Login
Login

Wikipedia:Typo Team/moss#Instructions for editors

{{shortcut|WP:TT/M|WP:TYPO/MOSS}}

{{Backlog}}

The moss project seeks to find and remove the furry green typos that have been growing on Wikipedia articles. It uses a python script named [https://github.com/cdbeland/moss moss] and written by User:Beland to automatically find misspellings, mistakes in English grammar, violations of the Wikipedia:Manual of Style, and confusing or broken wiki markup.

{{center|Dearth to tyops!}}

QUICK LINK TO THE BEST PAGE FOR NEW PARTICIPANTS

About misspellings

=How the lists are made=

The moss spell checker is run against a recent set of database dumps, which are generated on the 1st and 20th of every month (but take a few days to process). All the articles in the English Wikipedia are examined. The following are ignored:

  • Text inside references, templates, tables, quotation marks, sections like "External links" and "Works", and some other weird places.
  • Capitalized words (which are presumed to be correctly-spelled proper nouns)
  • Words that appear in titles in the English Wiktionary (which has definitions of all words in all languages, excluding proper nouns and systematic words like chemical names and large numbers)
  • Words that appear in titles in the English Wikipedia (which explains some things that don't appear in the dictionary)
  • Words that appear in titles in the Wikispecies (which has many technical words that don't appear in the dictionary or encyclopedia)

Many mistakes are not (yet) caught:

  • Improper addition of 's (possessives are not added to Wiktionary, so these are excluded systematically)
  • Incorrect capitalization
  • Incorrect multi-word phrases
  • Wrong word used in context
  • Non-English language words not tagged with {{tl|lang}} or where an English misspelling happens to be the same as a word in another language. (These are counted as correct spellings if they are in the English Wiktionary, which lists words in all languages – only the definitions are restricted to English.)
  • Other situations listed in #False negatives below

=2024 statistics=

:See also: Older statistics

class="wikitable"
Dump (moss version)

! Parse failures (articles + articles with MOS:STRAIGHT violations)

! TOTAL (instances) || A || BC || BW || C || D || H || HB || HL || L || ME || N || P || T+gcld3_broken || T/ || T1 || TS || U || Z

2024-01-01 (1edb851)*165792 + 29766118078110226799275313628352016284917100186517247420279203478204341749104903130114420
2024-01-20 (2caa23a)*165661 + 29837118049110237794935315018345016244127103185817262220199203838204441878105071129814424
2024-02-01 (3242653)*165836 + 29834118123010245792465318038337016294120103185817279920248204049204342002105240128714437
2024-02-20 (10d0c37)*165885 + 299011182750102517891553186183431163040431141849173461201510204251204542357105827128614491
2024-03-01 (9ccfa0d)*166045 + 299751182428102557880553177883620163840411121854173370203024203994203742461105848129914520
2024-03-20 (460959f)*166141 + 300551185611102927862153234584240163142371161858173672204525204545204942870106954127814649
2024-04-01 (ce9f129)*166181 + 300541184405102877646453303184190161843091141849173577205140204408203142961107298125814690
2024-04-20 (1ee7a35)*166362 + 301181177599102756764953353484250161743351121848173787206340204403201243481107996125814764
2024-05-01 (6d3c9c7)*166292 + 30184117598010277661145338318426016434495110184517362920641204334202043407107675124814861
2024-05-20 (489f6f1)*†144265 + 25968100379589245378945346676190138137159016931504971795117695117253715192577112011301
2024-06-01 (07eaceb)*166755 + 30248117335410304600885345688460016484461105202017474020742203514199744495108560124115077
2024-06-20 (b1c7e7b)*166980 + 30276117353810299598455343818444016734501102192217494820713204346200043905108742122715129
2024-07-01 (6787e3e)*167034 + 30300117283310295597665339568440016544345101192417508620653204357199243915108542122715165

* Due to software issues, language detection wasn't working for this run.

† This run seems to have malfunctioned, possibly run on partial dumps.

class="wikitable"
Dump (moss version) || Parse failures (articles + articles with MOS:STRAIGHT violations) || TOTAL (instances)

! A || BC || BW || C || D || H || HB || HL || L || ME || N || P || T/ || T1 || TE || TF || TS || U || Z

2024-07-20 (9c0d979)*167018 + 303541175268103375989453391184550167543041021942175528190922015442746018199908108530121915245
2024-08-01 (027458a)167192 + 303641172497103365987453360884730165743151001917175240190402011432725990199733107535122515307
2024-08-20 (a13c743)167561 + 30399117015410336599305337328498016614324971911174117190212015423635945199740106986122415372
2024-09-01 (313f784)167769 + 30088116977010346600645336158504016524370941916173479189402014422715946200037106914122315431
2024-09-20 (61a2a69)167769 + 30088117057910346600645336158504016525640941915173240189402004422445944199857106912122315431
2024-10-01 (6afa51c)168227 + 30163117467910337602915341118536016488004951942173723189212053423045936199891107127123515553
2024-10-20 (6afa51c)168287 + 30198117354010349603635343118555016516215961929174039188312058427275944199830106725122315641
2024-11-01 (6afa51c)168467 + 301561175601103196050453460085790165563811001926174209189512065430455971200550106851122115729
2024-11-20 (b9405d2)168427 + 30146117635310313605995348028588016465775931901174451189912065432155979200828107205120915784
2024-12-01 (aa20a63)168520 + 30165117703810331606935351418610015426029861892174461189512065434255996200625107141123315872
2024-12-20 (c8c16a5)168593 + 30258117961010318607615355408677015576091901880175144190112062436566028201299107471119815936

=2025 statistics=

Due to Wikimedia Foundation server capacity problems, the January 1 dump failed, and the January 20 dump was delayed to January 23.

class="wikitable"
Dump (moss version) || Parse failures (articles + articles with MOS:STRAIGHT violations) || TOTAL (instances)

! A || BC || BW || C || D || H || HB || HL || L || ME || N || P || T/ || T1 || TE || TF || TS || U || Z

2025-01-23 (20ac4d6)168683 + 30245118030110338609015347678655015668091911870175344192712035440186027200986106427119216065
2025-02-01 (e296153)

| colspan=21 |(moss run failed)

2025-02-20 (53e8d2c)168810 + 30281118092210359608095349028672016088439971867175334193732048435735910201167106801118816208
2025-03-01 (2953d85)168893 + 30305118138910363609095352358691016088099961870175298193732056437295891201066107087119416257

=Typo classification legend=

class="wikitable sortable"
Reporting symbol

! Explanation

bgcolor=red| Parse failureMismatched punctuation; spell checker is unsure which words to ignore, so the whole page is skipped
bgcolor=yellow| AmAth
bgcolor=yellow| BCBad Characters (not allowed by Manual of Style)
bgcolor=yellow| BWBad Words (not allowed by Manual of Style)
bgcolor=lightblue| CChemistry words
bgcolor=lightblue| DDNA sequence
bgcolor=yellow| HHTML/XML/SGML tag
bgcolor=red| HBKnown bad HTML tag, like
bgcolor=red| HLBad HTML-like linking, like
bgcolor=lightblue| LProbable Romanization (transLiteration)
bgcolor=red | MEProbable coMpound, English (with and without dash) - need to be added to Wiktionary
bgcolor=yellow| NA-Z plus numbers and hyphens
bgcolor=red| PPatterns (e.g. rhyme schemes - Beland fixes these)
bgcolor=red | T/Suspected MOS:SLASH violation
bgcolor=red| T1Edit distance 1 from common English word
bgcolor=red | TEAI thinks it's trying to be English
bgcolor=yellow| TFAI thinks it's trying to be a non-English language (Foreign to English Wikipedia), sorted by language (e.g. TF+el)
bgcolor=orange| TSMissing or extra whitespace or dash (or new compound). Currently included if there is a period (TS+DOT), comma (TS+COMMA), or extra space (TS+EXTRA). Missing bracket (TS+BRACKET) needs code improvements to be reliable, and the remainder of TS need sorting.
bgcolor=yellow| UURL
bgcolor=yellow| ZDecimal fraction missing leading Zero
bgcolor=grey| IDefinitely not English (International) due to accents or mixed with punctuation (other than hyphen)
bgcolor=grey| MIProbable coMpound, non-English (International) in English Wiktionary (both A-Z and non-ASCII characters, with and without dash)
bgcolor=grey| MLProbable coMpound, transLiteration
bgcolor=grey| MWProbable coMpound, found in non-English Wiktionary
bgcolor=grey| RRegular word (A-Z only) not near a common English word
bgcolor=grey| T2Edit distance 2 from common English word
bgcolor=grey| T3Edit distance 3 from common English word
bgcolor=grey| WNot in English Wiktionary, in non-English Wiktionary

  • red = Probably need to fix
  • yellow = Unsorted - need code improvements to sort into likely vs. unlikely typos or subtypes that can be usefully processed.
  • blue = Probably OK (but may need to verify)
  • bold = actively working on fixing
  • grey = no longer used

=Instructions for editors=

Just like a regular spell checker, sometimes a word that's highlighted is really a misspelling and should be changed, but sometimes it is a correct spelling that needs to be added to the spell checker's dictionary (which in this case is the English Wiktionary and Wikispecies). For the below lists, here's how you can help:

  • For spelling mistakes: Click on the links to the individual Wikipedia articles, and edit them to correct the misspelling. Make sure this is actually a misspelling, and not a technical term that needs to be better explained, or an alternate spelling (possibly from a different regional variety of English).
  • For non-English words (including words from Old English and Middle English, since they are pronounced differently): Edit the article and use the {{tl|lang}} or {{tl|transl}} templates to mark all non-English passages. Template contents are ignored, so they will not show up in the next report. If you can define the word, it would still be helpful to add the non-English word to the English Wiktionary or the same-language Wiktionary if you speak that language. As of the March 20, 2019 dump, only words not found in any Wiktionary are reported by moss as misspellings. (The "home" Wiktionary for Old and Middle English words is the modern English one.)
  • If you don't know which language is being used, you can tag it with {{tl|which lang}}. If you add a "reason=" parameter, that will change the pop-up tooltip text readers will see when they hover over "what language is this?". If you have a guess as to which language it might be, or any other question or comment, you can leave that here to help future editors. If you use this tag, you can delete the article from the moss listing; the article will be added to :Category:Articles with unidentified words instead, and ignored by future runs of moss until the mystery is solved.
  • For Early Modern English spellings, use {{lang|en-emodeng}}.
  • For languages that don't have an ISO 639 code (often happens with historical languages), {{tl|lang}} now supports IETF language tags (with the "code" parameter) and can add "*" for proto-languages (with "proto=yes"). Failing that, use the miscellaneous code "mis" and add an HTML comment indicating the language.
  • For incorrect spellings in direct quotes:
  • These shouldn't be picked up by the spell checker, as text in double quotes ("") is ignored. The article probably has incorrect punctuation.
  • Regardless of punctuation problems, you can add {{tl|sic}} around the word or phrase. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Quotations for guidance.
  • For correct spellings that belong in the dictionary: Click on the word to add it to the English Wiktionary. Remember the word might not be English (though the definition must be) and be sure to check capitalization!
  • For correct spellings already in the dictionary: Delete from the list. These have been added in the meantime since the database dump by other editors. They do not automatically turn red as internal Wikipedia links do.
  • For correct spellings not appropriate for Wiktionary:
  • For complicated chemical names:
  • If there is an article about this chemical, it's best to make a redirect. You may want to tag it {{tl|R from systematic name}} or {{tl|R from technical name}} if appropriate.
  • If there is no Wikipedia article, you can either {{tl|chem name}}; for example:
  • ::{{chem name|poly(1-phenylethene)}}
  • :This should not be used for chemical formulas such as {{chem2|H2O}}, for which {{tl|H2O}} or {{tl|chem2}} may be appropriate. For some common compounds there are specific templates available such as Template:CO2.
  • For DNA sequences, add {{tl|DNA sequence}} around it.
  • For species, add the whole name to Wikispecies:Wikispecies:Requested articles#From_Wikipedia and it will be suppressed from future runs.
  • For proper nouns and (including non-English titles) that aren't capitalized, put inside a {{tl|proper name}} tag.
  • Use or similar tags for computer programs; see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Computer_science/Manual_of_style#Code_samples.
  • For terms that are only relevant to one Wikipedia article (and for which the article makes clear the definition) consider creating a redirect to the article. As long as the "typo" word is in the title (as a whole word), it won't show up as a mistake in future spell checks.
  • {{tl|IPA}} or {{tl|respell}} can be used for word pronunciations. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Pronunciation for details.
  • For bird calls: Treat these as foreign-language words or words-as-words and put them in italics, following MOS:ITALICS. Put the call inside {{tl|not a typo}} so it won't show up on moss spell check reports. (It doesn't matter if the double apostrophes that make the italics go inside or outside the template.)
  • Anything else, add {{tl|not a typo}} around it (for example, nonsense series of letters used as examples in puzzles).
  • Correct or incorrect, when finished delete the entry for the word from the lists on this page (or subpages), so work won't be duplicated. (There is no longer any need for strikethru.)
  • If an article or section has generally bad grammar, and you don't have time to fix the whole thing, just add {{tl|copyedit}} at the top of the article or {{tlp|copyedit|section}} at the top of the affected section. If it's just a sentence or two, {{tl|copy edit inline}} or {{tl|incomprehensible inline}} can go at the end of the problem passage.
  • If you see errors being reported from footnotes or bibliographies, check to make sure the section is titled with a standard name following MOS:APPENDIX conventions. Standard end-matter sections like "References" and "Further reading" and "Works" are ignored.
  • If it helps to leave a message on the article's talk page asking if the word is correct or incorrect, you can use Template:Typo help like this when editing the bottom of the talk page (leave the section header blank; it will automatically be added):
  • :{{subst:typo help|PUT WORD HERE}} -- ~~~~
  • If you are uncertain whether a word is spelt correctly or not, you can add {{tl|typo help inline}} immediately after it. If you add a "reason=" parameter, that will change the pop-up tooltip text readers will see when they hover over "check spelling". You can add a specific question or comment that may help identification. If you use this tag, you can delete the article from the moss listing; the article will be added to :Category:Articles with unidentified words instead, and ignored by future runs of moss until the mystery is solved.

Don't worry if you miss something; it will reappear in a future report if there are still mistakes.

=Suggested edit summaries=

If you want to help publicize this project, you can copy-and-paste these into your edit summary, if appropriate.

For Wikipedia edits:

:Fix misspelling found by Wikipedia:Typo Team/moss – you can help!

:Tag non-English text found by Wikipedia:Typo Team/moss – you can help!

:Tag correct text as {{not a typo}} for automated spell checkers (including Wikipedia:Typo Team/moss)

:Fix mismatched quote marks found by Wikipedia:Typo Team/moss – you can help!

For Wiktionary edits:

:Add word identified by w:Wikipedia:Typo Team/moss – you can help!

= Wiktionary cheat sheet =

Need to add a word to Wiktionary? The Wiktionary cheat sheet has copy-and-paste templates that make it easy for the types of words commonly encountered here, even if you've never done it before.

Misspellings{{dash}}lists of things to fix

= Likely misspellings by article (main listing) =

The most efficient list to work on if all you want to do is fix misspellings. These listings try to list all the typos from a given article, so they can be fixed all at once. It also tries to only show typos that legitimately need fixing. It's not perfect, so a few words found need to be added to Wiktionary or tagged as not English, not a typo, etc. Only a few letters are updated on each run, to avoid stale listings as the whole list takes far longer than two weeks to work through. (This also avoids duplicating recent work when listings are refreshed.)

See subpages due to length:

Notes:

  • For more cases that require investigation, see :Category:Articles with unidentified words.
  • Due to length and an increased number of false positives, typo reports for dumps 2020-05-20 and later don't include T2+, T3+, and TS+BRACKET+.

= Possible typos by length =

(Updated from 2022-12-20 dump.)

Longest or shortest in certain categories are shown, sometimes just for fun and sometimes because they form a useful group. Feel free to delete articles that are fixed or tagged.

== Likely chemistry words ==

These need to be checked by a chemist and marked as {{tl|chem name}}.

=Chemical formulas=

(Updated from 2023-05-20 dump.)

Chemical formulas should be written with HTML subscripts or {{tl|chem2}}; these listings identify those that incorrectly just use regular numbers.

Chemical formulas that use Unicode subscripts (which is against MOS:SUBSCRIPT) will be detected automatically by moss_entity_check.py.

Chemical formulas that use {{tag|sub}} are allowed by MOS:CHEM, but may show up in the main typo listings above. They can be converted to use {{tl|chem2}} to be accepted by the spell checker, and {{tl|chem2}} is also the way to fix listings of partial formulas.

Any "possible" listings that aren't chemical formulas can be cleared from this list by adding a redirect to an appropriate target (like Dy4 Systems). Most "known" listings that aren't chemical formulas can be fixed with {{tl|proper name}}.

Redirects added for strings that are chemical formulas should be added to :Category:Chemical formulas.

==Most chemical articles==

Articles with a large number of chemical formulas triggering the spell checker are listed here (manual check on 2022-06-20 dump; counts include potential typos other than formulas, mostly compound names):

==Possible chemical formulas that don't use subscripts==

Note: These are easier to find by searching with "insource://", for example: [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=insource%3A%2FSi6Al2%2F&ns0=1 insource:/Si6Al2/]. -- Beland (talk) 02:32, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

  • 11/6 - Ge9
  • 10/2 - N62B44
  • 7/6 - V2O7
  • 7/5 - Ac2S3
  • 7/1 - B3R2
  • 6/6 - Cu5
  • 6/5 - Ti3O5
  • 6/5 - S50B32
  • 6/5 - Bi2O2
  • 6/5 - Al63Cu24Fe13
  • 6/3 - Pr2C6H3
  • 6/3 - H3R17
  • 6/2 - Mn12O12
  • 6/2 - Ga2I3
  • 6/2 - C6R6
  • 5/5 - Si9O27
  • 5/5 - Pb9
  • 5/5 - No17
  • 5/5 - H3K18
  • 5/5 - Fe5Si3
  • 5/5 - Fe2O4
  • 5/5 - B18B4
  • 5/4 - Zr4
  • 5/4 - S6K2
  • 5/4 - Mo6S8
  • 5/4 - Fe4S3
  • 5/3 - V3R6 - version 3 release 6?
  • 5/3 - Pu2O3
  • 5/3 - K3V2
  • 5/3 - H3R26
  • 5/3 - Cf2O3
  • 5/2 - Np2O5
  • 5/2 - N62B48
  • 5/2 - Mn5Si3
  • 5/2 - Lv5
  • 5/2 - B12C3
  • 5/1 - Si4O13
  • 5/1 - Np2S3
  • 5/1 - B12Cl11
  • 4/4 - Ti22
  • 4/4 - Si4O10
  • 4/4 - Sb3O6
  • 4/4 - No16
  • 4/4 - Kr2
  • 4/4 - I4O9
  • 4/4 - H4R3
  • 4/4 - Gd3Ga5O12
  • 4/4 - Ga2Cl4
  • 4/4 - C6H5O7
  • 4/4 - C6H3Cl2
  • 4/4 - C2B2
  • 4/4 - C16H33
  • 4/4 - Bi4Ti3O12
  • 4/4 - Au75Si25
  • 4/4 - Al2Si2
  • 4/3 - W18O49
  • 4/3 - Tc3Cl9
  • 4/3 - R2B2
  • 4/3 - Pb10
  • 4/3 - No11
  • 4/3 - Ni6
  • 4/3 - H3R8
  • 4/3 - Ca3Al2
  • 4/3 - C5H3
  • 4/3 - C2B7H13
  • 4/3 - B6H10
  • 4/3 - B18C4
  • 4/2 - R2P2
  • 4/2 - Ni31Si12
  • 4/2 - H4K8
  • 4/2 - Cu4O3
  • 4/2 - Cr7C3
  • 4/2 - B5O6
  • 4/1 - Ti4N3
  • 4/1 - Ta5N6
  • 4/1 - Ta2Cl6
  • 4/1 - Sm2Co17
  • 4/1 - O2C6Cl4
  • 4/1 - Np3S5
  • 4/1 - Mg3Si2O5
  • 4/1 - Lv8
  • 4/1 - Ho5
  • 4/1 - H4H2
  • 4/1 - Ga2I4
  • 4/1 - Cr2Ge2Te6
  • 4/1 - C6S4
  • 4/1 - C50H10
  • 4/1 - C2P2
  • 4/1 - Ag6
  • 3/3 - V4R4 - version 4, release 4?
  • 3/3 - V4R3 - version 4, release 3?
  • 3/3 - Th4

==Known chemical formulas that don't use subscripts==

===H2O===

===CO2===

=== CS2 ===

(Mostly not carbon disulfide.)

===C2H2 zinc finger weirdness===

These might be better written as Cys2His2; see Zinc finger#Classes. -- Beland (talk) 01:16, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

===Remainder===

=== Problem cases ===

Parsing problems (where noted) are probably resulting in words showing up in debug-spellcheck-ignored.txt that shouldn't. -- Beland (talk) 03:09, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

  • 12/11 - Al2Si2O5 → Parsing problems? Might be leaking out of {{chem2|Al2Si2O5(OH)4}} or {{tag|chem}}?; see Kaolinite [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=insource%3A%2FAl2Si2O5%2F&ns0=1 find all]
  • 8/3 - Fe7C3 → Form of Iron carbide - parsing problems?
  • 8/5 - Mg3Al2 → From silicate mineral {{chem2|Mg3Al2(SiO4)3}}{{cite journal |title=Phosphorus recovery from human urine and anaerobically treated wastewater through pH adjustment and chemical precipitation |journal=Environmental technology |pmid=21879544 |url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21879544}} and its compositional variations; see Pyrope - possible parsing problems
  • 1 - C21H17F4NO3S2 - GW0742
  • Seems to be some sort of wikitext parser failure; this should be hidden inside {{tl|Drugbox}}
  • 1 - C19H19N7O6 - Folate
  • Seems to be some sort of wikitext parser failure; this should be hidden inside {{tl|Drugbox}} perhaps due to nowiki
  • 1 - C58H73N7O17 - Anidulafungin
  • Seems to be some sort of wikitext parser failure; this should be hidden inside {{tl|Drugbox}}. -- Beland (talk) 00:57, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
  • 1 - C22H27N3O4S - Azeloprazole
  • Seems to be some sort of wikitext parser failure; this should be hidden inside {{tl|Drugbox}}
  • 15/6 - Si6Al2 → From {{chem2|Ca2[(Mg,Fe)3Al2]Si6Al2O22(OH)2}} and its many compositional variations; see Double chain inosilicates
  • Some of these seem to be parse failures from tables? -- Beland (talk) 03:17, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
  • 11/7 - Si6O18 → Compound of {{chem2|SiO3}}; see Silicate and Cyclosilicates. Related to Beryl.
  • Remainder are probably parse failures. -- Beland (talk) 03:20, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
  • 9/8 - Si3O9 → As above. Related to Benitoite.
  • More parsing problems. -- Beland (talk) 03:25, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
  • 8/7 - Si4O11 → See Inosilicates - parsing problems
  • 7/1 - Ga2I62 → Related to Gallium halides; see Intermediate halides - no longer found in source, parsing problems?

=Repeating patterns=

For rhyme schemes, they probably need to be re-styled to follow Wikipedia:WikiProject Poetry#Style for rhyme schemes. If this ends up making them all-caps, they won't show up here on the next run. For mixed-case rhyme scheme notations, use {{tl|not a typo}} after making sure dashes, commas, and spaces follow the recommended style.

(All fixed as of 2022-12-20 dump!)

=False positives=

Is there a word that is correctly used in an article, but which shouldn't be added to Wiktionary? List it here, and Beland will fix the problem.

Archived solutions: Wikipedia:Typo Team/moss/Archive

=False negatives=

Is there a misspelled word in an article mentioned here that was not reported? Feel free to list it below and Beland will try to improve the code if appropriate.

These are currently over-ignored, but could be used to suggest correct spellings:

  • Wikipedia articles with {{tl|R from misspelling}}, {{tl|R from incorrect name}}, {{tl|R from miscapitalisation}}, and redirects to these templates
  • Wiktionary entries that are known misspellings (e.g. wikt:anticiliary)
  • In cases where there are variant spellings of the same word or phrase, Wikipedia should probably pick one and stick to it except to mention the variants. This happens with:
  • Compound words - whether to use a space, dash, or nothing, as in "junebug" vs. "june bug" or "email" vs. "e-mail".
  • Words with multiple transliterations from another language (often there are multiple systems, no particular system, or a modern system different from historical systems).
  • Redirects with {{tl|R from alternate spelling}} and redirects to that template.
  • Article Ana Recio Harvey | detected misspelling: appoinment | additional, undetected misspelling: enterpreneur
  • Looks like this was because of redirects with "enterpreneur" in the title. I have tagged them all {{tl|R from misspelling}}, but I'll have to change the code to ignore those, as noted above. Thanks for catching that! -- Beland (talk) 23:52, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

= Archived notes =

See Wikipedia:Typo Team/moss/Archive.

For Wiktionary

= Spell-checking Wiktionary itself =

A new project has started to do that using moss software, at wikt:Wiktionary:Spell check.

= Triaged for Wiktionary =

Dictionary writers needed! And speakers of languages other than English!

Many words (English and otherwise) detected as potential typos have been manually triaged as legitimate words that need to be added to Wiktionary, and are listed at Wikipedia:Typo Team/moss/For Wiktionary. (Moved from this page due to length.) Many of the subpages under the misspelling main listing also have long lists of words to add to Wiktionary, which are sometimes bundled up and moved to the "For Wiktionary" subpage.

Wiktionary aims to have definitions for all words in all languages (with some exceptions), and acts as the primary database for the moss spell-checker.

= Highest-frequency words missing from dictionary (a-m) =

(updated 2022-12-20)

Good candidates for words to add to the English Wiktionary (which

provides English definitions for words in all languages, including all

compound words), as it seems English Wikipedia readers will frequently

encounter them. For each run, only words from half of the alphabet

are shown, to avoid duplicate work from when new dumps are being

processed.

Most of the words are not from English. To get them off this list,

you can either add an entry to the English Wiktionary (which provides

English definitions for words in all languages) or tag all instances

of the word on the English Wikipedia with {{tl|lang}}. Wiktionary

does not accept Romanizations for some languages, so those cases must

be tagged as {{tl|transl}} or {{tl|lang}}.

Legitimate misspellings are candidates for Wikipedia:Lists of common misspellings.

If there is an obvious correction, adding that to

Wikipedia:Lists of common misspellings/For machines will help

editors who use automated tools to fix cases faster.

Translation and general cleanup

See Wikipedia:Typo Team/moss/not English.

Mismatched markup and punctuation

Errors in punctuation (mostly quotation marks) and wiki markup generally cause confusion for readers, and also prevent the spell checker from running on these articles.

Inches and feet should not use " and ', per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Specific units; use letters instead. (See MOS:UNITS for general guidance.) Where conversions are needed, use {{tl|convert}}, for example: {{convert|2|ft|3|in|cm}}

----

WORK IN PROGRESS

  • Integrating these with main listings
  • Filter only unmatched " for now
  • Filter articles with non-ASCII quote marks to a separate list for JWB processing
  • Filter \d" and \d' to a separate sublist for inch/feet style conversion
  • Explain ✂ or skip snippets showing this
  • Bracketbot web UI seems to be down

-- Beland (talk) 19:03, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Gender-neutral language

=Manned=

The word "manned" and related forms like "unmanned" are used in many articles, but is not gender-neutral as required by MOS:S/HE and the [https://history.nasa.gov/styleguide.html NASA style guide]. Gender-neutral alternatives include:

  • Crewed, uncrewed
  • Staffed, unstaffed
  • Human spaceflight
  • Defended

Not all instances need to be changed.

  • Proper nouns should remain the same, like Manned Orbiting Laboratory
  • Titles of sources and quotes should remain unchanged.
  • If the term itself is being discussed, for example to say that "manned spaceflight" is another way of saying human spaceflight.
  • There seems to be consensus on unmanned aerial vehicle that this and related phrases (like unmanned aerial system) should remain intact, since it is much more frequent than "uncrewed aerial vehicle" at the moment. However, when using Wikipedia's voice it is preferred to describe a UAV as "uncrewed" when not using the whole phrase.
  • Non-article pages that are retained for historical interest shouldn't be modified if they won't be visible to readers.
  • Redirects with this title should be left alone if they are redirecting readers to a gender-neutral title

If the word is found the names of articles and categories (except those with names directly related to UAVs), those should be renamed, and the links changed. Many articles have already been renamed, and the links just need to be updated. (Remember that to rename a category, all the articles in that category must be edited to change their pointers.)

  • Coming soon: moss report on "manned" that ignores references, page titles, proper nouns, and consensus-OK phrases.
  • [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&limit=500&offset=0&ns0=1&search=manned&advancedSearch-current={} Find all instances of "manned" in articles]
  • [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&limit=500&offset=0&ns0=1&search=unmanned&advancedSearch-current={} Find all instances of "unmanned" in articles]
  • [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=manned&title=Special%3ASearch&profile=advanced&fulltext=1&advancedSearch-current=%7B%7D&ns4=1&ns6=1&ns14=1&ns100=1 Find all instances of "manned" in Wikipedia:, File:, Category:, and Portal:] (recommended for advanced editors only)
  • [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=manned&title=Special%3ASearch&profile=advanced&fulltext=1&advancedSearch-current=%7B%7D&ns4=1&ns6=1&ns14=1&ns100=1 Find all instances of "unmanned" in Wikipedia:, File:, Category:, and Portal:] (recommended for advanced editors only)

==Borderline cases==

These may need to be discussed before being changed.

  • Manned Venus flyby - Based on the NASA style guide, NASA probably would now refer to this as "human Venus flyby" but historical sources say "manned Venus flyby" so that's what the majority of editors commenting on the talk page currently favor. There is some question as to whether the scope of the article concerns a specific mission or this type of mission in general, which is related to the proper name exception (but then the title would be "Manned Venus Flyby"). Compare Colonization of Venus and Human mission to Mars. -- Beland (talk) 19:41, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

::Discussion in progress on Talk:Manned Venus flyby. -- Beland (talk) 09:37, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Objections in specific cases:

=Marriage=

{{section link|Wikipedia:Writing about women|Marriage}} points out:

  • "is the wife of" is less neutral than "is married to" - [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=%22is+the+wife+of%22&ns0=1 find all "is the wife of"]
  • "born to X and his wife Y" is less neutral than "born to X and Y" - [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=born+to+%22and+his+wife%22&title=Special%3ASearch&ns0=1 approximate search]
  • "man and wife" is less neutral than "husband and wife", and to be fully neutral the order should be varied - [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?sort=relevance&search=insource%3A%2F+man+and+wife%2F&title=Special%3ASearch&ns0=1 find all "man and wife"]

=Ladies=

{{section link|Wikipedia:Writing about women|Girls, ladies}} prefers "women" to "ladies" except where part of set phrases or traditional titles (like first lady).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?sort=relevance&search=insource%3A%2Fladies%2F&ns0=1 find all lowercase "ladies"]

Instructional and presumptuous language

MOS:NOTE says to avoid the following phrases when they address the reader directly. Not all instances are problematic, such as those in direct quotations.

  • remember that - [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ns0=1&search=insource%3A%2Fremember+that%2F find all "remember that"]
  • note that - [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ns0=1&search=insource%3A%2Fnote+that%2F find all "note that"]
  • of course - [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ns0=1&search=insource%3A%2Fof+course%2F find all "of course"]
  • naturally - [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ns0=1&search=insource%3A%2Fnaturally%2F find all "naturally"] (the meaning "related to nature" is not problematic)
  • obviously - [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ns0=1&search=insource%3A%2Fobviously%2F find all "obviously"]
  • clearly - [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ns0=1&search=insource%3A%2Fclearly%2F find all "clearly"]
  • actually - [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ns0=1&search=insource%3A%2Factually%2F find all "actually"]
  • rhetorical questions, especially in headings - [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?limit=500&ns0=1&search=insource%3A%2F\%3F\s*\%3D\%3D%2F find all questions in headings] (some cases, like the names of works, are not problematic)

Internationally comprehensible spelling and vocabulary

MOS:COMMONALITY advises the use of vocabulary and spellings that are shared across national varieties of English, where possible. This section collects instances where an unshared term is being used which could be improved. For proper nouns and direct quotes, a translation or re-spelling into another dialect may be helpful.

:::looks like its wrapped up, with jail preferred except in proper nouns Xurizuri (talk) 15:36, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Currency style

Per MOS:CURRENCY:

  • For the UK, Irish, Australian, New Zealand, and South African pound, ₤ should be changed to £
  • ₤ is OK to use with Italian lira. Changing e.g. ₤100,000 to ₤100,000 will prevent legitimate uses from showing up in automated reports, and also help readers understand that this is not British pounds. (Mentions of Italian lira are increasingly rare because it has been replaced by the Euro.)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&limit=500&offset=0&ns0=1&search=insource%3A%2F%E2%82%A4%2F+-insource%3A%2Flira%2F&advancedSearch-current={} Find all problem cases for ₤]

Caution: Not all problem pages show up reliably; if you do a search, fix all the pages in the results, and then do another search, you will probably get a fresh batch of problem pages. It may also take a minute or two for fixed pages to disappear from the results, due to lag updating the search index.

Work is in progress on detecting and fixing other MOS-related issues with numbers and currencies.

Small caps

Per MOS:SMALLCAPS, smallcaps are not to be used for years like "400 BC". [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=-intitle%3A%22Vulgar+Latin%22+insource%3A%2F%5C%7B%5C%7B%28sc%7Csc1%7Csc2%7Csmallcaps+all%7Csmallcaps%7Csmallcaps2%29%5C%7C%28bc%7Cbce%7Cad%7Cce%29%5C%7D%5C%7D%2Fi+-prefix%3AAcronym&title=Special:Search&profile=advanced&fulltext=1&advancedSearch-current=%7B%7D&ns0=1 Find all instances of known smallcaps issues...]

HTML tags

Updated from 2024-11-20 dump.

You can do one of two things for these articles:

  • Remove, repair, or convert the HTML markup to wiki markup yourself.
  • Tag the article {{tl|cleanup HTML}} and it will show up under :Category:Articles with HTML markup but not on this list. Use the "tags" parameter to indicate which tags are present on the page; many editors find it hard to locate the offending HTML. For example: {{cleanup HTML|tags=table, cite}}

=How to clean up=

See :Category:Articles with HTML markup for instructions on how to find the offending tags and what to do about them.

=Find all articles by tag=

Can't wait for the next database dump? Want to look for or fix all instances of a specific tag? Use the links below!