Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Check Wikipedia/Archive 1

Small style element
What are possibilities or recommendations how to replace style element small WikiProject Check Wikipedia? Especially I would like to ask if there is easy solution for Taxobox usage? (Personally I do not prefer writing authority in small letters at all.) --Snek01 (talk) 12:46, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I understand the objection to the usage of the small tags. Is it just that the html is superfluous or difficult to edit for noobs? The reason for the usage, often, is that authorities can sometimes be quite lengthy and instead of wrapping the text in the taxobox, nbsp and the small tags are used to keep everything on one line. See Utricularia stellaris for example. I've used this html tag throughout my edits in the Utricularia species. I also find that it separates the authority from the species visually; many people aren't used to seeing authorities, so with a link and a different text style, it gives them an idea that it means something different from a species or variety name. I'd be open to suggested changes that would maintain some sort of font difference, though. --Rkitko (talk) 13:11, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, there still can be authority written in such smaller letters (until it is recomended in documentation of Taxobox). Authorities can always be easily distinguish, because the scientific name is in italics. And to its length: there is nor reason to change contents for better view but the view should accomodate co its contents. (Soory for my English, I hope I used appropriate words.) --Snek01 (talk) 17:07, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

This project WikiProject Check Wikipedia recommend to not use the style element. So the question is if we really should replace style element with something other (which can have the same appereance) and what are possibilities? Maybe there is no reason to change it or maybe a better possibility does not exist. I do not know. --Snek01 (talk) 17:07, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
 * make me small maybe? --213.168.121.43 (talk) 02:45, 21 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Normally, we don´t need . In Wikipedia we only write text. The Stylesheet (css) make with this text the right output. I hope we can eliminate all -Tags from the text and put all formats in the stylesheet. In XHTML is small not allowed, there you can only use make me small . -- sk (talk) 16:04, 21 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Hello Stefan. In XHTML a   element is allowed. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are used only to describe the presentation (the look and formatting) of a document. They do not describe the "meaning" of elements (that is, non-semantic markup). If you replace i.e. testo with testo , web-based screen readers will fail to interpret a correct meaning of a element content. Also you can use CSS to describe a look of   element (instead of     element). --DaBler (talk) 15:10, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The "Small" element if completely valid in some HTML/XHTML; however, WikText should be used on Wikipedia whenever possible... after all, we use "==" instead of " ", so we should also use small to make text smaller. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:37, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Hello Drilnoth. A element is valid in all versions of HTML 4, XHTML 1.0 , XHTML 1.1 (Presentation Module, ). Wikipedia (MediaWiki) declare XHTML 1.0 Transitional document type. However, the syntax == cause a creation of a element (it is semantic correct markup). Template small generate a  element, not a .   element is generic language/style container. Using a   element instead of is valid, however semantic interpretation is incorrect. --DaBler (talk) 13:01, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I was under the impression that, generally, WikiSyntax (including templates which simply add CSS style ids and classes to the page) was preferred over actual HTML and XHTML. However, I don't really care one way or the other (I, personally, have started using small because it's quicker to type than both the start and end tags), and I think that you should probably talk to the creator of the script if you think it should be removed. I don't really worry about changing that in articles unless I'm editing around it anyway, but Stefan might have some reasons that I have either overlooked or forgotten. -Drilnoth (talk) 03:18, 3 March 2009 (UTC)


 * There is template allready available at Template:Small. --Snek01 (talk) 22:19, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Wow
This page is awesome. Great work. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 05:31, 24 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks. -- sk (talk) 18:05, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Parenthesis and punctuation spacing errors, if possible.
I often see errors of a missing space before or after a parenthesis, or after a comma. E.g., "Smith traveled from New York,where he had studied, to North Carolina(accounts of the dates vary)". Can we get a list of those? bd2412 T 20:52, 1 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I will test this. Thanks for this info. -- sk (talk) 17:10, 2 January 2009 (UTC)


 * This is not easy: "Antimon(III,V)-oxid", "(Anti-)Atomkraft" and so one. I have try it with different regular expression, but I have no good results. -- sk (talk) 21:16, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Duration
Duration: 255 minutes 19 secounds

Wait a minute! Secounds? Simply south not SS, sorry 17:06, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Table not correct end
Great work!

End and its redirects are used in some cases of incorrect table ends... Therefore are semi false positives... For laziness im just doing a list compare between the current 200 and what transcludes that (and End box which seems to be the most common)... — Ree dy  23:37, 7 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I insert "end" "end box" and "End box". Is there more? -- sk (talk) 20:44, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

== Article with and no  and   work exactly the same, and that's why some people use the second technique in the article intro. So, if I understand correctly, title link in text is not an error in the introductory sentence, but is an error anywhere else in the text. GregorB (talk) 17:47, 26 March 2009 (UTC)


 * At least in the first sentence, it seems to me that it has always been Title . -- User:Docu

I was thinking of substituted nav templates (they do exist) and similar. In the main text it's probably wrong. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 22:21, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I am not able to update the page..
I am getting the following error: Request: POST http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Check_Wikipedia&action=submit, from 71.231.176.196 via sq16.wikimedia.org (squid/2.7.STABLE6) to 208.80.152.43 (208.80.152.43) Error: ERR_READ_TIMEOUT, errno [No Error] at Sun, 29 Mar 2009 10:01:03 GMT --Anshuk (talk) 10:03, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Probably related to your connection and the size of the page. — Ree dy  12:32, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
 * its the page-size. updated omitting lowest priority --AwOc 12:57, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

maybe there should be a sub-page for each priority. this would also reduce the revision sizes on small edits. updating would then mean to edit four pages, which is quite annoying. maybe a bot could solve this. --AwOc 13:18, 29 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I am able to update. I only tried to edit a section, rather than the whole page. BTW, in any case, it will be updated in a few hours. So, probably removing entries may not be important. Also, depending on when data collection for today started, some of things that you may have fixed today, may again appear on today's list.--GDibyendu (talk) 13:49, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The low priority couldn't be added today because of size, either? Weird. It had been working for a while. –Drilnoth (T • C) 15:36, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Errors suitable to be fixed with AWB
The descriptions can be edited at WikiProject Check Wikipedia/Translation.

To edit a description, copy the text from the default description (desc_script) to desc_enwiki, e.g. for error 1: error_001_desc_script=This article has no bold title like Title. END error_001_desc_enwiki=This article has no bold title like title. END

I think it would be helpful if any element that can be fixed with AWB be marked as such. -- User:Docu
 * That would probably be a good idea... I'd add it myself except that I don't know what AWB fixes! Anyone? –Drilnoth (T • C) 00:52, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll have a go at this later today. Rjwilmsi  11:05, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I got sidetracked. but will work on this over the next few days. Rjwilmsi  22:37, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I marked some of them. They seem to be the type of changes after which my usual AWB settings skip saving. -- User:Docu


 * For error 7, I made a feature request at WT:AutoWikiBrowser/Feature requests. It might as well be fixed in any article. -- User:Docu

A clever trick - or not?
From Bihar:

Opinions? GregorB (talk) 19:20, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I think that it is an interesting concept, but doesn't really make sense. The article changes based on the time of day? What?! It just doesn't really seem quite right. Something could be brought up at one of the village pumps about this, perhaps a template being created to standardize such pseudo-randomization across a number of articles. –Drilnoth (T • C) 21:10, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
 * A clever trick yes, but per standards, no. If there are multiple relevant images for the article and not enough space to show them all full size then surely a gallery should be used to make them all available to readers. Rjwilmsi  22:36, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree... Although we all accept the notion of article changing through revisions, the idea that an article changes in a somewhat random way, without the underlying content being revised, is a bit unsettling to me. Of course, for the purposes of Check Wikipedia, this should be either done through a template, or not be done at all. GregorB (talk) 11:35, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I have removed the code and just left the images in the article. –Drilnoth (T • C) 12:17, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Nice changes
Nice updates, Stefan! Do you know if it is yet possible to include the "lowest-priority" pages in the list? –Drilnoth (T • C) 21:10, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Double pipe in one link -- sometimes the second pipe enhances formating
Like in the following examples:

What do you think we should do about this?--Anshuk (talk) 08:26, 31 March 2009 (UTC)


 * It displays as "Southwest Sports, Inc. | NWA Big Time Wrestling". I'd remove it. Reading "World_Class_Championship_Wrestling", I think "NWA Big Time Wrestling" should do, but one could replace it with a colon. -- User:Docu

working on bot - question.
I'm working (slowly) on a semi-automated bot to fix some of the simpler problems on this list. I'm curious, though: is there any way to access the full list of found problems (i.e., get around the 'output was limited to 50 articles' issue)? -- Ludwigs 2 19:05, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
 * You'd need to ask Stefan... what kinds of problems do you think your bot can fix? A lot of these need human attention. –Drilnoth (T • C) 19:06, 1 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Check http://toolserver.org/~sk/checkwiki/enwiki/
 * I think AWB can do quite a few of them already, Rjwilmsi might annotate those later (see ). I fixed error 16 by bot and just got criticized at WP:ANI for having done so. -- User:Docu
 * Yeah, AWB will be able to fix a number of the errors around wikilinks, square brackets etc. I am going to specify in the translation exactly what can be done, and in the longer term work on increasing the range of AWB fixes to handle what's here. There's still going to be plenty of stuff that's manual, like image descriptions, though perhaps AWB could be used to make the process faster. Rjwilmsi  22:07, 1 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Most template fixes will probably need to be done manually. Anyways, maybe we could just set everything that can be done by AWB to same priority level. Not sure if we could create an additional one (4). Those that are mostly AWB, but need some checks (2) and those that need to be manual to (1). Everything else would be (3). -- User:Docu

constructions, but with artful use of regex and a little human guidance most of the things here can be streamlined significantly. mostly the bot would automate the boring details. for instance, to regularize headings (now), I need to see what needs to be changed, copy the wikitext into a text editor, run regular expressions or other edits to fix the headings, copy the revised text back into the browser, and save the results. with a semi-auto bot, I could do all of that in one step (just specify the changes and click 'go!'>. some things (like list-breaks) can be fully automated, which is why I was wondering about getting larger segments.
 * oh, there's a lot here that can be done with a manually assisted bot - I was looking particularly at the sections on breaks after list items, regularizing headers and fixing bad


 * with respect to AWB - I'm a mac user, no joy.


 * well, let me get the thing working, and then I'll talk to stephan about expanding it. no sense putting the cart before the horse.  -- Ludwigs 2  01:23, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not real grand, but my CodeFixer user script can fix some of the errors automatically. –Drilnoth (T • C) 01:31, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh, that's useful. -- Ludwigs 2  02:25, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Glad to hear you like it. I'm still working on adding some more things to it, but it does a fair bit now (mainly converting those pesky XML and HTML character encodings to be actual symbols... it's — not &mda (SVN 4218). I added nobots to Comparison of programming languages (object-oriented programming) as it doesn't have such tags yet. Besides that, the fixes for check #10 went well. -- User:Docu
 * I had allowed for 'nowiki' and 'math' tags but not 'code'. for that.  Rjwilmsi  18:06, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Check 59: Template value ends with break
Shall we try to fix these (1), keep the report running in case someone is interested (2), or deactivate it (3)? I'm a bit hesitant.

Today (April 19) the report lists 2714 occurrences. As the check was added after the last dump (mid-March), I assume that there should be more to come.

The displayed value doesn't change in MediaWiki, but, e.g. for templatetiger, the available data would be cleaner without. -- User:Docu
 * I'd go with (2). It doesn't seem like its as pressing as some of the other errors, but it is still an error which someone can fix when the more important problems are resolved. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 12:37, 19 April 2009 (UTC)


 * To start to fix them, the current result will still be found in the page's history. We could also save the full list from toolserver. In the meantime, if it isn't handeled, we could just de-activate it, possibly re-activate it just before the next dump. With some work, it should be possible to use pywikipediabot to do most of them. -- User:Docu
 * Okay; I don't really care either way. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 14:01, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Lets see what others say. If there is no demand, we could turn it off. -- User:Docu

Headline hierarchy
Hi! Are you really sure the headline hierarchy is a problem? I mean: does it generate any real problem? In my opinion, due the very small difference in font size between the level 1 and level 2 headlines, many users sometimes just choose to use the level 3 in place of 2 in order to obtain a better layout and a clearer structure within the article. Is there enough consensus about this level gap ban? -- Basilicofresco  (msg) 07:46, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * IMO, I think that when a headline jumps from level 2 to level 4, it looks pretty ugly on the screen. Also, the MOS states (at WP:MOSHEAD) that "primary headings are then, followed by , , and so on." So, no, it doesn't generate any real problem (it's not going to destroy the wiki or anything!), but there is community consensus and (I believe) it's been that way for a long time. –Drilnoth (T • C) 17:27, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


 * See Organizing a page using headings at the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (11 December 2008). --Red Power (talk) 15:09, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

See also: User_talk:WWGB -- User:Docu
 * sigh* What reason can there possibly be for opposition? It's in the MOS. Although the MOS is not always correct and is a guideline, I see no reason why this should be any different from other articles. –Drilnoth (T • C) 13:29, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
 * lol... a bit of insight for you: the phrase 'there's an exception to every rule' really means that every rule has someone who takes exception to it.    -- Ludwigs 2  19:29, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Heh... –Drilnoth (T • C) 19:31, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Well the whole set of monthly pages is formatted that way (at least since 2006). I understand their explanation about how they are "growing" them. Inserting additional headers is probably a good way to keep them more or less the same.
 * My bot did several hundred of #7 (WP:WikiProject Check Wikipedia) on articles that didn't have a "==" level, but this didn't quite reduce the numbers (the stats aren't simple to read). If we want the others to be fixed, maybe we need to have the TOC feature "changed" as it currently adjusts automatically for some of the headers on the wrong level. -- User:Docu

I have fixed manually more than 50 of these recently but the number just keeps growing. Maybe the script could be improved to create a new list about articles with new headline hierarchy issues, i.e. articles that previously did not have an issue but that have the issue now. Then the users who create these issues could be tracked and educated. This would be applicable to the other checks, too. &mdash;ZeroOne ( talk / @ ) 08:29, 22 April 2009 (UTC)


 * The ones displayed are generally the ones in articles recently changed (not only to add a specific error though).


 * The total doesn't necessarily change from one day to the other even if you fix most of them (see ). On the other side, e.g. today check #7 dropped by 134 even though we probably didn't fix more than 50 yesterday, but the ones the script had stored to rescan next were already done in the days before.


 * At least for check 7, some of these are easily fixed, as sometimes all levels are just one off. I don't think it's helpful to lecture contributors that created their first article about a somewhat minor point while there is much more to be done. Once it's fixed in an article, eventually they will figure it out. If it can be fixed by bot, it wasn't much effort for me either. There articles where the structure is due to the growth of the article, possibly by numerous contributors and someone has to try to adjust the structure at some point. More tricky are articles that use a predefined structure made for longer articles. At least for these, one has to find an intermediary solution of some sort and we wouldn't want to stop their growth just to reach a perfect TOC. BTW a numbered TOC adjusts for most cases. -- User:Docu

Check 30: Image without description
Shall we keep this running or turn it off? -- User:Docu
 * I can go either way with this one... one one hand it kind of is an error, but on the other it isn't really a "syntax" error, but a "content"/"style" error. Whatever we do, the "image gallery without description" check should be the same. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 22:32, 21 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Image gallery is just 394, but this one is 11,260. It seems to rise fast since the last dump (/old, not sure if the script changed). If it's being used, I don't mind having it. -- User:Docu


 * I have changed massively the script for error 30. Now my script will detect really more errors. I think this is one of the important errors. No bot can fix this. Here we need manpower. A bot can only inform at the discussion page that there is an image without description. We make this in dewiki. -- sk (talk) 19:17, 22 April 2009 (UTC)


 * If it doesn't slow down the scan for the other errors, let's leave it running. I added the "new" tag to the results. BTW one could try to import the descriptions from Commons .. -- User:Docu


 * I saved the current list at /030, in case someone wants to work on it. -- User:Docu

Extraneous links in hatnotes
Hatnotes should only contain links to the desired possible other target. See HATNOTE. Would need human review probably, as there may be exceptions. – xeno talk  16:31, 22 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Ideally, yes, templatetiger can give an overview of things. First, it might be worth trying to convert notes that don't use dablink, otheruses and the like to one of the templates. -- User:Docu

Reference
Some articles dont use ? This error probably won't be of any interest for enwiki because reference numbers are put between square brackets [1][2][3]. But on frwiki reference numbers are displayed without any decoration so adjacent references may look like only one reference 123, so we're generally using a template between references. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 22:14, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
 * , could you get me some articles with the problem as test subjects. Test Subjects I take it I need to look for cases of:  and   ?  I also saw your message above about adding to the done pages. Bgwhite (talk) 05:29, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Ok, will try to find some... The subject was brought on WPCleaner's talk page for this modification, but the page is fixed now. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 07:17, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
 * , I checked a lot of articles but I haven't found an other example yet... --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 12:16, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
 * fr:Utilisateur:Zetud/Pb Ref should have a list. --NicoV
 * , fr:Leetchi, with at least 2 problems in the introduction. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 07:34, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Stripping pre tags
Hi,

tags are stripped only if they have no additional attributes. In pl:dmesg there's a pre block:

It's not getting stripped by checkwiki.pl (get_pre function) so false positives are reported (like #56 in that case). ToSter (talk) 18:51, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
 * , personally, I'd remove the entire pre text. I don't see the benefit of a boot screen from a 6-year old version of Linux. Bgwhite (talk) 23:35, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
 * , that's right :) but still the problem can occur in another place. ToSter (talk) 06:13, 13 November 2014 (UTC)
 * , it can, but it is not. Also, this is what the whitelist is for. Bgwhite (talk) 21:54, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Add field with user edit
Hola, disculpas por escribir en español, se podría agregar un campo mas en el cual indique el nombre de usuario o ip que realizó la edición del error detectado. gracias buen trabojo.Sergio Andres Segovia (talk) 16:59, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * "Hi, I apologize for writing in Spanish, you could add an additional field which states the user name or ip who made the edition of the detected error. thanks good work."
 * Seems possible but would require a lot of processing to find the particular edit. Frietjes (talk) 17:58, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Es una pena que requiera una gran cantidad de procesamiento, porque si se agregara ese campo iríamos directamente a las contribuciones del usuario o ip, y el que tenga el flag de reversor podría revertir las edición desde allí. En Wikipedia en español intentamos detectarlo con un filtro de ediciones pero arrojó muchos falsos positivos, saludos. Sergio Andres Segovia (talk) 19:05, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * "It's a shame that requires a lot of processing, because if that field we would be linked directly to user contributions or ip, and an editor with rollback could reverse the issue from there. At Spanish Wikipedia, we tried to detect issues with an edit filter but it resulted in many false positives, greetings."
 * I agree that it would be useful. You might be able to get a bot to do this for you?  for example, I know that some bots like 'BracketBot' will warn you when you have introduced unbalanced brackets.  of course, there is a difference between warning a user about 'breaking an article' and warning a user about using deprecated syntax.  maybe you can ask the operator of BracketBot (A930913)? Frietjes (talk) 17:19, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
 * There is also Bracketbot's brother, ReferenceBot. Both are done by A930913.   The two main differences between BracketBot and CheckWiki is: 1) Bracketbot checks articles in near real-time 2) Bracketbot informs the editor of the problem they created instead of reporting the error to a master database.   In theory, CheckWiki can also be run in near real-time on individual articles.  I would need help from A930913.  His bot code would run normally except call CheckWiki to test an article instead of using the bot's checks.  Bgwhite (talk) 19:53, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Make a (web)script that I can ping with a pageid/title/diffid/oldid/user? ? 930913 &#123;&#123;ping&#125;&#125; 07:33, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

#14 false positives
✅

Two false positives at plwiki are reported. To remove such cases, you might check only for "
 * Problem is... how does one differentiate between ToSter's scenario and a scenario where the first &lt;source> tag is actually missing a closing tag, especially when editors don't always put extra parameters inside source tags. Bgwhite (talk) 07:26, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
 * We also have false positives on frwiki, which doesn't seem to fall into the above category:
 * fr:Apache Ant: a  tag is detected as being a   tag
 * fr:Vidéo HTML5: there are 3 self-closing  tags inside a   tag. The third one is reported.
 * --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 13:41, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

is this fixed somehow? I haven't seen any false positives for a long time. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:33, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Whitelist (sv.wikipedia.org) for error #34
CanI get instances such as  whitelisted on svwp, since this is used to automatically update population numbers in articles such as sv:Föglö. I don't know how to do it, or what to do... (t) Josve05a  (c) 18:57, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
 * This can be handled two ways and it depends on how many article you are talking about. If it is not "alot", then add the articles to a whitelist.  If there are alot, then I can added it to the code.
 * If you are using a whitelist, look at WikiProject Check Wikipedia/Translation and see how it is done for enwiki (search for "whitelist"). #34 on enwiki does have a whitelist.  Frwiki also has whitelists set up.  Bgwhite (talk) 19:26, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
 * THis should be used a lot, at least for all populated places in Sweden with population numbers at Statistiska centralbyrån, since a bot updates those automaticle. Not all articles are using this system yet, but more and more are. (t) Josve05a  (c) 19:29, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I've also seen constructions like that on frwiki, but I don't like having calculations in articles. An other solution would be to use a template to do the computation instead of putting the #expr directly in the article. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 19:47, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

False positive in Error #85
In ca:Brainfuck, there are, ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  , ... Would it be possible to limit the detection ? For example, detect only  when followed by a space, a "/", a ">", ... but not by a letter ? --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 09:12, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
 * , I'll take a look, but it will be a couple of weeks till I can get to it. Bgwhite (talk) 05:10, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

New error : empty titles ?
Hi, I was thinking about a new error for detecting empty titles, like the ones VE is creating on a regular basis. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 18:10, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
 * , I did a scan for enwiki and came up with 83 articles. The VE edits all appear old.  I wonder if they have fixed the problem in new VE builds? Bgwhite (talk) 22:31, 22 August 2014 (UTC)
 * , apparently it's still not fixed, the last VE edit I found with this problem is from last night. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 09:10, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the list, I've added error #522 to detect empty titles and fixed all the occurrences. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 12:21, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

And also, of the same kind, a new error for empty internal links, like in this edit ( and  ). --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 10:11, 23 August 2014 (UTC)


 * This was fixed in Visual Editor. No new cases have been found over the past few months.  Bgwhite (talk) 23:51, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Bgwhite, not at all. A few examples just in the last 24h (nowiki tags):
 * Empty titles: Diététicien (last one), Forrest Gump (new line 88, no nowiki but empty title), Liste de festivals de cinéma, Expressions bibliques (both kinds of empty titles)
 * Empty internal links: Liste des épisodes de La Petite Maison dans la prairie
 * And maybe another problem with things like that:  which could be easily replaced by
 * --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 13:02, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

According to Tech News: 2015-14, the problem of nowiki in titles has been fixed. Of course, what new untold problems have arisen due to their fix has yet to be seen. Bgwhite (talk) 20:28, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, when you read in the same announcement that "VisualEditor is now the main editing tool on 53 more Wikipedias", you can't take it really seriously as even on wikis where it has been enabled by default for almost 2 years, it's still far away from from being the "main editing tool"... --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 20:56, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * When I read that sentence for the first time, thoughts of dread and pity for those 53 sites went thru my mind. I also wondered what "phase 5" meant.  mw:VisualEditor/Rollouts explains what each phase means.  They have enwiki as a phase 0, which is, "... wikipedias that have been closed or deprecated".  Ahhh, Visual Editor... always good for a laugh and a cry.  Bgwhite (talk) 21:25, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * You didn't know ? When enwiki made its push to make VE opt-in, they closed enwiki Currently, we're not editing enwiki, it's a decoy... In the rollouts, I also liked very much the sentence that wikis in phases 1 to 4 "are relatively easy for VE to support"... --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 21:35, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * VE is supporting phases 1 thru 4 very well. It's rather obvious.  From day one, VE has supported goofs, foul-ups, mistakes and barfs.  Bgwhite (talk) 21:45, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't know if they deployed it, but empty titles are still created like here (without nowiki tag). --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 16:48, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * still nowiki in titles..., and frwiki is running 1.25wmf23, the version identified as fixing the problem in all bug reports... --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 15:54, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

False positive for #60 ?
Hi, I don't understand why fr:Liste des commandes et des livraisons de l'Airbus A380 keeps getting reported again and again. It seems that the following part is reported:

But in the notice, you have : note the comma after tag:ref instead of the actual pipe.

There is a similar construct before (Emirates) but it's not reported. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 11:36, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

A few questions, and silly requests
Hi from it.wiki; a few random things: Sorry if I'm wasting your time, and thanks for maintaining this wonderful project! --Vittorioo (talk) 23:08, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) Request: in the web interface the "more" link should be sortable, displaying how many errors are there ("1 more", "2 more" and so on); or at least don't display "more" if there isn't any other error; I'd love this so much :D
 * 2) Question: I'm testing two whitelists on it.wiki; I'm supposed to wait the new dump to see those articles removed from the web interface?
 * 3) Request: it should be possible to whitelist a single ISBN instead of articles; in it.wiki we have a parameter |ignoraisbn= inside the citation templates (doc here, it's part of the LUA module); article it:Jordan 195 has a wrong ISBN and it's not on our error lists; but I don't know the details about this: is this "ignore" parameter working on every wiki due to the Lua module? Can we always use this instead of whitelists?
 * 4) Gadget proposal: when logged in Wikipedia, on Special:Watchlist there should be something like "Show errors in my whatchlisted articles", redirecting to our interface with a list of errors found; it should work like clicking on "more" for every article. I can do it already using the url, one article at a time. Similar gadgets can be done for a category, etc.
 * 5) Error 39, en.wiki translation page: " Due to a Wikimedia bug  ": is there a missing url?
 * 6) Minor bug: in the interface, after clicking on "more", the "list" link is broken.
 * 7) Suggestion: in the translation, it'd be better to use &amp;nbsp; for spaces inside the examples proposed, at least where spaces are the problem.


 * There are no silly requests, but I may give silly answers. :)
 * Good question. I'll look into it.
 * The whitelist is updated at 0z everyday. Unfortunately, itwiki is only updated twice a month.  From what you've already done, it looks good.  I'll check it (my) tomorrow to see if the whitelists work just fine.
 * It's not possible. enwiki has a similar parameter to ignoraisbn.  Checkwiki is not checking ISBNs inside any cite template.  The Lua module already checks for bad ISBNs.  On enwiki, the errors are located at Category:Pages with ISBN errors.  Checkwiki is only checking ISBNs that are not inside a cite type template.
 * I haven't a clue when it comes to Gadgets. Gadgets are written in Javascript, a language I've never dealt with.
 * I've removed the tag.  There was another Mediawiki bug that prevented newlines from being used in  and several quote templates, thus  had to be used there.  Those were fixed and the   tag was related to that.
 * Will fix.
 * Could you give me an example?
 * You are not wasting my time. Any suggestions or questions are always welcome.  Bgwhite (talk) 23:49, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
 * 7) For example on error 22, the Category : ABC and the like; but it's just me splitting windows; I've put no break spaces everywere :D Thanks again, will report on it.wiki --Vittorioo (talk) 00:05, 24 April 2015 (UTC)


 * 6) Fixed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:35, 8 May 2015 (UTC)


 * 7) I've added a few myself ; regarding 1) and 4): I've found a way to use WPCleaner to find articles with multiple errors or to scan my whatchlisted articles, it's quite the same of what I've asked, so don't waste time on them. Even that bug in 6), it's really not essential, just archive all of this. Thanks. --Vittorioo (talk) 12:43, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Error 82 confusion and new error 104
Hi from it.wiki again. I've problems with error 82 "Link to other wikiproject"; it's active in es.wiki too.
 * A) Please exclude the "Wikipedia:" namespace from being detected by the script when it's checking a xx.wiki.
 * B) Redirects to en.wiki articles written like  or   etc.:
 * from xx.wiki point of view they belong to error #68 "Link to other language";
 * from en.wiki point of view they are internal links badly written, together with  and the like: I propose to transfer them to a new error #104;
 * C) There are redirects to en.wiki articles using Meta or Mediawiki mixed syntax like  or   or   etc., and the script is not handling them correctly:
 * from xx.wiki point of view they belong to error #68 "Link to other language";
 * from en.wiki point of view they belong to the error #104 I've proposed in point B above;
 * they belong to error #82 only when the script is checking Commons or other sister projects.

A more simple fix to the script would be renaming error 82 to something like "Links with mixed MediaWiki syntax" and heavily expand its description. But in this case you have to be sure that all the above cases and variants are checked. Sorry for the headache and thanks again. --Vittorioo (talk) 20:02, 1 May 2015 (UTC) Edit: added "at least" in point C) + some minor fixes --Vittorioo (talk) 10:07, 2 May 2015 (UTC) PS: I've rewritten and simplified my proposal. --Vittorioo (talk) 20:49, 26 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Sorry for ignoring you. I've been sick this past week.  When I do edit, I'm trying just to keep up with fixing enwiki checkwiki errors.  I'll get back to answering you next week.  I've got an in-law gathering this weekend... so I'll probably be really nauseated for awhile. Bgwhite (talk) 21:44, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Last month, I did the 2nd fewest edits in over four years and March was the 3rd fewest. Besides being sick the past two months, I wonder what else happened..... Bgwhite (talk) 00:01, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Real life first of course! We have hundreds of years ahead to fix wiki. :D Take care. --Vittorioo (talk) 10:07, 2 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Pull request with a partial fix, basically an update for the list of projects: we are missing "species" because it's written "speciesi" in the script; also missing "voy" and many others. This is the list I've proposed when the script is checking a xx.wiki (that is, not Commons or other projects):                                     . There are more, but those are less used: see Help:Interwikimedia links. I've also proposed to add zh and bn language codes instead of fl (which doesn't exist) and gv (too small wiki). --Vittorioo (talk) 20:49, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

I've updated the program with your changes. Bgwhite (talk) 18:01, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Slightly better. I've read your commit and you are still listing "fl" language code: as I said, it doesn't exist; also still listing "meta-wiki:" and labs:: they don't exist; re-read the list above please for the updated interwikimedia links: still missing for Commons and  for Wikidata, etc. Also, is it really impossible to consider "Wikipedia:" a namespace, removing it from the list of projects? As I said in the pull request, error #82 is not active in our sister projects, so it's quite safe to remove "Wikipedia:" for now. I'd leave "w:" for a future fix, since that one is more complex to handle. I really appreciate your work, keep going. --Vittorioo (talk) 19:21, 27 May 2015 (UTC) Edited for grammar. --Vittorioo (talk) 12:43, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * With the last week commit it looks much better now. Thank you! --Vittorioo (talk) 10:03, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Error 4 false positive
Error 4 (HTML-tag <a>): matches ; it's wrong. Fix: add  to regexp 92.242.90.153 (talk) 23:17, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Invalid color tracking
might not be feasible, but may be interesting to (1) parse an article, (2) grab any css style statements, (3) parse the background/foreground colors and compute the contrast ratio, (5) flag articles with really bad ratios. for the parsing part of the style statement, we have code in module:color contrast. for related discussion see Template talk:Episode list. of course, it would be pointless if there is no one interested in fixing them, but an idea for helping those of us with (partial) colour blindness. Frietjes (talk) 16:16, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

False positives for error #103
Hi, I think that the script is not doing what user requested: "''it should not detect articles where"

- is used in the displayed text of the link.''

There are a few examples in cawiki: many train stations, like Estació de Bogatell or Llista de cançons del DJ Hero 2 (this one took several tries to fix error #32, and now it's back!).

I'm not sure if this would cover all the false positives, but I think that, if a | is already there, it should allow several | 's.

--Joutbis (talk) 09:35, 13 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, those are false positives. The DJ Hero 2 article contains M|A|R|R|S, which is also in several English articles too.  I've seen errors that also had | inside a wikilink.  I'd say add it to the whitelist for now and I'll take a look at.  I've been gone for the best part of 2 weeks, so I need to catch up on things first before diving into the code. Bgwhite (talk) 05:07, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Bgwhite I fixed M|A|R|S using pipe. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:08, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Good idea, thanks! --Joutbis (talk) 19:54, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Joutbis I created the template in Catalan Wikipedia! 10 -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:10, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Magioladitis, thanks! However, it doesn't work 100% of the time. It's OK for the M|A|R|R|S thing, and for train stations, but not in some (brain-damaged, granted) templates, which wrap square brackets around some of the parameters. See ca:Papa Bonifaci II, at the end.--Joutbis (talk) 16:27, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Joutbis Hm... I can't fight with that.. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:30, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Error n°54 false positive
Yuri (genre) is a false positive. The break is in a reference. Jerodlycett (talk) 13:36, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The mistake in Hilfsfrist. Is there any way else to avoid collecting these articles in WPSK than to separate the ref group entries? --Hadibe (talk) 10:47, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Proposed error detection
I noticed some file-delinker bots (or even users) removing an image name leaves an incorrect syntax like. Also, in image galleries I noticed that image title was removed, but caption remained (after pipe). It might be useful to detect these errors also. --XXN, 00:34, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
 * The example you provided looks like Double pipe in a link. Matěj Suchánek (talk) 14:34, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Only in this particular example. But it can also be like: |thumb]] or [[File: or [[File:|some_size_px]] etc. --XXN, 13:33, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Category namespace
When the migration started, I asked about including some more namespaces. Detecting stuff like this [//cs.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kategorie:Etnick%C3%A9_skupiny_v_Libyi&diff=prev&oldid=13131636] would be awesome. Matěj Suchánek (talk) 11:02, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Wrong quotes
See this edit. Don't know how wide the problem is, but maybe it's worth including in Checkwiki? -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 09:58, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
 * For example, such wikisearch  gives 200+ results at enwiki. Regex of course could be improved, as there may be cases, when opening brackets are correct, but closing ones are not. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 11:20, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
 * And if I already started... Articles are using also style="text-align:centre;", which, of course, doesn't work. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 11:36, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

File URLs
For some reason people cite files from their own hard drive. At least 58 articles when searching for. Can we get these flagged? — Dispenser 21:42, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I can't remember when, maybe ~10-12 months ago, I did a scan for this problem and http:// in infoboxes.  If I remember right, there were different combinations of the problem.  I look into it. I need to see what the other language Wikipedia's are like. For example, do they use file or another word.  Bgwhite (talk) 05:47, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Its standardized, see file URI scheme. — Dispenser 13:03, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

ISBN with invalid syntax missed by #69
Apparently, #69 doesn't catch the invalid syntax in Donald Strachey, like. Before fixing them, I tried checkarticle.cgi and nothing was detected. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 16:25, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Correct, Checkwiki doesn't detect these. The main reason is the use of isbn= inside cite and infobox templates.  Bgwhite (talk) 22:15, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Could it be modified so that they are reported when they are not inside a template ? --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 07:23, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

No title displayed
Today I noticed an error report which has no title displayed (it's in the first row, using search I found it should be Bisabolol in Czech Wikipedia). The timestamp there is also strange. Matěj Suchánek (talk) 12:15, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Matěj Suchánek, I've seen that on enwiki and fixed one issue that caused most of the problems. It was related to dump files.  I haven't been able to find the cause for the remaining problem.  Bgwhite (talk) 05:36, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm seeing this from time to time on frwiki, reported a few sections above. If you need, I can report when I see it. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 06:18, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
 * That would be good if you and Matěj could report them. It would help if the article was found via the dump or daily scan. Bgwhite (talk) 06:37, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Existing ones on frwiki: 67, 91. I don't know for how long they are there, those errors have never been completely cleaned for some time, and it 's only possible to remove the empty title when it's the only one left. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 05:25, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Bgwhite On frwiki, the problem is visible for #105 and it's probably very recent. I haven't done anything to remove it if it can help you understand where the problem comes from. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 17:13, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Also on #60 and #43 but I don't know for how long. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 17:16, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Can I remove the ones that can be removed, and then warn you if they appear again ? --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 17:01, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, you can remove them.  They are showing up in via dump processing.  What's weird is they don't show in the log file.  Bgwhite (talk) 22:17, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Ok, I've removed the ones I can. I will notify you when I see some more. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 07:23, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Bgwhite, I think there was a full scan yesterday on frwiki, I see empty titles for #26 (same notice as fr:Emphase (typographie)), #38 (same as #26), #45, #51 (similar than #45), #53 (similar than #45), #67 (maybe an old one). --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 11:45, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

False positive for #60 ?
Hi, fr:Aldébaran keeps being reported for #60 with the notice. The template VizieR does have a "V*" parameter, but it seems to be detected as an error. Same for fr:Wolf 1061. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 17:09, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
 * You are correct. Atleast on enwiki, one can't have a parameter with * in its name.  Probably true for dewiki as this was originally added by Stefan.  Bgwhite (talk) 22:39, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Error 104 unbalanced quotes with special characters and curly quotes
In regard of the display problem and the ref names rules, I've created a test page for error 104 (NicoV: WPCleaner wants to put the quote close to the slash in line 11). I've also searched for the opening and closing curly quotes, and some are mixed up with the regular ones. I think that Check Wiki should warn the user to search carefully every occurrence of a ref name found by error 104. If a ref name is "LuisBuñuel-59" the user needs to search at least "LuisBu" in order to find all of them. I hope it's clear enough. --CX42 (talk) 07:34, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I once looked through Anomie's list of fixes and collected something (that I understand) for Latvian Wikipedia scanning. Yes, some are bracket-unrelated, but most of them are (in section "Kļūdainās atsauces (# Other issues)"). -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 08:20, 10 January 2016 (UTC)