Wikipedia talk:Typo Team

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"predominately" -> predominantly[edit]

This would be a good thing to fix across the project. See Wiktionary entries for explanation. Equinox ◑ 23:32, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That looks like a good candidate for adoption. There are currently 3,164 articles using that word, according to a search. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:19, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Never noticed this issue before. Interesting find. However, from checking some online encyclopedias and also the Wiktionary entry you recommended, it seems to me that this is an example of language evolving and still influx. Both terms are still in use and both are acceptable. So it's not clear too me that changing it all to one way is actually "fixing" things. Rather it seems to me it's taking a side in which usage is preferred. By systematically changing all instances Wikipedia itself would be influencing the use of the English language itself and that's not something I think we should try to do. Maybe it's best not to do anything here? Jason Quinn (talk) 01:44, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hidden character bot?[edit]

My apologies in advance if I have come to wrong place but I have seen a bot that detects and removes hidden characters. Would someone tell me where to request a run, to check this edit, please? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:18, 28 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@John Maynard Friedman: This tool tells me that the IP changed many of the characters into lookalike characters from the Cyrillic alphabet. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:36, 28 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Do'oh! I should have thought of the obvious! I was too busy trying to identify the ultra-clever actual steganography. TYVM.
I wonder if there are other cases of homoglyphs being used in articles, unconsciously or otherwise? For sighted visitors, it is not an issue but it certainly is an issue for those using screen-readers. So I still need to know what that bot is called, so I can suggest this enhancement? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:46, 28 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We recently carried out a similar exercise on page titles only in quarry:/query/74617. That looks for a Greek or Cyrillic character next to a Latin one (other alphabets are available), avoiding known useful combinations like µg. Sadly, Quarry can't access wikitext, but there may be something reusable there. Certes (talk) 18:30, 28 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"predominately"[edit]

The word "predominately" appears in many articles. It should be "predominantly". I would suggest an automated replacement process. 2A00:23C5:FE56:6C01:4C51:E1AB:79E4:29EF (talk) 18:57, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Not happening. See WP:SPELLBOT for details. Happily, Wikipedia:Adopt-a-typo exists just for you. Happy editing! – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:26, 7 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Predominately is also valid, see its entry in Merriam-Webster. --Cyfal (talk) 20:53, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Large language model policy § RFC[edit]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Large language model policy § RFC. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:31, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely[edit]

On a lighter note, https://xkcd.com/2871/ -- John of Reading (talk) 08:11, 23 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/HyperlinkPatrol[edit]

You're invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Wikiproject Council/Proposals/HyperlinkPatrol. JustAnotherUndertaleFrantic -- Talk 23:22, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Accidentally (vis Accidently)[edit]

Hi everyone. For several years I have been copy-editing articles using the tools provided here and re-visiting accidently many times over. I recently noticed that when editing a page, the red squiggly line beneath accidently no longer appears. I noticed this for a few weeks now and decided to look it up. It just so happens that actually it is true - https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/accidently says that it is a proper word "and it is sometimes cited as an error" albeit less common. Eugene-elgato (talk) 14:34, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Related: a description of this language trend. I recommend fixing the non-standard "accidently", which my browser still proudly underlines in red. M-W is too permissive for my tastes, bordering on promiscuous. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:29, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
By the way I had put my idea here also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Lists_of_common_misspellings in case you wanted to comment there tooEugene-elgato (talk) 12:19, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Help needed finding legacy punctuation like "--" "-->"[edit]

I'd like to fix typos like changing "--" to emdash, "-->" to → and similar changes in accordance with WP:MOS

Can you help me with the wikipedia text search? It doesn't seem to find instances of punctuation characters properly. Tonymetz 💬 21:28, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You would need to use insource: but there are major problems. One is that it is inefficient, because it has to scan millions of pages, and the search will not complete unless limited by adding other search terms. Another is that it would mainly find <!-- HTML comments -->. Certes (talk) 21:53, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A search like this one works somewhat, timing out because of the issues Certes lists above. An editor would need to be very careful to inspect each instance of "-->" to see whether it should be converted to an arrow character, modified to be an HTML comment, converted to list markup, left alone because it is part of a quotation or title, or something else. I can't see automated find-and-replace providing valid replacements for the pages that turn up in these search results. Tread wisely. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:21, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
thank you that search was very helpful. the insource + !insource combo is a good starting point. Here is an example of what I'm trying to do Tonymetz 💬 22:33, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Tonymetz 💬 22:46, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
look at this work of art [1] Tonymetz 💬 23:12, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I also opened up a discussion on WP:MOS [2] Tonymetz 💬 23:26, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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