Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Feature requests/Archive 7

=Implemented=

Automatic formatting of dates like 15th of September 2009
This seems like a bug to me because they should and I thought they did. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:35, 22 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I didn't find this kind of date among the unit tests, so it isn't a bug. AWB fixes, when there is “of” between month and year, but not when it's between day and month. (Not removing “th” could be probably considered a bug, because AWB usually does that.) Svick (talk) 19:58, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * It has to fix 15 th of September 2009 as well. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:05, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * This has been talked about in the past but the last I remember was that it was decided it was too difficult to do all of it as a standard edit in AWB. There is logic to do some of the #th stuff and the of Month X though. I havent edited in a few months so that may have changed. I can give you some regex code to do some of this if it will help but I am not the best at it so on of the AWB developers would need to look it over.--Kumioko (talk) 01:05, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I can't remember the detail but I was concerned that changing text like "the 15th of September 2009" to "the 15 September 2009" would not make for elegant sentences. Perhaps we can review this to find situations where AWB can make the change. Rjwilmsi  10:03, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Added, except I'm not going to change when the date is preceded by "the" (e.g. "the 15th of May...") as it will depend on the sentence whether the correct change would be to remove the "the" as well. Rjwilmsi  22:08, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Don't alert "No category found" for Talk pages
. Rjwilmsi  16:49, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Better behaviour after an on-wiki message
I still prefer the "ready to save" because in nonbot mode this means the editor was to press Save or ignore. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:17, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * This was added at some point before AWB 5.0.0.0. Rjwilmsi  17:06, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Change unreferenced to BLP unsourced for Living people

 * Based on the presence of Category:Living people ? Example diff/page? Rjwilmsi  12:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, only based on the presence of Living people. Like what I did here -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
 * AWB has to check for any possible redirect of unreferenced. The easy way is just to add BLP on the beginning of the string. I would prefer the strong to change to BLP unsourced. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:51, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
 * . Should be enough. Rjwilmsi  16:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Article issues accepts BLP unsourced as parameter. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The other way round (removing BLP from deads) needs two conditions: existence of death category + non existence of living people (to exclude cases of multiple people). I don't imply we should do both directions. The main task is to add BLP warnings. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Remove break from the end of Image/File description (CHECKWIKI error 065)

 * Done. Rjwilmsi  21:37, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Add Ibid to auto-tagger
Rjwilmsi, the next thing I ll ask is to fix the references containing Ibid :P -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:57, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * . Added. Recommend you test on some articles. Rjwilmsi  12:31, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

HTML scrapper for listmaker

 * Suppose this would be a good ListMaker Plugin — Ree dy  22:04, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm happy enough to create this for you, just you will need to work with me on making it. — Ree dy  18:19, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Im thinking this would be a worthwhile thing for me to get done over the Easter.. Be able to parse XML lists/HTML pages.. — Ree dy  17:50, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:CHECKWIKI now generates lists of articles by error type (HTML) at http://toolserver.org/~sk/checkwiki/enwiki/

Currently I paste these into a text file and then use "Text file" to import them. A lazy solution would be if one could read directly the toolserver page. Anyways, it already works well in the present way. -- User:Docu
 * I've posted a patch that will add an option to work with CheckWiki URLs in a new item at the bottom of this page. Should be OK. - Jarry1250 (t, c) 13:04, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

adds a basic implementation.. About all it gives is between the body tags splitting on the newlines. Needs to be expanded further to accept regexes for matching etc. — Ree dy  14:40, 7 June 2009 (UTC)


 * After more requests for something that can do this functionality.... Advanced Regex Html Scraper. Provide a regex, the options you want, and the group you want to return... — Ree  dy  14:05, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

isn't dated

 * Any other templates you want done as well (to avoid raising one report for each one)? Thanks Rjwilmsi  13:50, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I think that all cleanup templates that support  parameter and have equivalent parameter in  should be done. I listed such templates that AWB doesn't date at, section “date parameter”. (It's quite a long list.)  uses unnamed parameter for dating, three other templates are dated in articleissues, but don't support date parameter. These should be dealt with too, but it doesn't concern AWB (yet). Svick (talk) 16:28, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot adds dates to undated templates in daily basis. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:50, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

This a feature request and a not bug. So moved there. I am more on the "won't add" side. Probably is much better to just ask SmackBot to update its list. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:25, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

added intro missing and all of its redirects. I am still not sure for the rest. Not many transclusions and daily maintenance. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:36, 2 February 2010 (UTC)


 * This behavior breaks merging templates into : If AWB adds undated template such as into, it creates something like , that doesn't work, because  doesn't accept unnamed parameters. This could be alternatively fixed by using something like  . (I have no idea how often this really happens.) Svick (talk) 14:45, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

If they are added to article issues they should better be added with a date. I really think they should be very few cases. Is there any tag with high occurrence that we are forgetting? -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:52, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * There are four such templates with more than 10,000 transclusions that AWB doesn't date:, , and . Also,  is among the templates that are dated, but shouldn't. (It was, I believe, redirect to  before). Svick (talk) 17:05, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Rich replied here: User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough. Question: Why on earth importance to be on article space? -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:45, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

All Article issues issues are dated or will accept a date except "expert" - that uses a separate date=field. Rich Farmbrough, 01:44, 4 February 2010 (UTC).

You will find a good list at List of monthly maintenance categories with templates. Rich Farmbrough, 01:47, 4 February 2010 (UTC).

TODO: -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:56, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Removed importance from the dated tags list..
 * Remove "importance" from article issues inside AWB's code. We are already cleaning it from articles.
 * Clean POV's redirects. I sent 5 for RfD.
 * Notability is a bit tricky since it supports other parameters.
 * I think we need to date BLP unsourced to support the BLP project's efforts (hehe). I'll add it later today to the code. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:42, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

added Primary sources and all of its redirects.

Option to turn off internal logging, or auto-clear the list every XX minutes

 * I suspect, with skipped being more of a problem than saved, it'll be a memory issue, with the stuff thats saved... — Ree dy  15:36, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Enable/disable logging - — Ree  dy  19:15, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

More external links genfixes
They all can be part of FixSyntax in parsers. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:01, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * For requests 2–5. First one (casing change) is not a syntax fix so I don't propose to add it to FixSyntax. Rjwilmsi  19:39, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Case 1 maybe very rare and probably we don't have to add it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:01, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
 * ...and a bot will be fixing these cases. --Magioladitis (talk) 10:07, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Add header to first comment in talk page if it's missing one
The structure is as follows: templates, categories, comments. This means after and foo it should follow a == foo ==. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:23, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Should be doable e.g. look for regex  as beginning of first comment, add header before it if text before beginning of first comment doesn't have  . I will need some examples/old diffs though.  Rjwilmsi  12:47, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

An example. A level 2 header added in the first comment. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:27, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Added. Over to you to test. Rjwilmsi  15:23, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Another tweak for orphans
I put this on hold until the project clarifies something first. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:58, 14 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Responded to your post at WT:O#AWB and Orphans, your option #2 sounds about right. -- &oelig; &trade; 12:38, 7 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Added in -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:53, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

ref name-
It's for Rjwilmsi to decide. :) -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:54, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * For that. Rjwilmsi  10:49, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Don't add bullets to blank lines between list items
Blank lines are automatically suppressed, so you must mean lines with only whitespace (i.e. effectively blank). add bullet to start of each line, but not lines with just whitespace. Rjwilmsi 13:41, 26 March 2010 (UTC)


 * It's still not working properly in SVN 6342. For example, on Robert Petkoff, there are several lists in need of bullets, such as in the "Recordings", "Awards", and "References" sections. Those lists appear to consist of items separated only by blank lines (unless there are some invisible control characters I'm unaware of). Highlight any of those lists, right click, and select Convert list to * List. Every line gets an asterisk, including the blank lines. M AN d ARAX  •  XAЯA b ИA M  07:43, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, okay two fixes were needed. does the second – it now works.  Rjwilmsi  11:21, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Add non-human-name default sort for musical groups
Very good idea! -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:05, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Added. This overrides the WPBiography tag on the talk page then. Rjwilmsi  15:31, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Nice. Bands are part of WPBiography. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:10, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Indeed. Many of the bands have a correct listas. Don't know what the status of the listas <=> DEFAUTLSORT biot sis, but I rather think they are not running. Rich Farmbrough, 21:17, 16 April 2010 (UTC).

AWB date tagging

 * Fixed locally but sourceforge servers are down, so I'll have to commit it later. Rjwilmsi  07:41, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Done. Rjwilmsi  23:43, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Auto tagging on the Swedish Wikipedia
This is mainly a bug :) Any chance that you create redirects with the English names till we fix that? -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:34, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Done orphan. Rjwilmsi  18:44, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Done wikify. Rjwilmsi  18:52, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Creating redirects does work, unfortunately, diffrent parameters are used. Therefore, addition of has to be changed to  .  to  (it isn't dated because there is no backlog),  to  (template that adds ickewiki with date), and deactivate , because there is no such template in use on svwiki. thanks, tetraedycal, tetraedycal 19:03, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Don't tag with dead end on sv-wiki. Rjwilmsi  13:00, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Introduce support for language-specific template date tagging in Tagger i.e. where setting  date=  on en-wiki set  datum=-  on sv-wiki. Localiastion added for sv-wiki.  Rjwilmsi  13:25, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Localise the uncat template for sv-wiki. Rjwilmsi  13:45, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The current way the tagger works doesn't allow us to specify by language code whether to add the date parameter to an undated tag or not. I would assume that if sv-wiki has no need for uncat to be dated then the sv-wiki template can be set to ignore any date/datum parameter. Rjwilmsi  13:47, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
 * We've got a bot that adds dates to templates without dates, and the workload isn't very heavy, so you don't have to bother. Thanks alot by the way :) tetraedycal, tetraedycal 19:33, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Unused parameters are ignored, the code for the almost-redirects would be for example: Sv:Mall:Orphan . Rich Farmbrough, 16:43, 18 April 2010 (UTC).
 * The fixing up of the date format is also do-able. should do the job. Rich Farmbrough, 16:48, 18 April 2010 (UTC).

Database scanner

 * Where do you want this box exactly? -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:11, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 * On the searching tab, under AWB specific, with the similar check boxes. There's just room for one more! Rich Farmbrough, 16:28, 18 April 2010 (UTC).
 * Great! Using it already. Rich Farmbrough, 03:15, 23 April 2010 (UTC).

New alert: References in dab pages
More alerts for dab pages coming soon. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:56, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * That one added. If you want more please think up the whole list rather than listing singly (will be faster for me). Rjwilmsi  10:16, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I have always had my reservations about our guidance for DAB pages, now running to 33k on style alone. Rich Farmbrough, 12:49, 23 April 2010 (UTC).
 * WP:DAB says that in most cases "ignore rules if you think is appropriate". I just picked this one because I think it's a solid guideline. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:24, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Skip option for blank pages
Would like a skip option for blank pages. (Seems that the API may return blank on some semi-protected pages - still digging. Would defend against this.) Rich Farmbrough, 16:19, 18 April 2010 (UTC).
 * API bug? Rjwilmsi  16:37, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes... possibly, if so a newish one. But we have had "odd" instances of blank pages being written in the past, probably less than one in 100,000, which I put down to the wiki. This looks like a cool belt and braces option against a blank page arriving at AWB for any reason, network, DotNet, Mediawiki, even page blanking.  Rich Farmbrough, 16:54, 18 April 2010 (UTC).
 * Can you use the Skip tab Regex option of Doesn't contain "."? M AN d ARAX  •  XAЯA b ИA M  04:29, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually I am using "does not contain" Stub "check after". Example pages are "Chyna" and "Boba Fett" - perfectly normal pages AFAICs. Rich Farmbrough, 03:14, 23 April 2010 (UTC).
 * We need to find out if this is an API bug. I'll poke Reedy. Rjwilmsi  10:10, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * |revisions&intoken=edit&titles=Chyna&inprop=protection|watched&rvprop=content|timestamp&redirects&assert=user&meta=userinfo&uiprop=hasmsg - AWB Bug. Seemingly maybe after my redirect changes... — Ree dy  21:33, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * — Ree dy  21:44, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Sort key for suffix without comma

 * . Done Rjwilmsi  08:23, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Wow, that was fast! Thanks. M AN d ARAX  •  XAЯA b ИA M  08:42, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Ignore maintenance templates when guessing birth/death categories

 * Added, but since you haven't provided any examples I'll leave testing to you. Rjwilmsi  19:20, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Sort reverse alphabetically

 * Added list box right click menu option to sort reverse alphabetically. Rjwilmsi  09:31, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks! – xeno talk 14:18, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Move orphan (and some more) tags on the top

 * It doesnt move cleanup tags to the top.. But i suppose, that can be used for sections.. Are there any other tags that really should be moved to the top..? ie uncategorized. Seems like this will have to be a new "general fix". Does AWB move any tags to the top atm... I cant seem to think/find any. Just puts them at the top when it adds them... — Reedy  Boy  23:28, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, I am using Articleissues to navigate through the different tags.


 * uncategorized should be at the bottom.
 * orphan, deadend, cleanup, notability should be in the beginning.
 * Wikify and all the others can be used for sections as well. So: no move.
 * I don't know if this complicates things but all these tags should go under prod, prod2, Afw, Rfd warnings. I don't know if this necessary.
 * Atm I don't think that AWB does it. I may have seen "uncategorized" moving to the correct position but maybe this was because interwiki and stub tags moved to the correct position. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:55, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Per WP:LAYOUT, cleanup tags should be placed below dablinks. mattbr 10:43, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

After looking at the available documentation and list of available templates, I have come to conclusion that there are a number of templates that can be used both for articles and for sections, therefore it will not be straightforward to introduce logic that can identify which templates should be moved. If there are still users in favour of adding this functionality then I need much more assistance in what templates can and cannot be moved. Rjwilmsi 19:42, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * As I wrote above: orphan, deadend, notability are never applied in a section. Cleanup for sections is called cleanup-section but some editors may still use the cleanup (I can make a small research). Anyway, at least the three first can be moved at the top under the dablinks (for, seelaso, otheruses, etc.). --- Magioladitis (talk) 19:54, 27 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The various cleanup, notability, unreferenced, etc... tags found in section are more often than not misuse of the tags (seen plenty of it), rather than misplacements (never seen it). AWB should replace them by cleanup-section and equivalents. uncategorized, and orphan however, can be moved to top and bottom without any impact. Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 17:56, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree. I think this can be partially implemented at least. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:51, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Part implementation: orphan moved to the top, but still below any dablinks. Rjwilmsi 20:14, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for implementing that, but I'd like to suggest an additional refinement if it's not too much trouble. If the Orphan tag is already with one or more other maintenance tags which as a group are already at the top, then the Orphan tag should not be moved. Currently (SVN 5208) it always moves the Orphan tag above other maintenance tags, a completely unnecessary move which seems to imply the tag has some extra special significance. M AN d ARAX  •  XAЯA b ИA M  00:15, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
 * It's been over 8 months since I left the above note. In all that time, I don't recall encountering a single Orphan tag which was not already either alone at the top of the page, or in a cluster of maintenance tags which as a group were at the top. But it is frequently not the topmost tag within a grouping, so AWB will perform the completely frivolous action of moving it to the top, above other tags. (For an example, do General fixes on Charles M. McKim.) As far as I know, there's absolutely no reason to do this. If it's too difficult to implement my suggestion, I would prefer that Orphan tag moving be disabled entirely. M AN d ARAX  •  XAЯA b ИA M  22:14, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
 * 'Maintenance tags' is not a list AWB is going to be able to hold and keep up to date, but we can restrict the orphan tag moving to not apply if there are only other templates above it? Rjwilmsi  22:41, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
 * That seems like a good solution which would handle the majority of cases. M AN d ARAX  •  XAЯA b ИA M  23:44, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
 * This was the spirit of my original request. We have to be carefull to move it above infoboxes. the correct order is: HATNOTES, maintance tags, infoboxes, text. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:04, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Done as agreed. Magioladitis you can update WikiRegexes.MaintenanceTemplates with a bigger list as you wish. Rjwilmsi  16:49, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Replacing otheruses4 to about and replacing otheruses3 to otheruses

 * The redirect is currently practically unused (4 transclusions, all outside of article space), so you can send it to RfD right away. Actually, you should send  to RfD too, and if it succeeds, it can be substituted by a bot. There is no need to add this as a feature to AWB. Svick (talk) 22:45, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Second Svick on that. At the moment I replace otheruses4 while doing other changes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:33, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 * So do I, note, however that Otheruses has recently been moved (by me) to Other uses. I have changed the request to reflect that. Rich Farmbrough, 02:08, 18 April 2010 (UTC).
 * He has sent them to RfD. And made a bot request, that's what sent him here! Rich Farmbrough, 02:09, 18 April 2010 (UTC).
 * I already updated the regexes to reflect your latest changes in dablinks names . I don't like the idea of sending otheruses4 to an RfD right now because it is trancluded in many pages and that would mean a lot to RfD notices in pages. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:13, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
 * It's already there I thought, and the notice doesn't need to be transcludable. Maybe this can just "run its course" and get tidied up when there's comparatively few left.  Least of our worries... Rich Farmbrough, 16:19, 18 April 2010 (UTC).
 * So is this wanted in AWB (trivial to add) or is the request cancelled? Rjwilmsi  09:31, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Done otheruses4. Rjwilmsi  22:27, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Add "(all NS)" option to What redirects here in makelist

 * FYI, if you go onto the special, you can do it for any specified namespace. — Ree dy  16:25, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah. Quite right. Thanks, – xeno talk 16:32, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Does that suffice? There is also "WhatLinksHereAndToRedirectsAllNSListProvider". Which has display text of "What links here (all NS) (and to redirects)".. —<font face="Trebuchet MS"> Ree dy  16:43, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The Special makelist should won't work because I want to "Add selected to list from" which doesn't allow Special. The second suggestion won't because there are way too many links other than redirects. (Was trying to compile a list of all redirects to wikiproject banners). – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 16:48, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
 * —<font face="Trebuchet MS"> Ree dy  17:07, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Awesome. Thanks =) – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 17:20, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Extend removal of apostrophe from decades to also remove curly apostrophe

 * done. Rjwilmsi  11:02, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Add User contribs (NL) (user defined number) to makelist
Load more than 25k edits by a single user? -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:51, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, more than 25k but less than several hundred thousand =) – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 14:02, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I was thinking...


 * if you just want to use this list for comparing instead of editing maybe there were other ways to do it instead of opening a can of worms and killing some servers
 * if you need edits from a certain period maybe we should implement User contributions (period) and ask for Start date...End Date.

I don't know if this fits your case. Just throwing some ideas. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:27, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
 * That would work too, but I still need about 40,000 results so it would need to be NL. – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 14:54, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
 * With the "No limits" element, it'd have to be in the NoLimits plugin. But i can make it user defined. Would this suffice? :) —<font face="Trebuchet MS"> Ree dy  16:14, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yep - that's great. Thanks, – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 16:15, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
 * —<font face="Trebuchet MS"> Ree dy  17:02, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 2 for 2 ! Thanks =) – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 17:20, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Title case "Talk header" and "Skip to talk" rather than lower-casing them.
Done. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:37, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Some way to opt out of merging of "duplicate" references?

 * We could restrict AWB to only merge references where the named references feature is already in use in the article, but that's not to say we should implement that – the featured articles virtually all use this feature. Rjwilmsi  09:25, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
 * We can just make it optional and then the users decide if they want whether to use it or not. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:51, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Exactly. I suspect that this is sometimes a quite valid correction to make, even automatically.  But sometimes it is not.  Therefore make it optable – by the editor of the article.  I think opt-out (i.e., default is to do the correction) is satisfactory. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:10, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
 * To be clear, this correction is not supported by the applicable guidelines - both formats (using duplicates and using the named references feature) are equally acceptable. In general, the guidelines recommend against switching from one to the other: WP:CITE, "Any of these styles is acceptable on Wikipedia so long as each article is internally consistent. You should follow the style already established in an article, if it has one; where there is disagreement, the style used by the first editor to use one should be respected." Christopher Parham (talk) 02:45, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Change AWB genfixes not to implement named references for an article if there are currently no named references in the article. This should appease editors who believe this constitutes a change of reference style, hence contravening WP:CITE rules. Rjwilmsi  16:08, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
 * It seems to me there may be a misunderstanding of the problem. This is NOT about switching reference styles.  It is about AWB "fixing" duplicate references (footnotes) by replacing subsequent references with a link to the first reference, all using the same footnote number in the text and the a b c backlinks in the actual footnote.  Though I wonder: is this really a matter of AWB trying to enforce consistency in having either no "duplicate" references, or no "named" (linked) references, as if these were different styles? That would strange. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 04:04, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

This should be optional for other projects. In pt.wiki we prefer to use named references whenever there is a duplicate, even if there isnt any named references in the article. Rjclaudio (talk) 21:25, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Make the restriction for en-wiki only. Rjwilmsi  17:24, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm hoping this merging of "duplicate" references can be optional at the level of articles. Whether you like it, or not, the point desired is that it's not automatically forced. On the otherhand, I find that I'm now making each reference unique, usually by adding specific page numbers. So perhaps this is really a good "feature"?   - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:17, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, the "don't add named references if there are currently no named references" restriction is checked for at article level. The check is only made on en-wiki. Rjwilmsi  19:23, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Which is somewhat inelegant, but seems good enough. A more elegant approach would reconsider the use of named references, but that would be a different discussion. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:01, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Improvements

 * Merging to existing About can bug if it has less than 3 parameters set. Check . -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:24, 9 May 2010 (UTC) for that.  Rjwilmsi  07:43, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I had to re-parse twice to get and  and others. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:21, 10 May 2010 (UTC) ✅
 * I had to clean 2 and 3 to get . -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:25, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * What do you want done then? Rjwilmsi  17:53, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Probably is very rare. Let's do nothing. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:54, 10 May 2010 (UTC)


 * didn't give us the wanted result. fixed it. Check a rule I added above. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:34, 10 May 2010 (UTC)✅
 * Don't move DABlinks outside commented out text. (Example: Kitsch (magazine)). -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:47, 10 May 2010 (UTC) ✅
 * Restrict everything to 0-th section (or better to the section of the first DABlink ) to avoid grabbing dablinks from sections (e.g. FIFA World Cup) -- Magioladitis (talk) 03:27, 11 May 2010 (UTC) ✅
 * Taking care of non-article space and iw: Check . About and for have different behaviour. Maybe we could fix about instead? -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:22, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * You want validation that each argument in the template is pointing to a mainspace page? Rjwilmsi  16:37, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know why there is a difference. If we don't want to touh the code of about then must to go to  . We can always change the code of about to work exactly like the for and then make a bot run to fix arguments in about. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:46, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ Escape the namespace when adding non-mainspace links to about.  Rjwilmsi  22:01, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Skip if only minor replacement made

 * Yes, I've changed it so that the two options can be set independently.  Rjwilmsi  11:26, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Add Empty section to Auto-tagger
Just out of curiosity, would this be only for same-level headings (as shown in this example)? Would it work for same-level other than level 2? --Auntof6 (talk) 12:04, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, it should be only between same-level headings. Sometimes a sections has subsections and we don't want a tag between the section and its first subsection.
 * I never thought of headers of lower lever. We can try it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:41, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
 * done for level 2 headings. Rjwilmsi  09:26, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

ref NAME to ref name
How often does this occur? Did you make an database scan? -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:28, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not common, but then neither is REF, I came across it earlier, random articles. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 06:31, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

done. Rjwilmsi 20:41, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Alerts for math, source, code not correct end (Checkwiki errors 13-15)
What about a bot run? This change is too narrow for a genfix. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:12, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's too narrow to go with the other MOS fixes. Rjwilmsi  14:18, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I expect most of the article that have flourished to already have it bluelinked. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:20, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I changed my mind. I think we have to add it. I like the idea that we implement all Manual of Style policies. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:51, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

There are 1800 that need it. I am doing a manual test now to check for false positives. Rich Farmbrough, 15:34, 24 April 2010 (UTC).
 * The only false positive so far is the Floruit article itself. (Oops!) Rich Farmbrough, 16:32, 28 April 2010 (UTC).
 * I noticed this got linked on a dab page, which I don't think it should. Can we exclude dab pages? MOS says "At the start of an article on an individual", and dab pages don't fit that. What do you think? --Auntof6 (talk) 17:05, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * We have to exclude dab pages. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:16, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * If Rich posts his regex I'll add it, excluding dab pages and the Floruit article itself. Rjwilmsi  17:34, 28 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Rich Farmbrough, 12:52, 1 June 2010 (UTC).
 * Oh and I would add it a maximum of once per page, where there isn't already a link to floruit. Rich Farmbrough, 12:54, 1 June 2010 (UTC).
 * Thanks, have local patch done, will commit after upcoming release. Rjwilmsi  16:14, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

done. Rjwilmsi 11:15, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Replace special characters in listas

 * Find the code, reuse in plugin? :P —<font face="Trebuchet MS"> Ree dy  12:26, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe we don't need it afteral. A bot run would be enough. See also User_talk:JimCubb. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:28, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I just did this one as it happens. Will try to paste the settings to AWB/scripts. Rich Farmbrough, 20:11, 3 June 2010 (UTC).
 * Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Settings/Listas diacritics Rich Farmbrough, 22:39, 3 June 2010 (UTC).
 * Thanks! -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:33, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

In ru.wiki: rq and russian orphan found then rq|linkless instead of orphan
description: if whatlinkshere=0 and there is template:rq in the article, do not add template:orphan (template:изолированная статья), but add parameter |linkless in rq. Thanks! Lvova Anastasiya (talk) 22:45, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Added. Rjwilmsi  20:03, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Info: We have to disactivate orphan addition for ru.wiki until we solve the localisation problem for good. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:21, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Remove small tags inside small, ref, sup, sub tags and files (CHECKWIKI errors 55, 63, 66, 77)

 * . Rjwilmsi  11:42, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Correct placement of the see also section

 * This is already done... I think. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:39, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * It does it sometimes, but I still refquently find see also sections out of place that AWB does not address. I am not 100% sure how the AWB logic is designed but the next time I find one I will post it here as an example. Here is an example of one that didn't work. 94th Flying Training Squadron. When I did the edit it left it were it was at the bottom below the references. --Kumioko (talk) 16:37, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * In your example the see also section cannot be moved as AWB can't tell which of the templates in that section belong to the section or the end of the article. I have explained this more than once. Rjwilmsi  17:11, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Would it be possible to add that as an alert then if the see also section appears after the Notes, References or External links sections? --Kumioko (talk) 23:06, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Nice idea. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:08, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'll do it. Rjwilmsi  08:58, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * new alert if See also section after any of Notes, references, external links sections. Rjwilmsi  11:39, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Awesome, Thanks. Pretty soon this apps gonna write these articles for us..lol--Kumioko (talk) 13:14, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Expand portal cleanup logic

 * box Here is a link to some hacky AWB settings. AWB GF's ahould bring the portals to the See also section (if there is one), the code should combine them into one portal box, and then delete duplicate entries from the box. Shortly (!) I hope that portal will do the job of portal box too. Rich Farmbrough, 20:23, 3 June 2010 (UTC).
 * bring the portals to the See also section ✅ (exists)
 * combine them into one portal box ✅ Documentation, pages AWB will now change (as of March 2010 db dump).  Rjwilmsi  17:56, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * delete duplicate entries ✅  Rjwilmsi  13:04, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Great, thanks, just as a note the logic to move the portals to the see also section doesn't seem to work in all occasions. --Kumioko (talk) 22:06, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Any AWB shapshot you have will be out of date. Rjwilmsi  22:08, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, if I run into it again I will let you know. Thanks again. --Kumioko (talk) 22:13, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Remove and from list when making list from a CheckWiki error, redux

 * That'd be a bug then. Is it supposed to just remove the pre tags, or the whole line? —<font face="Trebuchet MS"> Ree dy  07:48, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you mean. When the list is built, it consists of one line for each article it found, plus a line at the top consisting of "  " and a line at the bottom consisting of "   ". If those are the "whole lines" you mean, then yes, it should remove the whole line. Right now it doesn't appear to be removing any part of it. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:17, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The code change for that, was to ignore any individual lines that had pre... —<font face="Trebuchet MS"> Ree dy  08:36, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Move Template:Wikibooks to External links

 * I don't mean to be a pain here but WP:Layout states that Wikibooks and portals should go to the See also section. --Kumioko (talk) 00:20, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

True (WP:SEEALSO). removed it again. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:43, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Just wondering but why not go ahead and add the logic to move it to the see also section. If we were willing to do it for the External links it only makes sense to allow it to go to the location the Layout stipulates IMHO. --Kumioko (talk) 02:57, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
 * links to books in the Book namespace on Wikipedia and should be placed in the See also section. OTOH, links to books on Wikibooks (wikibooks.org), which is Wikimedia sister project and links to those should be placed the External links section according to WP:LAYOUT. Svick (talk) 20:20, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Good to know thanks I didn't know there was a difference. --Kumioko (talk) 20:56, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

So, what do you want me to do? -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:39, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
 * My original FR still holds: should be moved to External links. Thanks. Svick (talk) 23:00, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Readded in 6707 which reverted 6697 and revived 6696. Sorry for the inconvenience. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:06, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Facilitate pasting from a category in Firefox

 * . Rjwilmsi  23:44, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks! A little thing like this will be a big convenience for me. Your speedy response on this and other matters is very much appreciated. M AN d ARAX  •  XAЯA b ИA M  00:16, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Move punctuation before refs
I mentioned this here as a bot request: Bot_requests. I figure adding it to AWB general fixes is one way to go about it. Welcoming any thoughts. Thanks. <font face="Century Gothic"> Equazcion ( talk ) 06:03, 14 Apr 2010 (UTC)

Here too CHECKWIKI. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:32, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
 * While I personally agree with this it would contravene WP:REFPUNC to do it blindly. We might do it only if the majority of references in the article used 'punctuation before refs'. Rjwilmsi  07:09, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I rather think this fix is already there. Rich Farmbrough, 21:31, 15 April 2010 (UTC).
 * I think we had it, but it was pulled because it changed all articles, even if articles used the other convention across the board. If we bring it back it should only do it if the majority of references in the article used 'punctuation before refs'. Rjwilmsi  18:33, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Initial implementation, not yet called in genfixes. Rjwilmsi 16:59, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅. Rjwilmsi  07:37, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Quick Login enter to login

 * Done. Rjwilmsi  11:03, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Move Template:Wikipedia-books to See also

 * . Rjwilmsi  15:08, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Fixing missing/incorrect references display
{{AWB feature to add the others you want moved. Rjwilmsi
 * status     = added
 * description = Thank you for this change. Would it be possible to modify it to also recognize the following:

Fix "See also" the same way we do with "Main"

 * Cloned main logic for see also. Rjwilmsi  22:20, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Fix en: instead of moving
Links starting with  are quite often used among interwiki links (sometimes commented-out), so the right thing to do in that case would be to remove it completely. Svick (talk) 20:51, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Commented out en-wiki self interwikis are already removed by MetaDataSorter. Remove self interwikis in the interwikis list.  Reformat self interwikis to be standard links. Only applies to self interwikis before other interwikis (i.e. those in body of article).  Rjwilmsi  09:23, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Hatnotes above tags
Hatnotes should come first, so two FRs:


 * 1) don't add tags above hatnotes (sort of a bug-fix)
 * 2) move hatnotes above tags

Rich Farmbrough, 21:31, 15 April 2010 (UTC).
 * Related earlier request is over dablinks. Probably we just need to use a list of all hatnotes instead of only dablinks, so need somebody to provide a list of all templates defined as hatnotes (including any of those templates' redirects). CSV or plain text list with one template per line would be ideal (no regex in it). Then we can use NestedTemplateRegex to generate the hatnotes regex based on a CSV of template names. Rjwilmsi  22:51, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, again it looks like there si some of this done, for I just saw About pulled before a Multiple issues ( was Article issues). Rich Farmbrough, 01:55, 16 April 2010 (UTC).
 * I actually oppose the premise -- I'm of the opinion that hats should be below tags. There doesn't seem to be any objective reason for either way, so it would seem like a matter of preference, and not something that should be applied wither way across the board via scripts. <font face="Century Gothic"> Equazcion ( talk ) 02:01, 16 Apr 2010 (UTC)
 * See WP:Hatnote. M AN d ARAX  •  XAЯA b ИA M  02:09, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Summary: accessibility issue. Screen readers should inform people that it might be the wrong article before listing its limitations. Rich Farmbrough, 21:15, 16 April 2010 (UTC).

This is done now. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:11, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Remove underscores in Infoboxes

 * Added. Rjwilmsi  09:35, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Template capitalisation

 * Reflist is already added with capital letter. Multiple issues now added with capital letter too.  Rjwilmsi  09:46, 31 July 2010 (UTC)


 * is also not added with a capital. And just now, when I used AWB, it wanted to replace with  . McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 10:04, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
 * You have to wait for the new release. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:21, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Excess white space

 * RemoveAllWhiteSpace to not remove spaces around endashes. Rjwilmsi  17:43, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Stub template

 * Per FOOTERS it should be two newlines. What you're finding is that the 'fix excess whitespace' is not suitable to be run automatically. Rjwilmsi  07:03, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * In RemoveWhiteSpace don't do three newline fix when article has stub tag, to keep requisiste number of newlines before stub tag. Rjwilmsi  10:56, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Convert hyphens between months to endashes

 * I will expand FixDates to handle month ranges. Rjwilmsi  10:41, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Done. Rjwilmsi  10:40, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Orphan

 * , will add it captialised. —<font face="Trebuchet MS"> Ree dy  08:57, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Birth year of Living people

 * Done. Rjwilmsi  15:15, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Insert space above section heading

 * Can you link to the style guide that says this? Rjwilmsi  15:09, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Manual of Style: The last point reads "A blank line below the heading is optional; but do include one blank line above the heading, for readability in the edit window. (Only two or more blank lines above or below will add more white space in the public appearance of the page.)" McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 13:35, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
 * /. Done. Note that other logic prevents the newline where there is no text between two headings. Rjwilmsi  12:01, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Dates over multiple lines

 * Do you have a real example? Rjwilmsi  06:40, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
 * No, I don't have a real example. It's unlikely to ever happen. That's another reason the correction should be removed. McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 07:20, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
 * This change seems pointless: restrict date ordinal/leading zero fixes to dates on the same line.  Rjwilmsi  07:26, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Pages starting with categories

 * It's correct on the article namespace. Can you provide a diff on the category namespace when it's wrong? Rjwilmsi  06:38, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Here is an example for a category. If it is meant to do that, can you please tell me where it says that in a style guide? McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 07:22, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not. Most people don't use AWB on category pages. Do not apply MetaDataSorter on category namespace.  Rjwilmsi  07:36, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, I do, and we have to allow for any exceptions anyway, even if they are unlikely to ever be important. Thanks, I wish I knew how to change these things myself. McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 10:33, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
 * After discussion we're going to take a slightly different approach an ensure the sorted text is trimmed on the category namespace rather than disabling the sorting altogether, which fixes the issue reported here. Rjwilmsi  13:39, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Populate person data
I think if we do this, we should do it only as a plugin. It seems to me as a procedure than can slow the program down. --Magioladitis (talk) 15:48, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I am not opposed to doing it as a plugin but I don't see how populating the persondata would slow down the program any more than adding a category does currently. --Kumioko (talk) 17:32, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
 * How do you want it to be added? To all persons automatically? Blank? with name, yob, yod? At the moment, right click -> "Insert meta data template" does part of the job. If we need to add info in the meta-data we will need more job. --Magioladitis (talk) 17:40, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I believe that adding it to all persons would be best and populated with DOB, Birth place, DOD, and Death place if possible. I understand that determining the persons notibility would be extremely difficult or impossible so I would recommend if its missing just adding a message like we do for dead links or unbalanced brackets. If this is too hard I understand though and I will settle for whatever functionality can be added regarding persondata. Even a small improvement would be better than manually doing them all. --Kumioko (talk) 17:54, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Initial implementation, not yet called in genfixes. Rjwilmsi  18:35, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Support date of death. Rjwilmsi  09:45, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Added to genfixes – documentation. This won't catch everything, but I think it's at a good level. Rjwilmsi  13:26, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Enhance Fix brackets logic

 * . Rjwilmsi  19:22, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Automatically add WikiProjectBannerShell when X number of WikiProject banners present

 * Was requested here by BNutzer. –<font face="verdana" color="black">xeno talk  19:16, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
 * It will be impossible to determine which of the templates on the talk page are project banners. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:19, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
 * My thoughts were that it would need to draw from a list, similar to AutoWikiBrowser/User talk templates. The initial version of the list should be easy enough to create as most Banners use WPBannerMeta. –<font face="verdana" color="black">xeno talk  19:27, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, all WikiProject banners are in Category:WikiProject banners or one of its subcategories. Surely it's not impossible to determine which templates on the page are in that category? Jafeluv (talk) 07:49, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
 * What about the redirects? -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:14, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Redirected templates make it trickier (ie. you have to follow the redirects and check the target page's categories), but I don't think it's impossible by any means. And if that's too complicated, one could just generate a list like xeno suggests above. Jafeluv (talk) 12:02, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
 * It's doable but the speed cost would be very big. What about a bot that will do it? -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:27, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
 * That was the original proposal, if I understand correctly. You're probably right that adding the feature to AWB might not be worth it if the speed cost is significant, considering the little added benefit. Jafeluv (talk) 13:38, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Yea, my idea was that having this built in to AWB would benefit all users of Kingbotk. It could be put onto that module itself; I simply thought we were moving stuff like this into GFs. –<font face="verdana" color="black">xeno talk  15:07, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
 * We do but it's better to have stuff that require some regex and not calling a huge list. I am working in the standarisation of wikiproject banner names lately. Maybe things get easier in the short future. -- Magioladitis 20:02, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd say it's a pretty safe bet that anyone running AWB on article talk pages is probably doing WikiProject tagging. If it does slow things down, it should be toggleable. Perhaps as a middle ground we could restrict it to banners of the form WikiProject.*? or WP.*?, and include some of the more popular non-standard ones like MILHIST, and the like. Anything inbetween is likely a banner as well. –<font face="verdana" color="black">xeno talk  20:02, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Hm... maybe we could. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:57, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

&larr; Even better, just look for any template with a \|[ ]*class[ ]*=[ ]* inside of it. I've got a find/replace regex that seems to be working well. If there's anything in between the WikiProject Banners that gets caught in the Shell, it still displays and a human editor will know it needs to be moved out. Projects without standard names and without at least an empty class rating will also get left out if they are the first or last header. An acceptable concession to keep it simple, imo. –<font face="verdana" color="black">xeno talk  01:45, 12 April 2010 (UTC)


 * We can have it as a talk page genfix? Rjwilmsi  10:18, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I can't think of a reason why not. –<font face="verdana" color="black">xeno talk  14:20, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

All WikiProject banners, apart from only 3, are now in the form "WikiProject foo". This makes things much easier for this request. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:06, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Implemented for those beginning "WikiProject ". Rjwilmsi  10:02, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

New alert: Unknown parameters to Multiple issues

 * For this I'll need you to provide a list of all the valid parameters. The list will be case sensitive. If new parameters are added to the template somebody will have to remember to update AWB's list too. Rjwilmsi  14:22, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

advert|autobiography|biased|blpdispute|citations missing|citation style|citecheck|cleanup|COI|coi|colloquial|confusing|context|contradict|copyedit|criticisms|crystal|deadend|disputed|essay|examplefarm|expert|external links|fancruft|fansite|fiction|globalize|grammar|histinfo|hoax|howto|inappropriate person|incomplete|lead missing|lead rewrite|lead too long|lead too short|in-universe|jargon|laundrylists|laundry|likeresume|long|newsrelease|notable|notability|onesource|OR|or|original research|orphan|out of date|peacock|plot|POV|NPOV|pov|npov|pov-check|primarysources|prose|proseline|quotefarm|recentism|refimprove|refimprove BLP|restructure|reorganisation|organize|review|rewrite|sections|self-published|spam|story|synthesis|inappropriate tone|tone|travelguide|trivia|unbalanced|unencyclopedic|unreferenced|unreferencedBLP|update|weasel|wikify

-- Magioladitis (talk) 14:49, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Added with this list of parameters. I've given Magio a list of results from the March 2010 db scan to see if the list needs any amendments. Rjwilmsi  07:17, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Validate categories added via the "Add category" function

 * Validate entered category and show message box warning user if category does not exist. User can then add category or not. Rjwilmsi  16:55, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Fix transcluded categories

 * done. Rjwilmsi  10:56, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Clean break line tags before bulleted lists

 * done. Rjwilmsi  11:14, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Can Login screen accept pressing <Enter> ?

 * Added. Rjwilmsi  07:11, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Template:Commons Category

 * There's a regex for this, but I don't think we cater for this specific case. —<font face="Trebuchet MS"> Ree dy  08:56, 2 August 2010 (UTC)


 * AWB fixes redirects to Citation needed so why not other templates? McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 09:46, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps we should add a wiki page in the same vein as user talk templates where users can list template redirects to bypass. It doesn't seem worth adding single ones individually. Rjwilmsi  12:28, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I like that idea. I don't wish to start it though as I have absolutely no idea how to do it. McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 14:04, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Added. See AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects.

New page for correcting template redirects

 * Added. See AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects. Rjwilmsi  19:57, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Since AWB already corrected some template redirects, could those corrections be moved to the new page?  McLerristarr /  Mclay1  13:59, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Template:Infobox automobile

 * Added. See AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects.


 * Thank you. OSX (talk • contributions) 23:58, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Change disambiguation template names

 * Added. See AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects.

Remove break line tags from headlines

 * FixHeadings: remove any &lt;br> from headings. Rjwilmsi  16:31, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Bypass specific redirects

 * If there are specific ones these can easily be added to AWB. Rjwilmsi  10:42, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

FYI, BD is now orphan and is daily automatically substituted by Yobot. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:47, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

This is partially implemented. We have an option to bypass all redirects and we also bypass some of them automatically. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:32, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Usability improvement to AWB updater

 * "Nothing to update" -> "No update available". Rjwilmsi  07:18, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Removed 'Press close to exit'. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:04, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

=Partially implemented=

Reference fixes
I strongly support the former, and the latter, but the latter doesn't seem to have consensus to be done using automated tools (some articles purposefully use the first style, for some reason). I don't see anything wrong with the former. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 17:04, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
 * We already do the former (grab a snapshot). The latter is the MOS preference, but some articles go against it. I don't think AWB should be doing that one, at least for the moment. Rjwilmsi  17:09, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Is the former an optional one then? Currently I am having to use the "find and replace" setting to get it to work. Here's one before I thought about it. Look at the last sentence in the opening and this is one where I started to use the search and replace. Enter CambridgeBayWeather, waits for audience applause, not a sausage 18:14, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes. Ref 6 changed automatically. Grab a snapshot of AWB. Rjwilmsi  18:24, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
 * That's weird! How are you getting that to work automatically? I just tried it again and it still wouldn't work without the "searc and replace" turned on. Enter CambridgeBayWeather, waits for audience applause, not a sausage 19:18, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Your AWB version? Rjwilmsi  19:30, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
 * The current version 4.6.0.0, I downloaded it and started using it yesterday. I thought it might be a particular computer that is causing the problem but changing to a different machine makes no difference. Enter CambridgeBayWeather, waits for audience applause, not a sausage 10:08, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * For the third time, use the snapshot link at the top of the page to download a newer snapshot of AWB. Rjwilmsi  13:23, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah, well until I got this and "...snapshot link at the top of the page..." I had no idea what you meant by grabbing a snapshot. Enter CambridgeBayWeather, waits for audience applause, not a sausage 14:24, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Place "External links" section after "References"
{{AWB feature | status     = partial | description = According to Layout, the "External links" section should be last.

At least in simple cases, e.g. where there is a h2 external links section followed by ==References== I don't think we need a new Tools function just for that? Rjwilmsi 12:53, 26 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks I am satisfied. I asked this request because I have not seen a similar function in "ToolsTests".--B3t (talk) 13:26, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Import and Export Ability

 * Can't you save the rules in the AWB settings file and import them? — Ganeshk (talk) 01:30, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I got it. Thanks for helping! Then my request should have been solved.--Altt311 (talk) 17:17, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Theres a copy paste feature in the Advanced... Dunno if something similar would be some use.. —<font face="Trebuchet MS"> Ree dy  17:39, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Delete or hide empty sections
Note: for a related request, see WT:AutoWikiBrowser/Feature_requests/Archive_7. M AN d ARAX •  XAЯA b ИA M  19:22, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, heres an example of one. In this edit I removed a stray external links section at the bottom of the article. --Kumioko (talk) 19:42, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I can't think of any other section that we could automatically hide. This work needs human supervision. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:22, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok, I thought about this on my hour long drive home and I might have a couple suggestions but I don't know how hard they would be to program so Ill just throw them out for considerations.
 * If a section is followed immediately by a defaultsort or Categories it could be either deleted or commented out.
 * If a section (regardless of the level) is followed by the same level section and its either on the very next line or there is nothing between the 2 but blank spaces, then it could be deleted or commented out.
 * Since I admit that there could be occasions were this might be valid, maybe an alert would be possible. --Kumioko (talk) 00:13, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Sometimes empty sections are placeholders. That's the reason we have Empty section which we recently added in Auto-tagger. Auto-tagger is much better than alert. See 1608 in Quebec for example. Articles named xxxx in YYYY follow a specific pattern and need to be expanded. Empty references section is usually by New articles' Wizard but in the general we shouldn't be blindly deleting empty sections. I don't think we are gonna implement this one. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:38, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok no problem thanks, I understand the reasoning but I have to admit I don't really agree with having empty sections in the articles. If we don't have the information yet then we shouldnt have the section. Its kinda like having a talk page for an article we don't have yet. I also think that I saw that somewhere in the MOS or something that said you should avoid having empty sections with no information in it. I can't find it at the moment though. --Kumioko (talk) 10:36, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * It;s true that we have to avoid empty sections but sometimes articles are under construction, etc. Moreover, blindly deletion may cause problems to redirects targeting to specific sections, etc. What I would do is first gather some information. For example, how many articles have empty sections, how many empty sections there are, etc. AWB should implement only stable stuff. There is always WP:CHECKWIKI. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:21, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Server OS Compatibility

 * What particular problems do you encounter with it? 62.140.253.6 (talk) 09:16, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
 * On the server, it throws up communication errors. I have put it in my routers DMZ, disabled all firewall/security software, and port-scanned it from another machine within my network and from an external website. All of this shows it should not be an issue. I have encountered similar problems with other programs, and usually this means that the program is not able to understand the network configurations on a Domain Controller. Works fine on my WinXP machine. <font color="red" size="1px">Avic<font color="blue" size="1px">enna <font color="green" size="1px">sis @ 17:37, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I've run it fine on Server 2k3 before now, and 2k8 for that matter. There shouldn't be any difference, bar maybe some more advanced network configs. What sort of communication errors? —<font face="Trebuchet MS"> Ree dy  21:47, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Dialog box title:network access error <BR> Content:Unable to connect to the remote server <BR>

Then, Dialog box title:Error connecting to wiki! <BR> Content:An error occurred while connecting to the server or loading project information from it. Please make sure that your internet connection works and such combination of project/language exist. Enter the URL in the format "en.wikipedia.org/w/" (including path where index.php and api.php reside). Error description: Unable to connect to the remote server

Then, repeat exact same Dialog box title:Error connecting to wiki! <BR> Then, repeat exact same Dialog box title:network access error

When you were using Server 2k3/2k8, was it stand-alone or performing any server roles? <font color="red" size="1px">Avic<font color="blue" size="1px">enna <font color="green" size="1px">sis @ 05:17, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * 2k3 as a domain controller, no fancy network configs (ISA etc), just straight out via the router. 2k8 was just a file server. Are you using some form of a proxy? —<font face="Trebuchet MS"> Ree dy  17:12, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Nope. It may be something in my setup, then. I will install a Clean Server 2003 in VirtualBox and try AWB. If it works, I'll tweak my settings bit by bit until I find what is breaking it. I'll update here as I test. <font color="red" size="1px">Avic<font color="blue" size="1px">enna <font color="green" size="1px">sis @ 00:47, 9 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Re-created it on a virtual machine, turns out for some reason my DNS was losing forward lookup zone entries. It works fine on the OS platform. <font color="red" size="1px">Avic<font color="blue" size="1px">enna <font color="green" size="1px">sis @ 05:32, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Unicode Ndashes
That's controversial. Art LaPella (talk) 17:40, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Non-existent categories
Not really. Sometimes the name was typed incorrectly and we only need to fix one letter. Sometimes the red link is caused by vandalism. So deleting is not safe. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:10, 2 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, (talk) 09:34, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Let's do a database scan. I don't expect many of them. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:40, 2 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Either way, there's no harm in doing it. Better safe than sorry. McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 09:44, 2 August 2010 (UTC)


 * It now removes " (talk) 04:58, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * That already existed – I have clarified the documentation. Rjwilmsi  09:39, 3 August 2010 (UTC)


 * It wasn't working for me because I was testing it on my user page. Why doesn't it work on user pages? Everything else seems to. From now on, I'll stick to the AWB Sandbox. McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 10:01, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Article general fixes run on articles and sandboxes. User talk general fixes are different. Rjwilmsi  17:44, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Spaces after line

 * This feature does not already exist. McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 04:45, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * What I meant was spaces --> <-- like the one in between the arrows. McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 05:00, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Then I don't understand. Please provide an example diff of the change you want AWB to make. Rjwilmsi  07:07, 3 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Here There were spaces after "Sandpit." but I removed them manually. Often in articles there are spaces after a line or paragraph, which AWB could remove. McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 08:31, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Then this already exists. The edit box context menu entry "fix all excess whitespace" does this for you. Rjwilmsi  09:14, 3 August 2010 (UTC)


 * What's the edit box context menu? I can't find the option you're talking about. Why aren't half these options just permanent features? McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 09:40, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * See the Reference manual. Rjwilmsi  09:46, 3 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I haven't noticed that before. But it's a bit inconvenient to have to do that every time. Why can't it just be automatic like every other fix? McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 09:53, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Remove space before line

 * This can be deliberate to put stuff in boxes like this

this is in a box.
 * So not sure if we should tamper with that. Rich Farmbrough, 10:55, 11 August 2010 (UTC).
 * I know but I don't think that would ever be used in an article. I don't think you would ever use AWB in Wikipedia namespace because it could also contain a lot of what not to do info that AWB would try to correct. McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 12:36, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
 * It's a no on this one. Rjwilmsi  13:41, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Spaces in infoboxes

 * The whitespace is excess. As I've said before, the fix excess option is only run manually. It's designed to be run on a selection of text at user discretion, this is one of the reasons why. Rjwilmsi  13:45, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

New lines in replace text

 * \n works for me in the find & replace dialogue. Rjwilmsi  13:42, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Hey, it does work! I swear I just tried it earlier and "/n" returned "/n"... I don't know what I was doing. Thanks. I guess we can close this. Rocket000 (talk) 03:02, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe it was "/n" not "\n" ?Rich Farmbrough, 16:01, 26 August 2010 (UTC).
 * Heh, you're probably right. Had a little too much regex that night. Rocket000 (talk) 00:40, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Remove DEFAULTSORT when same as article name

 * The default sort key in Tourism in Punjab, India isn't the same as the title: "in" is capitalised. Every word in a default sort key should be capitalised. If no modifications or capitalisations can be made to a title, then the default sort key should be removed if it is the same as the article title.  McLerristarr /  Mclay1  03:26, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * You're absolutely correct - I'll have to find a better example. Thanks!  GoingBatty (talk) 03:32, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Better example found - see above. GoingBatty (talk) 04:06, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Guess I got my answer in a similar conversation on the AWB talk page. GoingBatty (talk) 17:24, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * DEFAULTSORT equal to article title is fine per WP:SORTKEY. Rjwilmsi  17:41, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

100 random pages list
You can always press Make list 10 times. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:59, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
 * And if I want 1000? Press it 100 times? C'mon, there must be an easier way. And why shouldn't it? —bender235 (talk) 20:10, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
 * For normal users, as the query is expensive. And returns one. So that would many many calls.. —<font face="Trebuchet MS"> Ree dy  23:48, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Show differences more clearly

 * Me too. If the diff is very long I wave my pointer over the "edit summary" control in the bottom centre panel to see the tooltip preview of the edit summary, which will list any spelling corrections. If I still can't see where these changes are being made I turn the Genfixes off temporarily, process the page again, review the spelling corrections, turn the Genfixes back on, review the Genfixes, and only then "save". Messy. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:35, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I did that with typo fixing too. So often it's "etc." and hard to spot. There is an Edit Summary tag now though, doesn't that help?
 * I don't find the "Edit Summary" tab useful, because AWB flips back to the "Edit box" tab whenever it thinks there's something important for me to see there. I don't think we're going to come up with anything precise enough here to be called a "feature request"... -- John of Reading (talk) 18:47, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * We are limited by the MediaWiki diff support. You can try my style.css by saving the page contents to style.css in the same directory as AutoWikiBrowser.exe, and reloading AWB, to see if that's more helpful. Rjwilmsi  14:09, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Dismiss button on "You have new messages"

 * Reason: I have to look at the message on another machine, where I am logged in as the bot. This means I can get a bunch of un-necessary windows open, especially if I forget that I haven't actually read it with my "bot" head on, or Femto has tidied it, or I tweaked it myself.  Rich Farmbrough, 14:53, 12 October 2010 (UTC).


 * I yesterday discovered a new trick. Login to wikipedia as Rich and to secure.wikipedia as SmackBot. Every time you get a new message use secure.wikipedia to read the message.
 * I think we won't implement this because the main idea is to stop editing without blocking. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:59, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah cool. I always used Firefox for me and IE for SmackBot but IE has broken. Of course you still can't edit just because you dismiss the box, (which I do by pressing view) it just pops up again - you have to at least view the page logged in. Rich Farmbrough, 18:29, 12 October 2010 (UTC).