WikiQueer:Typo Team

The WikiQueer Typo Team is dedicated to making WikiQueer look more professional by correcting typos and misspellings. If you see any typos (even minor ones), please correct them. This helps improve the quality of WikiQueer. This kind of editing is a never-ending job, so we could use your help!

British vs American English, etc.
Except for articles with strong national ties, the English WikiQueer has no preference for American, British, or other forms of English as long as usage is consistent throughout the page. In most cases, articles should stay in the variant that currently predominates and should not be converted just for the sake of conversion (see MOS:RETAIN). Check the rest of the page before assuming that flavor, color, meter, or defense (or, likewise, flavour, colour, metre, or defence) is a mistake. Note that the endings "-ize" and "-ization" are acceptable in both British and American English. The suffix "-ise" is more common in Commonwealth usage than "-ize", but both spellings are correct. The use of "-ize"/"-ise" should remain consistent throughout a page.

More information can be found in the following links:
 * WikiQueer:Manual of Style
 * American and British English spelling differences

Edit summary
Typo team members make lots of edits. It is always a good idea to give an edit summary after each edit, describing the change you made (see Help:Edit summary). If you made many fixes, you might say "spelling fixes" or "spelling cleanup". If the number of edits was small you might list the exact words you fixed, such as "spelling Mississippi". You can also specify the exact change you made as with "spelling: lense → lens". Additionally, you could simultaneously promote our project in the edit summary with a small reference like "typo corrections WikiQueer:Typo Team " or "sp Monday WQ:TYPO ". The shortcut  WQ:TYPO  links to this project page. The bottom line is that the edit summaries are important and other editors value them when scanning the article history. Having a near perfect edit summary may also help your request if you want to be a WikiQueer administrator.

Typos that need to be corrected
If only one or two articles exist with an incorrect spelling, please feel free to correct them yourself.

Typos that do not need to be corrected
Not all typos on WikiQueer need be (or should be) corrected:


 * Spelling errors on talk pages generally should not be fixed. It is a guideline that comments, especially of others, should not be edited. Roughly this is because it can be disruptive to the communicative process, as others may have already quoted the material. Also, talk pages are not considered part of the encyclopedia proper so there is no need to bring them up to a publishable standard. On the other hand, if you were the last to post to a talk page and made a spelling or grammatical error, there's no reason not to fix it.
 * In quotes, the material being quoted may contain a typo or have archaic spelling. Do not "fix" this. Instead, insert a code comment saying that it is a "sic" in the original material so that future editors do not change it. The template is often useful as well.
 * Be alert to passages where the typos suggest that the text has been processed by an optical character recognition (OCR) program. For instance, these programs sometimes substitute numbers for letters, like "1" for "l", an error that a human would be unlikely to make. OCR'ed text is likely to be a copyright violation and should be removed rather than fixed. See WikiQueer:Text Copyright Violations 101.

Methods for searching and correcting typos
Many users have found that using Google to search for misspelled words yields better results than WikiQueer, such as this Google search (replace "occured" with desired typo to search). However, the results may be out of date; the results are reindexed in a week or two.

Browser spell-checkers

 * Mozilla Firefox has a built-in spell-checker (version 2.0 and later).
 * Additional dictionaries, such as British, American, Canadian, and Australian English, are easily installed via "Add Ons" or via a right-click "Languages" in an HTML form. Switching back and forth between language variants is especially useful for editing WikiQueer. Remember, however, that the Firefox dictionaries are not gospel when it comes to defining a language, so use common sense.
 * By default, Firefox's spellchecker stops after 500 flagged words. This is insufficient for some articles. You can increase the maximum number of misspellings by changing the extensions.spellcheck.inline.max-misspellings preference. Enter about:config in the URL bar then in the filter bar enter spell. This will show options related to the spell checker and you should see the one you want. Change its value to something like 1000, 1500, or more.
 * Users of older versions of Firefox can download the SpellBound extension to check spelling, which supports British English, and additional language-country variations such as American English.
 * After the Deadline is a spell and grammar check add-on for Firefox (and Google Chrome). It finds misused words (e.g., its/it's) as well as correcting spelling mistakes.
 * Searching in the edit form can be done in Firefox using the Findtextarea extension or the Searchtextarea bookmarklet, or by using Firefox 2.0 Beta 1. Most other browsers support searching in the text area of a page.
 * Other plugins may be of use in aiding your editing too.
 * Users of Opera can find information on how to check spelling in Opera in the Advanced Preferences: Browsing section of Opera Help.
 * The latest version of Konqueror highlights misspelled words in text boxes.
 * ieSpell is a spell-checker for Internet Explorer. Right-click in the edit box to check spelling.
 * Users of Safari on Mac OS X or Windows can spell-check an input box from the "Spelling" submenu in the context menu of the box (activated via Control-click or right-click). Spell-check-as-you-type can also be enabled there or alternatively in the application "Edit" menu.
 * Camino 1.1a1 and later has automatic spell-checking in edit fields enabled by default.
 * OmniWeb has automatic spell-checking in all text input fields.
 * Google Chrome has spell-checking in all text input fields.

Checking spelling
The following online tools can be used if you are unsure of how a word is spelled.

Free online spell checkers

 * SpellCheck.net

Lists of common misspellings

 * Misspelled.com
 * SpellGood.net: 50 Common Misspellings
 * A to Z Online Dictionary of Misspelled Words
 * YourDictionary.com: 100 most often mispelled misspelled words in English
 * YourDictionary.com: 150 common mispelled misspelled words

Using online dictionaries
If a word does not exist, you often get this kind of result:

Did you mean exec rise ?

Make sure to click the underlined word, then check if that word does exist, because the underlined word or words in the message do not always exist. Often, when you get this message, it gives the correct spelling or it gives the word from which what you're trying to look up is derived.

When you look up an entry, punctuation and capitalization do not make any difference. For example, looking up "etc", "etc.", "ETC", "et.c.", or "e-t-c" all yield the same results. Unfortunately, some entries that come up when using improper punctuation or capitalization suggest that the punctuation is right. When looking up "et.c.", for example, the top entry may punctuate it correctly with one full stop, but another entry may punctuate it incorrectly as "et.c." (i.e., the same punctuation you typed in the search box). With the American Heritage Dictionary, an entry is always properly punctuated and capitalized, but often some other entries are punctuated and capitalized just as you typed them.

Userbox
There is a userbox to show that you are a member of the Typo Team:

Add to show the project userbox on your user page. If you wish to transclude the userbox, you may alternatively use. Note the bold "WikiQueer Typo Team" in the userbox above will be a link to this project page when used on your userpage. The original userbox was designed by Galaxiaad and may still be used using the old.

Barnstars
If you feel someone has done exceptional work, you can reward them with one of these.