Checkwiki helps clean up syntax and other errors in the source code of Wikipedia by:
- Eliminating errors in the wiki syntax, such as missing close tags or brackets;
- Checking for accessibility issues, such as small print or heading problems;
- Correcting, deleting or moving code that does not follow conventions, such as the position of references with respect to punctuation;
- Finding articles that have invalid ISBNs (list available here)
Operation
- The program scans every new dump for over 30 languages and creates a list of articles with errors.
- For a few Wikipedias, the program scans newly revised articles daily, to create a new list for users, omitting already-corrected articles.
- A specific interface – here for the English project – facilitates correcting problems detected by the program in the following three levels of ranking priorities errors. It helps keep the error lists updated in near real time by providing some statistics on corrections made recently.
- You can download the Checkwiki programs at GitHub. The programs are licensed under GPLv3.
- Interested users might also like to review the regularly-updated lists of wiki syntax issues at Special:LintErrors.
- An analysis is also performed by WikiCleanerBot twice a month on the dumps for some of the errors, including some additional errors compared to the project interface.
The following tools may be useful when checking Wikipedia:
The following scripts may also be helpful when checking Wikipedia:
The following user CSS may be of further help in identifying material to clean up while editing normally:
- lint.css (language-independent; English instructions)
See also: Wikipedia:Linter § Reports
Bots
Bots based upon AWB or Pywikibot can correct many of the problems.
Here are the bots actively working on English Wikipedia. They can be ported to other languages.
| Name |
Active? |
Errors fixed
(by CW task number) |
|---|
| BG19bot (task list · contribs) |
No |
many |
| Dexbot (task list · contribs) |
Yes |
7, 19, 25, 83 |
| FrescoBot (task list · contribs) |
Yes |
16, 48, 64 |
| Josvebot (task list · contribs) |
Yes |
6, 16, 37 |
| MalnadachBot (task list · contribs) |
No |
532, 535, 539, 541 |
| MenoBot (task list · contribs) |
Yes |
many |
| PkbwcgsBot (task list · contribs) |
No |
2, 3, 7, 16, 17, 25, 32, 85, 86, 88, 90, 91, 524 |
| WikiCleanerBot (task list · contribs) |
Yes |
1, 2, 7, 16, 17, 25, 46, 48, 61, 64, 83, 85, 88, 90, 91, 92, 106, 513, 532, 534, 539, 540, 543, 547, 548, 549, 550, 551, 553, 555, 557, 558, 565, 567 |
| Xqbot (task list · contribs) |
Yes |
3 |
| Yobot (task list · contribs) |
No |
many |
Bots fix some of the errors here automatically. Any error tagged with "BOT" is usually fixed by bot at some point, so manually fixing them is unnecessary.
Recommendations
- Mark your changes as minor;
- Explain the corrections made in the edit summary: Checkwiki error fix #10. Fix broken bracket;
- When an error is fixed, click "done" in the web interface.
Note: tools like WPCleaner automatically follow the above recommendations.
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