Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos

AutoWikiBrowser 6.3.1.1

• Home
  Introduction and rules
• User manual
  How to use AWB
• Discussion
  Discuss AWB, report errors, and request features
• User tasks
  Request or help with AWB-able tasks
• Technical
  Technical documentation

• Changelog
• Developer discussion
• Modules
• Regular expression
• Sandbox
• Template redirects
• Typos
• Usage stats
• Userbox

Capitalisation of partial title of institution name

There is a capitalisation dispute at Royal Commission into the New South Wales Police Service, wherein Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters#Institutions is used to determine the partial title of the same body. The dispute is over the interpretation of the rule, and a potential conflict with this AWB capitalisation bot that is converting all the initial caps of the partial title to lower case, and raising generic terms into initial upper case. However, the rule states that if a partial title is used, the same capitalisation must be used as for the full title.

My interpretation of this rule is therefore as below:
Full title: The Royal Commission into the New South Wales Police Service
Partial title: The Royal Commission
Partial title: The Commission

Each is referring to the same, specific body, and so I believe the same capitalisation should apply everywhere it is used. Disagreement has arisen wherein it has been claimed that when used in the third form, 'commission' becomes generic, and therefore no initial capital should apply. I disagree, on the grounds that the article is referring to the Commission, not a commission or generic commissions and I believe this conforms with the above rule. If one is talking about a royal commission, or royal commissions, or even just commissions in general, no capitalisation should be used, but if one is referring to the Royal Commission as a partial title for the Royal Commission into the New South Wales Police Service then initial capitals should be used.

Elsewhere in the article, reference is made to 'royal commissions' and 'a royal commission', e.g. "even by the standards of a royal commission" - both generic, and therefore both should be in lower case according to the same rule adduced above. The article Royal Commission into the New South Wales Police Service has been published since 2005, i.e. 18 years, with the capitalisation as described above, so if this bot is responsible for reverting such a longstanding text, then I believe it is the bot that needs revision, not existing articles such as this one, that obey the existing capitalisation rule adduced above. Chrisdevelop (talk) 16:38, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

@Chrisdevelop: Wikipedia's style for this is described at MOS:INSTITUTIONS. Following Wikipedia's style, the first would definitely be capped, the third would definitely be lower case. I understand your point that it is referring to a specific commission, but Wikipedia's style, which is common among publications, is to use lower case. Many institutions capitalize "the University" or "the Zoo" when talking about themselves, but not when talking about other universities or zoos. Since Wikipedia talks about almost everything, and is not affiliated with just one institution, it has chosen to always use lower case. (Though The Signpost capitalizes "the Board" when referring to the the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees, so even Wikipedia doesn't follow its own style consistently.) The middle one technically should be lower case too, but sometimes that looks wrong to me for two-word or longer phrases, so I might change it or not.

P.S. This frequently comes up at WT:MOSCAPS. SchreiberBike | ⌨  19:10, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

@SchreiberBike: Thank you for weighing in. This article is about the Wood Royal Commission, so when using the short titles, ‘Wood Commission’, ‘Royal Commission’, or just ‘Commission’, it is ‘referring to itself’, as in the Wikipedia example you mentioned. In the current context, making the word 'commission' generic means it can be any commission (other commissions are named in the article), and it can also mean 'commission of a crime' or 'commission a composition', or ‘the commission’ as a homonymic concept, although of course, if you read the article it becomes clear. Such an interpretation doesn't however comport with the MOS rule adduced above. Please refer to this sentence in the rule: "Also treat as a proper name a shorter but still specific form, consistently capitalized in reliable generalist sources (e.g., US State Department or the State Department, depending on context)." Chrisdevelop (talk) 16:53, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

@Chrisdevelop: I'd say that if it's difficult to tell if commission refers to the Wood Royal Commission or to something else, the sentence should be rewritten. I can see that in some places capitalizing that way can be helpful, but the rule in Wikipedia, an encyclopedia about many commissions, universities, zoos, etc., comes as a response to people wanting to capitalize their "University", their "Zoo", etc. in the articles about those institutions. Also note that the examples you give above from MOS:INSTITUTIONS does not include "the Department". If you're not finding my explanation persuasive, feel free to ask at WT:MOSCAPS. Thank you. SchreiberBike | ⌨  20:34, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

@Chrisdevelop: What is the name of the "AWB capitalisation bot"? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 17:50, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

AutoWikiBrowser, the bot that was run on the Wood Royal Commission page. Chrisdevelop (talk) 18:08, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

@Chrisdevelop: AutoWikiBrowser (AWB) is the name of a piece of software used by both human editors and bots. Looking at the article history, it appears that human editor Neils51 was running AWB manually with the typo correction feature enabled. This discussion would be better suited for Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos. Bots using AWB do not perform typo corrections. GoingBatty (talk) 18:32, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Discussion moved Neils51 (talk) 23:14, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Using "the commission" doesn't infer it's generic, but that it's the object you're referring back to. Like if I was discussing the RMS Queen Mary, I'd refer back to it as "the ship" or "the ocean liner", rather than "the Ship" or "the Ocean Liner". Uppercasing the object makes great sense in marketing materials or event invitations, but in plain ol' descriptive encyclopedic text, I can't see a necessity. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 20:17, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

"at the at the"

I've been working my way through "at the at the" changing them to "at the" and I'm not getting enough false positives to be a problem for AWB. Could this be added to the rules? ϢereSpielChequers 17:38, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Done - Neils51 (talk) 20:54, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Ta muchly ϢereSpielChequers 21:44, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

From year to year, twice

Any way to handle He was also mayor of Halifax from 1874–1876 and 1884–1885. better?
Right now it changes this to He was also mayor of Halifax from 1874 to 1876 and 1884–1885. -- Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 22:00, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

I've seen similar cases. We could do a negative lookahead for "and number", resulting in these cases not being changed. Otherwise it would have to be a full check for "from n1-n2 and n3-n4", repeating all the logic needed when n2 has fewer digits than n1, etc. Certes (talk) 22:46, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

These replacements also create false positives, e.g. "the vase dates from 1100–1200" probably shouldn't be changed. Certes (talk) 22:48, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

"short distance overland" -> "short-distance overland"?

In Fort Wayne, Indiana, AWB wants to correct the sentence "The most important geographical feature of the area is the short distance overland between the Three Rivers system, which eventually flows to the Atlantic, and the Wabash system, which eventually flows to the Gulf of Mexico." by hyphenating "short-distance". I guess I'm a little befuddled at the language in the sentence. Maybe it should say "short distance over land"? Or is 'overland' a noun in this case by chance? Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 01:35, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

It should be "short distance over land", since "overland" is an adjective but is being misused as a noun phrase here. In a construction like "It was a short-distance overland journey" both hyphenated "short-distance" and fully compounded "overland" would be correct.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:11, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. Assuming they didn't intend to say "overland journey", I've copyedited the article in question to split 'overland'. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 16:04, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Needs to stop removing hyphens from compound modifiers

In "a well-received presentation" and similar constructions, the hyphen belongs there per MOS:HYPHEN.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:08, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree with SMcCandlish, this rule (listed under the section "New: remove other hyphens (replace with space)"):

<Typo word="well received" find="\b([wW])ell-received\b(?=\.|\s+(?:at\b|by\b|in\b))" replace="$1ell received"/>

seems to violate MOS:HYPHEN, specifically the section that states: "A hyphen is normally used when the adverb well precedes a participle used attributively (a well-meaning gesture; but normally a very well managed firm, because well itself is modified) and even predicatively, if well is necessary to, or alters, the sense of the adjective rather than simply intensifying it (the gesture was well-meaning, the child was well-behaved, but the floor was well polished)." This topic was thoroughly discussed on my user talk for those who are interested (User talk:Wikipedialuva#Cleanup that is the opposite of cleanup). Thanks! Wikipedialuva (talk) 08:41, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

I think the intent of the correction was to fix something like "The plan was well-received by Bubba" which shouldn't have a hyphen. Definitely this should be reviewed to be rewritten to avoid false positives. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 08:50, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

That rule does not change "a well-received presentation", since the "?=" clause checks for a following full stop or three specific prepositions. You can verify this using the current contents of User:John of Reading/X3. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:35, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Not "a well-received presentation", but an example of the error is when AWB changed "The film was well-received by critics, although with the occasional reservation." to "The film was well received by critics, although with the occasional reservation." on the article The Hustler. Here is the diff: [1] Thanks! Wikipedialuva (talk) 10:25, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Courtesy ping to Chris the speller who has worked on this rule previously. -- John of Reading (talk) 11:02, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

I think that SMcCandlish used to understand the difference in hyphenation (predicately vs. attributively) stated in MOS:HYPHEN, so I am very surprised that he has complained about this instance. The MOS states "A hyphen is normally used ... and even predicatively, if well is necessary to, or alters, the sense of the adjective rather than simply intensifying it". When the case of "was well received by critics" is compared to the specific examples in MOS:HYPHEN, " the child was well-behaved, but the floor was well polished", it is much more like the "well polished" example. Chris the speller ^yack

Hmm. Well, people do monkey around with the MoS wording from time to time. I can't think of a good reason for "the film was well received by critics" or "the floor was well polished" in material that would write "the child was well-behaved". The notion of a split along those lines is apt to be confusing to most editors (and readers), and it presumes a level of linguistic-analysis expertise that will be missing from most people in both categories.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:17, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

One difference in hyphenation between "the child was well-behaved" and "the film was well received by critics" is that the hyphen in "well-behaved" is so entrenched that (American, at least) dictionaries specify a hyphen, as it is somewhat of an idiom. But "well received by" has not gotten to that point and may never get there, as many kids are growing up with the punctuation on boxes of breakfast cereal as their model. Chris the speller ^yack 02:39, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

At any rate, that specific fix doesn't appear to be in error, per my example. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 21:41, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Also, I'm not saying our own Wikipedia article is a definitive source, but Compound modifier#Hyphenation of elements in English by my reading seems to back up not using a hyphen in that case. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 22:23, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Note that I'm not accusing the rule of having an error, just stating that a review of it may be warranted. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 21:43, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

re: de facto/jure

@Certes indeed! but according to MOS:FOREIGNITALICS, seeming air-tight enough, it should absolutely not be italicized, just because it's prepositional borrowed from Latin used in law. It gives the example that "etc." shouldn't, and provides the rule of thumb that it shouldn't be italicized if it's in multiple English dictionaries. I would reckon 'de facto' and 'de jure' have been in every English dictionary since maybe those were invented. Remsense聊 18:25, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Discussion here! Remsense聊 18:32, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for starting a(nother) discussion. I hope it will attract further informed opinions, as we both seem to have reasonable but incompatible cases. Certes (talk) 22:39, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Nobold and Noitalic templates --> Normal

@Remsense Hi there! I see you added a rule to convert {{nobold}} & {{noitalic}} to {{normal}}. At first, I was going to suggest using WP:AWB/TR instead of this page. But then I looked at the instructions at Template:Nobold and Template:Noitalic, and don't see any mention of converting these templates. Is there consensus to make these conversions? GoingBatty (talk) 19:58, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Understood, I'll broach it there before I imply it's normative with a rule like this. :) Remsense聊 20:11, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Sounds good. Further, this would not be a typo rule at any rate per GoingBatty. Template replacements are a different AWB department. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 20:18, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

I had an inkling, but I suppose the stakes for learning are never too high on Wikipedia. :) Remsense聊 20:32, 12 October 2023 (UTC)