Wikipedia talk:Tools/Archive 1

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Archive 1 Archive 2

Importing HTML

I wrote HTML::WikiConverter (and the corresponding MediaWiki dialect) which performs html->wiki conversion. It's available on CPAN and there's also an online interface at http://diberri.dyndns.org/html2wiki.html which doesn't require users to download and compile source code. It might make a better alternative (at least simpler to use, IMO). --Diberri | Talk 15:23, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)

Tank's for the Information! I'll put that into the article. -- G. Gearloose (?!) 16:21, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Why not Soundex searches?

As I was trawling through a chunk of All Pages, I noticed yet again the large number of redirects such as Cheeleaders, Chem Trails, Chaykovsky, etc. that seem intended to help with misspellings or variant spellings. Although there are many such entries, they are unsystematic and don't even come close to covering the range of reasonable possibilities. For example, we have Cheeleaders but not Cheerleaders, Chem Trails but not Chem trails, Chaykovsky and Chaikovski but not Tchaikofsky or Tchaikovski or Tchaikowski, or Tchaikowsky, etc. We don't have Neitzsche or Nietsche or Nietszche.

It seems to me that it would really be helpful to have some kind of fuzzy matching capability, particularly on the Go command.

Why not Soundex lookups, for example? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 00:44, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Not a good idea; every homonym would map to the same article (e.g. poor, pore.) Maybe an extra "sounds like" link in the search results would be best--it's not like the soundex algorithm would tax the MediaWiki servers. However, the real problem is what to do for non-english languages. --Ardonik.talk() 02:31, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)
And Soundex is a rather poor algorithm with too many collisions. -- orthogonal 04:23, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
"Sounds like" searching wouldn't be a bad idea, and there are several alternatives to the Soundex algortihm that aren't quite so English-biased. The New York State Identification and Intelligence System (NYSIIS) code was developed in 1970 or so to cope with just that problem, and produces a computable and storable result, unlike string-comparison algorithms (e.g. Jaro-Winkler and Levenshtein distance). Such codes could be stored with the article itself and searched for, just like any other term. It sure beats the heck out of polluting an encyclopedia with typographic error redirect pages. (Oh, and Cheerleaders now exists, created by User:Golbez yesterday :-) ) RossPatterson 17:03, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Although redirects are necessary for variant spellings, having a redirect for every misspelling is a bit ridiculous. I have to wonder if the redirect for Cheeleaders wasn't just a typo by the person who created it. —Mike 01:47, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
I think that's the likely cause for a lot of these. If you use Move to rename an article, the old name becomes a redirect. ←Hob 06:18, 2004 Sep 22 (UTC)
I just checked, and it doesn't appear from the history of the two pages that started this topic that any move occurred. Not that that isn't the cause of lots of others. RossPatterson
MediaWiki already has a feature for searching for a "fuzzy search" on titles using Levenshtein distance, but it was disabled on the live site because it was too slow. -- Tim Starling 15:28, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
I respectfully request that you revisit soundex Tim. Soundex is o(n), not o(mn) like Levenshtein. --Connel MacKenzie 00:37, August 6, 2005 (UTC)
I am against Cheeleaders-type "typo-redirects", because it means we are "feeding" the web with typos. If I am redirected, I assume my spelling was a variant, not a mistake. For typos, there could be a "did you mean" page, but these - necessarily unsystematic - redirects are less than elegant, if not harmful. dab 10:04, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
What do you mean by "feeding the web"? If there's no link to a redirect, it's invisible and doesn't get indexed by search engines - no? ←Hob 06:18, 2004 Sep 22 (UTC)
hm, true. I'm still against them. (a) because it's necessarily unsystematic, and (b) if it's a common misspelling, there is a good chance that it is linked to (i.e. by the same misspelling in a different article), and the mistake will not be discovered as easily. dab 11:44, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
You are challenging a long-standing policy here. That's not to say it's right, but changing it is not a quest for the faint-hearted. (;-> Andrewa 14:58, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Although I don't think anyone will complain if you develop a typo template. Maybe it could even automatically transclude the text of the intended article. If you don't know how to make this happen, and you need some help, just gimme a ring. Shinobu 11:35, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
On second thought, I should warn you that from a server performance point of view transcluding large articles in various typo pages is not a good idea. Just a link is probably better. Shinobu 11:38, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Using metaphone or double metaphone would be superior. Again we're in a situation where the use of mysql screws us. --Gmaxwell 01:42, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Macros

Are there any macros for MS Word that can automatically convert text to Wikisyntax? [[User:Nichalp|¶ ɳȉčḩåḽṗ | ✉]] 20:25, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)

Not that I've encountered, but you might look at http://tikiwiki.org/tiki-index.php?page=WordToWiki_swythan#comments as a starting point. http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiDoc may also be relevant. Mr. Jones 09:37, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Browser Button

What do you think of it?


How??

How are we supposed to use these things/ I want to make every link go automatically to the edit page everytime... Jaberwocky6669 06:12, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)

Offline Tool

Is there any stand alone Wiki tool which can be downloaded to my computer? --AVNP 11:03, July 31, 2005 (UTC)


Why is the need for a offline tool.

I am from a semi-urban part of India where Broadband is a luxury.

  • With stand alone wiki application user can type the information without conneciting and later on upload it when they are connected.
  • Cost incurred by contributors will be reduced.
  • The online module doesnt have a spell check (Please include one)
  • That offline module can have options like setting up of frames and other options which involves coding
  • Wikicode is easier but with a simple tool it can be made much more simpler for people like me who have to refer to help page everytime for formatting.

--AVNP 11:03, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

My Experience with Wikipedia

  • Compared to other directories within wiki - Wikipedia is the one that I love the most.
  • Many people in my town are unware of Wikipedia or the Wiki Project.
  • Can I go and tell schools in my part of the country about Wikipeida and Who is autorized to do so?

--AVNP 11:03, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

I don't see why you couldn't. In fact, the GFDL ensures that you can even copy/quote parts as long as you use sufficient attribution (a link to the Wikipedia article will suffice, I think). Shinobu 11:30, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

we need to split this page

The only way I can see of improveing the organisation of this page will to split it into sub pages. Probably wikipedia:tools for editing wikipedia and [[wikipedia:tools for view wikipedia].Geni 13:22, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Two sections "1. Browser Integration" and "2. Help with editing" can each be moved into its own page with the parent page being this Tools article. They can be named as "Browser Integration" and "Editing Tools", respectively. -- Zondor 14:19, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure "Editing tools" is the most helpful category; for example, my popups help with editing and general reading by giving you previews. How about "Tools for using Wikipedia" and "Tools using Wikipedia content"? Lupin|talk|popups 14:22, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
While that would be correct those titles are not the best for aiding understanding. If a tool has more than one function could we not put it on both pages?Geni 14:47, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
I think it would ask for too much to duplicate content. You can just follow the natural categorisation as it is now. -- Zondor 14:56, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
One can use navigation with previews without being a contributor. The items in the Editing Tools section deal more directly with the tasks of editing. Otherwise are you able to sucessfully categorise every item in the current page into the only two groups? -- Zondor 14:52, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
A split has been made. It will need some fine tuneing but it's a start.
Nice going, Mr. Anonymous. I guess with people like you around, linking here from other Wikimedia projects can always be guaranteed to break. Axiom: link to Wikipedia, content will disappear, as soon as you want to find it. --Connel MacKenzie 19:04, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

updatable Javascript

I think it could be a good idea if these javascript bits were in a central place that we could transclude into our user js instead. That way admins could fix up the code, etc. and it would propagate automatically. — Omegatron 03:34, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

It's maybe not quite what you're asking for, but see User Scripts WikiProject jnothman talk 14:28, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
That's pretty close. I'll ask there. — Omegatron 00:13, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Making WP:TOOLS comprehensive and easy

According to Wikipedia talk:Tools/1-Click Answers, WP:TOOLS will likely soon be included as a sidebar link under toolbox. This should be a high-quality and one-stop starting point for tools of all sort. Especially if in the sidebar, new editors should be welcome, likely including at least a pointer to basic editing help, and certainly to procedural tools such as AfD. Templates, User style scripts (User:Me/xxx.css & .js), Browser scripts (greasemonkey), standalone tools (answers.com, vandal fighter, kate's, etc), etc etc.

From wikiproject user scripts conversation; I agree with Zondor's proposal for Wikipedia:User scripts (maybe Wikipedia:User style same as m:Help:User style) for user script repository (outside Tools subpages). Also jnothman recommends organization by function rather than type.

A wikiproject, Wikipedia:WikiProject_User_scripts, has been created to help rally behind user script organization. ∴ here…♠ 18:17, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Picture Popups

I've written a new wikiside javascript tool for images, see User:Zocky/Picture Popups. How do I go about including it in the tools collection? Zocky 04:18, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Edit the relevant page! jnothman talk 07:04, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Please contribute to WP:US and help us index the growing number of user scripts! Thanks. ∴ here…♠ 09:55, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

thread guidelines

Zondor added:

Somewhere else, ideas? ∴ here…♠ 06:25, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikiwriter

I wonder where this nice project should be listed? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 23:27, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

most likely Wikipedia:Text_editor_support#How_to_use_specific_editors_for_Wikipedia_editing -- Zondor 03:22, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Is that still in development? The last release was over a year ago. Gflores Talk 03:30, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Compare category to list, show differences

Do we have a script/tool that could do this? I would like to see which entries at Category:Polish nobility are not linked from List of Polish nobility, so I can make sure the list is complete (at least in the regards to category).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:35, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Oleg Alexandrov has something, ask him. You can see it in action at Talk:List of numerical analysis topics. -- Jitse Niesen (talk)
Tnx! That has proven just what I was looking for.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 04:19, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

WikiSearch Toolbar

This probably should be linked from one of our subprojects page.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 04:19, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Animate

How do you use "Wikipedia Animate"? I followed the instructions on the page, installed greasemonkey, installed the script. Now what? Everything looks just the same when I click on a page's history. -- MisterHand 15:41, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I've also been trying to get Wikipedia Animate and AniWiki going, without success. Surfing around for info on it, I saw a mention that the latest MediaWiki update broke things. I'm suprised that I haven't seen more discussion of it, particularly here on Wikipedis itself.

-- Nmagedman 23:25, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Similarly, I have had problems with Wikipedia Animate -- it seems to be a broken project, and would seem to be the kind of link to remove. Or someone should update the script ... -- Pavan

Tool I was wondering about

javascript:insertTags('[',']','http://www.example.org link title'); External link (remember http:// prefix) I remember a tool I used to use where you put in 2 pages, and it showed the shortest path between them. Does anyone know which one this is? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.61.28.217 (talk • contribs)

I think you are probably referring to this. HTH. --Cactus.man ✍ 18:55, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

GDWikiWatch

I've made a Google Desktop sidebar plugin called GDWikiWatch that shows your watchlist in the GD sidebar. I can't release it just yet (my password is hardcoded), but if you're interested, please leave a comment at the talk page! Thanks - Tangotango 15:37, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Looking for a tool

Is there a Wikipedia tool that would allow me to filter the RC in such a way to show only new categories? It's easy to select categories only, but I still have a lot of existing ones to sift through to find the new ones. CG janitor 12:01, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Can anyone help me? CG janitor 22:07, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't think so because Special:Newpages doesn't allow for sorting by namespace.Geni 22:22, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Linux?

Are there any decent Wikipedia editing tools for Linux? Ideally, one that I could also use for Wikisource to make my editing there easier. Thx, Kickstart70·Talk 00:20, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Answers.com tool

I object to listing Answers.com's Wikipedia "1-click" edition on this page since this tool is not only encumbered by software patents, Answers.com has launched an aggressive lawsuit against Babylon to enforce these patents against a competitor who produces a similar toolbar. See my post to foundation-l for details. If there is a Board decision that this tool should be listed here, I hope that someone will point it out. If it is to be an editorial decision, I object on editorial grounds against effectively advertising a proprietary tool whose parent company files aggressive software patent lawsuits against competitors. Given that Wikipedia does not even allow the use of MP3 or MPEG video for patent reasons, it seems highly inappropriate to highlight such a tool. --Eloquence* 16:28, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Is your argument that we shouldn't support it on purely ideological grounds? If so, I disagree - Wikipedia is not an ideology, soapbox etc etc. Presumably the tools section is there to help users browse Wikipedia in other ways. Can't we let users decide for themselves whether software patents are evil? Stevage 16:46, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
It's not just about software patents per se -- many companies try to get as many of these as possible. What is unusual here is that Answers.com is filing an aggressive, unprovoked lawsuit against another company (which, by the way, makes a pretty decent product) based on an arguably trivial software patent. I do not necessarily insist that Answers.com's tool should not be listed at all, but I object to a prominent listing, and I do believe that at the very least, we have an obligation to inform our readers about the patents and the lawsuit in an NPOV manner.--Eloquence* 17:00, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
The normal thing would be to link to answers.com, and the software patent controversy ought to be documented there somewhere. Stevage 17:35, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
At least in the version of the link added by Jimbo, there was an explanation that toolbar revenue from answers.com goes to Wikimedia. If such an explanation can be present, certainly an explanation of the patent issues and other relevant business practices associated with this tool is equally pertinent right on this page. If, on the other hand, the comment about revenue is not added here but instead moved to the answers.com page, it may be appropriate to also move the information about the patent lawsuit to that article.--Eloquence* 17:55, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
I do not know what the exact wording should be, but I think that our link to amazon on the isbn books page can serve as a reasonable template. We need to disclose (and/or celebrate, depending on your perspective) that answers.com is sharing revenue when they could do the same thing without sharing anyting. And we need to acknowledge that there are patent controversies. I want to make sure that FDL compliance is solid before anything else though.--Jimbo Wales 02:03, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an ideological project. "The Free Encyclopedia"? Patents are very un-free. --maru (talk) contribs 17:43, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Other than the general evilness of software patents for people who value free information, a strong argument for some sort of reaction to Answers.com's lawsuit is that they are suing a competitor over a tool that allows people to, amongst other things, access Wikipedia content[1]. In addition, Answer.com's patent is so trivial/general that other future search applications that incorporate Wikipedia could be affected: "The patent, entitled "Computerized Dictionary and Thesaurus Applications," covers a computerized searching process of indicating a target word on a display screen and employing at least one word appearing in the vicinity of the target word in order to eliminate ambiguity in the meaning of the target word." [2] — Matt Crypto 18:39, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

There had been some discussion about building a free software tool similar to this tool which could have better integration with our project. Some code was posted, but I'm not sure of the status. Given that, this patent litigation is effectively an attack on our project. In most places (for example our image tools page) we already remove recommendations for proprietary software... At a time when I had been assured that answers.com was a highly ethical company which cared about the same goals we had, and once Jimbo has assured me that he would ask them to change the outrageous license terms of their software, I had been convinced that it would be to recommend this software. But now that I see that 1) Answers.com is not our benevolent friend with common interests at heart, and 2) they did not change their outrageous license terms, I am forced to remove the link. The license terms are here and include restrictions placed on the users of the software which are in direct violation of the GFDL. --Gmaxwell 19:52, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Answers.com tool violates the GFDL

The answers.com tool requires all users of the tool to agree to the following: "You are only permitted view and/or browse the Content, and/or make limited copies of portions of the Content as fall within the "fair use" provisions of the United States Copyright Act, provided all such uses are for noncommercial personal purposes. Except as otherwise expressly permitted in this Agreement, you may not: (i) modify or create any derivative works of the Content or documentation, including without limitation, translation, customization or localization; (ii) remove or alter any trademark, logo, copyright or other proprietary notices, legends, symbols or labels in the Content; or (iii) publish any results of benchmark tests run on the Content. Furthermore, you may not use the Content in any manner that could damage, disable, overburden, or impair the Content (e.g., you may not use the Content in an automated manner), nor may you use the Content in any manner that could interfere with any other party's use and enjoyment of the Content. You are not permitted to retrieve and store in electronic or any other form any of the databases underlying the Content that is accessed through our Web Site or Software. All commercial and/or unauthorized use of the Content of any kind, including reproduction of any kind for a commercial purpose of any kind, direct or indirect, is strictly prohibited. The Content, the Web Site and the Software remain solely the property of Answers or of Answers Content providers at all times, and their use is subject to copyright as defined in our copyright statement that may be found at here."

I personally objected to this language months ago, but was told that it would be changed for the Wikipedia specific tool. It has not. These terms are unacceptable. We can not endorse a site which claims to add restrictions on our GFDLed content in violation of the license. As such, we can not accept this link until answers.com amends their license to comply with the GFDL. --Gmaxwell 19:52, 12 April 2006 (UTC) (see below)

I have passed your comments along to Answers.com, and they will certainly fix this promptly. I will keep you posted.--Jimbo Wales 01:48, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree I think that this is an issue of serious concern. --A. Kohler 22:17, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
  • This needs to be rewritten, or the tool needs to go. Preferably the latter – Gurch 10:16, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Disagree, the Terms of use do include the text Gmaxwell posted, but it also includes in the "1. ACCEPTANCE OF TERMS" section": In addition to the TOU, the use of content provided by Our third party licensors and content providers, included in the Content, shall be governed by the specific terms of service governing such third party content.. They have a seperate copyright page which specifically mentions the GFDL. jacoplane 16:56, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Disagree, Jacoplane has it right. Nonetheless, I talked to Bob this morning, and his own suggestion was that they will rewrite the terms of service to make this much more prominent. They do comply with the GNU FDL, but more than comply, they are strongly committed to it, and extremely philosophically and emotionally committed to the Wikipedia vision. It hurts me to see them treated with so much hostility and suspicion when they are the ONE reuser of our content who has always been the BEST in terms of support for our goals and values.--Jimbo Wales 18:19, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
    • The terms of use state that in addition to these restrictive terms, third party terms apply. This is absolutely misleading and wrong, as the GFDL is a permissive license which effectively cancels out all the restrictions in the answers.com TOU (claims that you may not make copies, derivative works, etc.). No well-meaning reader of these terms would come to the conclusion that the content is free. These terms must therefore be replaced before the tool can be seriously considered for a listing here. This should not be a problem at all as the answers.com Wikipedia edition, as I understand it, only displays information from Wikipedia, so there is no other content to which the restrictive terms would apply. Therefore these complex and restrictive terms are entirely unnecessary.

      Nobody says that answers.com has written these terms of use in bad faith, but they are not acceptable in their current form. As for being "the BEST in terms of support for our goals and values", my goals and values do not include litigating against competitors on the basis of trivial software patents. Has Bob Rosenschein made any promise not to litigate against an open source developer who develops a toolbar with similar functionality? As you may recall, I explicitly asked you to write to him to make that promise, even before their patent lawsuit against Babylon. You pledged to do so, but you never have said whether there was any result.

      Answers.com has now proven that it is willing to file aggressive lawsuits based on its patents. It should come as no surprise that the company is no longer seen as a shining example of "our values" at this point (not that these values are really all that clearly defined). A clear and explicit promise not to harm open source developers would go a long way in restoring friendly relations between the Wikimedia community and the company. Please try to get him to make that promise, and if he doesn't want to, that, too, would be very important to know.--Eloquence* 21:13, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
You are grossly misreading the terms of use clause in question, but no matter. I talked to Bob this morning and he is happy to change it. --Jimbo Wales 23:39, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Jimbo, this exact point was brought up months ago (based on the text with the prior non-wikipedia branded tool) and you provided the same answer (We'd contact them and they'd change it). This isn't something I sprang on you just to trip you up... There is no need to get into an argument about the effective or intended meaning of the text: In violation or not, it's misleading, and most people without the direct contact you've had with Bob read it as an attempt to place restrictions on our content. This can be simply solved, so lets stop arguing and get it fixed, as it should have been when it was first raised. The dissonance between your perspective on Answer's commitment to our goals, and their recent legal actions will still remain, but thats a matter deserving of discussion and understanding... It is not necessarily a deal-breaker on its own, but the misleading license text is. --Gmaxwell 20:44, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

License update

The license has been updated [3]. "All Wikipedia content is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License (see "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights" for details). Otherwise, ". With this amendment I see no further basis to object on the basis of license issues. This is a positive move on Answer's part, and I hope the rest of our concerns are as easily addressed. --Gmaxwell 01:48, 19 April 2006 (UTC)


Please unprotect

I am surprised that this page is protected - it shouldn't be - the ToS has clearly identified wikipedia content as GFDL here (see Use of Content). Thus, the page should be unprotected and the link should be returned. If terms of service on the Answers 2.0 differ then I think we should assume good faith and that they will make the download software license compatible with the notice on their website. This is biting the hand that offers a gift. Trödel 21:52, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh fantastic, it's been changed! --Gmaxwell 01:44, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Lack of communication with the Wikipedia Community

After this deal was announced months ago in October, there was an substantial backlash from the Wikipedia community (See: Wikipedia_talk:Tools/1-Click_Answers). While the trademark and link deal was scheduled to begin in January, it was delayed with absolutely no information offered by the Wikipedia board. Many of the questions brought up months ago remain unanswered, and now after months of silence, this link pops up with no justification or explanation. A number of issues remain unresolved:

1. We still not have seen the text of the agreement or received a clear breakdown of the basis of the deal. Why is this not feasible?

We intend to do many such deals in the future, and it is not at all appropriate to publish all the details. You HAVE received a clear breakdown of the basis of the deal.

2. We don't have a response as to why Answers.com wrote in the press release that it was agreed there would be a link with "charter placement" on the tools page. Was this a misunderstanding or was the agreement changed after the episode of user backlash and Slashdot/press attention?

A misunderstanding.

3. We don't have a coherent list of the standards that Wikipedia will use to license its brand name in a commercial fashion in the future. Does Answers.com have some sort of special access? Why is this a wise use of the Wikipedia brand? Why is it in our interest to promote a program that will redirect readers away from the Wikipedia website to a mirrored version with ads? Why should we promote a software company that attempts to limit software development with aggressive patents and lawsuits--especially when the very software they are promoting is now graced with the Wikipedia trademark?

We link on the tools pages and many other pages to software tools which are similarly patent encumbered. We link to Amazon from the ISBN pages, for example. We can inform people of the issue (as Amgine's edit did), but normally we do not boycott linking to people we do not agree with.

4. We don't have any sort of estimate of the potential revenue stream this licensing agreement would accomplish. Although the trial may give a better idea, Answers.com must have some estimate based on their existing 1-click software and click-through rates. It seems odd to have made such a major step with absolutely no idea of the size of the potential revenue. At this stage, Wikipedia's fundraising alone still tracks Answers.com entire revenue stream based on Google ads. Why would Wikipedia want to risk its brand and independence for a few thousand dollars? Tfine80 22:31, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

What is so major about the step? In what way have we risked our independence?--Jimbo Wales 02:01, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry. I can't understand how you can be so cavalier about using the voluntary work of so many directly to promote a single corporate enterprise. While your responses are valid and reflect one vision of Wikipedia's future, I believe you understand users' objections better than you let on. This is a MAJOR step. We are attaching a link, affected by some sort of contractual obligation although the details still remain murky, to a commercial project that has paid some unknown sum (or made some contractual promise) for the use of the Wikipedia trademark. This Wikipedia-branded website (which competes with Wikipedia for traffic), along with its newly associated software, is proprietary, not fully compatible with the GFDL, and is now asserting aggressive claims over a software concept that will eventually be used by those within the project. Users' objections are reasonable and valid, and while you may have a particular vision of Wikipedia that you want to promote that involves advertising or the expanded selling of the use of the Wikipedia trademark, the defense needs to be much more transparent and explicit. Tfine80 14:21, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Tfine80, I do not know how many times nor how many ways I can explain this to you. Everyone is in full agreement that the link must meet the normal editorial standards. You keep claiming that the link is "affected by some sort of contractual promise"! How much more do I need to say about it?
You claim that this is "to promote a single corporate enterprise" but there is absolutely no exclusivity about this deal or any of the other deals to use our trademark that we have done and will do. Indeed, we are in the process of negotiating a similar agreement with one of Answer.com's competitors! And several other websites!
We link, already, dozens of mirrors, many different proprietary software tools, and yet the one which raises your ire is the one which actually has done the right thing in terms of offering to give something back to the community.--Jimbo Wales 18:34, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
You've stated before that "this is not an advertising deal". Others may see it differently. Personally, I see your desire to link to the Answers.com tool, and the (coincidental?) decision to add Tools to the sidebar as promoting a revenue stream, which is virtually the same thing. Naturally, it may be entirely appropriate to link to it for independent/non-revenue reasons, and we've been told that Wikimedia will receive the revenue whether there is a link or not. The mere fact that Wikimedia receives revenue from this tool, however, in my mind compromises its ability to link to it on a site which purports to be ad-free and yet maintain its integrity. It may maintain its integrity and credibility, on the other hand, it may not. See conflict of interest. Even if there is no evidence of improper actions, a conflict of interest can create an appearance of impropriety that can undermine confidence in the ability of that person to act properly. This of course may potentially relate not only to the link, but to the partnership with an ad-based mirror itself, and to your dual roles as chair of both non-profit and for-profit wiki-based organizations (see for instance the concerns raised here). For me, it is a 'major step' in as much as it raises questions about the credibility of the project. heqs 14:56, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Stop and think for a minute how bizarre this argument is. If someone creates a tool and uses our content and decides not to give us anything, we can link to it, but if they instead do the right thing and recognize that they should support the community, we are compromised in our ability to link to it and maintain our integrity? That is senseless. Furthermore, this deal has absolutely nothing at all to do with Wikia or any other business interests of mine. This is about a company trying to do the right thing and give something back to our community, and getting competely flamed for it. No good deed goes unpunished, I suppose.--Jimbo Wales 18:34, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Answers.com is not getting flamed for making a Wikipedia edition of their 1-Click-Answers tool and promising to send some money to Wikimedia from its usage. That idea is worthy of support in principle, though the lukewarm reception it has received certainly has to do with the fact that the tool itself is closed source software, and that the terms of the deal underlying this partnership were communicated poorly (note that Answers.com's press release on the deal explicitly spoke of "charter placement" on the Tools page, though you have later clarified that this is not required). But the reasons Answers.com is getting flamed are that they a) have filed and are now trying to enforce against a competitor trivial software patents on the technology used in that tool -- behavior on the same level as Amazon.com's with regard to their one-click-patent, b) are using misleading terms of service in the tool which seem to imply that Wikipedia content may not be copied, modified, etc. The fact that they are supporting Wikipedia is not surprising; they are after all one of its biggest beneficiaries. Answers.com has become an Alexa Top 300 site, and Wikipedia's content has played a key role in this massive traffic increase. They are making good money from community-generated content, and it makes perfect sense for them to try to build good relations with the organization that operates the projects. In fact, answers.com has benefited from these good relations already; we are providing them, as you know, with a special OAI-PMH feed to our content so they can keep their advertising-laden mirror of our content up to date. Therefore, it is safe to assume that Answers.com's actions are not motivated by corporate altruism, but by its long term strategic interests. That makes it ever more justifiable to take a close look at the company's behavior. We're not looking a gift horse in the mouth; we are the goose that lays the golden eggs. It is perfectly reasonable for us to examine the actions of our partners carefully, and to criticize them where appropriate.--Eloquence* 21:32, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Of course I agree with you about what is problematic here (to a point) but that is not the argument he was making. My point is, there are at least two possible arguments to be made here, and one is just not at all persuasive. The argument that 'they are giving us money therefore we can't keep our integrity and link to their tool' is not persuasive. The argument that 'they enforce software patents and this is problematic' is persuasive. That's why I support your proposed solution of linking to it along with an explanation of the patent issues.--Jimbo Wales 23:58, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
I realize it may sound strange but I would also ask you to stop and think for a minute how this looks. It's fine to assert that "this is not an advertising deal", but the "misunderstanding" about "charter placement" followed by your apparent eagerness to link the tool and give prominence to WP:TOOLS certainly raises eyebrows, at least for me. Again, I don't see a substantial difference between advertising and promoting a revenue stream. There may have been the occasional "flame" or hostile remark but for the most part people had questions and offered suggestions and constructive criticism as to how the goals of the partnership could have been met with less controversy. By the way, this post by Tim Starling lead me to believe that it would be users who would add the link to this page, not yourself or anyone else on the board. heqs 11:33, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm new to Wikipedia, and it's clear to me that I don't yet understand the nuances of the concerns at issue here. From what I have read, I have no reason to question the intent of the Board in seeking to make the arrangement with Answers.com or the viability of the marketing strategy involved. And indeed, in certain respects it may represent a great strategy for extending the reach of the encyclopedia to more people. To add to what has been said above, though, a point that I think is worth bearing in mind, and perhaps the most important one to my mind, is that there is a question about the use of a trademark that is associated with the volunary and often painstaking work of hundreds of thousands of contributors who have given significant amounts of their time. It would be regrettable if the impression, however mistaken, was given that the site associated with this work was sliding into a quasi-commercial venture. Whatever strategy the Board chooses in this regard, my intuition tells me that it should step lightly here. Eric Walker 17:59, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Hi! I appreciate what you are saying and could not possibly agree more with the overall sentiment. Trademark licensing deals are always intimately tied up with making sure that the deals are consistent with our values. When the German Verein did a deal to have Wikipedia DVD's distributed in Germany with proprietary software, there was good reason to have a serious discussion about that. These things have to be done in an open and transparent way, which is exactly what we are trying to do here...--Jimbo Wales 18:37, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

..New to Wikipedia board as well. Don't understand all this fuss about Answers.com, who as Jimbo pointed out, is donating half their profits to Wikipedia when they could have simply put a link up for Answers 1-Click. Maybe it should also be noted next to all the other software that is using Wikipedia and who are NOT offering donations. Why single out Answers.com? Isn't it only fair to point out both sides to the community? As far as the patent dispute that Answers is defending for it's 1-Click software, should Wikipedia stop doing business with anyone who has patents and defends them? How many patents does Google, Ebay, IBM, Dell, RIMM, etc have? How about the computer or PDA you're typing on? Should we tell the patent holders to give up their rights or we will stop typing? Let's be fair. Shouldn't it also be noted that Answers.com has been a strong supporter of Wikipedia and even has a "Donate to Wikimedia" link on every page that uses Wikipedia content? It seems many only want to point out the negatives. Why single out Answers.com when their are much bigger fish to fry that aren't supporting the Wikipedia cause? Regards - JT

Small vote of confidence: Jimbo is a smart man, and has shown time and time again that he has excellent judgment and shares the same ideals as us. So why are all questioning his judgment or motives now? Stevage 12:25, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

  1. Defend this project's neutrality to all outside interests.
  2. Support anything that looks like a business model or revenue stream, subject to neutrality. Financial security safeguards editorial independence.
  3. Bored hearing rarified arguments against revenue from people enjoying this service for free.
  4. Propose policy that any link from this project to any site with which we have a contractual arrangement of any kind be boxed with a stern but neutral disclaimer in type no smaller than the link itself.
John Reid 18:47, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

poll needs to be held

I think a poll needs to be held over this. Jimbo, why is the toolbox link not being left up to community consensus?--Urthogie 19:28, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

From Wikipedia talk:Tools/1-Click Answers: Bob Rosenschien and Jimbo Wales have been in firm and absolute agreement from the beginning that the form of link chosen by the community is up to the community. The community is free to remove the link from WP:TOOLS, and know that this will NOT stop Wikimedia from receiving additional funds. I think it's clear that, until Answers.com makes its terms of use less restrictive, the community does not approve of the link. Andre (talk) 19:12, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

The toolbox link, if you read carefully, is not up to us. Only whether its on WP:TOOLS. What if we oppose to the toolbox link(that thing on the left side of the screen)?--Urthogie 19:14, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Removing student search tool that is not open

I removed this link (Search Wikipedia from any windows application) - this guy's website won't even let you right click to go back to the prior page he is so anti-GFDL - with all the hubbub about Answers.com - a controlling site like that shouldn't be in the list at all. I mean look at the source for the page: 

<!--hppage status="protected"-->
<HTML><!--HEAD--><SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!--document.write(unescape("%3C%53%43%5 ... //--></SCRIPT><SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!--hp_d00(unescape("%3C%53%43%5 ... %3E"));//--></SCRIPT><SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!--hp_d00(unescape("%3C%21%2D%2 ... %3E"));//--></SCRIPT></HEAD>
<BODY><NOSCRIPT>To display this page you need a browser with JavaScript support.</NOSCRIPT>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!--hp_d00(unescape("%3C%42%4F%4 ... %3E"));//--></SCRIPT></BODY>
</HTML>

Trödel 21:53, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I believe that obsfucating even where the coding is coming from has a one word name paranoid. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 02:56, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Page protected

I've protected the page to stop the reversion war over the Answers.com tool. Please see the dispute resolution process to resolve your differences of opinion, and please do not violate the protection even if you have the administrator access to do so. If you wish to contest the protection, please do so through the normal process at Requests for page protection. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 14:24, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

If nothing else

I see no problme with listing this as long as we note on the page that we've been paid to include the link. If nothing else I think we should at least be honest about the nature of the link and why it's there. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 01:49, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I have added a note to that regard as an addon to the info about the answers.com tool on the tools page. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 01:58, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

The patent issue

I have mentioned Answers.com's software patent lawsuit (which is based on a patent directly relevant to the linked here) in the Wikipedia: namespace page about the tool and partnership, Wikipedia:Tools/1-Click Answers, which seems like an appropriate place, particularly since the Answers.com article is currently a terrible mess which I don't really have time to fix. I would also be in favor of mentioning it on this page, especially now that the partnership itself is highlighted, but I will wait for other editors' comments before doing so.--Eloquence* 17:35, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

It's fine if a little borderline on the 1-Click-Tool page specifically about the program, but it's way overboard here on the general tools page, which is supposed to be more pragmatic and not political. It would also be appropriate for the Answers.com article, but you already knew that. - Taxman Talk 23:41, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

popups... vandalproof... aagh! help!

Can anyone give me some advice? I'm fairly new to using Wikipedia tools, though I've been at the site for some time. I spend much of my wikipedia time guarding high-traffic pages against vandalism. I've come to about the limits of what I can do manually. My fingers ache and editors with proper tools are clearly far more efficient than I am. Can anyone recommend a good-quality anti-vandalism tool that will work with Mozilla Firefox on Win2kProSP4? The only feature I'm really desperate to get is a better (ie faster) way of monitoring articles for suspicious changes. A blacklisting or greylisting feature so I can keep track of IP vandals would be helpful as well. Cheers, Kasreyn 10:27, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

vandalproof will not work with firefox -- it's a vba app that uses ie for its rendering. despite this, i think it's a bang-up tool that has, essentially tripled my performance over using popups alone. it has a black and white list feature which is super handy for "camping" multiple high traffic vandals. having said that, i use popups a lot: mousing over diffs saves time. but, really, for serious rc patrolling or camping high-vandal entries, vandalproof is really the only option. -- frymaster 20:26, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

New articles created by me

Is there a tool (or any other way) of listing only NEW articles created by me? -- I@n ≡ talk 06:27, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Justification

Has someone changed the justification of English Wikipedia from left justification to full justification? If so, please change it back promptly, because the new way sucks. Badagnani 03:37, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Bot query

I would like to know if anyone can help me with a bot to remove articles, which are listed in both parent categories and child categories, from the parent category.

Specifically, there is a category Category:Shopping centres in Australia

This should have child categories Category:Shopping centres in Queensland etc. but no articles directly.

What I would like is for someone to run a bot over all those articles and remove all the articles which are directly in Category:Shopping centres in Australia, from that category, if they are in any of the subcategories listed on that page.

After this is done I want to go back through the articles, identify which ones are actually in New South Wales, and repeat the process.

IF anyone can help please drop me a line...--Garrie 00:00, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Download???

the wiki brouser looks great but how do you download it???Chris5897 17:15, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Toolserver down?

The toolserver seems to be down. I get a "Forbidden" message when I try to check my edit count. -  Mike | trick or treat  22:03, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

The toolserver is OK, but something is up with Essjay's edit counter, you should still be able to use User:Interiot's javascript-based edit counter (unless you use IE), so look at one of the server based edit counters listed here, hope this helps. Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 08:58, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, I do not mind counting my contrib that much, but it is the second time this month that Interiots counter has an extra-ordinary high lag. What might be there weird? --Wendelin 14:08, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Tool request

I don't know where to post this so I'm going to throw the question out there and I hope somebody might know. One tool I would find useful is the ability to select a phrase in an article and automatically discover which revision in the history added that phrase. Has there been any work done with this kind of idea?--Will2k 20:44, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Mod parent up ;-) How often I've wanted this... Shinobu 00:55, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Macintosh

I have a Macintosh; is there a tool I can use? Please contact me on my talk. Scoutersig 15:19, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

What I mean is, is there an equivalent tool to, say, AutoWiki Browser? I'd like to make some "lots of edits." Thanks. —ScouterSig 20:17, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Tool for helping finding vandalism

Is there any known project for helping the RC patrol with the recent changes, as to draw their attention to certain changes that "look like" vandalism?

There are some that rv vandalism automatically: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:AntiVandalBot--Will2k 18:09, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Answers.com link

I've removed the two links to the answers.com tools. The second one (the search engine on their site) is of no use to the reader, as the reader can decide their own search engine. The first link (1-Click) is just disgusting. --- RockMFR 22:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry you feel that way.. But we've had the link for ages now. I was the first to remove it, I believe, but they did everything we asked them to do with respect to the licensing. The tool is really spiffy. I don't use it personally, because it's not free software, but I can see why some people like it. If some day later we decided to only list free software (and ideally only free software that can be used by people who are on free software OSes), then I'd be glad to see it go. I think the fact that we're suggesting that people use software that denies them freedom is far more unfortunate than paranoia about our relationship with answers.--Gmaxwell 23:04, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
I still see no reason for the search engine link at answers.com (not the downloadable tool)- if we have that, we should link to every search engine with domain-specific search capabilities. Of course, other search engines are even better because you can go directly to the wiki content without having it surrounded by ads. I'm going to be bold and remove that one again. --- RockMFR 23:09, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Okay, although in the past it's been way more up to date than Google. I guess the few people that matters to aren't going to find it via this page anyways. (I didn't add that link, and wouldn't have added that link, in any case)--Gmaxwell 23:15, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Semantic Processing & Extraction

I have two tools developed by my company that I'd like to discuss. I'd rather get some feedback rather than just posting them directly to the page.

The first tool is a web service called SWS (Semantic Web Service) that's documented at http://sws.clearforest.com. SWS takes unstructured text or XML and uses natural language processing to locate the people, organizations, companies, geographies and other items inside the text. My thought is that this may be of interest to Wikipedia to "auto generate" links that are not present within articles.

The second tool is a Firefox extension built on top of that web service. The extension, Gnosis, is available at http://gnosis.clearforest.com. Gnosis automatically processes pages as you read them and highlights people, companies, geographies, etc. You can hover over the highlighted terms to launch searches in Wikipedia, Topix.net and a variety of other locations. By default it does this analysis automatically for Wikipedia pages - but you can change this behavior via the options. It's actually quite cool to surf Wikipedia and have a whole new level of hyperlinking to Wikipedia itself as well as external news and reference sources.

So, do these tools belong on this page? And - if you try out the Firefox extension we'd really appreciate feedback here or at clearforestgnosis@gmail.com. Thanks. Ttague 02:59, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

External Tools

I looked but couldn't find much of a reference for making a tool to use with Wikipedia, maybe I'm blind :) I saw plenty of examples for using JavaScript or something similar for added features to your browser. I'm looking for something more external to the web page itself, like XML requests. I saw the RSS feed but that's only for retrieving info, what about for editing? Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks Wikidan829 16:44, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not exactly sure what you're looking for - you might take a look in this index and see if it is of any help (check under Queries (database) to start). -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:47, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

pywikiapi under External programming interfaces is a dead link

The pywikiapi link ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/pywikiapi/ )under External programming interfaces yields a sf.net page that says it's an invalid project. There is a cached version of the linked page available at [4] which lists the project admin as mdbecker. LinuxMigration 19:42, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I've deleted the link and the related text. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 19:07, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Searching images in the web for WP

There are multiple sources from which we get pictures for Wikipedia (US govt work, Some press agencies etc). Can somebody develop a search tool which searches for images from a set of web sites based on tags or keywords. The list of websites that can be searched should be editable to add/remove websites. Also, option to select the type of licensing on which the pictures are available should also be present. Where can I find help to develop this tool? --Natrajdr 07:28, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Toolserver shortcut

Tools: has just been added to the interwiki map as a handy shortcut to toolserver locations. Neil ム 21:38, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Tool to count backlinks

Is there a tool to count how many backlinks a page has? I tried http://en.wikipedia.org/w/query.php but it does not have such a counter. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:02, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

special tool...

Is there a tool (just for free!), which counts how often somebody has opened your user page? If yes please tell me about it, many thanks! Dagadt (talk) 16:27, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

No. Wikipedia has an immense volume of page requests every day; logs aren't kept of who did what (and even if there was space to do so, they wouldn't be kept for privacy reasons). Certain governments would be very interested in what pages were seen by what users (IP addresses and registered editors). -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:24, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikicharts

I can't access Wikicharts anymore. Has that site been discontinued? I found it really interesting. Serendipodous 13:51, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Seems like it is down permanently. But you can find the same thing (actually, better) at this location. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:27, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Six degrees solver

Does anyone know if the solver has been moved? If so, I'd love to know where it's new home is. The one that is linked from this page was working good. Then it stopped working good. And now, the web-site doesn't seem to respond at all. TheBarrow (talk) 21:33, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Article creation

Is there no tool that lists all pages that a given user created? Jobjörn (talk) 13:35, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, there is; you'll find it here. Sometimes is slow. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:22, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

How about a tool to search old versions of an article?

It would be helpful before considering revising an article to see if a particular topic has already been added, removed, added, and removed. Not that that would always keep one from adding it again, but it would still be helpful to know about the earlier revisions. Often that sort of activity leaves a mark on the talk page, but not always. The tool I am thinking of would search for terms throughout the entire revision history of an article, and return them in the context of adjacent text, displaying the range of time over which the relevant text remained in the article. It should not be terribly difficult to write, as the links to earlier versions are all accessible on the history page. The trick would be in figuring a good way to display the results. Any thoughts on the utility of such a tool? Jbening (talk) 02:24, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

No, it wouldn't be terribly difficult to write, but it would be exceedingly difficult to write efficiently. One could simply write a program that downloads all versions of an article, ever, but past a handful of revisions this starts to become extremely time- and resource-consuming. Considering that users would probably want to use such a tool on exactly these kinds of highly-edited articles (evolution comes to mind), this is a major and likely deal-breaking impediment. With direct access to the database itself, however, the outlook might not be so bleak... – ClockworkSoul 19:25, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

New article creation tracker

Has anyone ever suggested having a tool that informs of any new articles created in a given range of categories?

I would like to be able to track newly categorised articles within the scope of the Project I participate in to enable categorisation correction should it arise.--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 04:36, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Tool needed to determine primary contributions by size

We're having a discussion at WT:FAC about what constitutes a primary contributor. The majority of articles brought to FAC are usually nominated by the editor who has the largest number of edits to the article. However, we often get "drive-by" nominations where an editor sees an article he admires and nominates it without having made any (or a very low number of) edits to it. We need to exclude these, since the nominator should have an intimate knowledge of the material during the FAC process. Recently, however, we also got an article nominated by an editor who has contributed the most content to the article, but wasn't at the top of the list by edits: those were taken by vandal-fighters and copy editors who had made minor changes. Most of the editors who review FACs are unfamiliar with the article history of each nomination, and we need to see who has contributed the most content to the article.

What might be helpful is determining the contributions to the article by size. Is there a tool that measures what each editor has added or removed in number of bytes? If it doesn't exist, is it something that could be created? --Moni3 (talk) 13:17, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Gmail's real-time updates applied to Wiki software.

Is this possible to upgrade, so I don't have to reload pages for new versions? Sceptik (talk) 00:50, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Is there a tool to watch for additions to Categories?

I'm looking for a way to watch for additions of pages to a category -- is there anything out there like this?

Thanks, --A. B. (talk • contribs) 13:13, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

French Wiktionary

Hi, I do a lot of monotonous edits on the French Wiktionary, which tool can I use there, and how do I get the settings right (that is for fr.wiktionary.org. Reply to my talk page, please! Mglovesfun (talk) 07:47, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

History tool

I navigated to the history of a page before logging in to Wikipedia, and saw links to external history tools at the top of the revisions list. When I logged on, they were gone. Is there any way to make them visible when I am logged on? --Joshua Issac (talk) 22:51, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Desktop Watchlist

I created Desktop Watchlist for Windows. Its main advantage, when compared with Special:Watchlist, is that you are able to see only edits made since you checked for the last time, if you want. Svick (talk) 18:58, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

We need a new view counter

First wikicharts bit the dust, and now it seems like grok.se's view counter is also dead. I'm currently monitoring an article's viewership, because, as no one initially knew what or where it was, various alternate versions of it popped up all over the site. I think I've created enough notifications and redirects that anyone looking for that specific article will not get lost, but its viewership is still increasing (it has quadrupled in the last month) and I would like to see what I can do to aid it along. Serendipodous 07:21, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I miss the traffic stats, I think it should possible to get it running again. Or at least I hope it will. Who created it? We should contact them..the raw stats are still there if they are any use to you? here (Off2riorob (talk) 18:08, 5 July 2009 (UTC))
I'm currently working on building a view counter as part of a suite of tools for the currently-in-development Igor. With any luck, I can have it online relatively soon. Grad school has been particularly demanding lately however, so development hasn't been as fast as I had hoped. – ClockworkSoul 16:03, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Link does not work

Does not work:

  • escaladix's tool lists articles created by a given user (as this is done by checking for the first edit of every article the given user has ever edited, it's quite slow.)

Ikip (talk) 00:25, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Not sure where to add

An editor signing only with his IP created a tool upon my request that counts the number of editors active on Wikipedia in a given time frame. He released it to public domain ("You can use and modify my code any way you like, I'm not taking ownership or copyright") and made the code available (sourcecode/jar/Windows). Details are at User_talk:Piotrus/Archive_30#RC_active_users. It would be a shame if this was just forgotten in my archives... where could this be added? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:04, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

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