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

[Ray Saintonge]

Nicolas Weeger wrote:

>> 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. 
>
There is nothing wrong with correcting the spelling in unfinished 
articles, but as a matter of courtesy when a person is obviously 
continuing his work in such an article I would give him the time to 
finish his work before I tried to change it.  Still. I see this as a 
secondary point in Adam's concerns.,

>> 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.

It's not just the typos and misspellings that are at issue.  One also 
needs to consider variant spellings.  The difference between British and 
American spellings is perhaps the most obvious example of that. 
 Spelling bots are often rooted in one or the other spelling, and when 
they start changing alternative spellings it leaves people needlessly 
annoyed.  Spelling bots that do not require human intervention should be 
completely outlawed.

Ec