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Maniphest T421445

[Suggestion] Ensure Western Arabic (Latin) numerals (0123...) are used in articles on ar.wiki
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Description

This ticket involves the work of offering a suggestion at ar.wiki that prompts people to replace Eastern Arabic numerals (e.g. ١٢٣) numerals with Western Arabic (Latin) numerals (e.g. 123).

Deployment plan

Deploy as a default Suggestion within Suggestion Mode.

Open questions

  • What logic ought to be used to detect the presence of Eastern Arabic numerals?

Meta

Requirements

WARNING: Requirements will not yet be final until this tag is removed.

Meta

  • Default configuration
    • maximumEditcount: None
    • minimumEditcount: None
    • ignoreSection: N/A
    • ignoreLeadSection: N/A
    • Type: Suggestion and/or Check: Suggestion
  • Detection heuristic: TBD

User experience

  • Card design
    • Title: Add link
    • Description (≤2 sentences): This number seems to be written using Eastern Arabic numerals. Help readers by converting this number to Western Arabic (Latin) numerals (0123...).
    • Calls to action
      • Button name: Convert number
      • Button name: Skip
  • Success toast

Instrumentation
As with all Edit Checks and Suggestions, we will want to know:

  • Any time a Suggestion of this type is activated within an edit session
  • Any time someone views a Suggestion of this type within an edit session
  • Any time someone engages with a Suggestion and how they engage with it

Related Objects
Search...

Event Timeline

ppelberg created this task.Mar 26 2026, 9:54 PM
Restricted Application added subscribers: hubaishan, Gerges, alaa, • Aklapper. · View Herald TranscriptMar 26 2026, 9:54 PM
ppelberg moved this task from Backlog to New Suggestions on the VisualEditor Suggestion Mode board.Mar 27 2026, 7:52 PM
ppelberg triaged this task as High priority.Mar 27 2026, 10:53 PM
ppelberg updated the task description. (Show Details)
ppelberg moved this task from Decision to be made to Ready to Be Worked On on the Editing-team (Editing-Q4-30Mar-10Apr-2026) board.
Esanders renamed this task from [Suggestion] Ensure Arabic (English) numerals are used in articles (ar.wiki) to [Suggestion] Ensure Western Arabic (Latin) numerals (0123...) are used in articles on ar.wiki.Mar 30 2026, 11:02 AM
Esanders updated the task description. (Show Details)
Esanders updated the task description. (Show Details)
Esanders subscribed.Mar 30 2026, 11:12 AM

This could probably be done in TextMatchEditCheck with some improvements:

  • Adding a regex mode (has been discussed in the past)
  • Allowing more complex replacements, e.g. supporting a replacement map

Any implementation will also need to detect and replace digit separators (comma, stop) within sequences, and some consideration may need to be given to currency markers (e.g. 100GBP, £100).

ppelberg moved this task from Ready to Be Worked On to Decision to be made on the Editing-team (Editing-Q4-30Mar-10Apr-2026) board.Mar 30 2026, 6:43 PM
Dyolf77_WMF added a comment.Mar 31 2026, 4:11 PM
  • Title:
    • I suggest Convert numerals

Help readers by converting this number to Western Arabic (Latin) numerals (0123...).

  • Maybe changing this to
Help readers from all the world  by converting this number to Western Arabic (Latin) numerals (0123...).
dchan added a subtask: T407664: Support regex queries in TextMatchEditCheck.Mar 31 2026, 5:22 PM
dchan subscribed.Mar 31 2026, 5:39 PM

In which contexts would we *not* want to suggest replacing [٠١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩] with [0123456789]? I imagine:

  • Quotations
  • Contexts where the same number appears in both systems (so one is probably explaining the other)
  • Exclusion by page category (e.g. maybe some history topics?)

Any others?

ppelberg added a comment.Mar 31 2026, 9:37 PM

Next steps

  • Per today's offline discussion, @Dyolf77_WMF is going to share the proposed implementation with volunteers at ar.wiki to learn what (if any) adjustments they'd like to see made to this suggestion. We'll also invite feedback about any blocking concerns volunteers are holding around this suggestion.
ppelberg lowered the priority of this task from High to Low.Mar 31 2026, 9:38 PM
Dyolf77_WMF added a comment.Apr 3 2026, 1:32 PM
In T421445#11775528, @ppelberg wrote:

Next steps

  • Per today's offline discussion, @Dyolf77_WMF is going to share the proposed implementation with volunteers at ar.wiki to learn what (if any) adjustments they'd like to see made to this suggestion. We'll also invite feedback about any blocking concerns volunteers are holding around this suggestion.

Shared with volunteers here

matej_suchanek mentioned this in T407664: Support regex queries in TextMatchEditCheck.Apr 7 2026, 6:19 PM
medelius changed the status of subtask T407664: Support regex queries in TextMatchEditCheck from Open to In Progress.Apr 15 2026, 2:42 PM
VPuffetMichel closed subtask T407664: Support regex queries in TextMatchEditCheck as Resolved.Tue, Jun 23, 7:29 PM
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