[WikiEN-l] Human-assisted spelling bot?

Fri Apr 9 06:47:08 UTC 2004

William T. Mahan wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I'm relatively new to Wikipedia, but I've recently become interested in
>helping to fix spelling errors in the English wiki. Using a database dump,
>I put up a list of articles with commonly misspelled words in my user
>space at [[User:Wmahan/Articles with commonly misspelled words]].
>
>In an effort to go through this monstrous list more quickly, I made a
>script that loads the edit page of an article from the list and fixes any
>commonly misspelled words. It also displays a list of all words not found
>in a spelling dictionary, and I can substitute from of a list of suggested
>replacements with the click of a button. I review all changes before they
>are submitted.
>
>I asked for approval of this plan on [[Wikipedia_talk:Bots]], and it was
>suggested that I mail this list. ...
>
>Do others agree? I'm open to any suggestions about whether this idea is
>worthwhile, possible improvements, etc. The script uses a web interface,
>so I can make it available for people to examine if there is interest.
>
This issue comes up periodically, and always with good intention.  It 
always stirs apprehension over such things as British vs. American 
spellings, or the ability to recognize when we really do want something 
misspelled, or the handling of foreign words.  Also I believe that there 
are still aids to spell-checking in the maintenance pages. 
 Unfortunately, these features and our own search function have too long 
been unaccesible.

Ec