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Before you post

Frequently asked questions

• When I start it up I get one of the following errors:
  • "The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135). Click on OK to terminate the application.", or
  • "To run this application, you must first install one of the following versions of the .NET Framework..."

  This error means your computer does not have the .NET framework version 2 installed properly. You can choose from various versions for download here, or you can run Microsoft Update and select version 2 of the .Net framework from the "Optional Updates" section, if you want the choice made for you.

• When I try to update to the new version 4.0, the updater freezes halfway through.

  There is a bug in the version 3.9 updater. If you encounter this problem, uninstall AWB, and then re-install the latest version from Sourceforge.

• Does AWB run on Linux or Mac?

  Not yet.

  • A Wine bug on AWB has been filed
  • AWB does not yet start in Wine with Mono 1.9 or native Microsoft .NET 2.0. (Wine 0.9.59, AWB 4.3.1.0.)
  • Please note that problems with AWB on Wine/Mono or Wine/.NET are not reportable AWB bugs.

  A native version, PyAutoWikiBrowser (screenshots here), based on Python, is being developed for Unix-like systems.

• Does AWB work on other projects/languages?

  Many WikiMedia projects and languages are supported, see the "User and project preferences" option in the general menu. Other languages will be added on request, though at the moment the interface is always in English. You are also able to use AWB with third-party wikis, if you go to the General menu and select "User and project preferences", you can change the wiki there. The wiki must support the Bot API required by AWB. This means that it should have latest HEAD version of MediaWiki or something close to that.

• What interwiki link order does AWB use?

  The software reads the interwiki sort order from Misplaced Pages:AutoWikiBrowser/IW, which is generally mirrored to reflect the order at m:Interwiki sorting order.

• AWB puts stubs after categories, though categories are always rendered the last by MediaWiki?

  According to WP:STUB#Categorizing stubs, By convention this is placed at the end of the article, after the External links section, any navigation templates, and the category tags, so that the stub category will appear last. If your wiki uses other order, please let us know here.

• I don't like or use Internet Explorer; please use Firefox instead.

  AWB does not use Internet Explorer per se. It does, however, use the same web browser control (MSHTML) as Internet Explorer; the equivalent Firefox component does not provide the needed functionality.

• How do I open the page in another browser if I can't use the one in AWB?

  Right click on the edit box in the bottom right side of your screen. Select "Open page in browser"

• How do I edit a page that doesn't exist?

  Uncheck "Ignore non existing pages" in the "Skip articles" box.

• How do I skip certain articles?

  Use the "Skip if contains" and "Skip if doesn't contain" in the "(2) Set options" tab

• Can't you leave up a "stable" version, so I don't have to download new versions?

  It is important to keep people up to date with the latest versions, because their use of the software doesn't just affect them, but the whole of Misplaced Pages. As any bugs that remain will be trivial, hopefully releases won't be too frequent.

• How can I stop AWB clicking when it changes pages?

  This is a Windows sound theme setting. This page explains how to turn off the clicking sound.

  Alternatively, delete the following key from the Windows registry:

  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\Explorer\Navigating\.Current

• AWB randomly crashes upon page load on my system, and I always use a browser other than Internet Explorer when using Misplaced Pages.'

  You may have installed custom scripts incompatible with IE. Wrap the contents of your monobook.js into conditional:

               //Detect IE5.5+
               if (navigator.appVersion.indexOf("MSIE")==-1)
               {
                   // Previous contents go here
                   ....
               }

• I get Just In Time Debugger Messages when loading AWB/loading pages

  In Internet Explorer, go to Tools --> Options --> Advanced. Make sure 'Disable Script Debugging (Internet Explorer)' and 'Disable Script Debugging (Other)' Are both checked. Press apply and close.

Problems with other software

• Modified versions of monobook.js (e.g. to utilise popups, godmode-light etc.): AWB works, but page loading can be slow. Workaround is to disable Active Scripting in Internet Explorer - see AWB Tips and tricks for more information and workaround.
  • Bugs in monobook.js can cause AWB to crash or be unable to load pages. Use the same workaround, or refer to the answer in the FAQ above. If you've updated monobook.js and are experiencing problems, please verify the bug still occurs with a blank monobook.js before reporting it as an AWB bug.
• Misplaced Pages Skins other than monobook: AWB might not work with other skins due to the skins having bugs.
  • Known problem in Cologne Blue skin: see Bug 9806 and AWB bug report.
• NoScript (Firefox extension) or other XSS-related extensions: some features such as "Open text in browser" may not work correctly. Workaround for NoScript: Disable the "Sanitize cross-site suspicious requests" option.

Discussion

Mono Compatibility

See here for current issues affecting AWB working successfully on mono.

Thanks

—Reedy 17:01, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Using the tool for inconsequential/minor edits (date delinking)

Hey, I've removed the access to the tool of two users now for making excessive inconsequential edits (of this sort). In addition, looking at a recent BRFA, whether their task should be done at all seems to be rather debated, so I would class this as controversial use of the tool. Fyi :) Martinp23 12:25, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

They only seem to be doing what User:Lightbot is doing Gnevin (talk) 13:09, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

The approval for that task was also revoked. –xeno (talk) 13:11, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Colonies Chris is using AWB to make the same kinds of controversial edits as the users whose AWB access was removed. Tennis expert (talk) 22:52, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Could you point which edits exactly aren't needed? For example, here he changes things per MOS, and here he adds diacritics, which is also a good things. MaxSem 04:04, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm confused about why "Italy" was delinked in . --NE2 04:14, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

For example, Colonies Chris is deleting links to certain (but not all) countries, links to dates, and links to cities. These are the same kinds of deletions that other editors were doing before their AWB rights were revoked. Tennis expert (talk) 06:05, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

TennisExpert (who has not had the courtesy to tell me he was posting against me here) is not happy that I've been adding diacritics, despite the fact that I've been working within the consensus agreed within WikiProject Tennis (see my talk page for a discussion on the subject), and he's therefore trying to attack me via this page. All my edits are significant and in line with the MoS. Colonies Chris (talk) 08:55, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Why did you delink Italy, and why did you create an "easter egg" link to Salvador, Bahia? --NE2 09:16, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I delinked Italy in line with WP:CONTEXT#What generally should not be linked

"Items that would be familiar to most readers of the article, such as the names of major geographic features and locations, historical events, religions, languages, and common professions"

And I corrected Bahia because it links to the the state of Brazil by that name, but clearly what's meant in that context is the city formerly known as Bahia but now called Salvador, Bahia. Colonies Chris (talk) 09:56, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

OK - I understand the Bahia link, and it does appear that that was correct. But why did you leave Brazil linked? Isn't it a "major geographic location"? Where does the line get drawn? Should every country be delinked, or only European and English-speaking ones? --NE2 11:18, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I probably should have unlinked that too, though no doubt someone would have objected if I had. But this isn't the place to debate that kind of detail. Colonies Chris (talk) 11:31, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

You're (Colonies Chris) obviously too busy doing hundreds (thousands?) of inconsequential/minor edits with AWB to check-out the facts before posting here. If you had, you would have seen that I have not objected to the diacritics you have been adding. And I have not "attacked" you. Geez. Tennis expert (talk) 18:33, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

This is just the kind of abuse and misrepresentation that other editors of tennis articles have had to put up with for a long time. You have a record of edit warring over diacritics and links and of refusing to accept any changes that you personally don't like, even though they're in line with the Manual of Style, while claiming it's because there's "no consensus", even though no other editor will come forward support your view. You had not even the basic courtesy to tell me you were posting against me here. Were you hoping to get me blocked without my even knowing it was being discussed? I've made tens of thousands of edits and not one of them was inconsequential, with AWB or any other way. Colonies Chris (talk) 20:16, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I am interested in your use of AWB being treated in the same way that the use of AWB by other editors to make similar edits is treated. It's as simple as that. I regret that you're treating this as discourteous or an attack. Tennis expert (talk) 22:07, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I think the participants in this discussion should be aware that you have been reversing many of my delinkings of dates and common terms, in direct contravention of the manual of style. You are clearly determined to have things your own way regardless of consensus, and therefore your views should have no credibility in this forum. Colonies Chris (talk) 11:54, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Colonies Chris is doing good work by improving the signal to noise ratio of links. There seems to be a worrying trend here. People that don't like implementation of MOS guidance are misusing the phrase 'minor and inconsequential edits'. Something cannot simultaneously be:

• inconsequential
• controversial
• too important to build into 'general fixes'

You can pick any one but you can't have two. Lightmouse (talk) 10:29, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Let me say that Colonies Chris is a meticulous editor and bot-manager who has a fine track-record of fixing not just trivial links and dates, but typos, misspellings (particularly when it comes to non-English-language items) and the more subtle problems in links he encounters that would elude most editors. He is an important asset to the project and has been working away in the background for some years tightening up these aspects of articles. "Italy" should usually be delinked (see WP:CONTEXT).

I note that User:Tennis expert has had numerous squabbles with his WikiProject colleagues on the issue of diacritics and trivial linking, and has taken it upon himself to doggedly undo the good work of others and, on occasions, to confront them in uncompromising terms (ask User:The Rambling Man).

I do not understand the seemingly aggressive approach by some sysops to the use of AWBs to assist WP's editors at large in the massive task of bringing their articles into compliance with our style guides. I would be much more comfortable if the blockings we have witnessed recently were applied as a last resort after debate and clear communication, not as a first-resort expedient in the absence of any form of natural justice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tony1 (talk • contribs) 11:40, October 27, 2008 (UTC)

If Colonies Chris is doing a typo fix (including, I suppose, adding a diacritic if the consensus is that the absence is a spelling error)) on every edit then it's not a minor and inconsequential edit. Simply delinking is considered minor and inconsequential and (under the current policy) AWB should not be used for this task. –xeno (talk) 12:37, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I always unlink etc, in combination with other fixes, but I don't agree at all that this sort of unlinking is inconsequential - articles are improved for having a clutter of valueless links removed. The AWB rule against inconsequential edits quite clearly had in mind the sort of change that's merely obsessive neatness but doesn't bring any visible benefit to the article (alphabetising the categories, for example), and it's being misused to attack editors who are actively improving WP by bringing it into line with its own Manual of Style - the edits that got Lightmouse and Closedmouth into trouble are not inconsequential, they are beneficial.

And I'll also note that one editor has accused me of acting 'nefariously' by performing spelling corrections and date unlinking in a single edit (he felt I should have done them separately). But of course, if I had, I'd now be in danger of being hauled up before the AWB police - or is this just a one-man campaign by Martinp23?. Colonies Chris (talk) 13:05, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have said "Martinp23 and his sidekick xeno". It's your opinion that unlinking dates is 'minor and inconsequential', but it's not mine, nor that of many other editors, and it clearly is not what the AWB rule had in mind. And by the way, this page is WT:AWB. Colonies Chris (talk) 13:20, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I was confused as to where we were, and removed my comment. Anyhow, I'd appreciate if you'd AGF and cut out the petty name calling. Present consensus is that these edits are considered minor/inconsequential. –xeno (talk) 13:34, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Xeno I disagree. I don't see clear consensus of the triviality of these 'delinking' edits beyond the opinion of yourself and Martinp23. I think these edits are of consequence and value, in compliance to the style guides, so must be allowed to continue using AWB (or indeed any other way). To block users from making such edits would first require a significant change to WP:CONTEXT and WP:DATE. To have blocked users' access to AWB before this discussion was inappropriate, per Tony1's comment. Note, any concern over lack of consensus over date delinking is a MOS/WP:DATE issue, not an AWB one, and secondly AWB is not just a tool for fixing typos. Rjwilmsi 13:56, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

See also this recently denied BRFA: Misplaced Pages:Bots/Requests for approval/Cleanbot which has more discussion on this. –xeno (talk) 15:34, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

• (outdetn) Xeno, can you point to evidence of this "present consensus", please? On logical grounds, it's an intriguing mystery to me. Are you sure it's not just the opinion of you and your friend Martinp23? I'd like to see this assertion fully justified and evidenced, since it's a major claim. We need to be very careful at this point that justice is seen to be done. I note that administrators are bound by a clear policy that proscribes any admin action in which the admininstrator has a personal stake. This is related to the requirement to avoid a real or apparent conflict of interest. I'd like to be assured that this policy is being observed in any case in which AWB access or usage with respect to style-guide adherence is at issue. It's a critical point. Tony (talk) 13:59, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Sure, just look through the archives of this page or the numerous times that these types of edits have been discussed at AN/I (i.e. ). –xeno (talk) 14:10, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Lots of discussion, but no evidence of consensus that delinking is trivial. If you don't agree with implementing the MOS, just say so. Lightmouse (talk) 14:27, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Again, conflating the issue. Enable typo fix -> Skip if no typo fixed -> Check every edit. Or have a bot approved for this task. This is not about the MOS, this is about AWB. –xeno (talk) 14:31, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Is my eyesight that poor? I'm having a great deal of difficulty in locating exactly where this "consensus" is in the link that Xeno provided just above in support of his/her assertion that there is a "present consensus". Can you point out exactly where it is on that page (or elsewhere, if you mistakenly pasted in the wrong link), and I'd be grateful. In addition, please note the official policy concerning the requirement that administrators give "appropriate (as guided by Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines) warnings prior to their actions". It does not appear that appropriate communication occurred before the blocking of Lightmouse's access to the AWB facility, for example, if several people here are still flumoxed by the lack of logic in the assertion that some edits in question are "inconsequential" (or aren't—my head is spinning). The lack of communication and the fog surrounding the claimed "present consensus" suggests that actions are being justified on the hop, although I'm quite ready to be convinced otherwise. Tony (talk) 14:57, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Consensus has existed for quite some time that minor and inconsequential edits should not be the sole purpose of one's AWB edits. Your line of reasoning however, seems to center around the characterization of date delinking as a minor and inconsequential edit. While I see this as self-evident, perhaps you do not? A straw poll, then? –xeno (talk) 15:29, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

The whole purpose of AWB is to support small edits. The 'minor and inconsequential' edits rule was put there to avoid server burden for edits that are not noticeable like removing double spaces. It wasn't put there to permit one editor to stop another editor from carrying out good work. That is just abuse of power. Lightmouse (talk) 14:51, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

• Sorry, one more point: I'm most concerned to see that when placing Lightmouse on a list of "blacklisted unsernames", User:Martinp23 has used the term "ban" rather than "block", which carries a quite different meaning and appears to be inconsistent with the remainder of the edit summary ("ban lightmouse, for now"). I wonder whether this can be explained. Tony (talk) 15:04, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
  • While I don't want to speak for Martinp23, I believe the reason was because Lightmouse had his access removed, did not address the issue for the removal, and then quietly re-requested access without seeking approval from the person who removed his access (then continued to make the "minor/inconsequential" edits presently under discussion). Thus, I gather he was placed on the banlist to prevent this from re-occuring. –xeno (talk) 15:27, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Was this explained and discussed with LM or anyone else at the time? It seems like an arbitrary process in which such decisions could be wide open to abuse. The communication issue is just one. Tony (talk) 15:48, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

It is clear that a number of people here do not see any logic in this assertion. Indeed, my reading of what has been going on suggests that the charge has been trumped up on the basis of a pre-existing rule that was not created for anything like this purpose. It is important that this issue be resolved without delay—I'd have thought pure logic and a reading of the intent of the "inconsequential" rule would be enough to dispell such use of it; otherwise, it will be possible using this precedent at a whim to classify as "inconsequential" a large range of edits that spare editors the manual labour of complying with the style guides. It's clearly open to abuse. Tony (talk) 15:38, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

As suggested above perhaps the next step would be a straw poll to determine if this date delinking is something that is or is not covered under the minor/inconsequential edit umbrella. –xeno (talk) 15:50, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Inconsequential/minor edits (Date delinking) break 1

Yes, date unlinking is of consequence

1. date/common term delinking is of consequence, so is a valid use of AWB on its own. Rjwilmsi 21:10, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
2. NuclearWarfare _{My work} 00:45, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
3. Lightmouse (talk) 10:57, 28 October 2008 (UTC) Date delinking is a valid use of AWB.
4. Yes, date and common term delinking are consequential and beneficial uses of AWB. Colonies Chris (talk) 11:49, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
5. The delinking of dates, other chronological terms, and common terms that most English-speakers are likely to be familiar with is of great consequence, since it significantly improves the workings of our wikilink facility through reducing the dilution of high-value links. The task appears to be ideally suited to AWB application, and it is proper that editors be spared the manual labour of complying with such important requirements of the style guides. Tony (talk) 13:12, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
6. Looking at the examples given of "inconsequential" edits (removing whitespace etc. – all things that would be barely noticeable to readers of articles), delinking certainly doesn't seem to fall into that category.--Kotniski (talk) 14:58, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
7. Yes, the delinking of dates is a consequential and beneficial use of AWB. It helps to apply the style guidelines and improves the linking system. The delinking of common terms, however, should be a bit more selective; how can one draw the line of common country names past the globally known countries. I suggest a more organized approach to how we delink these sometimes-valuable-when-linked terms. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:33, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
8. Gosh, yes. It's a large and laborious task absolutely suited to AWB. Those prepared to do it should be commended, not upbraided. --Dweller (talk) 15:06, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

No, date unlinking is an inconsequential edit

1. If there is consensus for date unlinking it should only be done during other more necessary edits such as typo fixing. –xeno (talk) 12:27, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

   Per a discussion below, I would probably be agreeable to delinking via AWB if it also made the date formats in the article consistent, but absent inconsistencies or typos to be fixed I still don't think simply removing some square brackets is important enough for mass edits. –xeno (talk) 15:16, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

2. Date delinking should be done only with other, more substantial edits, whether using AWB or not. Don't clog up watchlists with edits that are trivial. --Fabrictramp | talk to me 14:58, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
3. There is no reason to use AWB for trivial matters such as the removal of date links alone. --Ckatz_spy 17:18, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
4. As per xeno. There appears to be a lack of consensus for this change anyways per talk at MOSNUM. —Locke Cole • t • c 12:46, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I am rather busy in real life and other volunteer commitments at the moment, so probably won't pay much attention to this in future. I must say that I am quite bemused by the fact that certain users are referring to myself and xeno as some sort of clique. Given that I've never contacted the guy off-wiki and have never really considered him/her as "sidekick", I feel that those claiming that we are somehow in collusion are doing us all a disservice.

Moving on from that, I am quite glad that there's a bit of a discussion here, though I must say that the namecalling on both sites is tiresome, and people should perhaps grow up.

Moving on again, I'd like to say for the umpteenth time that I have no opinion on the issue of delinking dates, in and of itself. Anyone seeking to claim that I am biased and trying to obstruct the progress of consensus is sadly mistaken. As I have stated on three talk pages now, I believe (this specifically said to Tony1, who seems to be under the impression that I'm removing access without informing people at all, despite that fact that he has argued with me across many a talk page), access has been removed for making minor/inconsequential edits only with the tool. Now changing a link does fall under this category - however, this isn't to say that the task cannot be done at all. As I have suggested to a couple of users, it may be possible to have the change added as a general fix to AWB. Failing that, those users who wish to use their own regexen within AWB shouldn't, and needn't, make thee changes alone. A suggestion might be to run typo fixes at the same time, and not make the edit if no typos are fixed. Those arguing so vociferously for using AWB to make such changes might like to look at the reasons that CleanBot was rejected, resolve those issues, and enter a new bot request if they can which, with community consensus, could run with a bot flag to fix all articles.

An idea might be for those who wish to change all existing articles to comply with the MOS by making this relatively minor change to actually develop a community consensus for such an action. What I'm saying is that there doesn't appear to have been much joined up thinking about how to make the changes. A decent discussion on one of the village pumps, linked to from the admin noticeboards and so on, could use the community's brainpower to come up with a doctrine for how to remove these links in an appropriate way (there are all sorts of potential "false positives" which could be weeded out this way), and of course this would be in keeping with the idea of developing a transparent consensus (as opposed to, say, a discussion on an MOS subpage which people have got bored with and are now ignoring (and this happens all the time - I'm not intending to show any disrespect to the MOS editors and their methods)). With a clear set of instructions developped by the community, a sensible bot, or better regexen or scripts, might be able to be coded.

Going ahead making these edits without a proper discussion and really widespread careful thought is likely to be a recipe for disaster. Martinp23 18:59, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

• I'm afraid that this "poll" above has turned to mush: people are confusing two issues—whether the removal of date autoformatting and trivial chronological links should be done by AWB, and whether they are "trivial/inconsequential" in the first place (see especially Ckatz, who has conflated both issues). Whether the actions in question are trivial is the only thing that matters in terms of this attempt to use pre-existing rules to subvert good work that some people here just . It's a farce. You have acted way beyond your admin functions, and I believe that you have breached more than one admin policy rule. Tony (talk) 01:43, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

• • I agree, but dude, civility please. Consider rewriting part of your post? NuclearWarfare _{My work} 02:03, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
  • No one is trying to subvert anything. Martin is enforcing a long-standing rule that AWB is not to be used for minor edits such as this. –xeno (talk) 02:11, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
    • And that is the biggest contention of this conversation. We must first decide (in that straw poll over there) if date unlinking is really an inconsequential edit. NuclearWarfare _{My work} 02:41, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

As long as we're considering whether date/common term unlinking is 'inconsequential', let's consider a few more questions:

Is removing excessive and valueless links in articles inconsequential?

Is adding diacritics inconsequential?

Is formatting journal, book and album names in italics inconsequential?

Is standardising capitalisation of section headings inconsequential?

Because it seems to me that the argument of those opposed to delinking is that any change to an article whch brings it into compliance with the Manual of Style but doesn't change its factual content is 'inconsequential' and shouldn't be carried out via AWB. This is so patently absurd that I can only think that either people haven't thought this through, or that just possibly that they're trying to obstruct the implementation of a part of the MoS they don't like by blatantly misusing a rule that was meant for quite another purpose. Colonies Chris (talk) 09:12, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

These are all good questions. May I add that if the opposers are ready to use this term "inconsequential" in what appears to be an entirely cynical way, they should be equally ready to delineate the boundary between what is consequential and what is not. Without this, the term is open to abuse, and presumably no one here thinks that the system should not be perfectly transparent. Tony (talk) 09:36, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. AWB is good for edits of detail across many articles and not good for copyediting. Normal editing is the opposite. Thus AWB has a bias towards small edits. Lets be clear, small edits are not inherently bad and AWB users should not be told that they can't do good work because each edit is too small. The rule against trivial edits is only there because of technical constraints such as server capacity and monitor lists (Watchlist, Recent Changes). It was presumably chosen as being better than giving each user a maximum number of edits, or a time period. We mustn't let the tail wag the dog, server capacity is there to permit editing and we should keep performance issues in proportion. Amongst other things, AWB is here to support edits that:

• (a) are visible in read mode
• (b) are something that people care about
• (c) move Misplaced Pages towards the MOS

If the rule stops AWB users from making small edits like those (by coercion or by self-censorship) then it is the rule that is wrong, not the edits and we need to think of another way of working within server capacity. Lightmouse (talk) 11:04, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

To User:Locke Cole: any disagreement about the appropriateness of date delinking means such edits can not be trivial by definition, so the issue isn't an AWB one, it's a MOS/WP:DATE one. Which way are you having it? Rjwilmsi 13:42, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

• Trivial in terms of the MOS and trivial in terms of the net effect of an edit are two different things... They should not be confused. Another issue, if these date unlinking edits are allowed to go forward, is the fact that when users blitz through these articles unlinking dates they often leave it in an inconsistent state with many different types of date formatting strewn throughout. (See User talk:Colonies Chris/Archive/2008/Oct#Dates). This should be strongly discouraged: should these edits be allowed to go forward, users should be instructed that they must ensure consistency before moving onto the next article. Otherwise, it should be left in its current state. –xeno (talk) 13:49, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

• But you're forgetting that our poor readers have had to put up with these raw inconsistencies for many years. Delinking but not ironing them out is not at all damaging the text for our readers, and the great benefit is that it will bring the inconsistencies to the attention of the article's editors rather than concealing it. Date autoformatting has, indeed, been largely responsible for the poor state of our date formats. Tony (talk) 14:09, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
  • So you're saying leaving the article in an inconsistent state for all readers is a good thing? I think it's just script users being lazy missing an opportunity. Go the distance, or don't bother. –xeno (talk) 14:21, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
    • I'm almost speechless at the attitude of Smjg (on my talk page) and xeno here. When the unlinking I do brings the problems with inconsistent date formats to their attention (key point - their attention - virtually every other user had been seeing the problem all the time) - they blame me, and even spend time coming here and trying to stop me and Lightmouse and others from sorting out the problems that the unlinking has made visible to them. Did it for one moment occur to you that you might help to fix the problems yourself instead of coming here accusing hard working editors of being lazy? I think readers of this discussion will now make up their minds about what sort of person xeno is, and how much respect his views should be accorded. Colonies Chris (talk) 14:43, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
      • So you think it's ok to "delink and run" leaving the article in an inconsistent state for everyone? I call that lazya missed opportunity: just my opinion. Who is going to clean up after you? Making the article consistent at the same time as unlinking only makes sense, otherwise once its unlinked, someone is going to have to write ANOTHER script to find the inconsistencies. –xeno (talk) 14:49, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

• I operate a script in which those inconsistencies are (with the exception of the problematic ISO dates) made consistent; but I quite understand the reasonableness of running a bot through to wake up the editors to the fact that they've been mish-mashing the date formats for some time in their article, and that they now need to roll up their sleeves and make them right. Rather than treating Lightmouse and Colonies Chris as monsters from the jungle, why not conceive them as good samaritans who are promoting collaboration with local editors over date inconsistencies. After all, it's usually the local editors who put in the wrong formats, because the real formats behind the DA are concealed from them, and its' easy to forget. Without the DA toy, it's harder to get it wrong when subsequently inserting a date. As for the "lazy" accusation, the shoe doesn't fit on our feet, I'm afraid. We work jolly hard to improve this aspect of the project, and engage with editors where necessary. Again, I call on you (xeno) et al. to lend a hand: the script would be a good start, (it delinks trivial common terms too, if you like) and you can transclude it very easily into your own monobook. Just let me know if you wish; we could do with your support. Tony (talk) 15:23, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
  • I'd be happy to try it out, and as much as "Colonies Chris" doesn't like being called lazy, likewise I don't appreciate his usage of the terms "AWB police" and "sidekick" - a bit of a pot and kettle situation I'm afraid. Can't both scripts be integrated, so that the unlinking and the consistency checks are done simultaneously? This would achieve the double-duty of making the edits less inconsequential. –xeno (talk) 15:28, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Xeno, you said delinking is inconsequential. Now you are saying delinking leaves articles in an inconsistent state. The former is an AWB issue, the latter is an MOS issue. As Rjwilmsi says, make your mind up. If you want to work with us to improve date presentation, rather than against us, then we will welcome your help. I could even give you some of the code that I wrote to make date formats consistent using AWB. Lightmouse (talk) 15:48, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Date delinking alone is an inconsequential edit imo (in the AWB sense), but if it is done at the same time as making the articles consistent in their date formatting, I think we might be in agreeance that this is an "consequential" edit, allowable by AWB and (probably - my eyes bug out when I go over there) supported by MOSNUM. –xeno (talk) 15:52, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Comment: Would it be possible, under this new system, to hit "dmy" for a total switch to dmy, or the same for "mdy"? I would love such a thing, as otherwise I would have to do what I had been doing with LM's slow, less-automated javascript-based script. NuclearWarfare _{My work} 22:53, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Indeed Somebody please move forward with this implementation, as I'm sure that's likely the best way to work through this. Doing typo fixing as well at the same time - even better. –xeno (talk) 22:56, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Posted a feature request here. NuclearWarfare _{My work} 23:00, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I support the feature request. I also support an end to censorship of date delinking by incorrect application of a rule related to performance fears. Date delinking on its own either has consequences or it doesn't. Which is it? Lightmouse (talk) 11:11, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree totally with Lightmouse. This is increasingly looking like slight of hand, this manipulation of the concept of "inconsequential" to suit some other agenda. The process must be transparent and, as an administrator, Martinp23 is bound to communicate properly before and after any decision that affects access to AWB. Justice must be seen to be done: that is basic, and there is suspicion that Lightmouse has been treated very unfairly. Please dispel this suspicion. Tony (talk)

Please try to AGF here: as far as I know Martin has no firm stance on the issue of delinking in-and-of-itself (neither do I, for that matter). This is simply an issue of using AWB for what can be reasonably construed as minor edits. It is not simply a PERF issue but also a RC clutter issue. –xeno (talk) 15:19, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

The whole point of AWB is to make it easier to perform repetitive minor edits. This 'issue' of RC clutter is a nonsense. I frequently discover a spelling error and go through dozens of articles fixing that error - and frequently that will involve changing just one character in an entire article. Are you telling me I shouldn't do this because it clutters up people's watchlists? What about when I disambiguate a term - I usually work through all the articles that link to the term - shouldn't I be doing that either? Perhaps you think we should we have a warehouse somewhere where we can store up all these minor edits until there's enough of them to justify performing an update on an article? Colonies Chris (talk) 12:35, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

You are restating your belief that date delinking is inconsequential. Are you also foregoing your belief that date delinking has consequences? You can't have it both ways. If we can't make progress on this doublespeak, perhaps we need to go to ANI. Lightmouse (talk) 16:43, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

You can continue to tie me up in semantical arguments rather than helping things move forward if you wish, I stand by the assertion that simply removing some square brackets is "minor and inconsequential" in terms of the AWB rule against these types of edits. –xeno (talk) 17:01, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

You are not the victim here, the victims are AWB users that are being censored. We have a right to challenge the words you use to justify censorship. You went further and stated "Present consensus is that these edits are considered minor/inconsequential." and asked for a straw poll which voted 8 to 4 against. Unless you have any other evidence, we can all move on to using AWB without censorship of date delinking. Lightmouse (talk) 17:34, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I didn't remove your access. –xeno (talk) 17:55, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

But you seem to be ambivalent about the need to declare that the censorship was perpetrated on contrived grounds. As Lightmouse says, you can't have it both way. Tony (talk) 01:36, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think censorship is what occured here. A rule regarding making many very minor changes to articles using AWB was enforced. I think that in order for such edits to be acceptable they should be included with things such as making all the dates consistent, and typo fixing and the like - and not unlinking dates that may have some significance to the article. I'm sure if Lightmouse were willing to proceed with this in mind, Martin would be amenable to reinstating his access - as he has done for the others whose access was removed. Moving forward should be the goal. –xeno (talk) 01:54, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Additions to AWB suggestions

Don't know if this is the place for proposals (please educate me), but here goes anyway: I believe consecutive wikilinks, which should be avoided per MOS:LINK, should be added to the AWB suggestions. Everyme 10:34, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome to add feature requests on the feature requests page. Please make it clear what you want, provide examples and link to Misplaced Pages manual/policy pages supporting the concept. Thanks Rjwilmsi 10:47, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Is it possible to get a list of pages that appear in multiple subcategories?

I would like a list of pages that appear in at least two subcategories of Category:Predecessors of North American railroads, like New York, Boston and Montreal Railway (which is in Category:Predecessors of the New York Central Railroad, Category:Predecessors of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, and Category:Predecessors of the Rutland Railroad). I know that I can recurse one level to get a full list of articles, and any repeated ones will be in more than one, but is there any way to pull out those repeated ones? --NE2 03:59, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Use the UNIX/Linux command uniq -d. Windows versions from here. Rjwilmsi 07:56, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Determine whether typo fixing enabled in external module?

For an enhancement to my external module I'd like to be able to know whether 'enable typo fixing' is checked in AWB. Is there a method I can call to get the answer? If no I will raise a feature request. Thanks Rjwilmsi 13:59, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

There is now - rev 3493.

if (Program.AWB.RegexTypoFix.Checked) 
{
}

That should do =) —Reedy 09:22, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Error: 'AutoWikiBrowser.Program' is inaccessible due to its protection level
Error: 'AutoWikiBrowser.Program' does not contain a definition for 'AWB'

Unfortunately, not quite ;) I will update the module documentation with this once it's working - are there any other similar accessible properties (is property the right term) to document too? Thanks Rjwilmsi 18:15, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Lol, should've really seen that coming (was quickly added before leaving for uni this morning). I've sorted it, but its causing the VB .NET module to not play nicely —Reedy 18:46, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

rev 3494. VB .NET module currently broken, looking into it —Reedy 18:57, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and you can access anything that has been exposed in the plugin interfaces —Reedy 19:56, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

<--Thanks, now awb.RegexTypoFix.Checked is the right thing to use. Rjwilmsi 20:38, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

God knows, the VB.NET module works fine. Think my checkout/build had become borked —Reedy 22:13, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Request to lift the ban on Lightmouse for date delinking

Discussion brought from request for access page

Permission should probably be requested from the person that removed your access to prevent wheel-warring... –xeno (talk) 19:06, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Agree, there seems to have been some to-ing and fro-ing recently and we'd need to be sure that concerns leading to removal of the tool have been addressed. --Rodhullandemu 14:34, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Fine by me. Can you say how/when these concerns will be addressed? There are many editors involved here. Lightmouse (talk) 15:36, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Martinp's latest comment at WT:AWB seems to indicate he is not against you having the access as long as you ensure that date delinking is done alongside other edits: such as typo fixing, consistency fixes, etc. Would you be amenable to going forward with this in mind? –xeno (talk) 15:40, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

We are going round in circles. Either the rule to protect the servers and protect change lists was misapplied, or it was correctly applied. We have seen no evidence that it was correctly applied. We don't need to do typo fixes just to avoid confronting an uncomfortable fact that an administrator simply made a mistake. Lightmouse (talk) 16:30, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Well then I would suggest you petition direction to Martin to have access reinstated as another administrator granting your access without your reassurance that you would address the concerns he raised would be wheel warring. –xeno (talk) 16:45, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Has Lightmouse (or the bot) agreed not to make the same minor inconsequential edits that it was making previously? (Apologies if the user has and I've simply missed it.) I think there needs to be a clear understanding that if the bot or user continues to make the same edits that caused its access removal previously, it will almost certainly be blocked if the inconsequential edits continue. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:05, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

We are going round in circles. Either the rule to protect the servers and protect change lists was misapplied, or it was correctly applied. We have seen no evidence that it was correctly applied. If you have new evidence that the rule was correctly applied, please provide it or take this to ANI. Lightmouse (talk) 23:37, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Inconsequential edits are a waste of resources, clog page histories, and in general are a bad idea. "General fixes" in AWB exists for a reason, and I don't really need to justify anything to you. Martinp and several others have explained this to you. And I don't see any admin willing to restore your AWB access, so you can agree to stop the inconsequential edits or you can simply not have AWB access. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:40, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

What makes you so sure they are inconsequential when other people say they aren't? Just so that we are clear, I would be delighted if this were included in 'general fixes' as you and Martinp23 have suggested. Lightmouse (talk) 01:08, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

You seem to have found a way around this anyways by using a Javascript based editor to automate your date delinking: here, here, and here are just some very recent examples (your contribs are literally filled with these senseless edits). —Locke Cole • t • c 01:43, 1 November 2008 (UTC)