[Wikipedia-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Spelling Day?

[Sascha Noyes]

(cross-posting to general list, because policy affects all languages)

On Saturday 22 November 2003 11:01, Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote:
> Today is apparently spelling day, it appears that a number of users are
> running bots to fix spelling errors. I believe this practice should be
> stopped; first off, it is a waste of time to correct spelling on articles
> which are far from finished. But more importantly, the bots are going to
> write over words which are supposed to be spelled a certain way, I know
> that there are quotes with deliberately misspelled words in them. Spelling
> day is a bad idea.

I disagree that correcting spelling errors in principle is a bad idea because 
articles are not finished. This is nonsense, articles on wikipedia are never 
finished - that doesn't mean they should contain spelling errors. You're 
right however on the spelling bots: These things are dangerous, and should be 
avoided. Fixing spelling errors on wikipedia is a massive task. Either we 
disallow bots for this purpose or we introduce a guideline that each spelling 
error has to have been looked at by the person running the bot first, and 
then approved for editing by the bot. I know that this is not directly 
enforceable, but most policies on wikipedia are not. If someone makes a 
"spelling correction" with a bot where the spelling was correct in the 
context, that shows that they have not actually looked at that particular 
instance. Appropriate measures can then be taken. WDYT?

Best,
Sascha Noyes
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