beyond my comprehension.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 19:55, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Maybe use a more specific template: --Timeshifter (talk) 19:17, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm opposed. A perfectly good workaround exists for a specific clump of citations (and an HTML comment works fine too).  I'm sorry if this is "rude", but it's really just my opinion.  I think a template is overkill and nothing should stop changes to all references on a page.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 19:28, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * People are not going to go around adding dozens of hidden HTML comments just to get an AWB user to listen. Anyway it is not your call. If the editors do not want bots and semi-bots to change certain things, then that is the way it is. --Timeshifter (talk) 19:35, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * An AWB editor is an editor. A comment works as well for any editor.  It's not difficult to add comments -- it's probably about one of the easy wiki-tasks imaginable.  If there's really a consensus by regular editors of an article not to change something, and that consensus isn't against any hard guidelines/policies, have at it.  But there has to also be a consensus for a template like this to be created.  And I oppose it.   I think it's unreasonable to block AWB recommended changes in such a blanket manner. Now, something on the order of Not a typo is something I can go along with.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 19:50, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Does AutoWikiBrowser/General fixes reorder the references inside ? If not, then perhaps that is a better alternative to some special flag template.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:29, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

==  line breaks incorrectly changed to ==

See this diff. Wikitext is not the same as HTML, etc.. Wikitext is simpler. That is why  is used. It is used in many places on Wikipedia, and it serves absolutely no purpose to make it more difficult to use by making it harder to remember. And it is also ridiculous in that there is a space inside . So it can wrap in the wikitext window itself, and further confuse people. --Timeshifter (talk) 13:52, 27 August 2015 (UTC) is valid in XHTML and HTML5. Further, is similar to other wiki constructs like. Also note that AWB doesn't include this change as one of its default changes. An individual user (in this case, me) may be making this change for consistency while doing other substantive updates. in wikitext. So please stop doing it. --Timeshifter (talk) 14:12, 27 August 2015 (UTC) and other (X)HTML is used in wiki articles rather commonly and is (X)HTML. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 14:14, 27 August 2015 (UTC) do the same thing. So where is the guideline that says one is preferred over another? There is none. You obviously do a lot of bot edits (please don't be technical), but bot defaults are not guidelines. --Timeshifter (talk) 14:27, 27 August 2015 (UTC) is 'wikitext' and not (X)HTML. Also, I don't do any bot edits. I use this semi-automated editing tool called AWB to make edits. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 14:38, 27 August 2015 (UTC) . Wikipedia wikitext is not (X)HTML. Wikitext is converted to HTML. Wikitext is for easier editing by readers. is harder to remember, and pointless, since wikitext is converted to HTML. --Timeshifter (talk) 14:51, 27 August 2015 (UTC) is (X)HTML. Neither  or is a wiki construct. I would argue that makes for easier editing for editors because they stand out better and look similar to other wiki (X)HTML-ish constructs like. But the bottom line for these changes is a lint-style kind of change for the sake of consistency in the wikitext. Consistency is the reason for this particular change. If you don't like consistency in the wikitext, I guess we'll have to disagree. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 15:04, 27 August 2015 (UTC) it would rapidly be reverted, because we are trying to make things simpler, not harder, for most Wikipedia editors. --Timeshifter (talk) 15:14, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Your complaint seems to be with HTML itself as
 * This is a common mistake with editors who edit both web pages and wiki pages. I also edit both. But wikitext is not HTML nor XHTML. You will not find a guideline requiring  to be converted to
 * I disagree there is any mistake.
 * Guideline? I have around 49,000 edits on Wikimedia projects, and 51,000 edits on Wikia.  is wikitext and is fine. --Timeshifter (talk) 14:19, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I have much more edits and have been editing Wikipedia for 11 years, and have been doing web development more or less for 20. Your concept of 'wikitext' as applied to (X)HTML needs clarification. Have a guideline related to this?  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 14:23, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * You are the one needing a guideline, because both  and
 * Indeed they are the same thing as far as display is concerned. And changing these is cosmetic, for sure.  But when making other substantive changes, we're allowed to make cosmetic edits to enhance consistency.  I don't know if there is a guideline per se that involves cleanup of wikitext for the sake of consistency.  But I also don't know if there is a guideline that backs up your idea that
 * Consistency that makes it difficult for readers to go to the best reference first is not a good idea on many pages with a lot of references. Such as Incarceration in the United States‎. AWB should not be changing  to
 * "Best reference first" pertains to discussion below this one. As for this discussion, "Wikipedia wikitext is not (X)HTML. Wikitext is converted to HTML. Wikitext is for easier editing by readers." looks like an opinion, the first statement of which I find to be inaccurate. Wikitext in articles commonly includes (X)HTML, and
 * I understand where you are coming from. This is not the first time I have had this discussion. But ask yourself this question: How many editors of Wikipedia also edit HTML and XHTML? Very few. So let's keep it simple for most editors of Wikipedia.  is used on many Wikipedia pages. Often in table headers for example.   is a lot easier to remember, and it clutters up the table headers less. See also Help:Sorting (a page I help edit).   is used in many places there. If you went there and converted everything to

(unindent). I will leave this discussion here since it seems like a typo-ish kind of discussion to me. Feel free to move it anywhere else if necessary. --Timeshifter (talk) 15:27, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

(unindent again) I think this is not a typo-related discussion because AWB/Typos doesn't cover this. Anyway, my edits here don't force anyone to not use , and if someone wants to revert any cosmetic change I make, I don't revert it (note that you reverted all my changes in the subject article, not just cosmetic ones). If there is a preference to keep a particular article formatted in a particular way, I'm fine with that. However, on the overall point, I disagree for the same reasons I stated before. I particularly disagree that is not plenty simple, and that if we're asking editors to understand a construct like ref, they can easily handle . Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 15:40, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

AWB does not change the br tags. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:31, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * By default, it doesn't. As you know (and others may not), AWB users use "Find & replace" to tack on additional edits.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 16:41, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * then contact the people who do that directly ans ask them to stop. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:50, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, technically, this discussion should be in my user talk. Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 16:53, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * See: AutoWikiBrowser:
 * Do not make insignificant or inconsequential edits. An edit that has no noticeable effect on the rendered page is generally considered an insignificant edit. If in doubt, or if other editors object to edits on the basis of this rule, seek consensus at an appropriate venue before making further edits.
 * --Timeshifter (talk) 19:45, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Just for information,  is valid wikimarkup nowadays, but it was poor practice in the past (before c. December 2012), see e.g. here. We (at en) had a tool to fix it without intervention, but I think (might be wrong) that it was flagged for fixing at WPCHECK. Mr Stephen (talk) 21:47, 27 August 2015 (UTC) with the space in it is too picky and arcane for wikitext in my opinion. It would make wikitext in tables (table headings, etc.) more complicated than it needs to be. I edit Help:Sorting for example. is frequently used in tables, especially sortable tables. Can syntax highlighter be recoded to live with just  ? --Timeshifter (talk) 00:18, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I typically make that edit because I use this syntax highlighter which is available under Preferences/Gadgets/Editing. I don't know how many other people use it, but I find it quite helpful and I suspect more people would use it if they knew about it. One particularity of the highlighter is that it differentiates between a and a , as it says in the documentation "For performance reasons, the highlighter requires all tags to be valid XML. For example, make sure that if you start a   tag you end it with  , and use   instead of  ." Hence, I do it because it helps some people and doesn't hurt anything.  SchreiberBike &#124; ⌨   23:14, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * How much of a performance difference does it make? Does  without the space in it work? Because
 * I'm not a coder, but you might be able to get an explanation at User:Remember the dot/Syntax highlighter. Lately, I've been going spaceless . That doesn't make a difference to me. Also, of course, I never make those changes unless I'm also making some substantive change. Thanks, SchreiberBike &#124; ⌨   03:27, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

How to make a bot with AWB
I want to make a bot using AWB but I don't know how to get it approved for AWB A8v (talk) 20:25, 28 August 2015 (UTC)


 * WP:BRFA


 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 20:36, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

minor issue with Commons → Commons category conversion
This isn't that big of a deal, but whenever the 1st unnamed parameter in template:commons begins with the "category:" prefix, AWB converts Commons to Commons category. In most cases, this isn't an issue, but when an article topic has both a commons gallery and category with the same name, using both templates yields link boxes that appear identical, but link to different pages. E.g., if you run the current version of AWB on the amphetamine article, it will attempt to convert the 2 commons boxes that link to Amphetamine and Commons:Category:Amphetamine in the Amphetamine section (shown below to the left) to the set of boxes below to the right. Might be worth disabling this fix or preventing the change when a commons gallery and commons category with the same names are linked to via the commons template.  Seppi  333  (Insert 2¢) 13:36, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Edit: I replaced with  to circumvent the problem in this example; the general issue still remains though.  Seppi  333  (Insert 2¢) 13:57, 6 September 2015 (UTC)


 * This isn't AWB/Typos related. Please move discussion to the general discussion area.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 14:14, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Using AWB to download files
Is there a way to use AWB to download files in a list?

I am working on a separate wiki (not a Wikimedia project), and I have used AWB to generate a list of all pages in the "File:" namespace, however I am not sure how to now download those files.

I am aware of Exporting all the files of a wiki, however I was hoping to use AWB to achieve this task (I do not have familiarity with Perl, and I do not have FTP access to the server).

Thanks! —danhash (talk) 22:30, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

AWB is removing date= parameter in references
See. Checkingfax (talk) 05:02, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * As stated in the talk header you kindly added to this page, "This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the AWB template." Instead, I suggest you post to Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser with some explanation (e.g. Do you like this undocumented feature?  Is there a problem with the removal of this blank field?)  Thanks!  GoingBatty (talk) 23:44, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * , will do. The date= parameter is not deprecated and I don't agree with its removal even if empty. Having empty fields ready to go speeds up later population of the parameter, especially by novice editors. Here is the CS1 guideline on parameter deprecation. Checkingfax (talk) 23:56, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Upon further inspection, I noticed that the reference before the AWB edit was .  One of AWB's general fixes is to remove duplicated fields.  GoingBatty (talk) 00:05, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks . Nice catch. managed by  as seen here is clearly considering the date= parameter to be deprecated, which it is not. Checkingfax (talk) 00:28, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Monkbot does not use AWB's general fixes (see Bots/Requests for approval/Monkbot 1), so now I suggest you contact directly.  Sorry for the runaround.  GoingBatty (talk) 00:37, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Another user mentioned the same issue at User talk:Trappist the monk/Archives/4. GoingBatty (talk) 00:39, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Update to the live CS1 module weekend of 26–27 September 2015
Which see.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:13, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Decreasing non-automated mainspace count prequisite for approval
At Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage, we seemingly regularly approve requests for access to users with less than 500 non-automated mainspace edits. I believe this figure was originally just mainspace edits, and not non-automated mainspace edits. I am in favour of going off of the latter simply because one can easily make 500+ edits to the mainspace using rollback or Twinkle, and still not be competent with the English language. I even created a tool to assist in identifying such non-automated contributions. I think we can safely decrease the prerequisite and still be able to sufficiently evaluate the user's English and their editing ability. My proposal is to cut the number in half to 250 non-automated mainspace edits. Any insight on this? Pinging admins who are (semi)active in responding to requests: &mdash;  MusikAnimal  talk  03:32, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Earlier I was using the figure of 400 non automated, but if I see quality writings or corrections I would give the AWB with lower figures. Sometimes there may be a specific reason given, such as categorising, or adding projects to talk pages, that would require proof that the user can do that job manually. But I find that most users are pretty vague about why they want AWB. So I would be happy with alert about under 500 mainspace edits, or under 250 non-automated. Can the bot also detect that a different user added the entry? Every so often I find that an IP adds a request for a user, and I have to ask them to log on to do their request. For me to check it is a bit of a pain. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:46, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * 500 mainspace / 250 non-automated sounds like a good compromise from what we have now. I will implement that shortly. I could add a task for the bot comment if the requester is a different user than whom the request is for, but I suspect this doesn't happen that often? What if we instead took it a step further and autocorrect the username of the request so that it is the same as the user who added the entry. This would also ensure spaces are used instead of underscores, etc. When this occurs the bot would also leave the comment "The username for this request has been autocorrected or changed to the user who added the request". How does that sound? &mdash; MusikAnimal  talk  02:58, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Don't get the bot to correct the username, as getting their own username right is part of the test. Applicants have to be able to read and follow simple instructions.  If users do not follow the instructions they should not get AWB.  If the bot "corrects" then it will make my work much harder to see what the user themselves did. However the bot could make a suitable remark to ask the user with a similar but differning username (say in caps or underscores) to read the instructions carefully and follow them. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:34, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Sounds good, I'll look into doing that instead. Thanks &mdash; MusikAnimal  talk  20:18, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Getting a page title
Is it possible for a c# custom module to know the name of the page that AWB is editing?

For example: —Trappist the monk (talk) 22:42, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Doh! Never mind.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:07, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Italic template replacement
I run a bot on a wikia that has two nearly-equivalent templates, one of which is an italicized version of another. The templates are called S2 and S4, with S4 being the italicized variant. I have a question about regex - is there any find-and-replace regex that can replace the italicized [sS]2 template with the S4 template without hitting any bold-text false positives? (So that ' and ' would both be altered to, but  would not be altered. ) ONR (talk) 19:12, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Try replacing  with  . This uses a negative lookbehind, meaning the double apostrophes only match if not preceded by a third apostrophe. (This, however, won't change   into  .) SiBr4  (talk ) 19:48, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you. ONR (talk) 00:14, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

AWB on Incubator
I'm trying to use AWB to make some edits in Dagbani. How do I get started for example to make list from that incubator? Thanks —M@sssly ✉  18:54, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

CSVLoader
I'll created allready some articles in a small wikipedia and it worked.

But if I have article names with comma in the csv file/text file, like:


 * Autauga County,Alabama,43671.00,17662.00,....
 * Baldwin County,Alabama,140415.00,74285.00,....

...what do I have to do, that AWB uses "Antauga County, Alabama" as article name and not "Antauga County" only.

--Howan Hansi (talk) 06:36, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Have you tried putting it in quotes i.e. "Autauga County,Alabama"? Rjwilmsi  07:45, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * You can also change the separator to something other than a comma. For example, use  in your .csv file, and set the field separator to   in the plugin. SiBr4  (talk ) 10:26, 11 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Many thanks, I'll try both recommendations. --Howan Hansi (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:54, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

AWB on Windows 10
Recently I've upgraded both my desktop pc and my laptop to Windows 10 from Windows 7. Since then both were unable to start AWB, even after downloading the newest versions. On opening the .exe I see the normal startup/loading screen, but the bar doesn't progress and after a few moments Windows reports that the program is not responding. Is this a known issue and does anyone have a possible fix for this?

With kind regards, Kippenvlees1 (talk) 21:46, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It appears to be a problem with Windows 10 compatibility, because the program starts with no problem when started in compatibility mode to Windows 7. - Kippenvlees1 (talk) 20:02, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I get this as well sometimes—go to C:\Documents and Settings\user name\Local Settings\Application Data (you may need to check "show hidden") and delete the AutoWikiBrowser folder, and it should go back to normal for a while. &#8209; iridescent 20:56, 9 October 2015 (UTC)


 * I just upgraded to Windows 10 on my laptop and AWB is running without incident so far. Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 15:21, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

I seem to be a moron with this thing
Long time wikipedia user, first time awb user. All I want it to do is check certain tennis categories (for instance, European tennis biography stubs), and remove the stub tag "Europe-tennis-bio-stub" from articles if it is longer than a stub. I see it's usually 500 words. I have been told that there are many tennis articles that are really no longer stubs but the tags have never been removed. I have no idea what to do to get it to fix only that. I can open the awb... I can make a category list that shows all the appropriate articles... I can log in... I can see the start tab and the start and stop buttons... but I can't figure out how to tell the program to check for stub removal. Any guidance or pointing to how to use this program would be appreciated. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:16, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Removing stub tags is one of the functions of the "Auto tagger". You turn these on by ticking the "Auto tag" checkbox on the "Options" tab. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:01, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks...At least I figured out how it works. I'll have to play with this more. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:40, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

AWB seems to run progressively slower through a long list
Sometimes I will run a typo check or other kind of cleanup against all the articles in a city or state WikiProject, and I've noticed that it starts out very zippy but then gradually gets slower and slower as it steps through the 1000s of articles. I've done this enough where I don't think it's merely my imagination. I wonder if this is an API thing where the servers deprioritize excessive requests coming from the same IP, or might there be something at issue in the AWB software itself. Any thoughts on what's going on? Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 11:11, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It takes longer and longer to add new article names to saved and skipped lists under the logs tab as those lists become longer. Clear the lists if you don't need them and AWB speeds up again.


 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 11:20, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the clue here. I disabled logging and the progressive slowness went away. I'm going to log an issue to request this logging occur in a separate thread so it won't disrupt the list processing flow.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 13:14, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
 * cuts the skip/save logging time in half. The time left is now mostly the time needed to resize the columns on the Logs tab; we do that each time an item is added or removed and it takes longer and longer as the number of items grows. Logically we only need to do that if an entry with the longest data in one of the columns has been added or removed, or perhaps if the Logs tabs doesn't have focus we could only refresh it when the user opens it. I'll investigate whether we can be smarter about the column resizing to improve the performance further. Rjwilmsi  22:52, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the fix. I guess I jumped the gun on asking for this process to be threaded (not having looked at the code). If performance can be tweaked without doing that, all the better. As for refreshing the logs tabs, that makes perfect sense that they wouldn't be refreshed unless they were currently open, or being opened. Otherwise, who is the refresh benefiting? All it's doing is dragging down the list processing. Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 14:19, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Localization
How to localize autowikibrowser? I want to localize it, especially some needed strings in summary like "using AWB" etc. Muhammad Shuaib (talk) 19:30, 24 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Muhammad Shuaib I can do this for you if you tell for which project you want it and if you help me. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:47, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks Magioladitis, I want it for urdu wikipedia. Where should I send you the translated strings? Muhammad Shuaib (talk) 19:27, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Muhammad Shuaib you can type them here. I firstly will need "using AWB". -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:03, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, here are some needed strings:

Muhammad Shuaib (talk) 08:31, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Muhammad Shuaib I also need "removed". -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:39, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Ok, removed = حذف Muhammad Shuaib (talk) 11:59, 2 November 2015 (UTC)


 * I also was searching about this. Please you can do this for Sanskrit also ? Thank you.. NehalDaveND (talk) 12:15, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

bot work with counter
Namste... I am AWB user in sa.wikipedia. Here I want to ask that, here You can see kind of work is done. Therefore Month's Second date that article will be display in main page. Now I have this kind of work.

1. I have arrange category with 59,  60 etc...

2. I have some text. Ex.

1> यदा संहरते सम्यगुपसंहरते  च अयं  ज्ञाननिष्ठायां प्रवृत्तो यतिः  कूर्मः अङ्गानि  इव यथा कूर्मः भयात् स्वान्यङ्गानि उपसंहरति  सर्वशः  सर्वतः एवं ज्ञाननिष्ठः  इन्द्रियाणि इन्द्रियार्थेभ्यः  सर्वविषयेभ्यः उपसंहरते।  तस्य प्रज्ञा प्रतिष्ठिता  इत्युक्तार्थं वाक्यम्।। तत्र विषयाननाहरतः आतुरस्यापि इन्द्रियाणि कूर्माङ्गानीव संह्रियन्ते न तु तद्विषयो रागः स कथं संह्रियते इति उच्यते

this above text is for 59.

2> यदा इन्द्रियाणि इन्द्रियार्थान् स्प्रष्टुम् उद्युक्तानि तदा एव कूर्मः  अङ्गानि इव इन्द्रियार्थेभ्यः सर्वशः  प्रतिसंहृत्य मन आत्मनि एव स्थापयति सोऽपि स्थितप्रज्ञः। एवं चतुर्विधा ज्ञाननिष्ठा पूर्वपूर्वोत्तरोत्तरनिष्पाद्या इति प्रतिपादितम्। इदानीं ज्ञाननिष्ठाया दुष्प्रापतां तत्प्राप्त्युपायं च आह

and this text is for 60

Both texts are different and I have 7000 text bunches for upload in sa.wikipedia.org. But problem is I have AWB rights than also I have to do this past work manually. Can you please teach me how to do mapping with proper page to respective text.

Ex. 59 mapping-- with>

1> यदा संहरते सम्यगुपसंहरते  च अयं  ज्ञाननिष्ठायां प्रवृत्तो यतिः  कूर्मः अङ्गानि  इव यथा कूर्मः भयात् स्वान्यङ्गानि उपसंहरति  सर्वशः  सर्वतः एवं ज्ञाननिष्ठः  इन्द्रियाणि इन्द्रियार्थेभ्यः  सर्वविषयेभ्यः उपसंहरते।  तस्य प्रज्ञा प्रतिष्ठिता  इत्युक्तार्थं वाक्यम्।। तत्र विषयाननाहरतः आतुरस्यापि इन्द्रियाणि कूर्माङ्गानीव संह्रियन्ते न तु तद्विषयो रागः स कथं संह्रियते इति उच्यते

and

60 mapping-- with>

2> यदा इन्द्रियाणि इन्द्रियार्थान् स्प्रष्टुम् उद्युक्तानि तदा एव कूर्मः  अङ्गानि इव इन्द्रियार्थेभ्यः सर्वशः  प्रतिसंहृत्य मन आत्मनि एव स्थापयति सोऽपि स्थितप्रज्ञः। एवं चतुर्विधा ज्ञाननिष्ठा पूर्वपूर्वोत्तरोत्तरनिष्पाद्या इति प्रतिपादितम्। इदानीं ज्ञाननिष्ठाया दुष्प्रापतां तत्प्राप्त्युपायं च आह

This work is very important to increase sa.wikipedia. 7000 paragraphs are not small thing. Please help me for this. Thank you.... NehalDaveND (talk) 09:36, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Please clarify: do you have 7000 different pieces of text, or only these two? If the first, CSVLoader is a handy AWB plugin to add different texts to different pages. If the second, CSVLoader would work too, but it would be easier to just create a separate list of pages for each case, and do two AWB runs. SiBr4 (talk ) 14:55, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes I have 7000 paragraphs and pages to upload in sa.wikipedia. Can you please explain how it works ? Thank you NehalDaveND (talk) 15:34, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
 * With CSVLoader you can import a .csv file containing your data in a format like  to put Text 1 on Page 1 and Text 2 on Page 2, etc. CSVLoader has a lot more details on how to use the plugin.
 * Not understanding Sanskrit or reading Devanagari (and not being able to find an online translator), I can't easily help with creating the list itself. How do you currently have your 7000 texts stored (on-wiki or local, separate files/pages or one big one)? Do you have the target page names, or only their category sort keys?
 * P.S., ping doesn't result in a notification unless you add the template and a signature in the same edit. SiBr4 (talk ) 13:49, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I have sent you a mail. Please check. NehalDaveND (talk) 07:59, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Request to update general fixes documentation
Although the documentation on how AWB's general fixes will fix non-breaking spaces says the units supported include inches (but not "in"), AWB seems to add non-breaking spaces for "in" in some instances (e.g. Veroboard). Could someone familiar with the code please update the documentation? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 00:06, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Condensing repeated citations
Hi all, I was under the impression that AWB condensed repeated citations. Am I wrong? Any idea if there's a setting to do this? For instance: here (around line 648-ish) AWB adds titles to the references.
 * Before:
 * After:

But as you can see, the same reference is used multiple times and AWB didn't condense them. I had to do a second pass with reFill to convert the repeated citations to the shortcut version, i.e. Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 19:29, 9 November 2015 (UTC)


 * And then oddly, in this edit, AWB named a reference, and condensed the second instance of that reference. ?? Cyphoidbomb (talk) 19:33, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * References used within templates are not condensed. Reason being that for example in infoboxes some parameters may conditionally not be displayed, so if we condense later refs and the first instance of the ref doesn't end up being displayed, we get a references error. If other tools always condense such references they risk causing ref errors, unless they somehow check that the first instance is definitely displayed on page. Rjwilmsi  23:03, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * OK, it's now sinking in after this explanation. Thanks. Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 00:47, 10 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Ah, thank you . Cyphoidbomb (talk) 23:40, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

IFD and CFD skip all pages
I'm not sure if this is a bug or a huge error on my part but I can't seem to get these two plugins to work. Putting in the files/categories works just fine and a correct list is created afterwards. But after starting the process nothing seems to be found, nothing is renamed, removed or commented out. Only some minor fixes like replacing underscores with spaces are suggested (even though no automatic changes were checked by me). The normal single file/categories options in the "More..." tab work just fine though, so I'm not sure what's the problem could be. Any ideas? --ShardofTruth (talk) 22:39, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

update to the live cs1|2 module weekend of 5–6 December 2015
Details of update here.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:25, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Any way to stop AWB users from hyphenating mass-produced ?
In the article about Rangitoto Island Volcano, the seperate words 'mass produced' are regularly changed to the hyphenated pair 'mass-produced' which is not correct in the phrase '... was about equal to the combined mass produced by all the previous eruptions in the Auckland volcanic field...' Is there any way of blocking AWB users from repeatedly making this change? Dinobass (talk) 03:42, 1 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Try the template?
 * massproduced [sic]
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 03:54, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Looking at the related templates, I think the one desired is not a typo. --Izno (talk) 04:07, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I've added Not a typo. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:36, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * How about adding 'that was', as in '... was about equal to the combined mass that was produced by all the previous eruptions in the Auckland volcanic field...'? Chris the speller   yack  16:30, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * How about adding 'that was', as in '... was about equal to the combined mass that was produced by all the previous eruptions in the Auckland volcanic field...'? Chris the speller   yack  16:30, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

I need help starting up AWB
So I registered then downloaded the AWB file to my computer, but I am not sure how to unzip the file on Windows 7. Any help?  Volcano guy  02:36, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
 * According to Microsoft, in Windows 7 you should be able to right-click on the file and select "Extract all" from the menu. Any joy? -- John of Reading (talk) 10:11, 5 December 2015 (UTC)


 * When I downloaded AWB, the first two downloads were corrupted and undersized a tad and Windows said there was nothing to extract.


 * The way I extract on Windows is I create a New Folder ... then I right-click-drag the AWB file over the folder ... upon releasing the mouse clicker I get a menu and I pick "Extract all" ... a wizard pops up and I follow the yellow brick road.


 * The reason I use a new folder for extracting is you never know how many files you are extracting and you might end up with 50 of the buggers on your Desktop. Cheers!  10:22, 5 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what the problem was but I got it working.  Volcano  guy  05:54, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Some regexes
Maybe somebody wants to play around regexes? I have such three cases: I think that the first and third would be useful also for enwiki. Oh, one extra question - is it possible to replace all page content with something. There should be something better than using. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 15:07, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Want to find incorrect headings, like  and  . My current regex is   (with multiline switched on), which needs quite a lot of tweaking at the   part. Two separate regexes (one for   and second for  ) will be completely fine
 * Want to find typos in year links (yes, I'm from another Wikipedia), like 1995.
 * These ones are messy:, which end up as "link text linked text some more".
 * For the year links try something like  - the clever part there is , looking back to check that what we've just matched is not the same as the stuff that was captured on the left of the pipe. -- John of Reading (talk) 20:28, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Playing around with regexes is always fun:
 * or
 * answered, maybe you don't have to care about whether they are same
 * should be basic check for one internal link inside an external one
 * with singleline/dotall and without multiline matches the whole page
 * Matěj Suchánek (talk) 21:51, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Detecting unbalanced equals signs should be possible in a single regex, using John's trick above: . Automatically fixing them, on the other hand, may require Matěj's separate regexes, depending on what you want to replace any matches with. SiBr4  (talk ) 22:17, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks guys for help. Still have to learn, especially some clever tricks. And nice trick for page content removal Matěj, I should have to think till that myself :) Found out, that my Wikipedia is quite clean for these cases, except internal link into external link, which has quite much results. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 08:22, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Imageless and Infoboxless page list making
Namste.... I want to make a list of wikipedia pages, in which no single image is exist nor infobox. Can you tell me how can I make this list via AWB ? NehalDaveND (talk) 04:39, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
 * You can try taking an existing list, setting the Skip tab to skip if it contains  and check the Regex and Check after boxes, and then preparsing the list to weed out those that contain an infobox or image.  Hope this helps!  GoingBatty (talk) 03:32, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
 * But I will have to add some category to do this search in whole sa.wikipedia. By which category I can search all pages of sa.wikipedia ? And if you can explain process, it will be very helpful for me. Thank you NehalDaveND (talk) 07:18, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I want to you this feature too. See image. Database Scanner.jpg How can I download Xml file of all article list ? NehalDaveND (talk) 07:36, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Try setting "Special page" as list source, clicking "Make list", and selecting "All pages" in the popup. SiBr4 (talk ) 10:31, 3 December 2015 (UTC)


 * You can download XML file with all pages here: sawiki-20151201-pages-articles.xml.bz2. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 11:59, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Can you please tell me which file I have to download for all article's list. Because when I am making all article's list, than redirected pages are also included in list. I want a list of only main pages without redirect pages. NehalDaveND (talk) 06:13, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
 * You can use the "pages articles" XML dump. There is a checkbox labelled "Ignore redirects" on the "Text" tab of the Database Scanner. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:52, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you. And I want to make a list of sa.wikipedia pages in which this फलकम्:अपूर्णलेखः template used. I can see that list here But I want that list in AWB. Can I can make this list ? NehalDaveND (talk) 08:15, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
 * In the panel at the bottom left, set the "Source" to "What transcludes page" and put the template name फलकम्:अपूर्णलेखः in the box just below it. But that may only load the first 5000 results; there are workarounds for that, but I'm not familiar with them. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:39, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

User name already exists
From wikt:Wiktionary:Grease pit. I have a new computer and I'm trying to log into to AWB but I'm getting the 'error' message 'Username "MglovesfunBot" already exists'. Err yes, I used to be able to access my account from more than one computer, but apparently not now? Why (out of curiosity) and what do I do about it? Surely there has to be something more practical than creating a second bot account.

I can't see this problem anywhere else on this page, so I'm listing it here. Renard Migrant (talk) 13:35, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Please tell us in more detail what steps you're going through in AWB to get to this error. Of course yes you should be able to use AWB from multiple machines. Rjwilmsi  08:36, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Disregard; I've got it. I think maybe because I was logging in to the wrong WikiProject. Renard Migrant (talk) 13:16, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

AWB Vacation
As part of my wikibreak, I request that my registration for AWB be suspended or removed.--DThomsen8 (talk) 16:35, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * User:Dthomsen8 done. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:40, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

database dub can't open in AWB
Namste ! I had downloaded sa.wiki database from here. But Whenever I try to import that sawiki-20151201-templatelinks.sql.gz this file, I can't upload that file in AWB. I want to know what mistake I am doing. Please guide me to do this work. Thank You. NehalDaveND (talk) 12:02, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
 * The AWB database scanner can only work with XML dumps not SQL dumps. If you want to use the scanner, you'll have to download and uncompress . -- John of Reading (talk) 13:07, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I have download that file also. But that also not appears in AWB. I think AWB can see only xml file and that file is xml.bz2. Please guide me if you can make some screen sots. I tried that so many time. And also please tell me if some one can arrange training program of AWB. Thank you. NehalDaveND (talk) 08:24, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
 * You need to uncompresss/unzip the  file, using 7-zip for example. Then choose the XML file with the AWB database scanner.  Rjwilmsi  08:36, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
 * There is no AWB training program, just a User manual. Asking questions here should work, too! We'll be better able to help you if you tell us more about the problem you are trying to solve. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:39, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I want to make list of only templates of sa.wikipedia. sawiki-20151201-templatelinks.sql.gz So this file can be use by me. or else how to make all template's list ? NehalDaveND (talk) 08:43, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Here is the list of all templates (3629 templates there are), that are currently at sa.wiki. I included also subpages, but didn't include redirects. If you need also redirects or list without subpages, then say. And remember - when working with AWB Database scanner, you can work only with those files, which have .xml in the filename. Those with .sql in filename are just database tables. And you won't want to deal with templatelinks table, believe me :) -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 09:23, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you so so much. Can guide to make a list of without redirect pages of all sa.wiki in which language link is not available ? NehalDaveND (talk) 09:27, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
 * You mean pages, which don't have interwiki links? -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 10:02, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes ! NehalDaveND (talk) 10:09, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
 * All the reports are here. In the "/Other" pages, I excluded all subpages, which I included in the "Other/Without doc" report. Those "lonely" pages are pages, which have been connected to Wikidata, but don't have any iw links. Yes, most of them won't have any, but some of them should be connected. I noticed that many templates and modules have English name. I can connect those pages, which have template/module with the same name here at enwiki. But that won't happen now, but after some while, when I'll go to do some Wikidata stuff with bot (I plant to do that around Christmas). So for now you can do some clean-up work with other pages. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 10:51, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you. You have done most of work, which I have thought. I have mailed you. Can you please reply ? NehalDaveND (talk) 10:56, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Responded.  Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 10:59, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Template:Underlinked
Underlinked has been nominated for deletion: Templates for discussion/Log/2015 December 24. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:24, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

How to I get bots section so I can autosave
How to I get bots section so I can autosave? &mdash; Cp i r al  Cpiral  10:59, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
 * You'll need to create a separate bot account (example); then post at Bots/Requests for approval with details of the specific task you have in mind (example); then once that has been approved or "approved for trial", post at Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage to obtain AWB access for the bot account. By then a bureaucrat should have blessed the bot account with the "bot" permission, and with that done you'll be able to use the "bot" tab within AWB so that the bot account can do the approved task with autosave. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:49, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Not adding births category
Any idea why AWB general fixes isn't adding a births category for Gurmukh Nihal Singh and Jade Wang and Jared Friedman? They each have a person infobox and/or Persondata. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 23:42, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Weird. It's not adding the living category either.  On Jade Wang, if I remove the last two refs in the education section (see my last test in edit summary), things work fine.  I can't see any weird Unicode via the Unicode code converter.  I don't have a stable version to try it on, only SVN versions.  Do you have a stable version to try it on?  Bgwhite (talk) 05:56, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm using SVN 11757. Since you're not seeing something obvious that I missed, I'll submit this as a bug.  GoingBatty (talk) 14:58, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Unable to create New entries
I have sysop rights on pa.wiki and i have been trying to create entries using a text file. I don't know where i got it wrong. I have create a text file with 3 intended entries and a batch script. I have all the settings in the AWB as well. It says no changes made and skips.--Satdeep Gill (talk • contribs 02:58, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
 * You should check the Page section on the Skip tab. It should be set to Exists for new articles. Have you tried the CSV Loader plugin for AWB? It allows you to create new articles using CSV files and page template. — Ganeshk  ( talk ) 05:47, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi I actually tried that first. I created one CSV file with three entries as you wrote. I did check the Page section as well. Finally some one is listening to me. I think you can help me. --Satdeep Gill (talk • contribs 14:35, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
 * , let me know how I can help. We can move this conversation to my talk page. — Ganeshk  ( talk ) 18:04, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Searching for references that use bare URLs
As part of a cleanup exercise, I want to identify references with bare URLs, like. I thought the AWB facility "Wiki search (text)" would allow me to do this by searching for, but it does not find anything at all. It occurs to me that perhaps AWB is looking at the rendered output, not the source input, of the articles. I searched through the AWB Help and there is a passing reference to something called "insource://" but I cannot find details for that anywhere, and I am not sure whether that will be relevant to my search or not. Can anybody point me in the right direction, or perhaps AWB is not the tool for this job...--Gronk Oz (talk) 08:41, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Several suggestions:
 * Using AWB, set your Source to What transcludes page, set What embeds to Template:Cleanup-bare URLs and click Make list.
 * Using Wikipedia, go to Template:Cleanup-bare URLs and click What links here. Change the namespace to (Article) and click Go.
 * Using Google's search, look for  " http" site:en.wikipedia.org  (including the quotation marks)
 * I wasn't able to get good results using insource in Wikipedia's search, and I don't know how to use insource in AWB. Maybe someone else can provide some suggestions.  Hope this helps!  GoingBatty (talk) 14:06, 27 December 2015 (UTC)


 * If you're going through a list you've made a different way such as all the articles included in a project (a wiki-wide listing would be huge, I bet), you could set Skip if Doesn't contain .  Then when it stops on one, you can open up the article and fix it manually or with a script.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 15:53, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't even dare to imaging how much results there would be, but such regex should help: . Maybe  can help with list, using database scanner. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 16:14, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the regex. Yes, this sounds like a big effort, even if concentrating in a particular subject or WikiProject.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 16:27, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I've posted more than 20,000 examples at User:John of Reading/Sandbox using a partial database scan. The full list will have at least 15 times as many. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:35, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh. My. Goodness. I had no idea this would turn into such a big job - thank you, .  I have taken a copy of it to a user page of my own, so your sandbox can be freed up again. Well, I know what I'll be doing for the rest of the holidays!--Gronk Oz (talk) 22:11, 27 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I've added this interesting insource:// example, at Help:Searching/Features. Among articles beginning with the letter A there are ten, based on Edgar2007's regexp above. &mdash;  Cp i r al  Cpiral  18:53, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Wonderful - thanks for that documentation! Since this is the talk page for AWB, have you found success in running this in AWB?  I tried copying your examples using Source: Wiki search (text) but was not successful.  Thanks!  GoingBatty (talk) 19:43, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, my AWB 5.8.0.0, doesn't understand it either. It understood, returning the 87, and then later it didn't, returning 0. But it understands "Text file (UTF8)" well enough, so when it bugs out I'll use the extra step of getting titles from search results page. &mdash; Cp i r al  Cpiral  21:14, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Use across Wikipedia Languages?
Given that now there is a common login across Wikipedias, is there any reason that AutoWikiBrowser couldn't be use across all Wikipedias at that same time? By this, I have a single English phrase "Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy" which would be found in many different Wikipedias and I'd like to fix them on *all* at the same time. A google Search across all of wikipedia.org could be used, with it then limited to mainspace on each. Any ideas without going through the dozen or more languages separately one by one?Naraht (talk) 18:29, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Every Wikipedia has their own rules. Every Wikipedia has their own names for something.  One can't login and load up English Wikipedia settings and work on French Wikipedia.  Bgwhite (talk) 22:37, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
 * But one *can* load up the default settings on all, correct?Naraht (talk) 02:54, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

DuplicateUnnamedReferences
Having looked at WP:CITEVAR, I don't see how AWB would change the Citation Style by folding together DuplicateUnnamedReferences if it caused this to happen even if there is no named ref. I also see nothing in WP:NAMEDREF putting any limitation on combining references in that way.Naraht (talk) 21:31, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Please give the name of the article. Bgwhite (talk) 22:28, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
 * That's a general comment on the policy in AutoWikiBrowser/General_fixes that requires that at least one named ref already exists in order for the software to combine ref entries.Naraht (talk) 22:31, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Again, please give the name of the article that you saw this with AWB. Bgwhite (talk) 22:37, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm still not understanding. This is *not* that I think that AWB is working differently than its rules say it should, I'm saying that I think the *rules* should be changed. The rules for the Duplicate Unnamed References which require that named reference needs to exist, I believe that rule should be changed. The rule links to WP:CITEVAR on the General fixes page, but Citevar says nothing about this.Naraht (talk) 02:54, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

How to disable footnotes sorting?
Sorting footnotes and footnotes marks are very annoying function. I dont know how in enwiki, but editors at other wiki often sets footnotes in articles by order of importance and types, and alphabetically in template Reflist. But AWB sorting breaks it. Changing order of sources on local language, and on English which are don't understands most readers. It forcing editors to nervous. How to disable it? --Vladis13 (talk) 00:53, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
 * To disable this, go to the Options tab and uncheck "Apply general fixes". GoingBatty (talk) 01:25, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
 * That, of course, turns off all the general fixes, not just the re-ordering of references. Apparently there is a better workaround, suggested at phab:T100614, but I never took it any further. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:16, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for reminding me of the better suggestion I made earlier.
 * - AutoWikiBrowser/Custom_Modules is labelled for AWB 5.4.0.1. Does it need to be tweaked for the current AWB 5.8.0.0?  Thanks!  GoingBatty (talk) 17:57, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, in fabrikator request is absolute silence for 1 year, even has not priority. --Vladis13 (talk) 22:48, 4 January 2016 (UTC)


 * "Go to the Options tab and uncheck"? This function must be not only unchecked by default, but eradicated at all! Why somebody thinks that his aesthetic taste is more important than author's choice? Or specialists in formatting consider this choice as random? The arranging in the text can represent quality, relevance, primary/secondary relations or other considerations. Alphabetical arranging of footnotes in the reflist helps to find them and to avoid duplicates. I do not know if En-wiki has a consensus about sorting of footnotes, but at least some wikis definitely do not have it. And AWB acts there as an instrument for mass editing without a consensus. It's not a first talk about this issue, and I'm amazed by silence of technicians.
 * Recently I wrote to operator of a bot which makes this sorting. I still haven't been honoured with any answer, and the bot continues this activity. Colleague, it seems to me that responding to messages of other editors would be rather polite, wouldn't it? Stas (talk) 00:11, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Update to the live CS1 module weekend of 16–17 January 2016
See discussion —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:26, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

AVG threat
The latest (I think) AWB AutoWikiBrowser.exe is showing up as a threat type "Unknown" on AVG. Will have a closer look in an hour or two when I get in. V 5.8.0.0 SVN 11694.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 14:11, 11 January 2016 (UTC).


 * Not much more to say. I hit "allow" and carried on my merry way. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:00, 11 January 2016 (UTC).

Does AWB regex have a problem with this
I added a few spaces to an infobox, to have a layout that is visually easier to work with, and was reverted with teh following edit summary: "remove extra spaced that should[n't] have been inserted in the first place as they can interfere with AWB regex". I want to know if adding the spaces is indeed a possible source for problems. The edit was this. Debresser (talk) 08:36, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
 * If this causes a problem to any AWB user, the solution is for the AWB user to fix the regular expression! All templates allow zero or more spaces before or after the equals signs, so any software processing them must be written to cope with that. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:44, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Sounds like an absurd revert even if it does cause a problem for AWB as most infoboxes are visually formatted with lots of extra spaces preceding the = sign. Cheers!  02:00, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Unbalanced bracket alert does not highlight them
The alert pane does not highlight the issue in the diff pane and makes it nearly impossible to remedy an alert. Ping me back. Cheers! 01:57, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
 * In the menu at the top, do you have "Options > Highlight errors" ticked? -- John of Reading (talk) 07:02, 12 January 2016 (UTC)


 * and any . I did, but I failed to save it as my default settings so it undefaulted. Thank you for the reminder about how to reset it. Couple of questions:
 * On Systema Naturae AWB wants to change accomodatvm → accommodatvm; I guess it knows what it's doing
 * On Surat AWB found an unpaired bracket but when I click on the alert it highlights the deadlink template instead
 * Ping me back. Cheers!  09:34, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
 * "I guess it knows what it's doing" really isn't a good assumption! The "Accommodate" rule is another one that's been coded to fix anything that looks like a misspelling of "Accommod...", without checking that the suffix is English. Here, the suffix clearly shows that it is not an English word, and the rule has probably made an incorrect change. You should only save changes that you are sure of. If a rule modifies text that isn't English, then only save the change if you are fluent in that language or have checked the text against the source. This one is in the title of an old book, so personally I would only change this if I had checked it against a scan of the title page. "an Iohanne" is an incorrect change, too.
 * For your second point, if you click the edit window just after the dead link highlight, and then click back in the "Alerts" box, AWB will jump to the next highlight. If you are not interested in dead link highlights, you can turn them off at "Options > Preferences > Alerts". -- John of Reading (talk) 11:25, 12 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Hi, or any . I am very cautious with my edits. I did check online and found the spelling all over the place with 2 ems so I approved the change. I missed the a to an change because it was below the fold in the edit window. That window is only two lines high and it must have been on a third line. On my screen it looks like you added a second pipe here in the Bibliography section. Is that needed? Thank you for having my back. Cheers!   11:46, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
 * OK, I've re-run the general fixes. -- John of Reading (talk) 11:51, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

I just wanted to note that since there's only one instance of this, there's no need to address this in the typo rules. John of Reading's fix in the article is all that's needed. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 16:11, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
 * When AWB suggests an odd typo correction, you can see which rule is being called by looking at the typo tab. If you still have questions, don't save the change, and post a question Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos.  Thanks!  GoingBatty (talk) 04:36, 13 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Before approving the accomodatvm → accommodatvm edit suggestion I went online and found endless pages of results for a Latin book title using accommodatvm whereas I only found one page of results for accomodatvm and every one of those was a self-reference to Wikipedia or a WP mirror. I did due diligence on that one Changing 'a' to 'an' was a total oversight and FOOBAR. Thanks for having my back. Cheers!   07:53, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I've restored your "accommodatvm" fix with a suitable edit summary. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:34, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Regex spell check exceptions
AWB regex spell fixer wants to change Acorda to Accorda, but Acorda Therapeutics is the name of a big medical company. Can there be an exception for AWB to skip Acorda if Acorda precedes Therapeutics with a leading cap? Acorda seems like a strange word to be spell checking anyway, unless the suggestion were to change Acorda to Accord. Cheers! 02:07, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

UPDATE: I did not mean to insult the regex typo fix feature by calling it merely a spell check. I realize it will change lead to led which is a grammar decision not a spell check decision. How does AWB differentiate and know what to suggest? Ping me back. Cheers! 02:15, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
 * The "Acc-" rule has been coded to add a "c" to anything that begins "Acord". I'm not keen on rules that do that, as there are often unusual words that the rule-writer has not thought of. So one fix would be to rewrite the rule to look for an explicit list of suffixes that should be corrected. Another fix would be to modify the rule to peek at the next word and check that it isn't "Therapeutics".
 * But in this case a workaround is to make sure that every article mentioning "Acorda Therapeutics" contains at least one link to the Acorda Therapeutics article. This is enough to disable the "Acc-" rule in those articles. I have added a link to a few articles, and repaired a few articles that were previously "corrected" to "Accorda Therapeutics". -- John of Reading (talk) 07:52, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
 * We can also add to the regular expression to prevent this false positive. If that's necessary, let me know and I'll fix it.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 16:17, 12 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Hi, . It happened on a few pages so maybe go ahead and do if it is not too much trouble for you. Thank you. Cheers!  08:36, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
 * All the pages that mention "Acorda Therapeutics" contain a wikilink to Acorda Therapeutics, so, currently, there is no need to add this as an exception. A typo rule is disabled on any page where it matches a wikilink. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:31, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks. This was going to affect the Acc- beginnings rule if we decided to update that. (I now see this has already been looked into - whoops) Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 12:47, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Named group string matching problem
The typical unnamed group matching works fine, i.e. find (\d)\1 should, and will, match 2 consecutive identical numbers.

The problem I'm having is when trying to do this with named groups. The following 4 permutations give no error, but match nothing when operating on the text "99". In each of these cases, ${digit} in the replace box returns "99" as a result, so the named group is working. I just can't seem to use it within the find.
 * 1) find 1a. A more complicated version of this find (which I'm boiling down from) gives the error: "Unrecognized escape sequence \I.", if that helps.
 * 2) find
 * 3) find
 * 4) find

Am I just using the wrong syntax or is this a "feature"? ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 23:14, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
 * [//www.regular-expressions.info/named.html This documentation] says the .NET syntax is  - which no one would be able to guess - and the AWB Regex Tester confirms it. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:29, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Great! WP:AWB/Regular expression mentioned nothing about this (I've now updated it). Also thanks for identifying the syntax version (.NET) that I haven't seen specified anywhere.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  14:03, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Article name bold
Hi ! I want to do Bold name of article via AWB. Like Article is "Shree Ram" and in first paragraph or first line there is word "Shree Ram", than it should Shree Ram. Please tell me if there is some process. NehalDaveND (talk) 08:08, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * At the English Wikipedia, this happens when you tick "Apply general fixes" on the "Options" tab in the bottom center panel. I don't know how the function is coded, though, so I don't know whether it will work at the Sanskrit Wikipedia. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:07, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes it works in sa.wikipeid. But with that it puts orphan template and deadend template. And I want only bold work. NehalDaveND (talk) 09:44, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * The orphan and deadend tagging is controlled by the "Auto tag" checkbox, just above "Apply general fixes", so you can turn those off. But, yes, the "Apply general fixes" checkbox turns on a whole collection of fixes, and there is no easy way to turn off those that you don't want. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:58, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I have read a whole collection of fixes but this is very confusing for me. I want only this But after unchecked "Apply general fixes" also AWB puts orphan template and deadend templates. NehalDaveND (talk) 10:41, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Try it with "Auto tag" turned off and "Apply general fixes" turned on. That combination shouldn't add orphan or deadend tags. -- John of Reading (talk) 10:52, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I had tried that. But only bold work can't be done. those two templates are putting when "Auto tag" turned off and "Apply general fixes" turned on. vise versa too. NehalDaveND (talk) 10:55, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Some other options you might want to try:
 * Submit a bug request with the exact URL of the article you're trying to edit.
 * Add links from your article to other articles (so it's not a "dead end") and add links from other articles to yours (so it's not an "orphan").
 * Set up find and replace rules to run after fixes to remove the orphan and dead end templates.
 * Turn off both auto tag and apply general fixes, and use the custom module instead. Looks like this doesn't call Tagger, but does call EmboldenTitles.
 * Hope one of these is helpful! GoingBatty (talk) 23:52, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I think custom module this is the easiest way to this work. But I am not a programmer. There is some code, which I couldn't understand. I have only a language knowledge. Can some one make module for this EmboldenTitles ? NehalDaveND (talk) 05:57, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I believe you would copy the module (everything between  and  into AWB, and put   except for  .  Good luck!  GoingBatty (talk) 17:10, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

List based on uploads
I was surprised to see that there's no option, as far as I can see, to create a list based on user uploads. I tried using Special pages, but nothing seems to do the trick. For context, my intent is to use this on Commons, but I imagine it would be the same on both wikis. (I do have rights for both projects and do have the site setting set to commons). Is there something I'm missing? &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;"> Rhododendrites <sup style="font-size:80%;">talk  \\ 15:48, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I haven't tested, but there is such info: Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive 28. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 16:50, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

%%pagename%% not working in the 'Replace with' field
I'm able to match %%pagename%% via Find and replace > Advanced settings > Find, but if the page doesn't contain the pagename, I'm unable to insert it in the 'Replace with' field using this string. %%title%%, %%fullpagename%%, %%subpagename%%, %%basepagename%% all do not work either. Is this intentional or a bug? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tom.Reding (talk • contribs) 14:07, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I've had a quick play and it seems to work. Could you post your settings file in a sandbox somewhere? -- John of Reading (talk) 07:21, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Weird... I posted my still-not-working settings file here. Use the "Test..." button, since the rule isn't meant to run on the pages I have listed there.  ~ <font style="font-family:Monotype Corsiva; font-size:16px;">Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  13:36, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
 * This must be a limitation of the Regex Tester, since your settings work correctly on a real page such as User:John of Reading/Sandbox. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:37, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
 * This looks like it's just a conflict between the rule and genfixes removing a duplicate DEFAULTSORT. That I didn't consider. I'm testing my ruleset after creating each rule. It seems I should have waited until after I made the next rule, which modifies the DEFAULTSORT (or just unchecked genfixes...). Genfixes doesn't remove any of multiple DEFAULTSORTs unless they're identical. *long sigh* Back to work.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  17:05, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
 * And the fact that the regex tester doesn't evaluate %%pagename%%, which I assumed it did, since it auto-loads the current page into the "Text to search" field... Test doesn't evaluate %%'s for you, right?  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  17:11, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
 * The edit to my sandbox was definitely done by your rule, not the general fixes. I've undone it, so you can use that page for testing if you wish. And yes, it looks as if the current page name is not passed into the Regex Tester even though the current contents of the edit box is - though my copy of the AWB source code is some years out of date. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:27, 21 January 2016 (UTC)


 * (More) Logged as a bug. T124308. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:35, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

As admin How can give AWB right
Hello ! I am an admin in sa.wikipedia. I want to give AWB right to a user, but I don't know how can I do that ? Please guide me. NehalDaveND (talk) 07:13, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Go to sa:%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%AA%E0%A5%80%E0%A4%A1%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%AF%E0%A4%BE:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage and add the user name to the "approved" list, using the same formatting as the existing entries. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:10, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Using AWB without login
I want to use AWB for a MediaWiki project, mostly to sift through categories and pages using a certain template. The site uses an external login process, which means that logging in via AutoWikiBrowser is nigh on impossible. Is there a way to let AWB start and go through the pages and (through the "skip" function) stop only on the pages I want?

Thanks, Kippenvlees1 (talk) 01:31, 24 January 2016 (UTC)


 * No, the current software let's you use "Make list" without logging in, but the main "Start" button insists on logging in. There is a suggestion from 2012 at Phabricator. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:30, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Adding blank lines
I'm wondering what the procedure is for asking that something be removed from AWB. For years it has been adding blank lines between headings and sub-headings, so that we end up with this:


 * ==Level 1==


 * ===Level 2===


 * ====Level 3====

It makes the page harder to read in edit mode, especially on small screens. There was a discussion [ here] in October 2015 about clarifying that the MoS did not require this. As a result, WP:MOSHEADINGS now says:

"Include one blank line above the heading, and optionally one blank line below it, for readability in the edit window ... There is no need to include a blank line between a heading and sub-heading."

Can AWB be changed accordingly? SarahSV (talk) 01:15, 24 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Pinging and  in case they can help. SarahSV (talk) 01:32, 25 January 2016 (UTC)


 * SlimVirgin, you personally changed MOS with this edit saying consensus was reached. Nowhere that I can see was consensus gained for your change.  The discussion you referred to was about if there should be a mandated blank line below a section header, not between section headers.  In the discussion, you made a suggestion for your change and two people agreed.  Other people in the larger discussion wanted blank lines mandated before and after every section header.  Three people agreeing in a small part of a larger discussion and people wanting blank lines in the larger discussion is not consensus.  Please revert your change. Bgwhite (talk) 02:31, 25 January 2016 (UTC)


 * and, you took part in the discussion here. It seemed to me that there was consensus to make this clarification. The issue is that AWB has been adding blank lines between headings and sub-headings for years, because whoever added it to AWB believed the MoS required it. But it didn't require it, and now it explicitly doesn't.


 * , it would be an odd thing for the MoS to have required. It was a misunderstanding, which has now been clarified. SarahSV (talk) 01:18, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Without even looking at the old discussion, the change made by SarahSV is a good one which should not be reverted. There is no logical reason to have a blank line between a heading and subheading, while, IMO, there is still a good reason to have a blank line between the heading and the following content. It makes it easier to quickly find headings when editing, which saves a lot of time.

BTW, the amount of space between headings shown above seems to be greatly exaggerated (2X) to me, but maybe it's just a matter of which skin one is using. My view shows half that amount. Here's what I see when I edit, so every little bit of space makes a big difference. No space leaves a wall of text with headings hidden in them. I want just as much space between a heading and text (above AND below) as there is between paragraphs

Here are examples:


 * 1. One blank line between headings (we usually have text in between)


 * ==Level 1==


 * ===Level 2===


 * ====Level 3====


 * 2. No blank lines below, only above (and preceding text), as is mandated


 * ==Level 1==
 * afdsfadsfafdsfadsfafdsfadsf
 * afdsfadsfafdsfadsfafdsfadsf
 * afdsfadsfafdsfadsfafdsfadsf
 * afdsfadsfafdsfadsfafdsfadsf


 * ===Level 2===
 * afdsfadsfafdsfadsfafdsfadsf
 * afdsfadsfafdsfadsfafdsfadsf
 * afdsfadsfafdsfadsfafdsfadsf
 * afdsfadsfafdsfadsfafdsfadsf


 * ====Level 3====
 * afdsfadsfafdsfadsfafdsfadsf
 * afdsfadsfafdsfadsfafdsfadsf
 * afdsfadsfafdsfadsfafdsfadsf
 * afdsfadsfafdsfadsfafdsfadsf


 * 3. One blank line above a heading (if any preceding text) and below (between following text), which is optional now


 * ==Level 1==


 * afdsfadsfafdsfadsfafdsfadsf
 * afdsfadsfafdsfadsfafdsfadsf
 * afdsfadsfafdsfadsfafdsfadsf
 * afdsfadsfafdsfadsfafdsfadsf


 * ===Level 2===


 * afdsfadsfafdsfadsfafdsfadsf
 * afdsfadsfafdsfadsfafdsfadsf
 * afdsfadsfafdsfadsfafdsfadsf
 * afdsfadsfafdsfadsfafdsfadsf


 * ====Level 3====


 * afdsfadsfafdsfadsfafdsfadsf
 * afdsfadsfafdsfadsfafdsfadsf
 * afdsfadsfafdsfadsfafdsfadsf
 * afdsfadsfafdsfadsfafdsfadsf

Example three is what I'd like to see (so the heading stands out), IOW an obligatory space below a heading and following text. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:21, 26 January 2016 (UTC)


 * , I added a screenshot above to show what the AWB white space looks like with Vector. When this is multiplied throughout the article, and on a small screen, it's a nuisance to edit with. But if the blank lines are removed, someone will add them again with the next AWB edit, because it adds them by default. I've also seen AWB edits where adding these blanks lines is the only change that is made. SarahSV (talk) 03:47, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree that there should be no blank line between heading and subheading if there is no text. Your edit was good. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:58, 26 January 2016 (UTC)


 * , re: the other issue, is AWB removing the line between a heading and text? If so, it shouldn't be doing that. WP:MOSHEAD allows these lines: "Include one blank line above the heading, and optionally one blank line below it, for readability in the edit window ..." SarahSV (talk) 04:24, 26 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I haven't been watching for that, so I don't know. I agree that it shouldn't do that. -- BullRangifer (talk) 04:58, 26 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Okay, sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you were raising a different issue. SarahSV (talk) 05:07, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

This is not the place for discussion if it is good or bad. Take it to MOS. I'm offended that you straight up lied about it being consensus. Just for once, don't shove what you want down people's throats. I don't give a damn about the blank lines or not, just that it goes thru proper channels. The only positive about the blank lines is it help people with poor eyesight actually read. It maybe a nuisance for you, but with my bad eyes and dyslexia, it the difference between correctly reading the headings or not. Take it to MOS and do a proper discussion. Bgwhite (talk) 05:30, 26 January 2016 (UTC)


 * This is the kind of language I've noticed from Bgwhite many times over the last few years when people complain about the pointless edits made by a couple of AWB editors. It's tremendously discouraging.


 * There was consensus for that edit; no one is lying. It's an edit that wasn't needed in the first place, because the MoS has never suggested adding blank lines between subheadings. Someone misread it ages ago and mistakenly added it to AWB, and now for some reason we can't seem to have it removed. Editors shouldn't have to spend so much time dealing with AWB changes that make no difference and/or are a nuisance. Pinging and  again. SarahSV (talk) 05:48, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
 * , You just can't stop hating my guts and proudly say it everywhere. King of language?  You lied and I'm offended by that.  Sorry for having a disability is so upsetting to you.   Will stop with the insults, just once.  Don't send me lovely email again, I'll will restate it from last time, any more vile, hate and threating emails will be turned over.
 * You gained no consensus. You feel it is a nuisance, others may not.  Do a proper MOS proposal.  All I'm asking is for a proper proposal.  Just for once, do a proper MOS proposal.  I'm done with you.  I will not respond to you anymore.  Bgwhite (talk) 06:16, 26 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Bgwhite is implying that I have sent him unpleasant emails, so now I'm forced to clarify that I haven't (more time wasted). This turn of events is disturbing, especially from an admin. I've rarely been in email contact with him. The only time I recall was a brief exchange in July last year about his edits to Night (book), and it was straightforward and civil., please don't interact with me again.


 * I hope we can get back to discussing the issue. SarahSV (talk) 06:37, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I believe the blank lines make it harder to edit, especially on mobile devices, and serve no good purpose. Tony   (talk)  07:07, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Any discussion about the MOS/policy would be better carried out on the MOS talk pages, not here. If AWB now contravenes the consensus MOS or the consensus spirit of the MOS then an issue should be raised on Phabricator for AWB to be changed and assigned to the AutoWikiBrowser board and we'll action it in due course. I'm not going to get involved in the discussion here. Rjwilmsi 08:15, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Can search and replace exclude urls and Titles in refs?
I am using AWB to do some search and replace to correct a misspelled word. A couple times, I have noticed that the planned replacement is the Title of an article in a reference, which would not be a good replacement, though not a huge deal, but I also noticed a planned replacement in the url string, which, if accepted, would make the link fail.

I see a check box which would allow me to exclude templates, refs, link targets and headings, but I do not want to select that, as headings is one of the common places for the error. Is there a way to skip refs I am not seeing, or would this be a useful feature to request?-- S Philbrick (Talk)  22:12, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * You could try clicking the box above to ignore external links (URLs), and then revert the changes to reference titles before saving. GoingBatty (talk) 02:34, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
 * If you are using regular expressions, you could trying tacking these on to the end of the "Find" expression:  will stop the rule triggering inside a URL, and   will usually stop the rule triggering inside any parameter labelled "title". -- John of Reading (talk) 07:00, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not using regular expressions. I still think my suggestion makes sense, but I don't have a lot of experience with AWB, so I think I should get more experience, then see if I want to more formally propose something.-- S Philbrick (Talk)  14:12, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

External HTML scraper module example
I'm looking to update existing WP:Astronomy pages with external database information (not to create tons of useless pages). I'd like to regex-find a string at a specific location on an external page, place that string into the article, then operate on it with my AWB rules, then save. Can someone provide a simple module example that does this? Thanks. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 14:58, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I'll settle for an example scraping a local file, too. Just something to get me started. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 05:06, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Fictitious example of getting page HTML text to find data in tags, in order to update argument to specialtemplate:


 * Something like this? Rjwilmsi  09:02, 4 February 2016 (UTC)


 * That's great, thank you!  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:55, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

AWB logon error
Yesterday AWB on my PC was working fine. Today I receive this error. So what do I do now? Thanks Hmains (talk) 04:49, 12 February 2016 (UTC) --
 * description**:
 * workaround**:
 * OS**: Microsoft Windows NT 6.2.9200.0
 * version**: AutoWikiBrowser (5.8.5.0), WikiFunctions (5.8.5.0), revision 11864 (2016-01-28 19:15:03)
 * net**: 2.0.50727.8670
 * duplicate**:
 * site**: https://en.wikipedia.org


 * WMF has changed on how logins are done. WPCleaner give off the following    Wish I knew of a solution.  Bgwhite (talk) 06:32, 12 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm getting a similar error as well, so I guess I can't do anything fun tonight. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 06:51, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Fixed in AWB 5.8.5.1 Rjwilmsi  07:53, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm still getting the logon error. Is there anything special I need to do to pick up a revised version of something?
 * ✅ Never mind - found it! It's all working now.--Gronk Oz (talk) 15:07, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

How do I use AWB to view a random page?
Can AWB be used to look at random pages? like use it to search a page and edit it instead of using the browser? Wintery Time on the Grassland (talk) 02:43, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Change the source to "Random pages", press the "Make list" button and you'll get 500 random pages. GoingBatty (talk) 02:48, 14 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Thank you so much. Wintery Time on the Grassland (talk) 02:49, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Update to the live cs1|2 module weekend of 20–21 February 2016
See discussion.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:52, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Pause database scanner?
When the AWB database scanner is running, why is the Pause button grayed out? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 05:11, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Help with converting defunct WikiProjects into task forces
I am looking for someone who could help us convert defunct WikiProjects into task forces of a main Project. See the request on WikiProject X. We would really appreciate help. Cheers.--Z oupan 07:20, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Maximum size of make list
What would be a reasonable size for make list (import).. I tried loading ~90,000 and got some unusual results - it gives the correct number but only showed about 100, and when deleting those 100 from the list, AWB deleted 30,000 according to the "#### page" at the top of the list. If I knew a reasonable list size I can adjust my software accordingly not to generate a list longer. Or possibly AWB can process a list that long but doesn't display them in the list window? -- Green  C  20:38, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Where/how to find the contents of WikiFunctions.Tools?
I've only come across these tools haphazardly. Is there a list somewhere of functions available in WikiFunctions.dll, and specifically WikiFunctions.Tools? ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 23:47, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Sources. --Vladis13 (talk) 16:42, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Custom Modules: How get value of unnamed parameter from template?
Named parameters are extractes from template, but numbered parameters not. I tried extract 1st unnamed parameters by use "1" in --Vladis13 (talk) 22:17, 7 March 2016 (UTC)


 * From this example custom module it looks like you need to name the parameter you're looking for instead of enumerating through them (though I'm not sure why that wouldn't be an option (try using an int 1 instead of a string "1" first)).  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  23:28, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Use public static string GetTemplateArgument(string templateCall, int argument). Rjwilmsi  07:54, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you, it work. --Vladis13 (talk) 19:27, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Unbalanced bracket on J. Cole
On the J. Cole article AWB v5.8.5.1 correctly reports an unbalanced bracket in a table but the table looks OK with the unbalanced bracket. Does the template at the top of the table start the table? Should AWB have an exception for reporting unbalanced brackets in tables in these cases? Ping me back. Cheers! 23:03, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, the awards table template opens the table and formats the header. This is quite common; there's some discussion from 2011 in the archives. I think you'll just have to live with these false reports. There is no need, I think, to "fix" the articles in any way, and it's probably too much effort to teach AWB about all the templates that open/close tables. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:18, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

General fixes
In some recent changes (e.g. Typhoon Soulik), AWB moved the disambig tag from above to below the succession box. Nothing wrong with that, However, it seems to have exposed a problem with placing of the s-end template, which was at the end of the last line of the box, rather than on a separate line. The old version of the page looked fine, but the changed version was rendered wrongly. Could moving the s-end template to a separate line please be added to general fixes? Colonies Chris (talk) 18:33, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Replacing the element
Need AWB "general fix" to remove <tt ></tt> and by default replace it with <code ></code>, though in some places it will need to be replaced with <samp ></samp>, <kbd ></kbd>,, or simply removed. The <tt ></tt> element no longer exists in HTML, and hasn't in years.

The consensus in prior discussion (see WT:BOTREQ link above) appears to be that this needs to be handled by AWB not bot, because too many cases of use of <tt ></tt> are arbitrary (and against MOS and need to be removed), or otherwise are not code. That said, it is probably safe to replace it with <code ></code> as the default.

PS: I cannot log in to Phabricator, so I cannot file a request there. I've never been able to get into Phabricator; always an LDAP error. I have reported this problem twice, but after something like a year and a half it's still not fixed. I would appreciate it if someone could Phabricate this request for me. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:25, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
 * How will the proposed "general fix" decide between removal or replacement with samp/kbd/etc? If each case needs editor discretion then it cannot be built into the software, but will need to be tackled by willing editors. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:58, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
 * We're supposed to review changes AWB makes. Hunting down <tt ></tt> and replacing it by default with <code ></code> is reasonable; it's only in unusual cases that it will need to manually be changed to something else. In zero cases should it ever be retained (except in code markup form, e.g. literally as "<tt ></tt>", e.g. in this discussion, in examples of code in old talk pages, in an article on HTML elements and which are valid, etc.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:17, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

NeedToken (Logon error)
Hello users,

I have noticed that I cannot log in to AWB - I am presented with a dialog box stating:

Elsewhere, the specific error string is as follows: Operation 'login' ended with result 'NeedToken'. Xml: '<?xml version="1.0"?> <login xml:space="preserve">Fetching a token via action=login is deprecated. Use action=query&amp;meta=tokens&amp;type=login I have also noticed a similar problem with Huggle too. Any solution(s) pending?

Thanks for your time!

&#60;&#60;&#60; SOME GADGET GEEK &#62;&#62;&#62; (talk) 00:10, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
 * What is your AWB version? If you are not using version 5.8.5.1, you need to upgrade. See Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive 29. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:48, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi JoR, oops - that's why I couldn't log in - thanks for pointing that out. Wonder why AWB didn't automatically notify me that there was an update available? That's a good feature that AWB should have. Cheers, &#60;&#60;&#60; SOME GADGET GEEK &#62;&#62;&#62; (talk) 21:48, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Template redirects for wp.fr
Hello

Seeing that it was already on some other Wikipedias, I had the idea to add fr:Wikipédia:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects on Wikipedia in French, but I would like some advice:
 * can this feature work on the French version of Wikipedia ?
 * what is the correct syntax? Can the template fr:Modèle:M be used (it does the same things as tl with another name, because wp.fr uses the "tl" template for language indication), or does a tl template must be used ?
 * is the capitalisation of the first letter of the template important?

Regards, Şÿℵדαχ₮ɘɼɾ๏ʁ 10:57, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes provided fr:Project:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects redirects to your actual page. Syntax and capitalisation handling is documented at AutoWikiBrowser/Template_redirects, must use "tl" or "tlx" template (though how that template may be rendered on the local rules page doesn't matter as AWB reads the wiki text not the rendered text). Rjwilmsi  21:10, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your fast answer. As the template "M" is used for language indication, we'll use the template "Tlx" thats does the same thing as the wp.en one on our Template redirects page. Now we've got to do some tests to see if it works fine. Regards, Şÿℵדαχ₮ɘɼɾ๏ʁ 08:41, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Plugins not in release version?
Just downloaded the release version, and it doesn't seem to have the plugins, despite what it says on WP:AWB/NL. Could someone please double check? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 23:46, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Maximum list size?
I attempted to create a list containing all pages in Category:Living people. It loaded for a little bit, and then came up with a list of exactly 25,000 pages. However, Category:Living people contains over 700,000 pages. Is there a maximum list size or something? If so, how can I get around it? — Omni Flames  ( talk   contribs ) 00:15, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Never mind, just read WP:AWB/NL :P — Omni Flames  ( talk   contribs ) 00:16, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Translation to Galician
Hi, how can I translate the interface to Galician? Bye, --Elisardojm (talk) 08:40, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Wikiproject template not being placed inside the shell?
See Bots/Requests for approval/BU RoBOT 10 for background information, diff, etc. Basically, WikiProject Women isn't being placed inside WikiProjectBannerShell if it already exists on the page. I was under the impression that this was included in genfixes. Am I mistaken or is this some type of error in the template and/or bug in AWB? ~ RobTalk 16:39, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Replied at Bots/Requests for approval/BU RoBOT 10. GoingBatty (talk) 03:20, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
 * If only everything worked how I wanted it to work! This is resolved. ~ RobTalk 09:47, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Can't open
I can't use AWB. Always the message is "AutoWikiBrowser.exe has stopped working". I have this problem since I have change PC. In my old pc was working. Xaris333 (talk) 15:32, 3 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Xaris333 what do you mean by now working? Do you get some message? -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:55, 3 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Magioladitis sorry, I wasn't clear. The message is "AutoWikiBrowser.exe has stopped working". Xaris333 (talk) 17:38, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Xaris333 which AWB version do you have? Which Windows do you have? -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:42, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Magioladitis AutoWikiBrowser5851 and 64-bit Windows 10. Xaris333 (talk) 18:03, 3 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Xaris333 do you have .NET installed? -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:05, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Magioladitis Yes. Xaris333 (talk) 19:38, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Same issue with me
I'm having the same problem, and I've changed nothing. It's been a few weeks since I last logged in, but today it won't let me. Gives me this error message:

OperationFailedException in ApiEdit.CheckForErrors

Operation 'login' ended with result 'NeedToken'. Xml: '<?xml version="1.0"?> <login xml:space="preserve">Fetching a token via action=login is deprecated. Use action=query&amp;meta=tokens&amp;type=login instead. <login result="NeedToken" token="2b5ea3c26c6572cb570df6ac7f346130570293d1+\" cookieprefix="enwiki" sessionid="a5k0mor0487iv8fnpgknpcr3g16ptuti" /> '

--
 * description**:
 * workaround**:
 * OS**: Microsoft Windows NT 6.2.9200.0
 * version**: AutoWikiBrowser (5.8.0.0), WikiFunctions (5.8.0.0), revision 11694 (2015-10-01 06:30:11)
 * net**: 2.0.50727.8009
 * duplicate**:
 * site**: https://en.wikipedia.org

Please advise. Windows 8.1, Firefox 45.0.1 — Maile (talk) 16:23, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Yours is not the same issue; for "NeedToken" see Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive 29 Try upgrading to the current release, 5.8.5.1. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:36, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you. The update resolved my issue. — Maile  (talk) 19:07, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Parsing parameters with templates or wikilinks
How to parse templating parameters, which have templates or wikilinks? Example:

If use regexp " " then will incorrect result " ". Also if use " ". But need correct " ".

In "Make module" has possibility to write script with using library on C#, but it is very difficult way. --Vladis13 (talk) 20:11, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Double clicking on alerts
Hi. When it alerts to a 'sic' tag and I double click on the alert, the insertion point does not jump to the 'sic' tag in the article. version 5.8.5.1 on Windows 7 Pro 64-bit with Chrome and Firefox. Ping me back. Cheers! 11:15, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Translation to Galician
Hi, how can I translate the interface to Galician? Bye, --Elisardojm (talk) 08:40, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Could somebody help me with that, please? Bye, --Elisardojm (talk) 17:31, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Request from WP:DEORPHAN
Apologies if this is not the best place for such solicitations but, is there someone running AWB that is interested in helping update some orphaned article categories? See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Orphanage. ~Kvng (talk) 15:19, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
 * A better place to ask is at WP:AWB/Tasks <font color="#C30">Chris <font color="#060">the speller <font color="#900">yack  21:10, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Can't login
Now I can't login as I've been doing. Normally, I click: File → Log in/Profiles... → (my username) →, and I'm ready to edit. Now an error box pops up that contains the following:

Operation 'login' ended with result 'NeedToken'. Xml: '<?xml version="1.0"?> <login xml:space="preserve">Fetching a token via action=login is deprecated. Use action=query&amp;meta=tokens&amp;type=login instead. <login result="NeedToken" token="db1e0382edee65a00ac94f70b8e52fe1571c96ad+\" cookieprefix="enwiki" sessionid="38pkt9kivtgbib93bn6briivsfdpmpu5" /> '

I tried an update, but it didn't enable me to log in. Please help. Stick to sources!  Paine  09:55, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
 * You need to update, but you'll need to do it manually since there's been a hitch with the updater. Go to sourceforge to download 5.8.6.0 and then unzip it. -- John of Reading (talk) 10:10, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much, John of Reading – worked like a charm! Stick to sources!  Paine   10:40, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Windows 10
I tried to download it under Windows 10, but SmartScreen tells me it prevented running to avoid putting my PC at risk... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yamont (talk • contribs) 21:00, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
 * AWB is not digitally signed so is treated as suspicious by security software (see ).--Racklever (talk) 10:24, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

How do I tag a page to scare AWB away?
AWB is making good faith, but wrong, corrections on the page L'Immortel. This page is currently listed at Pages needing translation into English because it is in French. made by AWB are deleterious; we don't wan't exemple changed to example, and so on. because it will hinder a French to English page translator in doing a proper translation.

How does one stop AWB from acting on a page? Please ping me here, thanks. Mathglot (talk) 03:39, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I've added a lang template so that AWB, and all other software processing the text, can tell that it is not in English. This will stop AWB's built-in spelling rules from suggesting changes, reducing the chance that AWB users will make incorrect edits. -- John of Reading (talk) 05:38, 25 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the quick reply, and repair job! I understand the underlying implication that AWB (and other bots) will avoid spanned text thus tagged. This seems like a great fix for now.  I'm somewhat concerned that the article-long scope of the span could break or cause confusion down the road for future editors who introduce inadvertent unmatched curlies far from the point of origin, or wiping out the ending curly adding a category or something.  For a more robust fix, I'd like to see something like,  (maybe even with a   option) which bots could interpret in whatever way made sense, which would not have the disadvantage of having to have a matching end tag that could be disrupted with subsequent edits.  Do you know how one cold approach template writers for a requested new template like this?  The template could be asynchronous with any bot changes, which could simply catch up when and as they were able to. Mathglot (talk) 07:55, 25 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Or alternatively, two matching templates as extensions to lang on the model of Refbegin/Refend, such as and lang end might be even better. Mathglot (talk) 08:02, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
 * A pair of matching templates would work, technically, since lang is implemented as a pair of tags. But it would need a software change within AWB to have it recognise any new templates, and personally I think this wouldn't be worth the effort. Bots never correct spelling (WP:SPELLBOT), and the AWB spelling module only suggests changes for a human editor to review. The edit you had to undo was, hopefully, a one-off error. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:40, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

I like the idea of the templates. Still it was not AWB nor bot error. It was user error. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:48, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

There are better places for this. User-space, draft-space, French WP, or the bin. Mr Stephen (talk) 09:51, 25 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Moved to Draft space. Should probably be standard procedure for articles without English text. Fram (talk) 10:18, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
 * , the procedure for handling non-English articles is described at Pages needing translation into English. In general, articles are given three weeks of leeway before being deleted, unless they qualify for some other form of deletion such as one of the speedy deletion categories or an unsourced BLP. While 95% probably end up being deleted anyway, occasionally patience is rewarded; as a recent example Antoine Philibert Albert Bailly was translated yesterday after being listed for two weeks. Personally, I think that by leaving it in the main article space, the benefit of the increased possibility of it coming to the attention of someone capable of translating outweighs any harm of a non-English article being visible for a couple of weeks. AtHomeIn神戸 (talk) 00:31, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Infoblox Formatting Comment
I made an honest mistake on this revert (and luckily someone caught this right away). However, it brings up a fair question. Is there logic to catch formatting changes to infoblox like this into AWB to avoid something like this? Note you can see that the edit messed up the vertical position of dates in the publications table. Shaded0 (talk) 01:54, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Idries_Shah_Foundation&oldid=prev&diff=715592384
 * The solution is to properly format the table. The cells need to be split into more rows. —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 02:38, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

List categories of a Wikipedia page into a csv file
I have a list of 10K articles/pages. I need to enable AWB to write every category of a WP page into a text file. Can I do this? Llywelyn2000 (talk) 10:26, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I would say, that AWB isn't the best solution for this. If we're talking about all categories (direct and not direct ones (cats, which are placed in article via stub templates etc.)), then querying database would be easier. What pages we're talking about? -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 10:41, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks. all bird species. PS I have used AWB (using the CSV Loader plugin) in the past to pick up info in infoboxes and write into a text file. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 10:53, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
 * PS But do I remember how I did it?! Old age creeps in... I think I had a script. If a script reads infoboxes and writes their content to a csv file, then it can read cats. Ah well... Llywelyn2000 (talk) 06:04, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Just remembered! All done! Thanks... Llywelyn2000 (talk) 07:08, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

CS1 errors
What's the best config for repairing Category:CS1 errors? I didn't see it built into gen fixes czar  07:43, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I never use genfixes so can't speak to what it can or can't do. Most of the low hanging fruit in the subcategories of  has been taken so what is left it the not-so-easy-to-fix problems that require editorial judgement or the creation of rather more complex scripts.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 10:13, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Two questions
Hello. I just started using AWB and it's great! Two questions, please: Thank you, IKhitron (talk) 23:32, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
 * 1) How can I "explain" to AWB the local names? For example, sort meta data and similar features should know the defaultsort name in our wiki, the category namespace name, the stub and orphan templates names, and so on.
 * 2) In disambiguation dialog manual section you are talking about an image, but I can't find it.
 * Nobody knows the answer? IKhitron (talk) 14:33, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
 * about the first one - you can tell about these changes. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 10:37, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, the image is missing. But you'll get that dialog window when fixing DAB links. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 10:44, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you, . I'll ask him in a couple of days, if he will not see your ping here. About the image - yes, but the text is inconsistent. What's wrong in creating one more screenshot? I would do it by myself, but I don't know how to upload it, with all the cc-by things. IKhitron (talk) 11:36, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Welcome to Wikipedia, that everyone can edit :) But of course, this should get done. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 05:58, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Help with advance find and replace?
Hi there, I'd like to copy a string from a bunch of images on commons and paste it into the the images' category as a sort key, but I'm having trouble figuring out if that's possible with the advanced find and replace "if" function. As an example: File:West (rear) facade and south side - 1238 Thirty-Fourth Street, Northwest (House), Washington, District of Columbia, DC HABS DC,GEO,211-2.tif is in but it has no sort key. In the image description, you can find the line "* Survey number: HABS DC-720". I'd like to copy the string "HABS DC-720" and paste it as the category sort key like so: "HABS DC-720 ". Is that possible? And if so, how can I do it? Thanks. - Themightyquill (talk) 11:36, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I have little experience with the advanced F&R, but it should be possible with a normal regex find/replace as well. Assuming all files have the same format (with "* Survey number: " prepending the HABS code), try replacing something like  with   <span title="User:SiBr₄">SiBr4  (<span title="User talk:SiBr₄">talk ) 14:08, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
 * That works perfectly! Thanks so much! - Themightyquill (talk) 14:36, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Wiki search (text) on Commons
I'm trying to search for file pages on Commons with the text "Ryan Hagerty" or "Hagerty Ryan" in the file description, but while there are a few hundred files that meet the criteria, AWB is returning no search results. I haven't tried using AWB on Commons before, so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. -- Rrburke (talk) 12:33, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
 * "Wiki search (text) (all NS)" :) -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 13:41, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi, Thanks for your reply. I should have specified that I was using (all NS), but it still returned 0 pages. -- Rrburke (talk) 13:53, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I just tried to search and AWB gave me more than 0 results for any variation of quoted and unquoted version. Next silly question is did you logged in Commons (via Options->Preferences)? If yes, then I don't know, what your problem is and will let others to ask questions :) -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 14:01, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi again. Yes, I'm logged in to Commons. How many results did you get? ---- Rrburke (talk) 14:34, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Did you literally search for, as opposed to either name separately? For me that returns two pages, both of which contain both variations of the name in their wikitext. Capitalizing the "or" does give 335 results that contain either, so apparently boolean keywords are case-sensitive. AWB and in-browser search give the same results in both cases. <span title="User:SiBr₄">SiBr4  (<span title="User talk:SiBr₄">talk ) 14:48, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Figured it out: for some reason List:Remove non-main space was checked. Thanks for answering. -- Rrburke (talk) 15:41, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Automatic Regex typo fixing
Is there a way that I can use the Regex typo fixing feature whilst in auto save mode?

I cannot use any “Bots” options with Regex on. Is there a way around this? Thanks. ―PapíDimmi (talk) 07:32, 21 May 2016 (UTC)
 * No, every change suggested by regex typo fixing must be checked manually, as there are too many exceptional cases. See also WP:SPELLBOT. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:02, 21 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Ah, that sucks. Are there no plugins for that either? (Note: I am not doing this on Wikipedia.org.) The Regex typo fixing feature has worked so perfectly and has never made a mistake. That is why I do not want to sit and press save every time. ―PapíDimmi (talk) 08:04, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

We do not plan to enable bot mode for typo fixing. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:23, 21 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, that is too bad. The wiki which I use the bot on has thousands of pages. The typo fixing works great, but I would love to let it run in the background whilst I do something which differs to sitting in front of my computer clicking the save button all the time. I do not see why this is not a feature. If it does do something wrong, one can always undo it. ―PapíDimmi (talk) 07:24, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

PapíDimmi you can set your rules in Find and Replace and work the bot this way. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:55, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * It would take a lot of time to add every typo to the list in Find and Replace. Besides, I do not know how I would code that, as it would need to check for other words to see whether or not it is a typo. It would be much easier if Regex typo fixing worked in bot mode. ―PapíDimmi (talk) 07:57, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * It shouldn't be too hard to automatically convert WP:AWB/T to tags with regex. I'm not saying, that I would do that. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 09:50, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Auto tag removes catneeded template
Hello. When I have the “auto tag” option on, it removes all catneeded tags. Is there a reason for this? I do not want it to remove the catneeded tags.

P.S. This is not on Wikipedia.org. ―PapíDimmi (talk) 08:43, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

PapíDimmi Catneeded is removed when page has categories. Otherwise, we use morecats. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:11, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The problem is that the pages in which it removes the catneeded template have no categories. ―PapíDimmi (talk) 09:13, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

PapíDimmi example please. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:55, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The “auto tag” option has removed the tag on many pages which had no categories. I will show you a screenshot the next time it occurs if it is necessary. ―PapíDimmi (talk) 12:57, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I have discovered that this may be because some articles have categories added by templates. Maybe those categories will not show on the page in AutoWikiBrowser because they were added by a template rather than a user. I will look further into this and look more closely next time this occurs, although I think that this is the case. ―PapíDimmi (talk) 14:37, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * PapíDimmi You can provide me a diff to any wikia site. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:11, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Add replacements to edit summary
In the find and replace normal settings, I have the “Add replacements to edit summary” box unticked, yet, still, replacements are added to the edit summary.

Example: Manual edit summary, typos fixed: their were → there were

I have looked through the options and menus but cannot find an option to turn this off. I would appreciate any help, thank you. ―PapíDimmi (talk) 09:38, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The tickbox on the "Find and Replace" dialog only applies to the changes made through "Find and Replace". There is no option to suppress the edit summaries created by RegExTypoFix. The edit summary can be edited before you save the edit. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:41, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I noticed that and was about to add that. It sucks that there are no options to remove the automatic changes being applied to the edit summary. Yes, I know that I can edit the box, but it is tiring to keep editing it to remove the automatic changes which were added. Thanks for your reply, though. ―PapíDimmi (talk) 09:44, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

PapíDimmi typo fixing are considered to be different from "replacements" that happen via F&R. Te box refers only to the latter.-- Magioladitis (talk) 15:14, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Yeah, but still. They always work greatly, therefore I want it to be automatic. I have to manually save each edit just because of the typo fixing. Why should I be restricted from that? ―PapíDimmi (talk) 15:16, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Help with find and replace
How can I do something like this?

Find: ding bam boom Replace: d1ng bam beem

I want to replace a specific string of characters but keep a specific word or set of words. Is that possible?
 * Also, is there a way to do something like this?
 * Find: =Title=  Replace:  ==Title==
 * I know that some Wikipedia bots do this, but I am unsure as to how to do it with AutoWikiBrowser (if it is even possible).
 * I cannot include spaces, because titles have no spaces around them. Is there a way to substitute “no character(s)”? ―PapíDimmi (talk) 18:22, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * @PapíDimmi To answer your previous question,  is for any "word character" meaning  . So that would work here. But \w is not "any word"... it's just a character. So you could do something like find   which will find any   and replace it with   which will produce  . It is possible to find a start word, capture it, find any crap in the middle, capture it, and then find an end word and replace that. (will address the new question in a moment)  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) Please &#123;&#123;re&#125;&#125; 18:30, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * For the title one, search  and replace with  . I use   here because often section titles have non-word characters, spaces, wikilinks, etc. Basically I want to be able to capture anything but a new line. Also the   will make sure you stay within the line that the header is on and not accidentally capture anything in the middle of a paragraph between two equal signs. You could also search for   which would search and capture any character (including a new line) that isn't an =. However this can be dangerous as it can capture whole paragraphs.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) Please &#123;&#123;re&#125;&#125; 18:34, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I realized that “/w” would not work, which is why I removed that talk section.
 * Anyway, I tried this:
 * Find:

Replace:
 * I let the bot scanned a page which included this:


 * …but it did not work. I want it to take the “foobar” (or whatever word it is) from the “Series tabs” code and replace the whole “Series tabs” code with . I am most likely doing something wrong.
 * Also, the =Title= code worked, so thank you for that.
 * By the way, I have realized that I probably should have posted these questions on the Find and replace talk page, because they are about the find and replace function. Oh well. ―PapíDimmi (talk) 19:01, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

highlighting in the diff view
I've written a script that inserts a pipe where one is missing in cs1|2 templates, for example, like.

Is there any way to make it glaringly obvious where the new pipe is in AWB's diff view? It's not so bad when the changed text is one or two lines but wall-o'-text diffs are a pain.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:39, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
 * AWB supports use of a custom CSS for diff rendering, see AutoWikiBrowser/style.css so you could configure the diff added text to be bolder/larger/brighter etc.
 * In terms of the diff change within a long single paragraph, it's an issue with the mediawiki diffs in browser as well. I have a custom change to AWB to "compress" the diffs by creating a placeholder to replace long sections of unchanged text in a paragraph with other changes (placeholder can be clicked to show full text). It's a bit hacky in that I have guesstimated the "compression" level to my own machines' screen sizes and it can break up HTML tags etc. causing HTML-escaped display, so it's not ready for general use yet. Rjwilmsi  20:51, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Ding ding ding! So much better.  Thanks.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 23:41, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Update to the live CS1 module weekend of 4–5 June 2016
I propose to update the cs1|2 modules on the weekend of See this discussion.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:37, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Back to archived topic
Hello again,. As you said, it should be done, but it still wasn't. Is there any user that can add this disambiguatiin dialog image, that I could ping? Thank you. IKhitron (talk) 08:20, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Currently a dummy edit. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 09:57, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Exception for Spanish naming conventions?
Is there any way to add an exception to an article so AWB doesn't break author names where Spanish naming conventions are used? For example, an AWB trawl on some Spanish conquest-related articles broke single authors into multiple authors where Spanish naming conventions were used e.g. "author=Laporte Molina, Juan Pedro" (a single author with paternal and maternal surname) was broken into "author1=Laporte Molina |author2=Juan Pedro" instead of "author1=Laporte Molina, Juan Pedro", requiring a manual fix that will be broken again the next time an editor runs AWB without checking their edits, as happens all too frequently. On the whole, I appreciate AWB (and use it myself to copyedit articles I write), but repeatedly cleaning up things that I know will get broken again is a waste of time. It would be useful to have something invisible on the article to tag it as using Spanish names, rather than applying individually to references that use Spanish names (if such a thing doesn't exist already). Simon Burchell (talk) 09:42, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Write such names in the cs1|2 templates as Laporte Molina Juan Pedro. The meaning is then unambiguous (and provides better metadata).  Similarly, in Spanish conquest of Petén Chuchiak IV, John F. was changed to Chuchiak IV, John Fwhich treats 'Chuchiak IV' and 'John F' as separate authors in the Vancouver system style.  I've fixed that and a handful of other things in that article.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 11:07, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks. Simon Burchell (talk) 11:09, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Why does AutoWikiBrowser replace some spaces with… something?
E.g., it replaced  with   (edit page to see what I mean; it does not show up, even when using    ). This makes no difference when actually viewing the page, and it seems like an error to me; however, I may be wrong.

(It is the “Apply general fixes” option that does this.) ―PapíDimmi (talk) 02:43, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
 * It is not an error. Non-breaking spaces are used to prevent line wrapping between numbers and unit symbols. See WP:UNITS. —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 03:12, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I read WP:UNITS (not the whole thing; that is torture), but I do not see what difference an ampersand, some letters, and a semicolon makes compared to just a space. ―PapíDimmi (talk) 04:30, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
 * creates a non-breaking space, a space character that prevents an automatic line break at its position.1 Line breaks between numbers and unit symbols are undesirable. See . —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 05:21, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

How to see > 25,000 articles in a category?
Is there a way in AWB (or by some other means) to return > 25,000 articles in a category? ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 05:16, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
 * AutoWikiBrowser/NoLimits plugin. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 05:26, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
 * ...which requires user rights that Tom.Reding doesn't have. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:57, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
 * ...then I can later today give the list of articles from database (now I have to leave). -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 07:27, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Great (well, kinda), thanks! I'm pre-parsing for the most obvious, easy fixes, which often end up as ~10-15% of the input list's size.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  14:58, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
 * query/10338. Included only ns:0 pages. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 19:55, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Woot, downloaded!  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  01:32, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

AWB for MacOS
I use a Mac to edit Wikipedia, and I want to give AWB a go but I see that AWB is not supported by Mac unless you download windows compatibility or something like that. I wanted to know if AWB would come with support for Mac in the future? Thanks! Class455fan1 (talk) 20:05, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
 * There's currently a version of AWB written in Java in the works, but it has pretty limited functionality. Other than that, I don't know of any efforts to bring AWB to other platforms. Enterprisey (talk!) (formerly APerson) 20:34, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
 * It should work under Wine. In future native cross-platform support might be possible once the Mono project has sufficient coverage of the .NET libraries (it does not at the moment). I work towards improving Wine and Mono compatibility for Linux, I personally have no interest in Mac OS/OS X (a proprietary platform), though of course would have no problem if others worked on that. Rjwilmsi  18:53, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

AWB for Wikidata
Hi, I realized that AWB can not use for Wikidata. Any reason for this or I did not execute the right way? Alphama (talk) 11:48, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm wondering, what do you want to do with AWB at Wikidata? That is pretty different project :) -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 15:27, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I once tried to do a typo-fixing run there. I managed to create a list of Wikidata items having a particular typo, but could not correct anything using AWB because the standard editing API has been disabled. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:45, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Assuming you wanted to fix description or label, there are other tools for that, like quick_statements. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 15:55, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't want to use pythonwiki bot to change sitelinks at Wikidata. I think about using a convenient tool such as AWB for simplicity. Furthermore, I created my own tool which integrated to AWB for enriching categories, fix typos, grammar, etc ... Alphama (talk) 18:26, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I tried to use AWB. I could retrieve J-SON format, deserialize to an object, modify this object and serialize to J-SON format again. But I could not save content. LOL Alphama (talk) 18:30, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
 * If the API edit/saving feature has been disabled on wikidata then it's not an AWB issue, you would need to raise with wikimedia, though I'd assume API edit is disabled for one or more good reasons. Rjwilmsi  18:55, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Alphama, as I said - Wikidata works pretty differently. I still don't believe, you could use AWB to do something at WD. Could you give some example use-cases? There are many tools to work at WD. My mentioned quick statements tool, PetScan (with it you can add/remove statements) and some others. P.S. Alphama Editor looks interesting :) If I understand correctly, if XXwiki article has undefined, it can be picked from article in other Wikipedia (if your example screenshot - enwiki)? -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 19:24, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

I have a list with format:
 * Q123---Old category name---New category name

By using AWB and external database (above format), I just want to run article "Q123" with its content at Wikidata, and then change "Old category name" --> "News category name" in sitelinks part of J-SON source code. That's all. If AWB did not support, I wil use pywikibot (although I don't like much). @Edgars2007: About Alphama Editor, you are correct. Furthermore, this tool can also enrich categories for new articles which have interlink with English ones. Alphama (talk) 16:11, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Is there a way to turn off placement of the "Underlinked" tag without turning off placement of other tags?
I don't feel comfortable with how the algorithm decides to place the "Underlinked" tag, so I would like to set up AWB not to do that. Is there any way to do that? Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 19:20, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
 * No, but I wish there was. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:40, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I've added a feature request here, as I think this is a pretty good idea. — crh 23   &thinsp;(Talk) 19:55, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Changing/removing templates
Hi,

Is there an option to delete or change templates, similar to the "More..." functions for categories and files? It's a much more elegant and quicker solution than using the "Find and replace" function, especially since removing a template this way leaves an empty line. Furthermore, there's always the possibility someone has used Template:NAME instead of NAME which would cause the find and replace to fail.

With kind regards, Kippenvlees1 (talk) 12:30, 5 July 2016 (UTC)


 * , you can use the regex  to remove the CRLF character(s) from after the template so you don't have an empty line leftover, and take care of the   problem.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  13:19, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Great! Thanks for the quick response. - Kippenvlees1 (talk) 13:23, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

General fixes
The “general fixes” option is very useful, but it also adds categories which I do not wish to use. I have looked everywhere for an option to configure the general fixes but cannot find any. How do I change what general fixes does? Is there a way to disable certain changes? ―PapíDimmi (talk) 22:39, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
 * See AutoWikiBrowser/Custom_Modules. Rjwilmsi  08:00, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

How to block AutoWikiBrowser?
Hi. Someone is using AutoWikiBrowser to vandalize my wiki that is running on mediawiki. I noticed, that unlike many other mediawiki wikis, Wikipedia is able to restrict access to AutoWikiBrowser. None of my staff is using AutoWikiBrowser to make edits. Only vandals are using it to make mass vadalization edits in a short period of time. Is there a way for me to block/rectrict access with AutoWikiBrowser on my wiki? Innosflew (talk) 06:35, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Try creating the page Project:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage on your wiki using the text at AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage format. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:04, 6 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Instead of blocking AutoWikiBrowser, I’d suggest blocking the users who vandalize. AutoWikiBrowswer doesn’t allow blocked users to edit. AutoWikiBrowser is actually really useful, and some users may use it with good intentions, so fully disabling it may not be the best idea. You can just quickly rollback a user’s edits and, alternatively, use scripts such as Nuke, in order to delete all of a user’s created pages (if it is a Wikia wiki). ―PapíDimmi (talk) 13:02, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I think Innosflew means to restrict it to a set of users rather than blocking entirely. Of course, if there are no users in the list, it's effectively entirely blocked.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 16:29, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
 * No, I actually want it to be fully blocked. Neither me or my staff knew about the tool until the vandals appeared. No one from our editors that I know on my wiki uses the tool, neither do anybody from our staff wants to use it. Also, rolling back thousands of edits is very tiresome, because we cannot solve the problem with a single block. When they raiding the wiki the vandals are very dedicated and as soon as they are blocked they create a new accounts using proxies and start again. I want AutoWikiBrowser to be blocked so we can deal with them more easily. Also, I'm not on Wikia. I have my wiki on my own virtual server. -- Innosflew (talk) 19:37, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
 * If you create the check page as User:John of Reading suggested above, AWB won't allow anyone to edit with it unless they are in the check page - if it is blank this effectively disables it. — crh 23   &thinsp;(Talk) 20:23, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you. -- Innosflew (talk) 20:40, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

%%wordcount%% keyword?
In AWB's 'Start' tab there's a 'Page statistics' box which displays word count, # of links, # of images, # of categories, # of interwikis, and "Dates O/I/A" (no clue what that one means). Are there keywords available for these statistics? They could be quite useful. I've checked the keywords at AutoWikiBrowser/Find and replace, and tried to find more at Tools.cs, Globals.cs, Utils.cs, & Variables.cs, searching for   (not that I know where they should reside) but couldn't find anything suitable. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf) 13:49, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
 * No, these aren't available as keywords. Rjwilmsi  15:54, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
 * , thanks for checking. I created a phabricator ticket and added it here.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  12:21, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Solution = .   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  14:33, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

AutoWikiBrowser has a bug on wiki search
I want to generate pages by  when I search at en.wikipedia  this regex   the result is  this and it finds 5,810 pages but at the AutoWikiBrowser's wiki search, wiki search all ,.. doesn't show these resultsYamaha5 (talk) 20:21, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I reported this back in April. T133799. <span style="background: turquoise;font-family: 'Segoe Script', 'Comic Sans MS';">(t) Josve05a  (c) 20:25, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Moving infoboxes
There exists articles with some text (introduction) before infoboxes; example in other WP (permalink). Do you know a sure way to move the infobox at the very top of the page? I find it difficult (or impossible) to construct a regular expression for this. --XXN, 19:18, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Maybe something based on the multi line, many parameters format of infoboxes? I assume that is will be impractical to get a list of infobox templates. Also try asking at Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Find and replace. — crh 23   &thinsp;(Talk) 20:32, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Ah, I'm so sorry, XXN! I messed up your first example in an effort to understand the logistics.  I do work similar to this with AWB, but it takes longer than some other types of edits because I do it manually.  It's still faster than without AWB, though.  Maybe somebody here can give both of us some pointers!   Wikipedian Sign Language  Paine   20:36, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
 * This is a multi-step process, and easiest to implement via code, but it is doable (via code or rules).
 * First you need to "collapse" all non-infobox templates, since infoboxes can contain nested templates. Get a list of all the aliases to the infobox. Then find . Replace the opening and closing curly brackets with some unique text. The replace statement would look something like  . You'll probably need to iterate this a few times to shake all the nested templates out. You need to replace these at the end of your script/rules back to   &.
 * Hopefully, the only  left now are the closing braces to the infobox. For an additional check, you can require that the closing braces be on a separate line, or  . If not found, you can skip the page and perform a step #0 (preparatory step, manually editing the page such that the desired   are on their own line).
 * Now you're able to unambiguously identify the beginning and the end of the infobox and move any preceeding text, i.e. by finding   and replacing with.
 * Put back all the non-infobox  &   you collapsed in step 1 and you're done. (phew)
 * Hope this helps!  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  22:14, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much for your ingenious idea!:) I used it to do over 120 edits. Just modified a bit expression from step 3 to  and checked SingleLine in AWB. --XXN, 08:53, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * , you're welcome (though it's not my idea&mdash;I've seen this in other users' code). A few followup points:
 * There are some pages where either a leading or trailing space exists before the infobox's closing  that you might otherwise miss, but having either   or   are up to you.
 * Also, I should mention that if the page has multiple infoboxes (as some in WP:AST do), then you'll want to change the leading  to  . The   means it starts looking at the top of the page (as long as "Multiline" is UNchecked), and the   forces   to stop at the 1st infobox alias, instead of the last. And yes, I left out the bit about "SingleLine", it indeed needs to be checked.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  13:55, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Skipping pages above a certain size?
Is there currently any functionality in AWB to skip pages over a certain size? For example, say I'm looking at tagging stub articles and I'm pulling based on WikiProject stub categories. Those get out of date, so as an extra QA measure I want to skip articles that are above, say, 5KB in size. Is that currently available in AWB? ~ Rob 13 <sup style="margin-left:-1.0ex;">Talk 22:41, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

there is a feature request for that. You can still use regular expressions to achieve it. Enable skip if contains box with regex on. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:54, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
 * If I understand right, you're suggesting something like, correct? ~ Rob 13 <sup style="margin-left:-1.0ex;">Talk 23:05, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
 * exactly. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:15, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your help. ~ Rob 13 <sup style="margin-left:-1.0ex;">Talk 23:37, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Rename pages
As far as I know, AutoWikiBrowser can only edit pages. I was wondering if there is a way to make AutoWikiBrowser semi-automatically rename pages or if there is an alternative to AutoWikiBrowser which can. I would like to quickly rename pages in a specific category to add “(disambiguation)” after the title if it is not there already. ―PapíDimmi (talk) 03:10, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Why would you want to add "(disambiguation)" after the title if it is not there? Disambiguation pages that don't have the qualifier are reserved for subjects that do not have a primary topic, and there are almost always pages with the qualifier that redirect to them, e.g.,  redirects to Calumet.  Wikipedian Sign Language  Paine   02:08, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
 * This is not Wikipedia; it’s a wiki which uses “(disambiguation)” after all disambiguation pages. ―  PapíDimmi  (  talk  |  contribs  ) 15:45, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Ah, I think there's a bot that does that, but I have no idea what it's called. As far as I know, AWB does not have that functionality.  But truly, I'm no expert.  Wikipedian Sign Language  Paine   16:13, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
 * You can do cut-and-paste moves with AWB, by replacing the contents of "Foo (disambiguation)" with those of "Foo" and redirecting the latter to the former. Of course, history moves are preferable if possible (which they should be with a bot), but cut-paste should be OK if attribution is given via the edit summary. <span title="User:SiBr₄">SiBr4 (<span title="User talk:SiBr₄">talk ) 17:37, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

mw:Manual:Pywikibot can be used for this task. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 15:22, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

Statistic generation
Hi,

I'm used to use AWB for edit (mostly on french and breton Wikipédia and Wikisource) but is it possible to generate statistics? For example, I'd like to get all the publication year of books on Wikisources (stored in a template in the Index: namespace), is it doable with AWB?

Cdlt, V IGNERON * discut. 14:56, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
 * It is doable with Pywikibot. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 15:23, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

Marking checkwiki's errors as done
Does AutoWikiBrowser have any option to mark checkwiki's errors as done like WPcleaner?Yamaha5 (talk) 13:38, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Setting variables in AWB
Is there any way to set a variable in AWB, which can be used in regexes?

I want to run a task which involves several regexes, each of which needs to use the same string:. I can hardcode the countryname into each regex, but it would be much easier to be able to set the value centrally (e.g. ) than to edit each regex every time I start working on another country. There would also be less chance of error if only one fix was needed.

I did look on Phabricator to see if there was a request for such a feature, but I didn't succeed in figuring how to search only in the AWB entries :( -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:15, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes. With a custom module: Copy the above into a text editor (Notepad++ is good but anything that is just a plain text editor will work).  Anywhere the example says that ' goes here', replace the ' goes here' string with your find pattern, replacement, etc.  Save the file.  Copy it all to your clipboard.


 * In AWB, Tools->Make module. Click Enabled.  Language is C# 3.5.  Replace the stuff in the lard text box with the content of your clipboard.  Click Make module.  Start simple.  Disable everything in the AWB options tab.  Create a test condition in your sandbox and see if AWB will edit it with the module rule.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 16:51, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Is it possible to skip over pages using AWB but not remove them from the list?
As part of a task I'm trying to do with AutoWikiBrowser, I need to be to skip over any pages which contain a certain regex. However, if the pages do match the regex, I don't want to remove the from the list I'm using. If it doesn't match the regex, then I do want AWB to remove the page from the list when I skip over it. Is there any way to do this?  Omni Flames ( talk ) 04:09, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
 * So you're not making any edits in this phase, correct? Just skipping pages without regex and keeping pages with it? In that case, look into pre-parsing mode. More info at AutoWikiBrowser/User_manual. ~ Rob 13 <sup style="margin-left:-1.0ex;">Talk 05:39, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
 * That's exactly what I was looking for, thank you for that Rob!  Omni Flames ( talk ) 05:42, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Add a list of articles to a category
Can AWB be used to take a list of articles and put them all in a category? Thanks. SharkD  Talk  07:08, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, you can use the append text feature.--Racklever (talk) 07:26, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I would suggest "Add category" feature, that is available in one of the tabs. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 11:20, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Are there any special user registration steps needed in order to use it on Wikia? SharkD   Talk  14:42, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
 * A quick search lead me to, which tells me that the criteria is basically the same as here: your username needs to be on  for the specific wiki you wish to use AWB on. —  crh 23   &thinsp;(Talk) 14:56, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Only if that page exists on the wiki. If not, there aren't. <span title="User:SiBr₄">SiBr4 (<span title="User talk:SiBr₄">talk ) 15:18, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Why does AWB put catimprove before cats, not after?
The documentation for catimprove says It is recommended that this template be placed at the bottom of the page, where readers will look for the categories. That leaves it open as to whether it goes before, or after, the existing categories. AWB seems to move it to be before the categories, and also before DEFAULTSORT where present. It seems to me more logical to have it after the categories - "Here are the cats we've got, please add some more". Is there any documentation which suggests it should go before, rather than after? See here where I noticed a change to an article I'd just created, and a test checking its placement relative to DEFAULTSORT.

I'm relieved that AWB doesn't insert catimprove between DEFAULTSORT and the categories, because when stub-sorting an uncategorised biography I routinely add   (on two lines); the "subst:L" bit creates the DEFAULTSORT, which needs to come before the categories, and then the "Living people" and "nnnn births" etc categories. And then I've got catimprove after those cats. Pam D  16:56, 6 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm the opposite, I always place the tag before the categories. I'm not sure why, probably because it just seems weird to put a tag at the very bottom of the page. I believe that's how Twinkle does it too, though I'd have to double check.  Omni Flames ( talk ) 22:38, 6 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Just experimented with Twinkle: it gets it wrong by adding the improve categories not just after the cats but after the stub tag too! Example. Pam  D  23:06, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

We need to synch the various automated tools. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:14, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

macOS
I've tried multiple ways of installing AWB on my Mac, including using WineBottler; using Homebrew; dual-booting Fedora Linux; and using Fedora through VirtualBox, none of which have worked. Is there any good (and free/open-source) way to install AWB? —Jc86035 (talk • contribs) Use &#123;&#123;re&#124;Jc86035&#125;&#125; to reply to me 03:06, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
 * No one I know with a MAC has been able to get AWB to work on Wikia. I doubt it's any different here. You might try asking one of the devs directly. GustavoRomeo68 (talk) 03:10, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:46, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I read "Wine on a Mac using homebrew" and tried it (this was last year), and it didn't work. Will try again, if it is actually supposed to work. Jc86035 (talk • contribs) Use &#123;&#123;re&#124;Jc86035&#125;&#125; to reply to me 10:44, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Appears to work; never mind. Jc86035 (talk • contribs) Use &#123;&#123;re&#124;Jc86035&#125;&#125; to reply to me 12:45, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

How to use KingbotK
I've tried using KingbotK to do manual assessments, however I cannot see the article or any statistics about the article when the assessment form pops up. The user guide also didn't help me. Is it outdated, or am I doing something wrong? Dat GuyTalkContribs 13:07, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Read User:Kingbotk/Plugin, User:Kingbotk/Plugin/User guide and User:Kingbotk/Plugin/Generic WikiProject templates. I ll check later which pars are outdated. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:11, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
 * In the user guide, it says The plugin displays article statistics (leeched from AWB). Does that mean that it will give AWB statistics about the article (words, etc.) or something else? Dat GuyTalkContribs 13:16, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

DISPLAYTITLE
Can AWB be used to add DISPLAYTITLE template to articles that don't already have them? Thanks! SharkD  Talk  09:40, 8 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Or articles listed somewhere. This is for Wikia. SharkD   Talk  09:12, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Make list from any special page
How do I populate the list with pages listed on any special page, not necessarily one included in drop-down box in the Special Pages dialog window? Specifically, I'm interested in Special:UncategorizedCategories.

Tried: 1)"Links on page" (nothing's produced); 2)"Special Page" + put the name (with or without "Special:" into the Page: field in the opening Special Pages dialog (some unrelated set is produced). Ivan Pozdeev (talk) 09:38, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

A question
What Browsers support this? Gary &#34;Roach&#34; Sanderson (talk) 23:50, 11 August 2016 (UTC)


 * This application is Windows-based, not web-based, so the edits made using this application are not made within a browser. However, you can open articles/pages listed in AWB in a separate web browser, which is the web browser of your choice.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 00:57, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Selective highlighting of syntax in edit box
With "Highlight syntax in edit box" turned on, is there a way to select what kinds of elements are highlighted in the edit box? I just want to know what changes are inside refs and templates (esp. quote-related), for instance. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 15:11, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

change the name of articles
Hi! I want to change name of these articles. Ex. now जनवरी १ is page name, but I want to change with १ जनवरी. Please tell me how can I do this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by NehalDaveND (talk • contribs) 08:27, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

AWB moving templates oddly
Similar to the point I raised at Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive_29, where Mag... commented We need to synch the various automated tools ...

Why in this edit does AWB help an editor to move Use dmy dates and EngvarB from top to bottom of the article? The documentation for Use dmy dates specifically says to put it at the top; I can't find anything to suggest that EngvarB goes anywhere other than the top, and certainly most editors seem to have put both at the top of many many articles over time.

Before trying to synch the automated tools, we need some agreement on "rules" for them to follow.

I suggest it's time that WP:ORDER went into even more detail about just where the various bits of infrastructure of an article should go, so that we don't keep seeing things "corrected", cluttering up watchlists etc, unless there is actually some "rule" (well, MOS guideline) to justify the change. Pam D  17:39, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
 * That would be useful. But this movement was purely manual on my part.
 * For those interested, I have attempted to restart the discussion at ::Template_talk:Use_dmy_dates. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 17:53, 17 August 2016 (UTC).

Hi. This is not AWB's general fixes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:12, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Why replace bda with birth date and age
Why does AWB replace bda with birth date and age? I've often seen it do that but I don't get why that's "better". I realize it's just resolving a redirect, but I doubt about the usefulness of that in the case of short template names, because they're valid "shortcuts". Or is this the sort of thing I should take up with the editor, rather than with AWB? –Sygmoral (talk) 22:19, 20 August 2016 (UTC)


 * If this minor change that makes no difference to what the reader sees is all the editor (using AWB) changed, that is generally considered a misuse of AWB. However, if a substantive change was made at the same time, then it is considered reasonable to show the full name of the template to aid other editors, who may be new, especially given the full name of a template is decided by editors to be the more complete description of what it's about.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 22:45, 20 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Does it matter that using a template redirect instead of the actual template can increase the time it takes for the servers to parse the page? https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Jo-Jo_Eumerus/Worklist&oldid=735564794 and https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Jo-Jo_Eumerus/Worklist&oldid=735564842 differ insofar as the first uses the to do template and the second its redirect to-do and the latter according to the wgPageParseReport in the HTML takes a little longer to parse. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:34, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I guess that's another reason to change it to the full name of the template, but still only as a minor change accompanying a substantive one, as saving an edit has a processing cost too, and I'd bet it's costlier than the difference in parsing time (accumulated in views) as you describe. Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 12:01, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

I consider the answer already given, that expanding the shortcuts especially of templates in order to aid inexperienced editors, is the best answer. When I was a newly registered editor back before AWB was used, I had to take an extra step or two just to figure out what something like "bda" actually stood for. And for many years I argued that when new editors take that extra step, it's part of a learning process that actually increases the speed of editing over time, which it did do for me. I learned more about templates simply by having to take those extra steps. Over the years, I've been in many discussions about this, and I can tell you that the trend in present times is to argue that one of the reasons new editors don't stay with Wikipedia is because the wikimarkup is often so cryptic, and that this is due in large part to the use of cryptic shortcuts like "bda". In the most recent discussion about this, I was actually ganged up on by several editors who strongly believed that cryptic shortcuts were a large reason for new editors leaving Wikipedia. I used to think that expanding the shortcuts without making "substantive" edits was just editors racking up edits; however, I don't think that way anymore. I don't think that it "is generally considered a misuse of AWB" to expand shortcut names only. It really does seem to be a particular thorn in some editors' sides to see cryptic shortcuts, so it has become a growing trend to correct that and to expand the names of shortcuts. Many still use WP:NOTBROKEN as an argument against, but others argue that a cryptic shortcut that beguiles new editors is indeed a "broken" redirect. So after several years, I have had to modify my own beliefs about this, and I haven't done so lightly. I presently consider the expansion of cryptic template shortcut names a "substantive" edit, and I don't think it should be considered "misuse of AWB". Rules of enpagement  Paine  14:20, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks all for your opinions! As a software developer myself, I certainly understand the need for clear code, so in that sense "birth date and age" is obviously vastly superior to "bda". But it is a very widespread 'trend' on Wikipedia to use shortcuts, and in some cases (like "nat fs g start" versus "National football squad start (goals)") you can understand that seasoned editors like to type the shorter variant. But the same argument you have all touched is valid here too, because new editors will no doubt be confused by "nat fs g start". Now, if that is indeed the conclusion, should we not do something about it for the greater good that is Wikipedia? Should Wikipedia then not officialy discourage creating and using cryptic template redirects, until they can eventually even be phased out? The collaborative element would certainly be an argument for that. (I know, a bold idea with huge consequences, but I like trying to launch these as otherwise nothing ever happens.) –Sygmoral (talk) 15:31, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Sygmoral, AWB's developers don't decide Wikipedia policies/guidelines, they just implement them (conservatively). This reads like something good to discuss at WP:VPP. Also, I would note that as a 12-year seasoned editor, I take the opposite stance and always spell out templates. This is part of my stance against unnecessarily abbreviating/shortening things (based on a number of factors, including not throwing off beginners). And as an AWB user, I know these templates will be ultimately expanded anyway.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 16:43, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Paine, I should note that it's not my opinion that expanding template shortcuts only is a misuse, it's actually in the AWB rules of use under #4: "Do not make insignificant or inconsequential edits. An edit that has no noticeable effect on the rendered page is generally considered an insignificant edit." My interpretation is that if you're not making a change (as part of the set of changes) that is visible to the reader, it's best to not to save the changes. However, I agree in principle that these shortcuts should be expanded, or not used in the first place. But given the rules of use, I would recommend making an edit that's visible to the reader at the same time. Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 16:31, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, we'll just have to agree to agree. ;>) There are, however, significant edits that are made regularly that cannot be seen by readers, such as page-protection-related, invisible comments, removal of deprecated templates and unused parameters in infoboxs.  The point seems to be that the expansion of shortcut names in redirects is fast-becoming significant and substantive.  And the statement under #4, "Do not make insignificant or inconsequential edits, and its subsequent explanation, are vague at best and probably need to be better-explained.  At any rate, we'll probably be seeing changes soon in whatever policies and guidelines apply, if they haven't been made already.  Rules of enpagement  Paine   18:07, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Might be a bit off-topic, but the rules should really be clarified. Another AWB editor once warned me for bolding the title of an article in it's lead. Dat GuyTalkContribs 18:08, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * "Off-topic", not off-topic, no biggee – sometimes editing Wikipedia is knowing how and when to stand your ground. And a large part of that is knowing your policies and guidelines, and also knowing if, when and where WP:IAR applies.  Rules of enpagement  Paine   18:19, 22 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Oh, and it deserves mention that standing your ground must be accompanied by civil discourse, but of course!  Rules of enpagement  Paine   19:41, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Unless it was some kind of rare case, bolding the title in the lead is a Manual of Style fix that should have been imperative for that or any article. I'd like to see what went on there, because at face value, that other editor was in the wrong. Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 21:32, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * No, it wasn't a rare case. In point of fact, DatGuy had made two edits that were challenged by another editor with the #4 rule (I found the discussion in DatGuy's talkpage archives).  Anyway, in both cases rule #4 in fact did not apply because both edits had made changes that altered the page to readers.  One edit moved a clickable map down a bit so the hatnote would cross the entire page, and the other edit put a different page's title in boldface type in the lead – both edits were made using AWB and both edits altered the pages' appearances to readers.  So the other editor, who by the way stated that it was okay to make these edits manually but not with AWB, was definitely in the wrong.  I happen to know the other editor, who is by far one of the better editors on Wikipedia.  So the problem/challenge that really needs to be addressed is the vague nature of rule #4.  Rules of enpagement  Paine   03:58, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I meant "rare case" in terms of the subject bolding guidelines where it's not as straightforward as usual. Anyway, the other editor is incorrect to distinguish between AWB and manual edits, as they are both done by a live human editor -- AWB just helps us find what to fix faster and makes the edits more convenient. There is a misconception out there that the tool is fully automated and users robotically accept its suggestions, and that would be against the #1 entry in the rules of use. We're responsible for our edits, no matter how we are editing.  As for the #4 rule, I've run up against only a few editors who object, usually because they can't find the reader-visual change(s) among the other ones. Making #4 less vague might help slightly, but I don't think the attitudes of editors who have a distaste for "automated nonsubstantive" changes will change, as they are basing their objections on policies/guidelines outside of AWB's control. I would submit it's more their misunderstanding of policies/guidelines at play (specifically, a heavy-handed application of WP:AINT).  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 08:52, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Change to formatting in Preview
A few days ago. the Preview function of AWB changed for me. It now formats the article in a much more basic way than it always has. For example: the entire page seems to use Times New Roman; broken links are no longer identified in red; the TOC is formatted as a list but not as a box; wikilinks are formatted with underlining. I didn't consciously change any settings. I've tried changing my default browser back to IE, in case Firefox had changed something, but it's made no difference. Any thoughts? Colonies Chris (talk) 09:27, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Does no-one have any suggestions? Could this be caused by a corrupted/deleted CSS file somewhere? The page is rendering, but in a pretty rudimentary way, as if it didn't have a full CSS spec to follow. Colonies Chris (talk) 19:04, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * FWIW, I can confirm that my previews also changed at about the time you made your report here. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:27, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Same here. I don't use the previews very often, so that's why I haven't chimed in.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 19:39, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks - it's useful to know it's not just me. I've created a bug report. Colonies Chris (talk) 08:47, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Speedy Deletion tag placement
Not sure if it's considered a bug or not, but I just want to note the issue here. Dat GuyTalkContribs 17:17, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Template redirect conversion, cite document -> cite journal
One of the automatic template redirect replacements in AWB's cleanup converts cite document to its redirect, cite journal. The rule was added here in 2013 by according to Wikiblame. Can someone remind me of the reason for this particular conversion? (Background: reversion of my edit using AWB by .) TIA Mr Stephen (talk) 22:06, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * cite document has redirected to cite journal since its birth in 2010. I don't know the back-story, though.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 22:13, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I think it's considerably older than that. Regards, Mr Stephen (talk) 22:21, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * The background by that revert was (I think) related to semantic differences, the source is a letter to an official body from a recognised rail action group, so it's a "document", not a "report". might be best placed to give a definitive answer. <b style="color:#7F007F">Ritchie333</b> <sup style="color:#7F007F">(talk)  <sup style="color:#7F007F">(cont)  09:23, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm going by the history of cite document which you can see goes back to 2010 and started as a redirect. Of course, there could have been something with the same name before that, which was deleted, but I can't know for sure, as I'm not an admin.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 11:13, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes it's a document, but no way is it a "journal" in the sense of something published for sale at regular intervals. I'd use . -- Red rose64 (talk) 19:57, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

as creator and last editor of cite document, can you shed any light or offer any opinion? TIA Mr Stephen (talk) 21:21, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

It was removed following a discussion here, section 20 in 2014. It appears to have been added back in as part of a batch here by early this year. Unless there is an objection, I'll take it out later. Mr Stephen (talk) 18:13, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * No objection by me; was just trying to cover missing template redirs. If we want that one to be left alone for semantic reasons (I agree it might be confusing to have a cite to a one-off document refer to it as a "journal"), then the redir should probably be changed to use the cite web template, if the parameters are compatible. It is, however, likely that some uses of Cite document or Cite report are for non-online works, and I think Cite web will throw an error if it does not get a url value. I would actually rather see a return of a Cite document that did not require a URL, and did not italicize title like Cite book does.  We somehow lost the ability to create a generic CS1 cite; Cite redirs to Citation, which is CS2.  But we need to be able to do this, since odd situations come up all the time. E.g., the CD cover/insert or other product packaging may be a source for the system requirements of a vintage video game or other software package, or the titles of the songs on an album. It's a "document" in the broad sense, but not a book, a journal, or a website.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  20:23, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Let's leave it as is for a while and see if there any any problems. Regards, Mr Stephen (talk) 21:34, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

change the name of articles
Hi! I want to change name of these articles. Ex. now जनवरी १ is page name, but I want to change with १ जनवरी. Please tell me how can I do this? NehalDaveND (talk) 05:26, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * hi! You can't do it efficiently with AWB, only page by page. You can use pywikibot (python). If you want, I can do it. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 09:08, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you. List 1 have name which I want to change with list 2's name. I don't want to delete list 1's pages, but I want to redirect those pages to new pages of list 2. NehalDaveND (talk) 09:21, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I haven't forgot about you, will try to do that tomorrow. I won't be using those lists, so to confirm and not to make mess... For example, the article title is " space " and you want to move it to " space " -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 20:02, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
 * yes but number should be in Devnagari like - १, २ etc. not in roman 1, 2 etc. EX. " space " = "१ space जनवरी" Thank you for help. NehalDaveND (talk) 03:56, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Make list from Category
Is it possible to make a list from a Category without starting at the beginning of the category? I am currently working my way through a maintenance category with over thirty thousand entries and AWB only picks up twentyfour thousand of them; if i could start my list at M instead of the beginning, i'd be able to get to those at the end of the alphabet. Can it be done? Happy days, LindsayHello 11:14, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Guide for bots
Is there any sort of guide for bot use of AWB? I keep finding out things that aren't mentioned at WP:AWB/UM, such as AWB being -compliant by default, and that editing a bot's talk page will halt the bot until it is restarted (per ). Is there anything else I should be aware of as a bot operator? - Evad37 &#91;talk] 04:34, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
 * That's really all there is to it. There's some stuff in the "bots" section of AWB but it's all pretty straightforward. There's just one thing you might want to know: admins and bots are able to create lists of unlimited size using AWB if they load an extension, whereas normal users can only create lists of up to 2500 pages (well actually this isn't strictly true; I once had to create a very large list on a bot account and it maxed out at a million).  Omni Flames ( talk ) 09:38, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I added a note to WP:AWB/UM. - Evad37 &#91;talk] 12:45, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Create a new page
Hello.I am allowed in Arabic Wikipedia.How to create a new page using AWB?How do I replace nothing with text?Thank you --ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 14:21, 5 September 2016 (UTC)