The mechanics of doing this aren’t such a big deal. AutoWikiBrowser is probably the best way to do it as you can eyeball each change before it happens just to make you that you haven’t done something inappropriate (like the unmanned vehicle example). It’s a little tedious (to eyeball each one) but not labour-intensive really (click SAVE or SKIP).

But I think first it needs to be agreed within that community that they want this change. Otherwise you might be regarded as being Bold With A Bulldozer if you use any automated or semi-automated tool.

Kerry

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From: gendergap-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:gendergap-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Maia Weinstock
Sent: Wednesday, 25 February 2015 1:04 PM
To: gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: [Gendergap] Random musings about a bot

Hi all,

There have been numerous discussions among folks in the space exploration community that use of the word "manned" and "unmanned" in Wikipedia is outdated and gender-biased. Unfortunately, going in and fixing all of these by hand would be rather labor-intensive...

Someone recently created a browser plugin that replaces "manned" with "crewed." (See https://twitter.com/mcnees/status/570409472818061312) It would be such an awesome thing if a bot existed that updated these instances for real on English Wikipedia. Anyone have ideas for making this happen, perhaps just limiting it to space exploration? I do see some issues with it being done wholesale for the whole site, as certain terms might contain terminology that would create confusion if changed automatically. (For instance, "unmanned aerial vehicles," for better or for worse, is a known term that I wouldn't advocate changing at this time.)

Anyway, just thinking out loud...

Maia (user:Girona7)