I have contributed to py wikipedia bot, which could easily enable functionality like this.

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Pywikibot

The user specifies an article or range of articles, the substitution to be performed, and the bot prompts you with each instance in the text, something like

> "blah blah start an unmanned space mission to find out blah blah blah...
> Replace this instance (y/n/cancel)?

Anyways, I think anyone who would like to make such automated changes would have to install and learn how to use PyWIkiBot (which I have done) and then I think you need some bot authorization for a bot account on English Wikipedia (which I have not done).

Cheers,
-Travis

On 24 February 2015 at 19:09, JJ Marr <jjmarr@gmail.com> wrote:

You should ask down at the village pump, then if the response is favorable, start a BRFA.

On Feb 24, 2015 10:04 PM, "Maia Weinstock" <maiapw@gmail.com> wrote:
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discussions among folks in the space exploration community that use of the word "manned" and "unmanned" in Wikipedia is outdated and gender-biased.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)



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