This is the discussion page for the AutoWikiBrowser (AWB) project. It is also the place to discuss using the AWB program (for help, questions, or general inquiries about AWB). Specific guidelines on where to make particular reports or requests are provided in the § Before you post section below. Before asking a question, please refer to the read the § Frequently asked questions below.

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In the years of 1900-1976, for every article about the year, I would like to remove the births and deaths section and replace it with this code which is a comment in this page to avoid adding a new section using AWB. I am hoping that someone can help me put in the right settings to AWB so that I can easily do these edits.

Interstellarity (talk) 21:30, 12 October 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

I've un-hidden it for ease of reading (though I've dropped it to a lvl 3 just for the sake of readability). Is there a consensus for this type of edit? Primefac (talk) 23:19, 12 October 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

@Primefac I tried getting a consensus for the edits, but the discussion didn't attract enough people to comment on it. I would assume that we could possibly go through with the edit, since any editor can revert the edits and follow the WP:BRD cycle. Do you have any suggestions on what I should do? If I need to get a consensus, what page would be best for this kind of discussion? Normally, I would go to the article talk page for this kind of discussion, but the pages in question are of multiple pages, so I wasn't sure if I needed to go to a higher end noticeboard or something else. Interstellarity (talk) 23:47, 12 October 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

No, that sounds like SILENCE to me, which is fine. Am I correct that all of the pages in question follow the format ==Births==....==Deaths==....==Nobel Prizes=== (with the exception of 1900)? In that case, you'd want to use the following: Replace == *Births *==[\s\S]*== *Deaths *==[\s\S]*== *Nobel with

== Births and deaths ==
{{Main|Category:{{subst:PAGENAME}} births|Deaths in {{subst:PAGENAME}}}}
== Nobel

That seems to do what you want. If there are any pages where there isn't a Nobel Prize section (like 1900) just change the last bit of the code to match. Primefac (talk) 00:08, 13 October 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

As of now at least 1975 and 1976 have broken syntax. David Brooks (talk) 11:44, 13 October 2025 (UTC) ETA: same with every page I checked; the error in the source is clear. David Brooks (talk) 11:48, 13 October 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

Just looking at 1976 as an example, @Jonesey95: you have fixed the syntax error with a revert, but by leaving "(削除) Category: (削除ここまで)Deaths in 1976" (as in the first edit by Interstellarity) it results in a self-link. It should be "Category:1976 Deaths". @Interstellarity: shouldn't we revert all the way back, take a breath, read the comments, and think again? David Brooks (talk) 11:20, 14 October 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

This discussion has split into (at least) 3 forks. I made a compromise suggestion at User talk:Interstellarity#Deletion of births and deaths. David Brooks (talk) 17:32, 14 October 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

@DavidBrooks Please see my reply on my talk page. I am willing to take your suggestion to revert everything and discuss more, but I would like to automate my reverts so that I don't have to revert everything manually. Do we have tools on Wikipedia that can do reverts on multiple pages? Interstellarity (talk) 20:16, 14 October 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/massRollback is good for mass rollback. Primefac (talk) 00:44, 20 October 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

I think it was mistake moving that. If I wanted for example to see all actors and actresses born in 1944 it was clearly marked and mostly there were names of most famous. Now You put category 1944 births and you made things worse. I need to goo trough names of all those born in 1944. I do not understand why U did it? Miloradovan (talk) 23:52, 13 October 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

I'm using the ThitxongkhoiAWB bot and it says "not enabled to use" and can not work anymore. What is this error? Thái Nhi (talk) 04:09, 18 October 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

@Thái Nhi - I don't see your name here - Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPageJSON. Have you applied here - WP:RFP/AWB? Kiwipete (talk) 06:52, 18 October 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

I'm not sure what changed, but I was still using it until yesterday. vi:Đặc_biệt:Đóng_góp/ThitxongkhoiAWB Thái Nhi (talk) 07:12, 18 October 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

That's a different language project; did you change the language you were looking at for AWB? Primefac (talk) 19:52, 19 October 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

Thanks for your advice! Thái Nhi (talk) 00:41, 20 October 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

I've installed AWB on another computer and I'm running into a display issue. When I do "Find and Replace" Replace special, and try to create a rule in the subwindow, the Find section goes all the way down to the bottom of the area that should be Find and Replace With. The "Replace with" is *just* above the Regular Expression checkbox. I'm pretty sure it looks differently on my home computer giving area for the Replace with: area.Naraht (talk) 14:41, 23 October 2025 (UTC) Any ideas or do I need to drop this in Phabricator?[reply ]

Re-up from June: That will be fixed in 6.4.0.1, but I see that isn't on sourceforge yet. If you trust me, try this, which is based on a recent source tree:

https://github.com/DavidWBrooks/UnofficialAWB/releases/latest

David Brooks (talk) 15:40, 23 October 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

I've been using David's 6.4.0.1 build since June this year, and have had no problems with it. Kiwipete (talk) 21:10, 23 October 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

Is Win7 still supported? As AWB 6.4.0.0 requires .NET 4.8.1, it's unable to run on Win7, because 4.8.1 doesn't support Win7 (last supported version should be 4.8). — Draceane ^talk _contribs. 20:42, 23 October 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

Reedy changed the .NET versions earlier this year under T385223. I think the bigger picture answer you will get is that Wikmedia/Wikipedia want to support/enforce the current/latest browser encryption standards so that means dropping older operating systems. The major browsers are doing something similar - Firefox support for Windows 7 has been extended to next year but won't continue for ever, so at some point you may have to use a newer Windows version (or other modern OS) for Wikipedia editing. However, I think the snapshot releases I build here only require .NET 4.8 so you should be able to use one of those in the meantime. Rjwilmsi 18:25, 7 November 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

@Rjwilmsi: Not that I have looked at the downloaded bits, but I think those four builds postdate the 4.8.1 update, which was in source rev 12730. The last archive on sourceforge that predates the change seems to have been of release 6.3.1.1, and that will be missing some useful updates. I've made a version of the latest update (rev 13010) using framework 4.8, and it seems to work OK on Windows 11. You can find it without plugins on my onedrive. As usual, unblock the exe before running. LMK if it works or doesn't; obviously this isn't a longterm solution. David Brooks (talk) 19:17, 7 November 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

Yes, but I have custom AWB solution/projects which target .NET 4.8 and the snapshots I've uploaded are from that. For me they do run under wine with .NET 4.6.2 installed. Rjwilmsi 19:47, 7 November 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

Ah, thanks for the clarification. David Brooks (talk) 20:55, 7 November 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

Maintainers, should the official build be reverted to using 4.8, if there are still enough Win7 users? As far as I can tell, the main advantage of 4.8.1 is native ARM64 support for people like me, and some accessibility improvements. The current build tree creates x86 binaries which run under emulation on ARM64 boxes (more slowly and using much more memory than native, but it works). So downgrading to 4.8 wouldn't make a difference in that respect; I have a private build with native support but I'm not suggesting that be shoehorned into the official build. David Brooks (talk) 04:05, 10 November 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

My regex partially works in a manner I am completely unable to figure out. I am using Advanced settings for find and replace, and I have the regex ([\u4E00-\u9FFF\u3400-\u4DBF\uF900-\uFAFF\u3040-\u309F\u30A0-\u30FF\uAC00-\uD7AF]+) in find, and {{lang|zh|1ドル}} in replace, with the article as User:Just_a_generic_username/sandbox. The strings "燕然都护府" and "鎮北都護府" do get replaced as I want, but strings like "瀚海都护府" and "安北都护府" do not. However, if I manually check the Unicode values for each character in the string, it should match.

(It is entirely possible that I messed up something in my settings because it took me over half an hour to figure out how to even display the page due to the manual not appearing to mention anything about how to display only one page.)

Just a generic username (talk) 12:26, 7 November 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

In AWB I would first use Tools / Regex tester to confirm that your regex matches everything you want it to. Once it's working there, if not working within advanced find and replace then it may well be something to do with whether the text you want to match is within a template or not, and how you are using the advanced rules for that. You may find it simpler to use the Normal find and replace, at least to get started. Rjwilmsi 18:14, 7 November 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

Hi! I would like to request access to AutoWikiBrowser (AWB) for my account User:Will229. I plan to use it for small helpful edits, such as fixing typos, formatting, and adding categories. I understand and will follow all Wikipedia policies regarding the use of AWB. Thanks! Will229 (talk) 15:20, 10 November 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

Will229 Requests go to WP:AWB/R.Naraht (talk) 16:15, 10 November 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

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