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Some useful regex functions
You can use search and replace with regex in the visual editor, just tap Ctrl+f on your keyboard, then click on the icon representing (.*) — that's the regex (regular expression) function, which will interpret your search string as regex.
Unfortunately you can't use regex in the replace function but anyway, here are some cool regex functions you can use to help you on pages. Just copy the "regex code" row into the search bar (yes it looks like nothing, that's normal)
| Regex code | What it does | Use for |
|---|---|---|
\[(\d+)\]
|
Detects references like [12] | Transform plain text references into formatted MediaWiki references (ctrl+shift+k to add a reference). Will probably leave behind extra spaces so run the next function. |
\s{2,}
|
Detect two spaces or more | Search for this code, add a space in the replace field, then press replace all and it will correct all possible extra spaces to just one. |
\s(?=[.,;:!?)%])
|
Remove space before punctuation | Removes a space before punctuation, like . or ? or ;
be careful before replacing all, you should look through instances one by one. |
\s-{1,2}|\s\u2013
|
Detects a hyphen or two OR an en dash after a space | This can indicate incorrect use of an em dash —
Will detect either - or --, which are sometimes incorrectly used. Replace all with em dash (with a space before but not after) Will also detect the en dash (–), which should also be replaced. |
(?<!\s)\d+\s*[.\-\)]
|
Detects improperly formatted ordered lists (e.g. 1), 2), etc) | We should use mediawiki lists instead of plain text. This detects such a case. Use only to find it, then apply the list format manually. |
page \d+
|
detects "page X" where X is any number | Sometimes in text imported documents online, there will remain a "page X" (page 5, page 12...) in the text; these come from the original PDF. You can quickly remove them with this code. |
(?<![.!?])\n
|
Detects superfluous line breaks | When importing from PDF, you will usually have extra line breaks that shouldn't be here. This code detects them (new lines preceded by period, exclamation mark or question mark). Replace with an empty space.
Note: detecting line breaks doesn't work in MediaWiki. Import your text to say Google Docs, use their search function, then import result to ProleWiki. You still have to go through the text manually but it saves a lot of time and cramps. |
Other online libraries from marxists.org
Marxists.org is ran by trots and they've been known to edit stuff to fit their bias -- notably in Mastering Bolshevism from Stalin, whole sections are missing and they give the work a completely different name.
As much as possible, we shouldn't use them. You simply cannot know if their edition of a book will be truthful or not. They also rely on old translations for many texts, while I've found that newer translations tend to flow better.
Here are libraries we can use other than marxists.org:
- http://www.marx2mao.com/
- https://libgen.is/ (if you already know what you're looking for)
- http://ciml.250x.com/archive/index.html never tested it, only has Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Hoxha (it's a hoxhaist website)
- https://redsails.org/categories/ our comrades at Red Sails also have a library (look under Authors); they also say where they source their works from.
- https://openlibrary.org they have books on everything and from everyone, including marxist authors. However they have to use a "borrowing" system by law, and you have to make an account. Maybe use them to find a book, then download it from libgen.
- https://www.redstarpublishers.org/#OML has PDFs, which are a pain to edit into ProleWiki. Marxists.org also has PDFs, which I doubt they edit due to the sheer work, but maybe they still do.
- https://www.bannedthought.net has mostly documents in PDF format about countries, but some books can be found there.
- http://hiaw.org/defcon6/works/cw/index.html this page has the M&E letters, which are copyrighted by some company.
- https://espressostalinist.com/the-real-stalin-series/ this page collects excerpts and collides them into topics; you can look for the original book on libgen.
- Marx&Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao's works are available in their respective Collected Works, which can easily be downloaded from marx2mao for example as PDFs.
Make sure that the work you want to copy from these doesn't come from the MIA though, obviously.