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?
I don't know how hard that'd be, but couldn't the bots ignore (just report) mispelled words between quotes? ''like that'' or "that"? If the mispelling (talking about common mistakes here, like taht, not words which can have different spelling/meanings :) is intended, it is probably meaning something, so the word or expression is probably emphazised (hum, what's the spelling? :)) to show, in the article itself, that the mispelling IS intended.
Best, Sascha Noyes
Regards Nicolas