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Questions about WikiBrowser for Wikizine

Hi, I am meta:user:Walter from meta:Wikizine. Possibly this AutoWikiBrowser can be a subject for a item. I can not play around with this software because I do not have windows (and also no admin status on EN).

What I like to know is of this AutoWikiBrowser is software that only works for the English Wikipedia or does it also work for other languages / projects, non-wikimedia MediaWikis? --Walter 10:32, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

It has basic support for some other languages, and for the wiktionary, wikisource and commons, but it is primarily designed for en.wikipedia. Martin 12:53, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
You don't need to be an admin to be able to use the software. You have to register by placing your name on the Requests for registration page. Harryboyles 05:01, 5 July 2006 (UTC)


Specialpages

Just wanted to let you know that AWB won't make a list for Special:Longpages or Special:Shortpages. If you enter "Longpages" (with special selected) or "Shortpages" and click "List" nothing is listed, and if you type "Long pages" or "Short pages" it says "(404) not found". —Mets501 (talk) 23:25, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I also cannot get it to load "Special:Watchlist" which is pretty much the only thing I want to look at right now... — RevRagnarok Talk Contrib Reverts 00:27, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


It was recently brought to my attention by other editors that I was delinking multiple dates from articles. According to the manual of style, with only a few exceptions, all dates should be linked. This corresponds with date settings found in individual user preferences. AWB flags dates that have been used several times in an article as "Multiple Wiki Links". Although AWB does not automatically edit them, their flagging suggests that they should be removed.

I would propose including some sort of safeguard against dates appearing in the "Multiple Wiki Links" section (such as listing all of the days of the year within the application and then not allowing them to be linked.). --Alphachimp talk 04:29, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

"with only a few exceptions, all dates should be linked" - should read "with only a few exceptions, all dates which include a month and day should be linked". Rich Farmbrough 12:58 6 July 2006 (GMT).


Cleanup using AWB

I am writing here with an observation about the use of AWB. While it is an incredibly useful piece of software, it gets used too much for trivial things like "cleanup using AWB" when the user has no clue what exactly the tool is doing. Such a user just mindlessly sifts through hundreds if not thousands of articles in a short time unicodifying a thing here and shortening a link there while filling up people's watchlists (which obscures vandalism and wastes time).

I know that such a use has to be taken up with individual editors, but I am getting tired of that. I suggest a policy be created where AWB users consent to use this tool only for purpuseful edits, like link disambiguation, spellchecking, etc. Comments on that? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:28, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Policy might be overkill, but I'd certainly support either explicit guidance on a per-tool basis, or some reasonably-scoped and consensually developed overarching guideline (i.e., in contrast to Wikipedia:Semi-bots, where the methodology seems to be "write a proposal, revert all attempts to fix it or establish for what there's genuine consensus, periodically attempt to declare it a fait accompli"). It's not immediately clear to me where to draw the line between "trivial" and "purposeful", however: if an edit is useful, in however small a way, I don't see why it should be objectionable. If people are making edits that are truly pointless, like only changing extra spaces or the order of categories, they should be "had a word with", and if they persist, be "un-enabled" from using the tools. (And if they continue via other means, that then be taken to the appropriate venue for user conduct in general.) Alai 17:20, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
Good points. Small edits of course have a purpose. But I hate to wake up in the morning to see screenfuls of silly "cleanup using AWB" on my watchlist. Yes, a line is hard to draw, but one's got to use some common sense. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:34, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
I find insignificant edits annoying too, which is why only registered users are allowed to use it, and why the rules includes "Avoid making extremely minor edits", unfortunately a very small number of people still ignore this, but most are happy to oblige once given a friendly pointer in the right direction. Martin 17:54, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
To Oleg: Once the articles on your watchlist are cleaned, then they are cleaned. So what's your problem? Maybe you should shrink your watchlist anyway if you do have too much wikistress ;) --Ligulem 18:00, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
With due respect, that's a silly thing to say. It is much more important that people watch pages and that any vandalism/incorrect edits are checked rather than whether a link shows up like this [[theorem|theorems]] or [[theorem]]s. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:31, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
So, why don't you filter the AWB edits then? These are seldom vandalism. It is rather silly to expect that we stop editing articles with tools like AWB because there is vandalism. You need to adapt to the current editing capabilites, rather than good faith editors cut down on the use of new tools due to possible vandalism. It also can't be the sheer number of edits. We have thousands of vandalism edits every day. It is rather a problem of crossing WP:OWNed gardens. If you can't cope with legit edits, then you need to adapt your counter vandalism tools. There are enough counter vandalism wikipedians that do not have any problems with the AWB edits. So leave it up to them instead of letting you stress with a huge watchlist. --Ligulem 22:02, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
I said it was silly to demand people to reduce the amount of items on their watchlist. And I do not experience stress watching over a big amount of pages. You seem to be misunderstanding something. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:07, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
As we're evidently airing pet peeves in a freeform manner, let me throw in "adding comments to threaded discussions out of thread order". On Oleg's latest example, it was my understanding that there was already a guideline that editing articles simply to avoiding redirects was pointless, I think it would certainly follow that doing so just to re-pipe would be yet moreso. (If people are doing so at the same time as other edits that are agreed to be beneficial, they would obviously be fair game.) I think this is going to get us nowhere while we continue to bandy back and forth abstractions like "trivial" vs. "legit": if you want to suggest a usage guideline that's going to be workable, it'll have to get down to specifics (such as the above). Alai 01:05, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that's true. If people simply edit by AWBing an arbitrary list of articles, and applying the default AWB actions on each, then a given article can be re-edited on the same basis if a) intervening manual edits make change which trigger "cleaning up" again, or b) the default actions of AWB change. Alai 18:50, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Plus AWB will cleanup articles that it doesn't actually change - and it shows up as an actual edit, which makes me mad. There is also no way to specify what kind of changes will trigger an actual edit. I this this is a technology issue and not a human one. --mboverload@ 01:37, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow: as I understand it, there's no way to make an edit without making a change to the wiki source. Are you saying that in some cases, the edits aren't visible in the rendered output? That's certainly possible, and as I said earlier, a poor idea. But please remember that AWB isn't a bot: by definition, any bad/meaningless edits "it" is performing are in fact are a human issue, since it's the human that has selected what classes of edits to perform, is (supposed to be!) looking at the proposed changes, and that presses the "my name is [name here], and I endorse this edit" button. Alai 01:52, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I have had quite a few. Next one that comes along I'll show to you. --mboverload@ 02:01, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

"Had" quite a few while you're editing? Then why are you making the edit? Alai 02:06, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
I assume it's fixing something small or I'll just do a "save" reflex action. --mboverload@ 02:35, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
To quote from the project page: "Rules of use Check every edit before you save it." Alai 02:59, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Heh. I've seen administrators make many whitespace edits in a row with AWB. It certainly is the responsibility of the user. Question is, how much does the user actually know about what is and is not an appropriate AWB edit? --Alphachimp talk 03:29, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
The mop'n'flamethrower is certainly no immunity badge against... well, against that sort of thing, let's just say (or much else, really). I'm sure I've made dodgy or careless edits with it myself (though it must be said I don't use it with the cleanup options turned on). It would be useful to make explicit what's too minor to be made as a separate edit; it would likewise be useful if AWB had an option for "make these changes if others are being made anyway, but not otherwise" (and that such was the default for a number of cases). But either way, people remain responsible for the edits they carry out, and if it's brought to their attention they are making bad or nuisance edits, they really ought to say "oops, my bad, will try to do better", not "the software made me do it". On the other hand, people really not to be criticised solely on account of their edits being made with AWB, made in large quantities, or made quickly, if there's some actual incremental merit in those edits (even if small). So in short, it's an appropriate AWB edit if it's an appropriate edit, full stop, but there should be some consideration made of the potential problems of large numbers of changes back having to be made if they prove controversial -- i.e., be that bit surer it's a good edit if doing it 500 times, rather than once. Alai 04:02, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
We could possibly improve on two sides. (1) We need better watchlist functions in MediaWiki for Oleg & Co, and (2) It would be possible to build more intelligence into tools like AWB to not do edits that are "too silly" (according to Oleg). To elaborate:
(1) An idea I have for a watchlist feature would be that it should be possible to hide edits from a certain editor. I mean a wikipedian should be able to configure his watchlist to say: "Hide edits of user XXX". Watchers could then pick a few edits of user XXX from their watchlist, check them, and if they feel XXX is doing fine (i.e. is not doing vandalism), temporarily hide those edits from the watchlist with a single click. This would certainly help Oleg. As I understand it, Oleg is annoyed if his whole watchlist X-mas tree is light up due to some "silly" serial edit. Where the attribute "silly" itself is a matter of debate, simplifying links certainly does not qualify as vandalism.
(2) We could build a feature into AWB that compares the text at various stages during the internal process of AWB doing an edit. If for example, a page edit would be caused by link simplification alone, AWB could refuse to do that edit (skip the page with or without a message to the user). Of course, this could be enabled/disabled in the general settings (with a default of enabled for newbie AWB users) and/or possibly whether the user has bot status or not.
Comments? --Ligulem 07:11, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
(2) is essentially what I was attempting to describe in my "make these changes if others are being made anyway, but not otherwise" suggestion, above. (I don't think it requires comparing successive versions of the page text, just setting a flag according to whether any "significant" changes were performed.) Alai 08:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
The flag might not be possible to implement. It depends on what is provided by the underlying functions. Another problem is for example to detect edits in the edit window. But these are just technical things. Simple brute force text compares would be easiest and safest to do. Current CPUs can handle this kind of compare on these short texts very quick, so I would not expect any noticeable delay. I'm possibly going to implement that on my MWB fork (which has limited "general fixes" capability anyway). Shouldn't be such a big deal. --Ligulem 09:41, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
While it would be a good feature, I would be a little concerned that it would encourage people to just click save without checking what they have done, which is really just never acceptable, apart from in bot mode when doing a specific task to specific articles that can be skipped easily when necessary. thanks Martin 08:32, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, If you provide a tool and then tell people not to use it in certain ways, then you are responsible to restrict the tools operation in reasonable manner, if it is technically feasible. If you require hard work by users to check diffs, then they can expect hard work by the tool providers too on this matter ;). Simply removing users from the checkpage afterwords is a bit unfair if they've just used the tool. And it's never vandalism anyway. --Ligulem 09:41, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
I fundamentally disagree that checking diffs is hard work; it is very very easy, plus I have already put in some work to make it ignore pages with only little changes. Remember this program was not designed to be automatic, it was designed to plug the gap between good old browsers and ultra fast fully automatic bots. I have only removed 3 people from th list ever, 1 was for repeatedly ignoring guidelines (i.e. date linking), and the other 2 were both warned multiple times not to make tiny edits, only to ignore this within minutes, it was hardly unfair on them. Martin 10:03, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Well. Did you ever remove an empty line? Everything is red on the following paragraph. I've skipped truckloads of otherwise good AWB edits only due to this fact (because I didn't want to upset the watchers). And hunting for changes on pages to make sure that there aren't only simplified links and the like is quite tedious. This is why I almost never had enabled the "apply general fixes" wonderbox. But sure, this is a matter of taste. And please don't assume I say that the removals from the checkpage weren't justifed. What I think is, AWB makes it a bit too easy to trap into this "don't do that" small edit problem. Also the default edit summary of "Cleanup" in the input box for the edit summary isn't such a big help either. Newies then think it would be good for Wikipedia to do this kind of edits to articles. After all it was built into that tool for something, wasn't it? So for example the link simplifier certainly improves an article. Removing those link uglinesses is ceratainly good, because Wikipedia newbies copy things from everywhere and every article should make a good example, not only the handfull "featured" ones. After all we are here to write a good Encyclopedia, not a handfull of featured pages. Nitpicking about too small edits seems to be a bit of a hobby of some walled gardeners on Wikipedia. In the end, there isn't any consensus on anything and one single wikipedian can scream: "evil bot edits!" and everything stays as it is. If then hundreds of wikipedians do the very same thing on thousands of pages manually, nobody cares. That's how this wiki seems to work. --Ligulem 11:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
The software is fine. Thank you Martin for the great amount of work. I don't think watchlists or AWB is a problem, and more features won't solve it. What is needed is for people to edit with a purpose. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:01, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
If I - as an example - am replacing parameters of a certain sort of template calls, then I iterate over a list of some What links here. I then do have some hits, where there is no change needed regarding the template thing ("My purpose" for editing), but for example the link simplifier has something to simplify. Now, what shall I do? I have already loaded that page (Bandwith is consumed). Now I see: Uups, a few links would be simplified. Shall I skip or not? Most of the time I skipped in the past. If I save such a change, I risk complaints of "too minor" edit. BTW I have just implemented what I proposed above on MWB: it won't link simplify in this case because there is no other change. --Ligulem 15:31, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
I've just committed an option that fixes this problem. Martin 16:31, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
From Wikipedia's viewpoint, the "bandwidth" aspect is very clear: saving a page is vastly more expensive than loading it, due to the structure of caching. So unless the cost you're thinking of is your own broadband limit, the "good resources after bad" argument really doesn't fly. Nor do I buy the "checking diffs is hard" argument. If you can't be bothered checking the miscellaneous cleanup edits, and your "purpose" is to do something else, then turn the misc. edits off. (That's generally what I do when I'm using AWB for stub-sorting.) I still feel Oleg's complaint is short on specifics, however: just what edits do you find objectionable, and just how many of them are being made? Alai 17:56, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
I find it objectionable to have to check a lot of tiny unhelpful edits. I have no problem with people using AWB to do minor edits, that can be done without AWB also. I have a problem with a user going through hundreds if not thousands of articles at a time with no purpose whatsoever than to do "cleanup" and with no idea what each edit is doing. If you sort stubs and do cleanup along the way, that is fine with me. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:15, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. You should have a purpose when using AWB. "General fixes" should only be used as an added bonus to your other action (such as me correcting typos). Just choosing 1000 random articles to go through has dubious value. --mboverload@ 00:39, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

(ri)Oleg: I still have no idea what you're classifying as an "unhelpful" edit. That's no more descriptively useful than "trivial". That it's labelled "cleanup", and that (you believe that) the user has "no idea what each edit is doing" does nothing to cut down the field. As I don't know what the edits you're objecting to are, my chances of assessing how prevalent they are, and how much of a "problem" they might be, are zero. To repeat, if you want to suggest a list of "edits you shouldn't do unless you're doing something else in the process" -- which I assume you'd be able to, if you encounter so many of them, and are so vexed by them -- that'd at least give us something concrete to talk about. Alai 01:48, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


Unhelpful edits are

  • removing underscores from things like [[function_(mathematics)|function]]
  • trimming links like [[function|functions]]
  • Unicodyfying, ∫ --> ∫.

Some helpful edits are

  • Removing too much spaces between sections
  • Sorting interwiki links
  • Boldifying.

But all these are trivial edits, whether helpful or unhelpful.

My whole point is that it does not make sense for a human being to loop through thousands of articles at a time with no other purpose than 'cleanup'.

Is it more clear now? :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:38, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. --mboverload@ 04:45, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
I'd concur on your first too "unhelpful" items, at least; those are far too minor to be poking the servers with, or indeed watchlists, and I'd support any reasonable steps to: make it clear people ought not to be making these in isolation, aid them in not making them in a careless or "the program told me to do it!" basis, and dope-slapping anyone that persists in making them beyond in quantities beyond all reason after being prevailed upon not to. The others seem less clear-cut (though I think the only one I've made or would consider making myself by hand would be bolding (or unbolding, or italicisation), and I don't think I've made any of them with AWB), and I'm further confused of this further notion of the distinction between trivial and unhelpful, vs trivial and helpful, but it should not be beyond the wit of man to come up with a consensus-based list of "edits not to make a habit of making". However, your "whole point" continues to be constructed on a faulty basis, I think: it's reasonable to try and define what's a good edit, and what's a bad or essentially pointless edit, but not to try to stipulate what patterns of otherwise-good edits people "ought" to be performing. I'd certainly like to think people had a "purpose" of some systematic or otherwise carefully-considered in making their edits, but I'd hate to try and write and enforce that in policy terms. ("Alai blocked DitzyUser (editing in a looping and loopy way)" "User seemed to lack a purpose that was to my satisfaction.") Alai 05:47, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Considering that AWB will stop by you just sending them a message I think that's all you need. --mboverload@ 07:12, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
In reply to Oleg's list what he deems unhelpful: I completely disagree. Especially attributing "trimming links like [[function|functions]]" as "unhelpful". But let's not stress the servers by elaborating on this ;). I'm sure we find something more helpful to do for Wikipedia than nitpicking about some AWB edits, do we? --Ligulem 08:22, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Listen Alai, you are splitting the hair here. Here's my point again:

I strongly object to a user editing thousands of articles at a time with a 'cleanup using AWB' subject line with the edit itself just being a run of the article through AWB with no clear idea of what the AWB does in each article.

I believe you understand what I wrote. Please formulate a policy in any way you wish. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:27, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Another reason for using AWB standard functions

If an article is "clean" from the AWB POV, then if it's also clean from any task-specific POV, AWB will sail past it, saving valuable editor time. We have some idea how often articles are edited by AWB, but not how often they are manually skipped. (Disclaimer: this is not to encourage "trivial" edits, just part of the discussion of where and how the community should set the bar.) Rich Farmbrough 13:18 6 July 2006 (GMT).

AWB automatically load settings on start up

Is it possible to have AWB to load settings on start up. As it would be useful as im sure many people have certain things set, and if they didnt have to manually set these, or load settings manually, it would be useful. Even if it was a messagebox that asked on start up - 'Do you want to load your custom settings' with a yes and no box. Cheers Reedy Boy 08:58, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I suppose the easiest thing to do would be to see if there is a default settings file (e.g. default.xml) in the same folder as the executable, and load it if it exists. Martin 10:06, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
If you could, it'd be appreciated. Will stick it on SF for some more activity. Reedy Boy 10:57, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
ok, I'll probably change it soon, and release a new version early next week. Martin 11:22, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Nice one. Thanks Reedy Boy 12:24, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Noticed this has been listed for 3.0.0.7. Thanks! Reedy Boy 11:06, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Apparent bug

I have "skip articles with no changes" selected. When I load a fully-protected page, such as Mao: The Unknown Story or J. Phillippe Rushton, AWB "freezes," with "Loading article..." at the bottom. --zenohockey 03:44, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I can't reproduce a problem, this kind of thing can happen when the servers are stalled. Martin 10:47, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
This is interesting, I have the same problem with a version that Jude adapted for use on Wikia. It doesn't matter whether "skip" is selected, or if the page is protected. Of course, it works just fine for Jude ;) -- sannse (talk) 16:41, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Talk page newsletter delivery problems?

I use AWB for various things but I am not a heavy user. Mostly I use it to deliver the WP:Beatles newsletter each month (here's the current copy Wikipedia:WikiProject_The_Beatles/Outreach/Newsletter/Issue_003) by feeding AWB a list of user talk page names in a text file. Worked a treat last month.

Downloaded the latest copy, 3.0.0.6 and set it up as I always did, loaded the list of talk pages, turned off everything on the set options, checked append message on mor eoptions and pasted my payload into the text box (the entire text of the newsletter, rather large, although I guess I could do a subst?) and when I ran it I got weird errors. My own userpage is the first dropoff as a test and I got a popup that I have a new message on my talk page did I want to view it first. selected IE (not my default browser) and it shows me my page but does not let me carry on. So I removed myself from the list adn started again, and it gave me an error saying you can only append to talk pages. But of course that's all my list is. So what am I doing wrong? ++Lar: t/c 04:45, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

The first problem is because User:Sean Black/MoreHappiness which is transcluded on your talk page contains the class="usermessage" so is interpreted as a user message, I'll sort this out. Martin 10:25, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
OK, I took myself out of the list of names to try to work around it. I'm still getting the "Messages should only be appended on talk pages" popup for the next user talk page. Tab2: everything is unchecked, More options: set to "append message" with radio button "append" checked and payload:
== [[WP:Beatles|WikiProject The Beatles]] Newsletter, [[Wikipedia:WikiProject The Beatles/Outreach/Newsletter/Issue 003|Issue 3]], July 2006 == {{subst:Wikipedia:WikiProject_The_Beatles/Outreach/Newsletter/Issue_003}}
tab 3 the summary is set to:
Delivery of [[WP:Beatles]] newsletter [[Wikipedia:WikiProject The Beatles/Outreach/Newsletter/Issue 003]]
... probably unrelated but I'm noticing a scrolling anomaly with the preview/displayu window, the scrolling seems to require that you drag into the bottom controls area to see the whole window. This is IE 6.0.2900.2180.... thanks for any hints! I would hate to deliver this by hand! (although I probably could do this within a javascript in my monobook if I had to...) ++Lar: t/c 14:39, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

...

Hhhmm, it works for me, have you tried it on a few other talk pages? I suspect the ones you are delivering to must have class="usermessage" somewhere on them, if this is the case it will be fixed for the next release. Martin 16:36, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
I'll try some random use talk page I guess but I'm not getting the browser popup with mine removed. JUST the warning that I can't append unless I'm on a talk page, which I am. ++Lar: t/c 16:59, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Are these just normal user talk pages you are trying to edit? Martin 19:22, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, as far as I know. This worked fine last month. I have a list of user talk pages in [[User_talk:Lar]] format, one per line, that I maintain by hand in a text file, from Wikipedia:WikiProject_The_Beatles#Participants. I load it in and AWB brings up the page fine but then gives the message about not being able to append to non talk pages. I've tried several users and get the message for all of them. ++Lar: t/c 20:06, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I never got this to work and delivered this mont's newsletter using a js function I wrote, but would be happy to try to help debug this if you want, let me know what to test... ++Lar: t/c 00:39, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Sub Categories

Would it be possible when you search catagories with sub categories, that AWB will load lists from them aswell?

As it would be useful when doing large amounts of small categories with only a few articles in.

Would it possible to implement that into AWB? Or is there some way round it?

Thanks

Reedy Boy 12:43, 3 July 2006 (UTC)


I second that question, was about to ask it too :))) -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 00:09, 5 July 2006 (UTC)


Good To hear. I can't see it being any/much different to using the tecniques it uses to load links from the category pages, except it needs to go a level deeper. Reedy Boy 08:15, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Noticed this has been listed for 3.0.0.7. Thanks! Reedy Boy 11:06, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Mad at kelly

Someone got mad at Kelly Martin for this edit here. What exactly Is he talking about? --mboverload@ 23:29, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

The complaining editor is clearly confused, he starts off with "this bot completely disrupted the Content Notes section", then subtly changes his mind to "since it makes no difference in the appearance of the article". Martin 08:10, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
As the "complaining editor" referenced above, I am reproducing my comments below, and Kelly's comment where she seems to indicate that the use of unicode is obligatory. I would like to know if, even in cases such as that described where the use of unicode adversely affects the editing of an article (and thereby disrupts the content notes system being used in it), conversion to unicode is mandatory? And, if it is, could someone please give me the link to the wikipedia page where this policy is promulgated so that I can read it? I also have another question concerning the edits Kelly made using AWB on the article in question. After she made the edits, the "comparison" page of History of this article no longer displays the way it used to; specifically, it now occupies much more space than it ever had before and requires the use of the horizontal slider bars to view it, or opening the window to "max" on my 21-inch display. When I reverted her AWB edits, this problem immediately disappeared and everything was normal again. Then she restored her AWB edits and the problem re-appeared. Does anybody know why this would be happening? Is there some way I can fix it without reverting to a prior version because if I do that she will no doubt re-revert it. Thank you. -- Polaris999 12:13, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Here is a bit of background: Many months ago, when the editors who were working on the Che Guevara article decided to adopt the m:Cite/Cite.php system for notes, we were confronted with a major problem because the article had some notes which contained a considerable amount of text. We originally converted and kept these lengthy notes in the <ref></ref> format, but immediately two serious problems arose. First, having these lengthy notes in the text of the article made it confusing for many editors when they tried to edit the article; second, as a result of their confusion, the notes were continually getting truncated and otherwise mutilated which rendered all of the notes in the article inoperational each time it occurred (which was constantly). After discussing the matter with User:Jmabel, I developed a method that would permit the use of a separate set of notes which we decided to call "Content Notes" (as opposed to the "Source Notes" which we could keep in m:Cite/Cite.php format) and, in order to do this I used the symbol › ( &rsaquo;) to designate a content note within the text of the article itself. Using this system, we are able to maintain the "Content Notes" and "Source Notes" independently and ever since we implemented this change we have not had any problems with notes becoming disrupted during edits. This system of footnotes had been in use for several weeks before the article was nominated for FA status, and during the nomination process was commented upon favorably.
You mention that you removed "a number of inexplicable uses of ” "; however, I am not aware of any usage of &rdquo; anywhere in the article and when I searched the last version before you used AWB on it, I could not find any occurrence of it. Perhaps you meant &rsaquo;? -- Polaris999 01:38, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
The only difference is the replacement of "a.k.a." with "also known as" in one location. It seems that Polaris999 is attempting to claim ownership of this article. Kelly Martin (talk) 01:12, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
In addition to the replacement of "a.k.a." with "also known as" which is not the issue, you also replaced 34 occurrences of &rsaquo; with its graphical representation which is the cause of the problem I am referring to. These 34 changes that you made can be seen at Comparison of versions 61895671 and 62046906. Many – probably most – editors won't know the code for the symbol "›" and this will be a problem if they are trying to enter a new content note. Why do you object to using the code &rsaquo; rather than the symbol since it makes no difference in the appearance of the article, and only serves to facilitate the editing of it? -- Polaris999 03:28, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
So you're complaining about the use of Unicode? That battle has been fought and lost, I suspect. In any case, your original claim and reason for the revert is proven false. Please try to avoid histrionics in the future. Kelly Martin (talk) 06:54, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know there is no official guide on when to use unicode, however it is far more popular, though of course there are times when it is not used, it's just a matter of judgment. As for the slider bar being needed to see the whole diff, this is unrelated and is normally a result of the diff trying to show a long URL, i.e. this edit contains the edit kelly made, and does not suffer the same problem. Martin 12:40, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Many thanks for explaining the reason for the appearance of the slider bar and also for the information about unicode. Would the proper procedure be to set up a poll on the Talk page of the CG article so that editors can come to a consensus as to which should be used in it? -- Polaris999 12:56, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
An actual poll probably isnt needed, I would just mention it there and see what the response is. Martin 12:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Will do as you say. Thanks again -- Polaris999 13:05, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Follow-up: Because we are creating the templates proposed below by User:Ligulem, I think I will see how wikipedians feel about using them; if they are in agreement, as I hope they will be, the problem created by insertion of the unicode symbols into the content note code will have been obviated. -- Polaris999 20:43, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
I have an idea for Polaris999: I've seen that you use a lot of template calls of the form {{ref_label|somename|›|none}}. It might help to create a special template, let's say "cnote" (short for content note or whatever name you love) that could be used like this: {{cnote|somename}}. That unicode symbol would then be contained inside the template without the need to repeat that on every call. I can help you with creating such a template, if you like (however, it's quite simple). Just tell me what you need. --Ligulem 13:18, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Creating a template is a great idea! I enjoy experimenting with templates so would like to have a go at it (later today, I hope) and then when I think I have something that works will ask you to check and improve it as necessary, if this sounds good to you. Thank you so much for this suggestion. -- Polaris999 14:24, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad we could all come to a productive conclusion. Sorry if my tone may have been a bit abrasive Polaris =D --mboverload@ 09:37, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Hello mboverload -- The fact is that I am extremely grateful to you for having brought the matter up on the AWB Talk page because people here understood the problem that the conversion of the HTML code to Unicode symbols had created and were able to suggest constructive solutions. The templates proposed by Ligulem are now operational ( {{cref}} and {{cnote}} ) and they are a vast improvement over the old method of using {{ref_label}} and {{note_label}} to create content notes. So it's definitely a case of "all's well that ends well"   ;-)   Cheers, Polaris999 19:47, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Option to skip if no changes found missing in 3.0.0.7

Has it been moved or renamed? Cause it aint there now...


Reedy Boy 19:10, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Its been moved to be with the other "skip" options, in the "set options" panel. Martin 19:25, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
Errm... wheres the set options panel? Reedy Boy 20:10, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
Its the main panel with the "general fixes" etc. options on it. Martin 20:41, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
Ah, Skip articles at the bottom. I gets ya! Thanks for all your work :D Reedy Boy 08:02, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Porting?

Is this code married to Windows/C#, or is there hope of porting it to Unix/X? Or is there something else already for that?--J Clear 00:15, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Its pretty much married to windows via the heavy reliance on the IE webbrowser control. Martin 13:53, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Other Wikis

Is there any way to get this software to operate with different Mediawiki projects? Ben Tibbetts 01:21, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

It already has basic functionality for wiktionary, wikisource, commons and other language wikis. Martin 13:53, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
Right, but I created my own wiki (see here) and would like to link to it as a resource for its members, as well as utilize it for my own purposes. It really is a fantastic program! Ben Tibbetts 18:51, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
I believe, if you want to do that, you need to take the source and recompile it for your usage. OR find someone to do it... Reedy Boy 09:56, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Sticking & Memory Usage

Hi, After editing around 300-400 articles to change a list into a category, AWB's memory usage was near 180Mb. Is this normal?

Also, any ideas why sometimes, after it has edited a page, it sticks on the loaded updated version, and ignore or stop/start has to be pressed?

Reedy Boy 13:10, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

The memory usage is because the the browser control doesnt seem to like releasing its memory, probably because it caches the pages it has viewed, I guess it's not really meant for loading hundreds of pages in a row. The other problem is probably a result of some large internal changes I have made recently, did it do that for you before the latest version? Martin 13:35, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
I never actually looked.... Maybe worth it Reedy Boy 20:35, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I have problems with it stopping. What's really annoying is that it says "Restarting in 5" in the statusbar. Ok, it's not that annoying, it's just that it has never restarted =D --mboverload@ 21:49, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Is that with the newest version? Martin 23:00, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
Every version ever =D. I don't mind, honestly. It provides a good break. --mboverload@ 23:46, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Interwiki sorting

AWB is moving "Bahasa Indonesia" further down the interwiki list (see [1]), because its code is "id". I'm getting tired of reverting everybody, so could you please fix this. --Maitch 09:40, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

It uses the order described on m:Interwiki sorting order, if this is wrong then it should be changed there as well, as the pywiki bots use this order. Martin 11:01, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

When I look at that page it says that the English Wikipedia follows m:Interwiki sorting order#By order of alphabet, based on local language and not m:Interwiki sorting order#By order of alphabet, based on local language (by first word). Apparently this should have been decided in the Language order poll, but you can't vote on the second option in the poll, so I would declare the poll invalid. Anyway, it is kind of frustrating having one bot saying that The Simpsons can't be a FA before I alphabetize the interwiki links, and then have several AWB's changing it right back. --Maitch 11:22, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Note: I've just noticed that the poll actually has sort by the code as the winner. In that case the bots are wrong. --Maitch 11:27, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Initially I had AWB sort alphabetically, but (contrary to the poll) it was not popular, so now it does it the same way as other bots, and virtually all articles are sorted in the way described on m:Interwiki sorting order, so I think we should stick to that. Martin 11:48, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

New feature request

It would be useful if there could be something along the lines of "Skip if article title contains:" - it would help avoid editing user-talk archives. Is this possible? Thanks, — FireFox 10:49, 09 July '06

It is quicker to filter the list before you start. Martin 10:53, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
Is there a quick way of removing all pages ending in /archive from a list of 100 to 1000 pages, because if there is, I've missed it :) — FireFox 14:37, 09 July '06

Links on Page

The new subcategories feature is great. I wish I had thought to ask about that myself, but I will definitely take advantage now. I was hoping that I could ask for a similar feature for the "Links on Page" command. This would be useful for creating a list of articles from a higher order list. It seems like I am always creating a list to then create another list with. Example: I could create a list of all Indianapolis 500 races, and then use that list to grab the names of all the drivers off of each of the subordinate pages. --Brian G 12:25, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I'll expand the existing options to do this in next release. thanks Martin 13:10, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
Wow, that was fast. I can't believe that you already implemented that. Thank you so much for taking my suggestion and making it happen. I have already used the new functionality and it works GREAT!!! You saved me significant time and made my tasks much easier. --Brian G 01:40, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Zipped Source

Hi, would it be possible for someone who has a full copy of the source for AWB, zip it up and put it somewhere for me?

As im starting to design my HCI for my computing project, and i wanted to have a look how some of the features are setup (such as the full screen maximising)

Cheers


Reedy Boy 13:47, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I would appreciate it if the sources were not posted, as it would encourage do-it-yourself AWB projects, which will only cause trouble. As for simple things ke full screen maximising, those properties are inherited from the windows form, and set at design time, so they the AWB source wouldnt be much help anyway. Martin 14:20, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

use and abuse of this resource?

I keep seeing users of this program doing two things that concern me:

  • Users are using this resource to correct common spelling and grammar errors -- without reading the context to see if they are correcting quoted material. I believe that spelling and grammar errors in quoted material should not be corrected. One of these editors told me that, if I want to protect errors in quoted material from being corrected it is my responsibility to put "(sic)" after each error.
  • Users are using this resource to remove multiple wikilinks, even if those wikilinks are between <ref></ref> pairs. Maybe I am mistaken, but I see this too as a mistake. I have been told that if I want users of this program to avoid continuing to correct wikilinks within references I would need to speak to the resource's author.

So, am I concerned about what is really the proper use, or an abuse? -- Geo Swan 01:21, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

What kind of quotes? Can you provide an example, I am interested in your concerns. --mboverload@ 02:32, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Yeah. I'd also be very interested to see some examples of what you are talking about. I think I've seen some of this before. Alphachimp talk 02:39, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
I have been working on articles about the detainees in Guantanamo.
The Associated Press made the unclassified portions of the Combatant Status Review Tribunal dossiers of 58 detainees available on their web-site for download. And I started creating articles about these guys. The .pdf files are in the non-machine readable format. So I had to manually transcribe the allegations.
Up until March 3 2006 the DoD tried to keep secret the identity of the Guantanamo detainees. However, they were under a court order to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request to supply that information to the Associated Press, and on March 3rd the DoD had exhausted all its appeals and had to comply.
The DoD missed its 6pm deadline by about half an hour. And its initial attempt to comply didn't actually contain the information they were supposed to supply. Rather than release a list of names they released approximately five dozen .pdf files containing approximately 5,000 pages of transcripts from Combatant Status Review Tribunals and Administrative Review Board hearings. More than 90% of the transcripts didn't contain the detainee's names. But they did contain the detainee's Guantanamo detainee number. Over the next six weeks or so the DoD released revised versions of some of those .pdf file, they released a further 15 .pdf files containing more ARB hearing transcripts. And on April 20 2006 and May 15 2006 the DoD finally released official lists of the detainees names. Those lists also contained the detainee's Guantanamo detainee number.
This made it possible to find the transcript of any particular detainee, provided you were prepared to spend several hours scanning through all 6,000 pages of transcripts.
I scanned through all 6,000 pages of transcripts, and recorded each new detainee ID number I came across, together with the page number that transcript started on, and the file within which I found the transcript. Then I manually transcribed the first list of detainees the DoD released. As I said, all the .pdf they released are in the format where the text is stored as an image -- not in a machine readable format.
I then wrote some python programs that correlated the list of names and ID numbers, with the locations of the transcripts -- by the detainee ID numbers stamped on the transcripts. This was a reasonably large amount of work.
I created some articles about the new guys. When I realized how similar the article were I created another python program to generate the beginnings of the articles. It created several hundred files on my computer, which all looked similar, but all differed in the names, nationalities, detainee ID numbers, and a reference link that specified the file, and the page number, within which to find the detainee's transcripts. This too was a reasonably large amount of work. And, if the wikipedia has a mechanism to upload a batch of articles, I am not aware of it. So I had to create each article, one at a time, and paste in the beginning article. This took me a surprisingly long amount of time.
When I wrote the python program to generate the starting place for the article I made the decision to have the references state the name of the detainee. And I made the decision to make the detainee's name be a wikilink. A wikilink to an article's own name doesn't confuse the wikipedia. It gets rendered in bold.
The reason why I made this decision is that, as I have fleshed out the articles on the detainees, transcribing the unclassified allegations against them, and their testimony in reply to those allegations, I have had many occasions when I have had to reference the same links I put in the article, in another articles.
  • Some detainees testify on behalf of other detainees. So I add a couple of paragraphs to the witness's article with a link to the transcript of the detainee they testified on behalf of. I found this easier to do if the reference in the original article already contained a wikilink to the individual.
  • When I add the allegations against a detainee I come across things that detainee had in common with other detainees. For instance, I have been able to considerably add to the list of people believed to have attended the Khalden training camp, and a dozen other training camps. I was able to create an article about the Casio F91W. A dozen of the Guantanamo detainees are know to have detained, in part, because when they were captured they were wearing a Casio watch. As Dave Barry says, "No. I am not making this up."
I anticipate that when this set of articles is more or less completely fleshed out the articles will be highly interlinked. And this will be a lot easier to do if I can find a way to make those well-meaning users of the AWB program refrain from correcting those wikilinks.
Some of those well-meaning users of the AWB program also removed wikilinks to Combatant Status Review Tribunal and Administrative Review Board. I don't know why they do this. I think it may have to do with the new {cite news} tag that is being used for references. Older references put the name of the publication in a wikilink. But the {cite news} references generally don't put the publication in a wikilink. I prefer the original convention.
Here are some of the examples you asked for: [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] [58] [59] [60] [61] [62] [63] [64] [65] [66] [67] [68] [69] [70] [71] [72] [73] [74] [75] [76] [77] [78] [79] [80] [81] [82] [83] [84] [85] [86] [87] [88] [89] [90] [91] [92] [93] [94] [95] [96] [97] [98] [99] [100] [101] [102] [103] [104] [105] [106] [107] [108] [109] [110] [111] [112] [113] [114] [115] [116] [117] [118] [119] [120] [121] [122] [123] [124] [125] [126] [127] [128] [129] [130] [131] [132] [133] [134] [135] [136] [137] [138] [139] [140] [141] [142] [143] [144]
As for the corrections of quoted material -- I wasn't aware of the {{sic}} tag. I didn't anticipate that people would be correcting spelling and grammar errors without reading enough of the context to be able to tell that they were correcting quoted material. Here are some examples [145] [146] [147]
I'll agree, in theory, that I am as apt to make a spelling error as the original authors. In practice however, I think I am less likely to have made the error than the original authors. The original authors are all American officers -- Majors, Lieutenant Colonels, Lieutenant Commanders and Commanders. And, frankly, I was shocked at the low level of literacy some of these officers demonstrate. I thought the service academies had very high academic standards. You wouldn't guess this from the spelling and grammar of these officers.
The allegations I have entered from the transcripts represents dozens of hours of work. Checking my typing, to verify I didn't add any errors, and putting a {{sic}} tag next to each one, would be as much work, or almost as much work, as typing it in in the first place. -- Geo Swan 08:47, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
Firstly, that is an impressive amount of work you have done, well done! In the first batch of examples, the removing of the extra bolding is correct (as explained at Wikipedia:Lead section), also, the edits fixed a load of syntax errors and sorted the stubs, so the edits were all pretty helpful. As for the second batch of 3 (typo fixing), of course you are correct that the quotes shouldn't be fixed, but to be fair it isnt even obvious that they are quotes as they aren't in quotation marks (though they are italicized). I think using the {{sic}} template (which I didnt know existed) will become very important for wikipedia, as even webbrowsers (such as the next Firefox) include spell checkers, so this problem of fixing typos in quotes may get worse if these typos are not marked as deliberate. thanks Martin 09:43, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
I've never seen anyone do either of these things, not that I am saying it didnt happen, just that it is certainly a rare thing. Martin 08:17, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Also, you probably should use the {{sic}} template, but putting the responsibility on you to add it is incorrect. --mboverload@ 18:44, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually, that seems like a 50-50 thing to me. Errors in typing in quotes are just as easy to make as in the rest of an article. If it's a quote of an error, the person entering should mark it. If someone is spelling checking a quote, they should look for an verifiable source before correcting. -- JLaTondre 19:02, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
You make a good point, I'll go with 50-50 --mboverload@ 22:31, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Help installing

I have not used AWB since Feb of this year and wanted to upgrade so I coudl start using it again. Only when I get the packages off sourceforge there is not exe only a dll and no instructions. Did I miss something? Dalf | Talk 06:26, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

There is definately an executable in there, in fact there are 2, one for AWB and one for IRCMonitor, if you can't see them then maybe your zip program isnt working. Martin 08:17, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Strange, I will download them again tonight and try with a diffrent zip application. Dalf | Talk 18:17, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Skip By Title

Is there a way to tell it to skip articles by title regexs? I'd really like to just skip 'Talk' and 'Wikipedia' pages... Or maybe just a page that limits it to the 'main' space of WP... — RevRagnarok Talk Contrib Reverts 00:53, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

List > Filter out non main space
Have fun =D --mboverload@ 00:56, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
The newest version has an option in the context menu called "Special filter" where you can filter in/out whatever you like. thanks Martin 07:55, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanx. Must be blind. — RevRagnarok Talk Contrib Reverts 11:17, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Portal bug

AWB does not seem to recognize Portal pages when making lists from a category or what-links-here. Making a list from Category:Celebrity birthdays gives no results. Making a list from what links to Portal:Music/DateOfBirth/Template gives only four results, and ignores the Portal pages. Λυδαcιτγ 14:04, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

The next version has different internal workings, and will pick up port pages. Martin 18:17, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

What is this user talking about

I'm going to be on vacation, could someone handle this for me? (Martin should also see it just in case)User_talk:Mboverload#this_edit --mboverload@ 17:11, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

He's right, the stub tag should be at the end, unfortunately that stub tag wasn't recognised as it is formatted differently to every other tub ever made. Martin 18:09, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
It's a redirect to a properly-named stub template: slap his wrist and fix the stupid thing  (I'm working on it, but I'm having that problem where AWB strips the comments off of Categories again—I thought we fixed that?). —Phil | Talk 07:38, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Nope, it's still borked. --mboverload@ 21:37, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Category pipe trick

Is there any way to add a category using AWB to an article about a person so that the category is piped with the person's last name then first name? For example, to add Category:English-language film directors to David Lean it would need [[:Category:English-language film directors|Lean, David]]. I am adding categories to many hundreds of articles about people, so this would save me a huge amount of time! -- Samuel Wantman 08:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I already have code to do something very similar, so I'll see how it can be adapted. Martin 09:04, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
In the "Add new category" option, I'll make it so if you enter "English-language film directors|%%key%%" it will add the category "[[Category:English-language film directors|Lean, David]]". Martin 10:05, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Could you do that for Replace Category too ?? Thanks 86.204.31.160 14:33, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
When you replace a category it uses whatever key was already there. I might expand it so there is an option to add the key to all categories that don't have a key though. Martin 14:46, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
I think so… like the "general fixes" 86.204.31.160 15:49, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Thank you so much! Let me know when it is ready. -- Samuel Wantman 06:46, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
It's in the newest version now! Martin 08:12, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Watchlist

I cannot get AWB to load up my watchlist. I tried 'Special Page:' 'Watchlist' and 'Links on page:' 'Special:Watchlist' (which gives me an error 'StartIndex cannot be less than zero. Parameter name: startIndex'.) I have my Watchlist set to 'expanded style' for VP. What I'd really like tho is to be able to load the page 'Watchlist/edit' which would probably be easier on both AWB for parsing and the WP servers. Am I doing something wrong? I made sure to update to the latest (3.0.0.9). — RevRagnarok Talk Contrib Reverts 11:25, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Not all the special pages work, however I already have code for use with another program to load up a watchlist, so I can implement that very easily. Martin 11:35, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Your request was just in time to make the newest release. thanks. Martin 12:04, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, I "snuck a peek" and saw you have it in the 3.0.1.0 release notes. ;) Does it pull up the 'edit' page like I mentioned to ensure it gets them all and not just the last n edits? — RevRagnarok Talk Contrib Reverts 12:13, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Sure does, you can download it now. Martin 14:46, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

On the french wikipedia, we order Interwiki links alphabeticaly with the language's codenames ; not with the language name (how you make on en:). Could you make an update for us ? Thank you 86.204.31.160 16:03, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

And please, update the "manual" (5.1 "Make list" not up-to-date). Thanks 86.204.31.160 16:17, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I've made alphabetical the default for all wikis except en. Martin 18:30, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
;) I want to give you some infos :
I thank you for optimizing your software for us ! 86.204.31.160 19:17, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
    • No, because 1) when it used to be like that a lot of people complained 2) other bots do it this way 3) virtually all existing articles already use this order. Martin 20:44, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Weird error

I got this error while attempting to get a "what transcludes here" of a template. Any idea of what might cause it? Thank you very much. -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 21:10, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Ok, thanks for letting me know, could you let me know what template it was, I know what the error is for, but would like to reproduce it exactly. thanks Martin 21:13, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
As the screenshot suggests, it occured for Template:WPMILHIST. It also occurs for Template:WikiProjectBattles too. Thanks, Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 21:16, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Oh yeah, silly me. Just when I think all bugs are dead... oh well, will be fixed in next release. thanks Martin 21:22, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
No problem and thanks again for that w00t tool! -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 21:35, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


AWB no likey Alt-Tab

OK, so I am populating my S&R regexs by hand, and whenever I alt-tab to look something up, I cannot alt-tab back. I get the main AWB screen, where I have to click the 'Normal' button 2x to get back to the dialog with the spreadsheet style. Thanx for the Watchlist feature - worked perfectly! — RevRagnarok Talk Contrib Reverts 01:57, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, I'll change this behaviour. thanks Martin 08:12, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Localized version

could we make localized versions of AWB ? I can translate the software in french !? 86.213.231.5 08:39, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

This is something that I do plan to do at some point, probably when it is feature complete and bug free. Martin 12:32, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Hello,
I'm running AWB on the french wikipedia for some basic text replacements and I don't know how to make the bot not to replace anything inside the specific caracters [ and ]. Is AWB able to skip this changes by modifying parameters ? Can I use a script to do that ? Will a future release bring that ?

I wish you can understand my english :-/

Thanks a lot for your response !

Liquid_2003 - Talk 20:48, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Salut LIQUID :D C'est kyle, je savais pas que t'utilisait aussi AWB ;o). Les IP en rouge, c'est moi :D Kyle_the_hacker aka 86.204.30.37 21:08, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I forgot : And a similar option for images ([[image:xxx]]) ? Liquid_2003 - Talk 21:15, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Can we have that for Advanced Find & Replace too ??? thx Kyle_the_hacker aka 86.213.167.114 21:12, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
"inside {{..}}" can already be specified on Replace Special (example). Thinking further, I can imagine to invert that, which would give a "not inside {{..}}" rule. This could then be extended to "inside [[..]]", "inside [..]" and their negations. So I might do that on the MWB code line (takes some time, no promises), and – if it works – will update that on AWB (unless Martin has a better idea). --Ligulem 23:26, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Incorporate into Firefox

I think AWB would be much more popular if it could be incorporated into Firefox as a plug-in. Comments?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:39, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure that I really see the point. If you run it within Firefox, you would have to dedicate a whole window to it. What's wrong with just using the AWB standard program.Alphachimp talk 05:27, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't see the point, either. Could you please explain? --mboverload@ 05:30, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
Because whatver AWB does, I am pretty happy with editing Wiki in my Mozilla and most certainly I don't want to use anything that does not have tabbed browsking. So as long as AWB is a stand alone browser, it will be used by a tiny minority, but if you transform it into a firefox plug in, then its usability will skyrocket.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 20:09, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
Well, personally I disagree. What is nice is precisely to have AWB in IE while everything else is in Firefox. It also allows two different accounts without too much trouble (e.g. your normal user account and your bot). -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 20:12, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
Um...AWB doesn't use tabs or have a use for them. How would the usability "skyrocket"? How would it change anything than making a bloated Firefox install even more bloated? --mboverload@ 00:20, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
Also, wouldn't you have to rewrite the bot code? Almost everyone has internet explorer and many of us use firefox as our browser. The idea just doesnt make sense. Alphachimp talk 00:41, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, the code would have to be rewritten from scratch to turn it into XUL to be used in Firefox. Piotr seems to be confused about what he is suggesting here. --mboverload@ 00:47, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
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