Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/General fixes

Square bracket mismatch

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T354120

It looks like <nowiki>[</nowiki> isn't being correctly treated as an opening square bracket, for the purpose of finding mismatched opening/closing brackets. For example, see this AWB edit, which changed

• <nowiki>[</nowiki>[[sub-creation]]]
  • which renders as: [sub-creation]; to:
• <nowiki>[</nowiki>[[sub-creation]]
  • which renders as: [sub-creation

Could be worth running a replacement on <nowiki>[</nowiki> to use {{!(}}, {{Square bracket open}}, or better yet {{Bracket}}, for clarity, instead? --Yodin^T 16:14, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

As long as a matching nowiki-closing-bracket exists, GenFixes doesn't remove the 3rd closing bracket, e.g.

<nowiki>[</nowiki>[[Gustav Stresemann|Gustav]]<nowiki>]</nowiki>

on World War I.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  16:45, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Interesting, I wonder if this is because it considers neither of them as brackets? Whatever the reason, as there are 2,839 articles with <nowiki>[</nowiki>, and 4,149 articles with <nowiki>]</nowiki>, there are over a thousand articles which don't have matching nowiki closed brackets; having logic to detect these would prevent GenFixes breaking these in future. I'd also still recommend replacing them all with {{Bracket}}, as it improves code clarity. --Yodin^T 16:57, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

I think the problem arises when the left bracket is enclosed in nowiki but the right bracket isn't, because a right bracket at that position usually has no wikitext-syntax significance and appears harmlessly as ]. Perhaps AWB needs to be conservative and treat a bracket in nowiki as optionally matching a bare bracket, so the current nesting level is a range (2–3 here) rather than a single number (2 because the bracket in nowiki wasn't counted). That may be easier said than done. Certes (talk) 17:29, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Thinking about it a bit more, what would be the potential problem with treating nowiki brackets as identical to ordinary brackets? I can't think of any cases where it would cause problems. --Yodin^T 21:42, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure the order that GenFixes are applied in, but would it also be possible to just match any <nowiki>[</nowiki> with the first unopened ] (or <nowiki>]</nowiki>), and change it to {{Bracket}}, before running the unmatched bracket check? Surely this would also solve it without resorting to very complex nesting levels, etc. ? --Yodin^T 21:49, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

@Yodin: could you report this issue at Phabricator per Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser#Before you post, and use {{Tracked}} here as needed? Reminder for me to do that with the post below...   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  17:11, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

 Done @Tom.Reding: 👍 --Yodin^T 19:22, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

I took this search of ~2835 pages (at the time; permalink to initial results) containing <nowiki>[</nowiki>, and found ~400 pages which did not have a closing <nowiki>]</nowiki>. I tested WP:GenFixes on those ~400, and ~60 would have had a trailing ] erroneously removed, so I balanced those 60 to prevent any mistakes in the near future (until more instances inevitably crop up). The remaining ~340, which GenFixes did not alter in a way relevant to this discussion, was due to the presence of a template between the normal, double, closing ]] and the last ], like on Old testament:

through <nowiki>[</nowiki>[[Jericho]] ({{Circa|1400 BC}})],

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T354150

Then, I took this search of 4146 pages (at the time; permalink to initial results) containing <nowiki>]</nowiki>, and found ~1700 new pages. Of those, only ~3 needed balancing to avoid GenFix errors, and 2 oddballs I couldn't figure out, Nolamba dynasty, Pickering Airport Lands. There was 1 page, however, John Simon, 1st Viscount Simon, where GenFixes breaks the currently functioning succession box by removing a balanced bracket (diff), which happens on both v6.2.1.0 & v6.2.1.1.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  22:49, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for doing this! --Yodin^T 01:39, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

{Improve categories} & {Uncategorized} moved from below categories to above categories

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T354582

Instead, they should be placed immediately after categories, or as a hatnote at the top of the page, per MOS:ORDER.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  03:30, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Note that these were templates added to MOS:ORDER in Dec 2021-Feb 2022, after the last official AWB release. GoingBatty (talk) 05:56, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

True... perhaps then this is more of a feature request than a bug report...   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  12:49, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

How to disable ReorderReferences fix?

Sometime reference order has its own logic, and ReorderReferences breaks it. Is it any way to disable this and only this fix? A.sav (talk) 22:59, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

This was disabled eons ago, no? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:05, 26 January 2024 (UTC) Do you have a diff?

I updated the WP:AWB/GF#ReorderReferences (ReorderReferences) documentation to indicate this function was removed from en.wiki in 2017. GoingBatty (talk) 00:26, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

This works in ruwiki/ukwiki (diff). Any way to disable in local preferences or I need to push Russian/Ukrainian adminstrators? --A.sav (talk) 07:20, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

The change to disable it covered en-wiki only. If there are other language wikis that would like it disabled then please raise an AWB phabricator ticket - you should confirm on the ticket that there is consensus on each wiki to do that - we're not in a position to verify ourselves any wiki discussions in other languages. Otherwise/in the meantime you can configure your own AWB to run genfixes via custom module - see here and disable the ones you don't want. Rjwilmsi 09:33, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

👍 Thanks a lot! A.sav (talk) 11:01, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Is it possible to disable this with nogenfixes property in WP:AutoWikiBrowser/Config ? A.sav (talk) 21:54, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

@A.sav: WP:AutoWikiBrowser/Config only contains pages on the English Wikipedia. You would need to request additions to pages on the other Wikipedias, such as ru:Википедия:AutoWikiBrowser/Config and uk:Вікіпедія:AutoWikiBrowser/Config. GoingBatty (talk) 22:01, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I understand it. Is it technically possible to disable this feature and is it possible to read documentation about WP:AutoWikiBrowser/Config syntaх and features? A.sav (talk) 22:07, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

@A.sav: As Rjwilmsi indicated above, it's possible for the developers to disable the feature for various wikis, but you have to make a request by going to Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser#Before you post and click "filing a new task", and provide a link to a discussion on that wiki that there is consensus to disable it. Rjwilmsi also mentioned that it is possible for YOU to disable it in your version of AWB by loading a custom module into your AWB - see Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Custom Modules#Customised "General Fixes". There is some documentation of the config page at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage format. GoingBatty (talk) 22:38, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

In fact, Wikipedia works in the opposite way. First developers must obtain consensus to make changes, and then they can make a tool that implements them. Sneeuwschaap (talk) 17:01, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't think the makers of Vector 2022 got that memo. Certes (talk) 18:47, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

@Sneeuwschaap: I agree that consensus has to exist before developers make or change a tool. But it's OK for a user to suggest a change to a developer and quote existing consensus. There are dozens of examples of this in the AWB Phabricator board. GoingBatty (talk) 21:29, 3 February 2024 (UTC)