Automatic Spelling Corrections On Github 105
An anonymous reader writes "Github projects may be seeing a different kind of contributor than normal: a small bot is now crawling through projects, contributing spelling corrections. It builds on top of the github API and existing documentation style-checking code. Future directions for the project look beyond spelling mistakes and at automated bug fixing on a large scale."
Erasing Fingerprints (Score:4, Interesting)
Eventually someone will contribute SW that will guess the contributors by their distinctive patterns of spelling mistakes. I hope it will be able to find them in the archives. I won't be surprised to read on Slashdot some copyright lawsuit that depends on both apps, perhaps on opposing sides of the claim.
Re:Yeah, I'm sure... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wikipedia has similar bots (Score:0, Interesting)
Some (most?) of the Wikipedia bots are out of control and should be banned though. The value in Wikipedia was that it is user created, edited and validated. When they let bots do any of these tasks, the value of Wikipedia dimishes even moreso from the problems it already has with pretentious people protecting "their" page. Dont believe me? Try arguing with a bot on it's talk page. Or try discussing the finer points with a bot on an article's talk page.
Specifically in your case, I'm not sure anyone should be using a citation if they cant find the relevant text in the citation.
These bots are often created by CS professors who are bored and are trying to see how "smart" they can make some type of search algorithm. But they rarely have ever thought through the value that these bots create (or destroy). And often just let them loose. Something that automates mundae tasks is one thing, but trying to "out-think" the entire userbase with a regex is foolish hubris.
If someone wants to have a Wikipedia run by bots they should start a separate service.