Bare URLs are not good for Wikipedia. They're prone to linkrot and make quick referencing difficult for the average reader. However, the vast majority of articles which use bare URLs are not tagged for cleanup with the appropriate {{linkrot}} tags, making progress hard to track.
To get rid of bare URLs, we can use reFill but the task is monumental if we are to actually aim to bring about a state of affairs where there are no bare URLs. The plan to bring about such a state of affairs is as follows:
- Download database dumps.
- Use the RegEx
\<ref\>htt(p|ps)\:to scan the dump with AutoWikiBrowser, generating a list of affected articles. - Batch the articles together in reFill to automate any fixes.
- Repeat steps 1 and 2 and manually rectify any links reFill cannot fix, such as PDF files.
- Implement an edit filter which either prevents users saving edits with the aforementioned RegEx pattern or one which automatically tags such links with the maintenance tag so we can keep a track of linkrot.
- To do: include in regex the
<ref>[httpexamples.