Talk:WikiScanner

Help with User:24.84.54.2 re this edit
I just tried accessing Wikiscanner but was not able to find/open that page; access permissions were mentioned. Is there a more appropriate place to ask for help with using it? I've tried WHOIS on this IP address, but to no avail, and thought maybe it might be in Wikiscanner's database as being that of a BC government office/agency or of a p.r. or consulting firm contracted to them. The 24.* part tells me it's Shawcable, probably in BC, but I can't find anything more specific; an earlier edit from November by this same IP detailed technical data on the Canada Line skytrain line, which is suggestive of someone connected to TransLink, or to one of the companies or government offices connected to building the line; as is often the case in BC, such companies are backers of the government and work hand-in-hand with them; sometimes from locations far afield, as in one case where I identified an IP account in Minnesota that was making political edits on BC politician bios, and turned out to have links to a company with linkes to the government (a military contractor no less). Sorry to sound paranoid, it's just that in coming weeks such "political blankings" by POV IPers are going to get more and more common on BC and Olympics related articles....if WikiScanner doesn't have a good listing of BC agencies/offices/companies, it's time they did....Skookum1 (talk) 03:00, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Translation into Chinese Wikipedia
The 18:21, 1 October 2010 RjwilmsiBot version of this article is translated into Chinese Wikipedia to expand a stub.--Wing (talk) 19:04, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

WikiScanner and WP:OUTING
When does posting results from WikiScanner conflict with WP:OUTING? --Kevinkor2 (talk) 16:52, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
 * IMHO WP:OUTING doesn't apply to organizations. --Lexein (talk) 23:36, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * "Outing" also is about registered users, whose IPs are available only to admins with CHECKUSER rights; info on IP addresses is already public, though often obscure as to who's actually at the location and on the particular/computer network. Myself, I think a CHECKUSER should patrol new registered accounts looking for COI-type IPs and caution them accordingly, or alert "watchers" to keep an eye on their activities and COI/AUTO/POV activities and be mindful of their corporate/government/partisan/NGO interests.  The veil of pseudo-anonymity of a registered user can be used to seed "moles" from p.r. and other partisan, paid or not, interests.... and no doubt has, in vast numbers, given revelations and even announcements and exhortations for e.g. Tory party supporters in Canada to take part in social media to "make sure the message gets heard" et al.Skookum1 (talk) 13:53, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

what is the big deal about this software?
from reading the text, it 's a dump of the database from Wiki, no intelligence, no cleverness of any kind, just data collection. I missed the notability of this "tool". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ebaychatter0 (talk • contribs) 13:11, 27 October 2012‎
 * Correct. However, it greatly simplified the process of mass-finding conflict-of-interest edits. It made big news when companies, politicians and religious groups, identified by IP address, were outed for altering Wikipedia pages about them in biased ways, like whitewashing, or pages about others, by adding negative content. I wish it still worked. --Lexein (talk) 23:36, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It works better when it goes a few years without working ;) Paum89 (talk) 04:40, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, automatically determining whether a WHOIS record is associated with an article is not the easiest natural language processing task. Why not try it yourself? The dumps are current and easily accessible these days, and disks large enough for them are cheap. Paum89 (talk) 04:43, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

What happened to Wikiscanner?
Any ideas? 67.213.78.59 (talk) 06:32, 25 October 2013 (UTC)Luke
 * I'd like to know that, too. And even the reference to this fact is a dead link. Liz  Read! Talk! 00:39, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Net oblivion....perhaps swallowed by The Beast....though poking around here and here might help us find out. Maybe Anonymous can find out...not that I talk to them..whoever they are.Skookum1 (talk) 13:56, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
 * "The WikiScanner was expensive to host (several thousand USD per month) and I eventually took it down." BlueworldSpeccie (talk) 17:22, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

As User BlueworldSpeccie indicates, Griffith himself took Wikiscanner down because of its expense. At the above cited page he went on to explain that a year later, as a grad student at Caltech, he supervised some undergraduates in the development of some alternative wiki scanners, and presented them at that year's HOPE conference, but they got no traction and were abandoned when there was no-one left to maintain them at Caltech the following year. This further information was added to the main article, appropriately cited, today. 2601:196:180:DC0:283F:73C2:5FD2:A5A (talk) 15:15, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on WikiScanner. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20100922011827/http://katrina.cs.caltech.edu:80/erenrich_rnd345/scanner_final/ to http://katrina.cs.caltech.edu/erenrich_rnd345/scanner_final/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 13:45, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 4 external links on WikiScanner. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120408180929/http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/ to http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://web.archive.org/web/20090517025259/http%3A//business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article2264150.ece?token=null&offset=12
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120408180929/http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/ to http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070820110843/http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0816/morningireland_av.html?2279827%2Cnull%2C209 to http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0816/morningireland_av.html?2279827%2Cnull%2C209

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 00:53, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 6 external links on WikiScanner. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160314095050/http://virgil.gr/wikiscanner/ to http://virgil.gr/wikiscanner/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090109005336/http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article2874112.ece to http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article2874112.ece
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120408180929/http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/ to http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160314095050/http://virgil.gr/wikiscanner/ to http://virgil.gr/wikiscanner/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070820110843/http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0816/morningireland_av.html?2279827%2Cnull%2C209 to http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0816/morningireland_av.html?2279827%2Cnull%2C209
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070820145110/http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article2874112.ece to http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article2874112.ece

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 00:02, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on WikiScanner. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070830003427/http://virgil.gr/31.html to http://virgil.gr/31.html
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.vaticanlibrary.vatlib.it/BAVT/info/vaticanlibraryfiles/rules.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070929090635/http://creativemac.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=172757 to http://creativemac.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=172757

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 02:27, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Surely something has replaced it by now?
Where's the WikiScanner for the modern era? It's needed now more than ever, and I have a very hard time believing Virgil Griffith couldn't crowdfund the necessary servers. People are more likely to believe Wikipedia than their own eyes, so it's kind of worthwhile to know where reality is coming from, no? Hell I'd fund it if I had the $$ LeviaThinMint (talk) 05:41, 26 November 2018 (UTC)


 * I think Griffith has bigger issues, as can be seen at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgil_Griffith#Prosecution. 08:13, 23 May 2023 (UTC) Couruu (talk) 08:13, 23 May 2023 (UTC)