User talk:Dispenser/Archive 6

Dabfix changes on songs
Hi, I just ran dabfix on Secrets and it mad a bit of a mess on the songs section. I saved the output to User:Tassedethe/Secrets. I'm not sure I'm too keen on the style for songs. It changed everything from "a song by" to "a song on". One problem is that getting the apostrophe for the artist/band could be tricky. I changed The Pierces's to The Pierces'. It also looks like a dabfix too far, there's nothing really wrong with how it was, although having it impose consistency could be good on some pages. But I'll still be using it, it's still much too useful to give up! :) While I'm unloading I think you changed the behaviour for how it deals with redlinks in templates. I agree that just because it has 10-20-whatever links it shouldn't be an automatic choice to go on the page but now it doesn't show up as existing. It would be useful if it did, it's quite common for the template link to be a match for the dab page but someone has used a non-standard disambiguator, or (if it is a name) there is actually a middle initial. Just letting you know my thoughts. Happy editing. Tassedethe (talk) 02:50, 6 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I just added that today and now disabled it. The idea was to shorten as much as possible, mostly for people at MOS:DAB and I had been doing it manually myself.  The apostrophe -s rules depend if are treating the band's name as singular (actress's) or plural (actresses'); I inclined to treat them as singular as there is only one band with that name.  Then there is the problem of groups like Racionais MC's and Musashi's which it just skips.
 * It is not trivial to determine if redlinks on a particular page are from a template. The red link might only appear on /doc and transcluded to the template page or can be hidden by &lt;includeonly&gt; tag.  This screws up one of the more important heuristics.  Note, that being listed on a WikiProject page or a Missing articles page will still force the link to show up.  Additionally, dabfix hides a lot of extraneous detail behind debug (use "show debug" link) which is also where these template link vanish too.  — Dispenser 06:46, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the info. I thought perhaps the templates were something you'd disabled; obviously far more complicated than that. I will check the show_debug link in future. Ta. Tassedethe (talk) 14:44, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Other dabfix problems
I've been liking the tool so far, but I've noticed a few issues. Particularly, the script seems to screw up with apostrophes, so that it gives phrases like "the band, 's album". It also seems to remove the italics from ship names as can be seen on Marigold. Today I also noticed that it seems to have issues with Japanese characters, as seen when trying to run the script on Bottom. As always, thanks for creating and maintaining another useful tool. —Ost (talk) 21:25, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what changed, but the problem on Bottom did not occur when I ran the tool again. —Ost (talk) 21:26, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Worldwide
Not a big deal, certainly, but I was curious what the difference between and  was in this particular case. I only removed the "worldwide" parameter because I was already editing the page, and according to the template docs it's superfluous -- my "-dicdef" summary was in reference to removing the dictionary definition of "worldwide" from the body of the page.

Also no big deal on the date for the album either way, btw; you probably noticed I'd even left the date for the other album in. Cheers, NapoliRoma (talk) 14:51, 19 January 2011 (UTC)


 * If the parameter is unspecified the template will pass it through the search function at Wiktionary (Special:Search/worldwide). My tool, Dab solver, will use the search page link instead of the direct page on Wiktionary when people try to link to the definition.  — Dispenser 19:34, 19 January 2011 (UTC)


 * OK, but doesn't that veer into WP:DWAP territory?
 * Given that both forms take the reader to the same destination, it seems like we should be more worried about the maintainability of the article rather than what's happening underneath the hood today (which may be entirely different from what's happening underneath the hood tomorrow).
 * If this is really a big performance hit, I think that at the least, the documentation for Wiktionary should be updated to warn about that, or even better, some optimization in the back end was done to make it irrelevant to editors (which WP:DWAP seems to say it really is, even now).
 * I'm not entirely certain what you're saying about Dab solver, and how this enters into the discussion. Clarification?  Regards, NapoliRoma (talk) 21:50, 19 January 2011 (UTC)


 * No, there's a semantic difference. The search implies least one page, possibly more (due to capitalization), while the defined form indicates only that/those pages.  — Dispenser 00:06, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

PDFlink template not working
Hi Dispenser,

The PDFlink template in footnote 15 is not working, but I can't figure out why. Would you have any idea? Thanks, Jayjg (talk) 23:53, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I've edited the article. Now it's footnote 23, but it's still not working. Jayjg (talk) 05:40, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
 * O.K., figured it out, it was missing the "http://". Jayjg (talk) 06:24, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Dabfix problems

 * ''migrated from User talk:Logan

The tool removed the wiktionary link because there was no Hot mess (disambiguation) (or similar qualifier) to the page. Thus, there is no a path for a reader reaching the disambiguation page to expect "hot mess" as a definition. Primary topic usage around it complicates it more so. However, I'll look into to add a Wiktionary verification in the future. Secondly point, heading the are more semantic then bold text and I'm using this to enhance the presentation in another tool. Use level 3 headings can be used if you visually like them better. — Dispenser 00:01, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Readers entering "hot mess" in the search box will be taken to Hot Mess and then, for other uses, to Hot Mess (disambiguation) -- I failed to save that change to the hatnote on Hot Mess, so perhaps now that it's there, the tool would recognize that? Level 3 headings without level 2s would not be an improvement. The non-level groups (like "In music:) are preferred over sections in short dab lists as they keep the list easier to use for the reader; the other tool may not have that issue, if the other style guide doesn't have that preference. Thanks! -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:12, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Report error?
This report, in the third row, shows Matthew Keating (disambiguation) as a redirect to Matt Keating. Actually, the title is a redirect to Matthew Keating, and the page history shows that it always has been. Seems like a possible bug in the script that generates the report. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 21:32, 24 January 2011 (UTC)


 * For whatever reason, databases aren't always properly populated when they're save. Currently there's a script repopulating the redirect table for the new columns (  and  ) introduced with bug 14418.  (It may have died actually)  — Dispenser 02:58, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Wayback Machine
Drop by to tell you new beta is up, http://waybackmachine.org/  « ₣M₣ »  22:47, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * And I dropped by to let you know that I think that the Checklinks code needs to be updated to use the new site; clicking "Internet Archive" from the tool gives a 404 Page Not Found error. Thanks as always. —Ost (talk) 18:15, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, the code I wrote five years ago wasn't designed well, especially with data structures. A complete rethink is required so separations are clean and well defined.  This includes rethinking the user interface so its simple and discoverable.  I'm currently working to cleanup the periphery stuff, so its going to be a while till I get there.  — Dispenser 03:53, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject activity check tool
Hi, your activity check tool has been brought up in this discussion at the WikiProject Council regarding WikiProject activity. I think that if the tool could be modified to only include a subset of pages (for example articles tagged with a WikiProject banner), then it could be used to measure the activity / inactivity of entire WikiProjects. Do you think this is possible? Thanks a lot, Mlm42 (talk) 18:17, 26 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I've actual done some work on this many time. Having a large article collection allows for some interesting things, like a group watcher, hours spent editing, gender ratio, group watchlist/activity list, geolocate IP editors, disambiguation challenges, and more.  I have dabbled in all of these, but to integrate them well takes more time then one would suspect.  I am still interested, but need to be shown its worth the time invested.  — Dispenser 21:30, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Test your Simpsons knowledge
Brilliant. -- Ja Ga  talk 05:50, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

coord-dewiki.log
Hi Dispenser, why is the region "RU-ZAB" listedd as error in coord-dewiki.log ? --91.22.202.234 (talk) 09:21, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, a reasonable complete and up to date (last 5 year) machine readable list is not freely available. Thus, I've removed manually inputted RU-* subdivision codes.  Someday I'll have to scrape the information off Wikipedia and make it available to everyone.  — Dispenser 23:24, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Rdcheck bug
This might be a toolserver bug, not a rdcheck bug. But it would seem that anytime I click a link on rdcheck with a link with an ampersand (&) the link does not work. see this: http://toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/rdcheck.py?page=Texas_A%26M_University

Now, if I were to click on a link like Texas A&M, i would only get Texas A. See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Texas%20A&M&redirect=no

A similar bug was found in other tools, so I think it might be a toolserver thing. thanks for your help. Oldag07 (talk) 02:30, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

coor_g.php
Any progress in getting me added as a maintainer of geohack? I am now confident that I can add the stuff myself. The modules and changes involved are listed here. You might care to do a quick check of my version of geohack.php. &mdash; RHaworth 17:31, 27 February 2011 (UTC)


 * TS-959 — Dispenser 22:44, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Love your work
The sound boxes at "F and A"—nice. Tony  (talk)  07:51, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Commonfixes
Hi. There might be an error with the tool. Please check the following links, and keep your view highlighted on the swingout boxes in the article

( div style="clear:both; class="NavFrame" changing into ---> 


 * http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Star_Wars:_The_Clone_Wars_%28Fernsehserie%29&diff=85990766&oldid=85965347
 * http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Star_Wars:_The_Clone_Wars_%28Fernsehserie%29&diff=next&oldid=85990766
 * http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Star_Wars:_The_Clone_Wars_%28Fernsehserie%29&diff=next&oldid=86004052


 * Thx. -- Gary Dee (talk) 16:24, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

F and A format
Hi, thanks so much for organising the sounds last week. This time, I wanted to move the sounds up, possibly to be just under the admins. But I can't get rid of the header "Want the latest Signpost delivered to your talk page each week?" that intrudes just above it. Can you help? Link Tony   (talk)  10:11, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks; my computer IQ is –5. Tony   (talk)  14:26, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Single line sorting for wikEd
Please check User_talk:Cacycle/wikEd, I have added single line sorting to wikEd. Sorting is alphabetically an corrected for numbers. Cacycle (talk) 21:45, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

coord elevation parameter
Several years back, the documentation for coord and/or WP:GEO (possibly it was a WT:GEO discussion) described an  parameter, and went into some detail about units and how it improves on the  nnnn  for other situations. I don't see the description anywhere now, but I've faithfully added elevations when doing other work to a coordinate. Unfortunately, your tool flags these which some people have "repaired" by deleting the parameter. Maybe this is an appropriate discussion for WP:GEO (or maybe it already occurred, but I missed it), but how do you feel about accepting elevation:? Awhile back I saw another digest of coordinates which recognizes it—maybe that was your work as well? —EncMstr (talk) 08:15, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

new values for the Coord globe: parameter
I was intrigued to see that you've been implementing new globes for GeoHack (such as Jupiter). Very cool! However, when you do this, you should document the change at Wikipedia:WikiProject Geographical coordinates/globe:. Also, I notice that the Jupiter test case you added to Template talk:GeoTemplate/test coordinates is broken; the red dot does not coincide with the Great Red Spot. —Stepheng3 (talk) 03:12, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Dabfix bookmarklet link
Just a heads up, at ~dispenser/cgi-bin/dabfix.py, the link to the DabFix bookmarklet in the box on the right points to e abfix.py - Kollision (talk) 10:27, 13 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Curse you vi [shakes fist]. Fixed. — Dispenser 21:33, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Enaturalist
Hi. Could you tell me please, why this domain is listed as a WP-Blacklist URL. See tools:~dispenser/cgi-bin/webchecklinks.py/de:William-Brewster-Medaille. Thx -- Gary Dee (talk) 13:05, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Template thumbnail
Hi, I don't quite understand its purpose/function. The link to the example didn't work for me. Any ideas? Tony  (talk)  02:08, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Modern skin
Hello Dispenser, I was using Reflinks, and I noticed it was now adding &useskin=modern to the end of the URL when the preview or show changes button is used. Is there a setting that I can use so Monobook is automatically used, rather than removing &useskin=modern manually each time? Thanks, Alpha Quadrant    talk    23:09, 1 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Happy April Fools day :-). — Dispenser 00:58, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Ha, nice one :). At first I had thought I was still on toolserver, before I realized the &useskin=modern. Very clever joke. Alpha Quadrant    talk    01:12, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, bug 22029 is for preserving  between edit screens. — Dispenser 02:13, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Autoconformation RfC
A formal Request for Comment has now been started on this topic. Feel free to contribute; best, Ironholds (talk) 19:30, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Your Geohack Google maps tool
Hi. I'm interested in using your Geohack tool here, but it doesn't seem to have any documentation or any explanation of what to do with all that lovely code. You should probably write a line or two in the commented-out section at the top as to where to put the code to actually use your script! Thanks,  Oreo Priest  talk 00:11, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Bug with Rdcheck
If there is a "+" within a redirect lemma then it will be wrong encoded on the result page. So if a request like this one is started then you'll get invalid results like this: instead of this:
 * http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=U+2318&redirect=no
 * http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=U%2B2318&redirect=no

-- ζ 10:51, 20 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Fixed (months ago, just documenting it). — Dispenser 21:21, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Help to you
Hi Dispenser, i want to help for translate this page for the portuguese language. I want to know if i have just traslate that page, or in another place. Please, answer in wiki-pt page. Thanks. -- Vitor Mazuco  Talk! 15:47, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Rdcheck and ancor templates
There seems to be an issue with Rdcheck and at least visible anchor. It's coming back with invalid redirects when the template is involved. An example is here: ~dispenser/cgi-bin/rdcheck.py?page=List_of_characters_in_The_Batman

- J Greb (talk) 17:14, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Rdcheck: Too many hidden links, aborting
I’m finding this tool very useful to look for existing section redirects. Is there any nice easy way of skipping the “Hidden links on redirect” part, which is killing tools:~dispenser/cgi-bin/rdcheck.py/WP:Redirect? All those pages use templates which display links back to WP:Redirect, even though I understand Media wiki does not show any extra text on a redirect page. Vadmium (talk) 03:03, 24 May 2011 (UTC).


 * The redirects transclude a template (like R from other capitalisation) that links to that page. In the past we've removed linked, but people keep adding them back in.  The best solution is to use an interwiki link:   →  .  See also: Bug 7304.  — Dispenser 04:24, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Okay; thanks for the bug reference. Vadmium (talk) 02:33, 11 June 2011 (UTC).

ghel database problem
Hi, it seems there's a problem with ghel's database, would you please take a look at the error?? Thanks! --Joana.estafanell (talk) 10:10, 2 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Fixed The Toolserver admins have corrected the DNS entries so it points to the server containing user databases. — Dispenser 20:17, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Request for new numbers of installs/active users of gadgets
Hi there,

I am the author of the GoogleTrans gadget. Thanks very much for those stats you put up on Sept 11 2009. It was good to get some feedback on the real use of the gadget. Is it a lot of trouble to get current stats like that for the gadgets? I'd certainly like to know how GoogleTrans is going right now.

Thanks Again

Endo999 (talk) 22:41, 3 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Database reports/User preferences, updates weekly. It's possible to build an adoption graph by collating the revisions. — Dispenser 01:08, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I just took a look at the gadget use list. Just what I was looking for.

Endo999 (talk) 01:37, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi there, I've just taken a look at the User Preferences db page and it hasn't run for 3 weeks. Is this intentional or has something slipped in the db reports?

Endo999 (talk) 22:43, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

ISO 3166-2:BQ ISO 3166-2:CW ISO 3166-2:SX
Hello Dispenser excuse my bad english. This ISO Codes are updatet. http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_3166-1_newsletter_vi-8_split_of_the_dutch_antilles_final-en.pdf. Please can you update your File viewer too? Thanks. --80.142.203.184 (talk) 12:50, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * BQ, CW, and SX were added to ghel. — Dispenser 04:05, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this. Good job it works --80.142.157.190 (talk) 20:07, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

That list
Regarding that list you told us about during this discussion, I have changed many of those titles by removing the Lowercase template and inserting   in its stead. I didn't get into trouble until I worked on the maNga (album) page. It lead me to the Manga (band) article, which I tried to move to maNga (band). My question to you has to do with the lowercasing of the first letter of these articles. It seems the guidelines tell us to lowercase the first letter only when it is pronounced separately and the second letter is uppercase, as in eBay and iTunes. Many of those articles on the list were more like the maNga articles, and I went ahead and lowercased those first letters in accordance with the WP:COMMONNAME policy, which says to title articles in a way that is familiar to the readers of those articles. So which do you think is correct? maNga or Manga? This is important, because if I've been wrong, then there are a lot of articles that were on that list that I'm going to have to go back and change. – Paine Ellsworth  (  C LIMAX  )  23:07, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Reflinks showing raw code
Hi Dispenser, when I tried to use the interactive version of reflinks today it showed the raw Python code, rather than the actual interface, this was only when I clicked on the radio button next to and Plain links, it worked fine for the other 2 radio button options, do you know what the problem is as I can't seem to use it despite clearing my cache and refreshing multiple times. — James (Talk • Contribs) • 10:26am • 00:26, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

in the interactive mode. Shows the script code upon entering the article name. Materialscientist (talk) 12:16, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * The configuration files for one of the webservers was screwed up, this was resolved in the #wikimedia-toolserver IRC channel. — Dispenser 03:40, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

DAB page for Google phone / Search tool
Many thanks for the DAB page for Google phone, but I wonder if it needs what appears to be a clone of the talk page from the Nexus.

 Since you seem to love the challenge of making useful tools, and probably created the above DAB page as a result of seeing the following: This tool idea may interest you. I also discovered that it's possible to set up an article called "Name" without being aware that there is already an existing category called "Name" — the Wikipedia search box doesn't search Category and Sub-Category titles by default (I think it should), and most mere mortals will (a) never work out that it doesn't, and (b) never work out how to use the search box to find if there is a Category or Sub-Category called "Name" ( problem described here ). Categories list many terms with related meanings. It would surely be useful if Wikipedia had a tool to prompt people who attempt to create an article called "Name" that there is already a Category or Sub-Category called "Name", and would they like to view that first (to help them find articles similar to "Name" that already exist in the Category indexes)? LittleBen (talk) 15:16, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Typically people create these links by first making a wikilink to a title they think should exists and then redirecting it or creating it. They would've found it if they used the case-insensitive search box.  We could add JavaScript to to MediaWiki:Common.js/edit.js to do a search for them when creating a page.  But unless your an admins the default action is not to add any new JS.
 * Moving on, making a report is probably more useful I could offer. It pretty simple once the collation is set properly:


 * It takes about 40 minutes to run, create a 2 MB log. — Dispenser 22:03, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

You're invited to the New York Wiknic!
BrownBot (talk) 19:03, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

re: Project statistics
Replied at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/WikiProject desk. Thanks! -Mabeenot (talk) 03:11, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Dab Solver and templates
Hi, Dispenser. In case you hadn't noticed already, a change was recently made to the template to allow a "date=" parameter; and, to make things even "nicer," a bot is now running around converting all instances of  to read. Dab Solver recognizes the old format, but not the new; hopefully it won't be too difficult to adapt to this change. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 14:53, 30 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Wow, that makes the regular expression harder AND more language dependent. I've added some relatively untested code to recognizes the most common of the three possible patterns and properly simplify the links.  — Dispenser 16:14, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

File viewer
Hello, thank you for this tool : file viewer it's really nice. But I need to know if it currently works only for fr:template:Cood or also of his French little brother fr:template:Coordonnées ? Thank you again, Otourly (talk) 14:42, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The ghel system is not template based, instead it looks for links to GeoHack. Also, the logs are in an Excel compatible format, which is why a separate tool is needed to view them.  — Dispenser 03:07, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

coord-cswiki.log
Hello dispenser, excuse me for my bad english. This site and some other too is shown the errors only like ?curid=886. Is it possible to fix this? --80.142.207.56 (talk) 00:09, 12 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I will be looking into optimizing ghel extraction, at which point I will again evaluate the impact of include namespace and title. If you can't wait, you can change your templates to include the   parameter.  — Dispenser 05:30, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Tool
Hello Dispenser, I am translated your documentation from user page for the wiki-pt, this was the last. And I want to know if you can available for the portuguese use your tool? You are planning, for us? Thanks! -- Vitor Mazuco  Talk! 00:54, 12 July 2011 (UTC)


 * My tools should work with all Wikimedia Foundation wikis. I'll look into accommodating differences if posted about it (e.g. different template name).  However, there are no plans for translating the Checklinks interface until a major rewrite.  There are too many strings and word joining magic to make translating practical.  As for Reflinks, translations/i18n existed in the earliest versions and should be added via the pywikibot SVN repository.  — Dispenser 22:05, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

IGN in Reflinks
As always, thanks for supporting these great tools. It's a minor nuisance, but I wanted to note reflinks improperly parses IGN authors, as in this example: . Additionally, it would be great if checklinks automatically worked with the Wayback Machine again; it's still very useful, but it was much easier to add archives before archive.org's new interface when checklinks automatically searched for archives. —Ost (talk) 21:13, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

ghel LOAD DATA INFILE error
Hi Dispenser, the File Viewer has a mistake. See the bottom of all country-pages. --Knochen (talk) 17:13, 22 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Their was an conflict with mysqldump and the new "local-infile" option yesterday. The supposed fix (prefixing "loose-") which broke it.  It is finally fixed by explicitly setting   in the connection handling part of the python code.  The upside to all this is I can re-load the data files.  — Dispenser 20:14, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Grammar error in automated peer reviewer
Hi Dispenser, in the text about redundancy in the automated peer reviewer, "Vague terms of size often are unnecessary and redundant" should be changed to "Vague terms of size are often unnecessary and redundant". Thanks. Graham 87 03:00, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * My tool is only a loader, so you'll need to change the original source at User:AndyZ/peerreviewer.js (line 603). — Dispenser 15:33, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

click tracking
Thanks for pinging me on the click-tracking GLAM stats idea that you put on the village pump. I've forwarded a link to that to the cultural-partners mailing list if anyone technical there wants to get involved with the idea. I can say however that Stats/metrics/analytics things are a big and hairy piece of software... I've been told that, whilst the WMF is indeed building up it's capacity in this field, GLAM-specific stuff is not first priority. I'm working on alternatives to this but I can say it's not going to happen in the short term. That said, it doesn't mean your proposal necessarily has to go through centralised development things like the WMF, so don't let that stop you if you've got consensus and someone to code the thing :-) Wittylama 06:06, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

What File viewer do
Hello,

I would like to have more information about your greatfull tool. For the error region invalid, the tool detect an error based on ISO_3166-1 or ISO_3166-2 ? I know we could put the ISO_3166-2 code but I don't know that if my coordinates are out, the tool detect the subdivision problem or only for countries ? What about the case of international lakes or mountain, could we write for exemple for the "fr:Mont-Blanc" FR-74/IT-23 ? How will react your tool ? And what about three-regions (or more) objects ? Regards, Otourly (talk) 19:07, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Could you also do a log for frwiki like this one which is for dewiki : iwcoord Thanks a lot :) Otourly (talk) 20:42, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Did you understand my questions ? Otourly (talk) 16:02, 2 August 2011 (UTC)


 * We use ISO 3166-2, but the question is more about implementation support. The current implementation limits   field to 60 bytes which is enough for 10 region codes with subdivisions separated by slashes.  However, aside from the abandoned regioncheck script that checks the point is inside the region, little software uses this information.  The original intent was to give GeoHack the ability to hide services that did not have coverage, but this has become a maintenance nightmare (dewiki didn't notice half the links were duplicates).  Due to its relative uselessness and that an automatic region locator is working, I am considering deprecating the field.


 * I plan to rewrite the interwiki coordinates (iwcoord) script as tool. This will be far faster (enwiki currently takes 2.3 hours!), perform some analysis and suggest text to copy.


 * My free time is limited and divided among 4 major tools and many various smaller projects. My current focus is on introducing new editors through disambiguation (dab solver).  If you're looking for a quicker response then I suggest that you contact me on IRC.  As a rule of thumb, it is usually quicker for me to write code then to reply to people.  — Dispenser 18:42, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
 * OK no problems :) Thank you :) Otourly (talk) 18:13, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
 * It's not really a problem but File viewer make an error for the "region:SS" that's correspond to South Soudan. Otourly (talk) 17:04, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Added. Really?  The ISO can't go two months without adding another code.  — Dispenser 14:36, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Suggestion for reflinks
Once again, many thanks for this great tool. Suggestion. I encounter more and more often that newbies place references in the form or even. Can you make reflinks process those, perhaps in the "interactive", "and Plain links". Thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 05:42, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Added to the commonfixes. Note: URL page title are banned by the local MediaWiki:Titleblacklist, but probably should be moved to the global blacklist.  — Dispenser 21:16, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

stable.toolserver.org will be ignored soon
Hello Dispenser, the File Viewer shows this error on all sides. Can you fix it? --Knochen (talk) 16:03, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Well not on all site, some languages are much more progressive :-). Anyway, it's commented out now as got what I need (who's still using stable.toolserver.org).  — Dispenser 21:37, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm interested in a list for dewiki. Can you search for " http://stable.toolserver.org/geohack " again when running your script tomorrow? Thanks. --89.204.152.53 (talk) 15:48, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm likely not going to re-enable the legacy URLs due to performance. You can use w:de:Special:LinkSearch/http://stable.toolserver.org/geohack/ (and w:de:Special:LinkSearch/http://toolserver.org/~magnus/geo/geohack.php) instead.   You may also want to check out WT:WikiProject Geographical coordinates/to do.  — Dispenser 19:23, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I've checked Special:LinkSearch before. There are listed 70 pages but I remember your logfile showing more than 700 some days ago! That is why I would like to check those again. --89.204.137.106 (talk) 19:56, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Temporarily re-enabled, as I would like to see where the flaw is. — Dispenser 20:34, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. --89.204.137.106 (talk) 20:39, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Results are in: 60 for dewiki and 379 for enwiki. So LinkSearch is accurate and I'll disable it once more.  — Dispenser 14:08, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
 * So there must have been some change at dewiki in the last few days. Thanks again --89.204.152.53 (talk) 14:24, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

PDFBot edit summaries
Could you please take a look at Bot owners' noticeboard and see if the suggestions might apply to your bot? Feel free to add your own suggestions and comments there too. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:12, 21 August 2011 (UTC)


 * PDFbot had already made progress by counting the number of PDFs worked and the three other states to spit out one of the six unique edit summaries. However, I am more keen on spending the time improving my web tool to better summaries, since the operators are indifferent of improving the default.  — Dispenser 21:09, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Strange edits left by Dabfix
Hi. I was using Dabfix and it left behind some rather strange syntax relating to the intro. Another editor has fixed most of these entries (like so). Just a glitch? Tassedethe (talk) 15:14, 31 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Code was added to recently without check that it   correctly.  This has been now fixed.  — Dispenser 17:49, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Access granted
Hey, I just wanted to let you know all of my Toolserver data has been ported over to u_jason_p, so everything is now available for you to play with. Let me know if you have any questions. Cheers, -- Ja Ga  talk 06:22, 1 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Now we can make personalized Dab Challenge lists. This was previously the number one question: "Why haven't I gotten any points?"  Now I could only ping something when a users saves so we'd have a live leaderboard.  — Dispenser 21:09, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Cool. I was wondering what you and Russ could do with the data, once I finally put it out there. I'm looking forward to developments. Cheers, -- Ja Ga  talk 22:25, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I've always wonder how much time is spent disambiguating. It seems people can be competitive even if they only have weekends.  — Dispenser 18:48, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Ha! Looks like I'm not getting enough bang for my buck. Somehow I'd assumed Woohookitty got closer to a 40-hour work week in. BTW, I really like the progress bar in Dab Solver. -- Ja Ga  talk 07:33, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Minor table update. I've come up more columns, but leaving them out too keep it consistent.  — Dispenser 12:43, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Falling behind updating this table. Anyway, do you keep the   + fix count for previous months?  — Dispenser 07:02, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * No, I don't archive any thing but the top four contest results. I've often thought it would be nice to have a grand running total for each person. -- Ja Ga  talk 16:36, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Looking back: I think its important to have something where people can feel a sense of accomplishment even if only a few hours are spent. The leader board seemed like a bit of deterrent towards that.  Achievement may be the way to go, although coming up with them is a bit limiting due to decreasing nature of the system.
 * And now stats! The Video Games WikiProject is the first Project to finish their list. JustAGal traveled to the most dab page (1099) with R'n'B and J04n in a distant second at 490 and 454 dab pages.  While not as impressive Logan did manage to fix 117 dab links without ever repeating one.  — Dispenser 04:24, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

So many questions
I've got several questions/comments that have been building up lately:


 * 1) Bummer about the loss of the redlink listing in Dab Solver. That was an excellent feature. I do use the redlink prefix tool you provided, but it just isn't the same. Any idea why the queries slowed down? I notice you've placed a time limit on the redlink queries.
 * 2) In the status bar for Dab Solver, you use the phrase "You're rival is" but it should be "Your rival is".
 * 3) Headbomb mentioned a "Disambiguation bot" that places dn inline templates in articles and does something with talk pages. Is this WildBot? He was asking if I were interested in running it since I have a TS account. I'm willing to give it a shot, but I know little about it.

Thanks, -- Ja Ga  talk 05:15, 13 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I suspect a back end change is to blame. Mostly it is related to the   that isn't present in redlink.py.  The time limit was there before, but I've had to a lot less generous so it doesn't take 2 minutes to load per dablink.  As it stands, the medium generation for the related map+redlinks suggestion has increased from 5 to 11 seconds even with the 20 timeout.
 * Corrected it. Still need to make it more compelling and nicer to look at, but first landing page needs an auto-updater.
 * You'll find it at /home/dispenser/public_html/cgi-bin/i_am_a_bot.py, and its runnable from the web interface. It just something I quickly hacked up to do regex link matching.
 * You can contact me on IRC (see top) if you have questions. — Dispenser 19:49, 13 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Apparently the query optimizer suddenly changed its mind. Before it looked up the transclusion then discarded non-mainspace results.  Now it looks up which of the two million articles have templates and try matching those against the results in the query.  Since we can't use USE/FORCE INDEX, I came up with a little hack of tl_from + 0 to prevent the optimization from happening.  Now its back to 0.8 seconds from 5 hours.  — Dispenser 02:33, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Dabsolver error
The following is now appearing just above the #workarea element on each dabsolver page:

--R'n'B (call me Russ) 21:28, 16 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Fixed (only now replying). Too focused on optimizing the newbie case that I overlooked the obvious case on the other end.  Probably should add easter eggs...  — Dispenser 05:12, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Talkback
Your further input has been requested. Thanks. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:01, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

New dabsolver.py issues
Since about 1 Oct, clicking on "Unlink" is converting Link to [|Link] instead of unlinking it; and clicking on "I don't know / Tag " is not doing anything at all. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 20:23, 2 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Fixed. The issue was a switch to protocol relative URLs tripped the interwiki link maker which is stricter about proper page titles.  This is the reason why it doesn't come up in testing earlier.  — Dispenser 04:20, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Hello there!
I've tried Dap Solver in En.Wiki, it's amazing, I'd like to translate it into Arabic.Wiki! How about that?? Thanks :) Sean  ( Hit ) 06:39, 3 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Just create a new section on /Dab solver, copy the code from the Translating to danish section (not the most intuitive title), and translate the blue parts. I'll try to handle the rest, although I expect to run into trouble since this is my first rtl conversion.  Some notes: rtl is not well supported by the APIs (i.e. no layout flipping), the landing page is not translated due to the amount of work, and the disambiguation contest run by User:JaGa is English only and likely stay that way due to resource limitations.  — Dispenser 06:24, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

No “bodytext” crashes rdcheck
Hi, just letting you know your rdcheck tool seems to be crashing on the strcat page: ~dispenser/cgi-bin/rdcheck.py/strcat. It gives a “substring not found” ValueError on line 90; I think it is failing to find a &lt;!-- bodytext --&gt; comment tag in the HTML page. Perhaps Wikipedia has recently changed the way the pages are coded, because I recently edited that page. Vadmium (talk, contribs) 01:20, 5 October 2011 (UTC).

Sure enough, I checked your talk page before adding that post and it was fine; now rdcheck crashes on your talk page as well :). I wonder if you could get away with searching the whole page for element identifiers without limiting to the “bodytext”. Vadmium (talk, contribs) 01:23, 5 October 2011 (UTC).

Reflinks help requested
Hi Dispenser! I see you've been active on this talk page, but not on User talk:Dispenser/Reflinks. There have been a few questions for you posed there, and your responses would be greatly appreciated. I use Reflinks almost every day, and hope you will continue to maintain it. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 02:02, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Reflinks is removing normal wikitable code
Reflinks is removing border="1" from wikitables. It is problematic to expand the use of Reflinks too much beyond references. See this standard wikitable code created by clicking the table button:

There was long discussion about this (border="1"), and its use with the wikitables CSS class. There are good reasons for its addition to wikitables. I don't want to repeat it all here. The gist of it is that parts of wikipedia pages and tables are copied to email, blogs, web pages, and all over. The Wikitable CSS class is usually not copied with it. But border="1" is copied with it. This allows the tables to be comprehensible no matter where they are copied to. Otherwise the tables are oftentimes a jumbled mess of numbers without any borders. Wikipedia is all about CC-sharing its articles, and it needs to be shared comprehensibly.

Please do not let Reflinks do things against consensus. I also notice reflinks removing tags from an article.


 * "Applying English Wikipedia fixes. DEPRECATED TAG : (6) is removed in the HTML 5 specification."

I do not know if this matters much to that particular article, but again Reflinks should not be changing the format of articles. And in any case what is in wikitext is not necessarily what ends up in the HTML after MediaWiki codes the page. There is a lot of code in wikipedia articles that does not meet HTML 5. It is unrealistic to expect people to fix the many mistakes that Reflinks may be introducing with all these changes. --Timeshifter (talk) 00:55, 23 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Don't lie. No standard table button here produces that code.  Only wikEd include border, but produces a different table.  It was removed from the legacy toolbar two years ago.
 * As for the center tag, It's reasonable avoid markup deprecated years before Wikipedia existed. Reflinks uses the commonfixes library which among other fixes converts HTML 3 formatting to CSS.  Some tags are hard to convert properly, so it issues a warning to the user.  — Dispenser 03:07, 23 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Why the fuck are you calling me a liar? I produced that wikitable code in my first comment above by pressing the table button on the editing toolbar. Click the advanced dropdown on the toolbar, and then the table button. Viola, there is the wikitable code with this first line:


 * WP:AGF.
 * WP:AGF.


 * I suggest you create a separate "CommonFixes" bot. That is if you now want to take advice from me. I really like the Reflinks bot, though I don't know how I feel about you. --Timeshifter (talk) 04:11, 23 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I tested all three different "Insert table" buttons, checked your user scripts, and the unusual formatting with claims of consensus set off my BS detector. As it turns out that behavior happens if you disable vector's dialog boxes, I'll look into getting this oversight corrected.  Finally, commonfixes is already a separate tool.  — Dispenser 07:16, 23 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't hear an apology, but let's move on. I am not surprised though that border="1" was forgotten from the other "Insert table" buttons. The new styling of Wikipedia awhile back was done from side wikis like strategy.wikimedia.org and other places. Since there are no integrated watchlists that worked then, and none that work well now, a lot of things were done without consensus. So people started on with their own pet projects with oftentimes questionable, haphazard utility such as Liquid Threads, a variety of weird toolbars. All this occurred without consensus much of the time between Village Pump and the new hired guns. And then there is always the battle for the "pure" HTML 5 versus the unholy transitional HTML. Most websites end up using transitional HTML, because there is no perfect HTML, and never will be. And I say, and still say, that people who remove border="1" are naive, and don't have as much experience creating and sharing tables on the web as I and other do. I don't see how too many MediaWiki tinkerers can possibly have as much experience in using MediaWiki or HTML to create tables. Both take a lot of experience. Doing both well takes way too much time. I don't pretend to be a MediaWiki developer, bot creator, or tinkerer. I am pretty good at tables though, and sharing them. But if you are going for the perfect HTML 5 though, this conversation is a waste of time until you wake up, or someone else overrides you. Ideological beliefs can be such a pain. --Timeshifter (talk) 14:07, 23 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Just add that to MediaWiki:Common.js and you can have your copy & paste compatibility hack while others can continue removing the markup cruft. — Dispenser 20:14, 26 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I find that people who like to use the word "cruft" are oftentimes clueless about many things on Wikipedia. And you missed the point. It is not about my use of tables. --Timeshifter (talk) 21:21, 12 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Is there a reason why you're complaining to me rather than changing consensus at MediaWiki talk:Common.js? — Dispenser 22:11, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

(unindent). I don't understand JS. I understand CSS somewhat. I am not clear about what you are proposing. I thought at first that you were proposing a personal JS change. I struck out part of my previous comment. If changing the JS in the way you describe will allow everyone to copy tables into email, web pages, etc. and still have borders, then thanks for the JS code. I suggest you propose it to the JS talk page. If I propose it I doubt anybody will listen. Maybe you can propose it, and point to this to explain the need: I did some more reading. See the links below. border="1" is now allowed in HTML 5. No one has found a way otherwise to share tables with borders while copying and pasting, in syndication, via RSS readers, etc.. I don't pretend to understand it all. My experience with the CSS and JS talk pages on Wikipedia has been fairly negative mostly due to this religious reverence for a future form of HTML 5 nirvana. Now that those creating the HTML 5 standards have allowed people to think logically about this, maybe there is hope here too.
 * meta:Help:Table
 * https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18829
 * http://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/ISSUE-155-CP1
 * http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/tabular-data.html#the-table-element
 * http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=7468#c19
 * http://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/40318/issue-155-objection-poll/results
 * http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/tabular-data.html#the-table-element
 * http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/tabular-data.html#attr-table-border
 * http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2011Apr/0377.html

Would it be easier to revert the removal of the JS code that enabled the addition of border="1"? See this diff of its removal. The edit comment refers to this discussion. The initial discussion that added border="1" is here.

I started a discussion here:
 * MediaWiki_talk:Common.js --Timeshifter (talk) 15:11, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

IE error on Dab Solver
Hey, I got this message a bit ago:


 * Well Ja Ga: Fixing my new article "Sergio Franchi discography" using your Bot seemed simple enough. I Went through the fix, but get a message that Internet Explorer is preventing cross-site scripting. Have you a solution, or should I just remove the Internal link? Thanks, CatherineCathlec (talk)

Do you know how to help her, or what went wrong? Thanks, -- Ja Ga  talk 02:30, 28 October 2011 (UTC)


 * She's referring to the XSS Filter notice (users tend to miss it popping up). Her options are to disable the XSS Filter or use a different browser.  Bug 32013 addresses with fixing this.  — Dispenser 03:02, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Regions for coordinates templates on Commons
Hi Dispenser. I have opened a request for bot approval for adding region info to coordinates templates on Commons. I think it is useful metadata, including for your coordinates databases (coord_commonswiki_p). Can you give your opinion there please? Regards. emijrp (talk) 18:35, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Dab Solver error
I am getting this error when I follow the Computers link on the tool, A problem occurred in a Python script. Here is the sequence of function calls leading up to the error, in the order they occurred. Mo ainm ~Talk  21:12, 29 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Fixed. It was   not  .  — Dispenser 21:17, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
 * So you did, that was quick, good work. Mo ainm  ~Talk  21:21, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

dab_solver.py grammar
"Your closing in on" should be "You're [or You are] closing in on".... --R'n'B (call me Russ) 15:37, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
 * And, "[Someone]‎ is now -218 behind of you" should be "[Someone] is now 218 behind you." --R'n'B (call me Russ) 14:00, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

ghel gc_primary field
Hi,

I really like the ghel tool and its regular dumps that are available via your tool server account. i have a question concerning the ghel tool: i do not completely understand the field gc_primary within the output table. initially i thought that this field indicates whether there is a link on top of the wikipedia page which opens the openstreetmap map. but there are pages within the german wikipedia which are set to gc_primary = 1, but do not have such a link. e.g. de.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDU (page_id = 3956889 = gc_from). so what is the actual supposed meaning of gc_primary?

Regards, Stefan — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.30.4.138 (talk) 17:01, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Dispenser (via IRC): The gc_primary is meant to indicate the desiganted coordinate for the topic. Unfortunately, the syntax (absents of &title=) is the same for when people forget to name referenced locations in the article. I don't understand why, but some people despise title coordinates.

dewiki-CoordinateNO
Hi Dispenser, for this page (dewiki-CoordinateNO.log) there is no update - last at 14 Sep 11. Can you fix it? --217.246.216.131 (talk) 02:32, 12 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Fixed. It was the result of a broken symlink.  — Dispenser 21:05, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Reflinks is breaking a workaround for sorting tables with styled headers
Could you have a look at comment 13 in this bug thread:
 * https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31755

It is discussing this:
 * Help:Sorting

Here is more info:
 * http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_background.asp
 * http://www.w3schools.com/cssref/pr_background-color.asp

Why would one want to replace style="background-color:" with style="background:" in header cells? That breaks the sorting workaround for styled header cells in tables. It is the opposite of what is recommended in the bug thread. --Timeshifter (talk) 08:36, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Dablinks error
There's an error on dablinks. When I enter this to check DAB pages on the Simple English Wikipedia, an error appears. Just thought I'd let you know, if you don't already. Best, Albacore (talk) 21:45, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Toolserver maintenance, I've put up an site notice. — Dispenser 22:26, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Red Links and Dab solver
Howdy. I've created a database u_tb_dab_p on s1, in which you'll find a single table rls ( redlink varbinary(255), suggestion varbinary(255) ). I've populated it with an initial million rows for you to be going on with. This reduces our interface to:

SELECT suggestion FROM u_tb_dab_p.rls WHERE redlink = 'some red link';

An index has been added to support the above query. You're welcome to amend the table structure and contents to suit your needs. I'll plan on maintaining it roughly every 6 months. We can tinker with the quantity vs quality of suggestions once we see how it works. - TB (talk) 07:52, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

dabfix.py stalls on BMR, POD and GM
I'm not sure if it's because they're short article names or because they're uppercase, but dabfix.py never returns HTML to edit these dabs. Josh Parris 00:16, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I finally got a return [on BMR], and when I click on "Show details" I get: ERROR: Redlink FullText search: ProgrammingError(1146, "Table 'u_dispenser_p.redlinks_enwiki' doesn't exist") but the full HTML page wasn't returned. Josh Parris 12:37, 26 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Fixed Turned out that a regular expression in getsummary was too greedy and accidentally spanned multiple lines. — Dispenser 19:30, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Dab Solver question
Any idea what happened ? Brackets were replaced by hashes for many wikilinks. The problem seems to have gone away since, but an editor was asking me about it (via DPL bot's dablinks templates). -- Ja Ga  talk 15:50, 2 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Haven't noticed my canvasing for Bug 32013 for the last month? What's happening: When a IE8/9 user follows a link or submit a form to a different domain the regular expression based "XSS Filter" attempts to mangle and disable JavaScript in areas matching the GET/POST data.  It is sneaky as mangling is done after the page has been served and only affects the edit box leaving the preview or diff view intact.  WMF can disable it by sending   header or users can disable it following the instructions linked from my tools.  — Dispenser 22:25, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, I did notice the messages but forgot to check it out. (I went and voted for it BTW - or at least added myself to the CC list, which I assume is the same thing.) Thanks for the explanation. -- Ja Ga  talk 00:20, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Protocol relative Link to GeoHack
Hello Dispenser, how did your tool "LocateCoord" find the coordinates? It is a problem for your tool, when the weblinks to the GeoHack are protocol relative or HTTPS only? When yes, it is possible to fix your tool? Thank you. Der Umherirrende 18:55, 5 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I have improved GeoHack's HTTPS support and switch to protocol relative URL on de:Template:GeoTemplate where possible. As for the ghel parser and database (locateCoord.py is only a front-end), the revised code using el_index instead of el_to.†  This query could run twice as slow, but reproducing it consistently is difficult as the regular query run varies between 2-24 minutes for dewiki.  Decreased performance is unacceptable with the script already running for three hours daily.
 * † Protocol relative URLs are stored twice in MW database with a "http:" and "https:" normalized search field (el_index). — Dispenser 07:52, 7 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your changes. Maybe a DISTINCT can help here, to avoid duplicate entries in the result set. Der Umherirrende 20:38, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Using DISTINCT entails reading the data twice and discarding half which is at best O(n×log n). The row look up for el_from should only be O(log n) and be faster, bar unexpected caching.  So I'll be testing the el_index method for all wikis over the next week.  — Dispenser 07:47, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Looking at the time data from the logs show no correlation to the introduction el_index search method. I've also managed to save 60 minutes of CPU by writing an incremental updater for commons.  So we should be good for the switch to HTTPS on my end.  — Dispenser 23:47, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Yet another dab_solver.py question
Hi. How come dab_solver.py always tells me "BD2412‎ is now XXX behind you"? It is always BD2412, no matter how far behind me he is or how many other users are between the two of us. Right now, PhnomPencil is the user just behind me, but I'm still getting BD2412 messages. (Maybe it's psychoanalyzing me....) --R'n'B (call me Russ) 15:52, 7 December 2011 (UTC)


 * It's a pre-generated list to match active users with a buddy. The algorithm is similar to WikiStalker as it attempts to pair you with someone that you interact with recently (30 days/recentchanges table).  I last updated the list November 2 and since I was still playing around with the implementation when my laptop power connector broke I never got around to automating it. — Dispenser 20:29, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Fawlty Towers
Hi. Pending any further discussion on the appropriateness of your bot calls in this article, I've reverted 'em because they appear unnecessary and inappropriate. The (now somewhat archaic) word 'cretin' is adequately defined in Wikipedia. I would say that meaning No. 2 is actually the more prevalent since the medical substitution of specific terms such as Congenital hypothyroidism. Anyway, the provided Wikilink for Cretinism perfectly disambiguates the former (discontinued) medical usage and the ironic pejorative usage (which is itself, of course, subjected to implied irony by being placed in the mouth of Basil Fawlty). Also, the term 'waiter' is fully disambiguated by the provided Wikilink. It seems to me that the use of bots for such purposes has significant limitations when dealing with subjects involving habitual English usage and important irony, and that you should enter a proper discussion before making such calls. But maybe you can persuade me otherwise. Cheers,01:13, 8 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Someone's already for you and I've added the Wiktionary (it's a sister project) to the disambiguation page.  The reason why I added the dab buttons is because the page still has a WildBot notice (albeit for a different link) and has over 10 active watchers (40 in the last 3 days).  — Dispenser 03:44, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Hah!
Nice userpage :D Res Mar 03:06, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

DAB, Checklinks not working for SEWP
Checklinks and the DAB page are not working for the Simple English Wikipedia's pages. See here, for example. Other Wikipedias seem to work fine (like this). Best, Albacore (talk) 14:53, 25 December 2011 (UTC)


 * The lang column listed SEWP as <tt>en</tt> when I updated the list. I've fixed it to using the <tt>domain</tt> column.  — Dispenser 16:15, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

OSGB36 errors in geohack
Hi! There's a discussion going on in Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Geographical_coordinates regarding systematic errors in the geohack OSGB36 output. The fix would seem to be quite simple to implement, but none of the participants in the conversation have either checkin rights or familiarity with the geohack code. Would you or one of the other geohack maintaners be able to help with this? -- The Anome (talk) 16:52, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Template:Usermessage/doc
Those two were deleted last year. I was just cleaning up the page by removing them. The Haz talk 16:55, 8 January 2012 (UTC)


 * MediaWiki messages are different from other namespaces as they can exist without an actual page. They simply fallback to an internal strings from the software.  — Dispenser 17:19, 8 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I didn't know that. Thanks for clearing that up. The Haz talk 17:25, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Links to deleted articles in disambiguation pages
Hi. I came across a disambiguation page that contained an entry to a deleted article (Colloquy). Is there a tool to find these? Or does some bot clean them up? --MZMcBride (talk) 21:34, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It's easy enough to do, but you wouldn't want to because redlinks on dab pages are permitted by WP:MOSDAB provided there's a bluelink on there that itself has the redlink (presumably in context). Josh Parris 09:52, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, if an article has been deleted, you'd presumably want to remove the item/link, right? --MZMcBride (talk) 19:33, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Not always. Some articles are deleted because the current version is irremediably flawed (e.g. blatant copyvios or fake articles placed at an otherwise viable title), not because the topic is inherently unencyclopedic. An entry on the disambiguation page may still be appropriate, providing the topic is adequately addressed in an existing article. older ≠ wiser 19:55, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Dabfix comments out red links that aren't linked from another article (excluding disambiguation/set-index pages) per MOS:DABRL. And, if the deletion log summary mentions PROD, CSD A7, G5, G11, or links to the AfD will remove the entry.  This seems to work well in keeping out advertising and self-promotion cruft, but I don't have many edge cases to test against.  The following query should help in finding some edge cases.  — Dispenser 21:18, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Dim vs. scale?
Hi, I'm currently developing an extension for storing and retrieving geographical data. It will use the same coord templates as Geohack uses, so I have a few questions about the relationship between <tt>dim</tt> and <tt>scale</tt>. Why there are two of them in the first place? I see that GeoHack docs on TS consider scale deprecated, but from dumps I see that it's much more popular than dim. What would you recommend to store? Max Semenik (talk) 12:47, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Coordinate from de.wp not in your database
Hello, do you know a reason why de:Hotel_Pagano is not in your database? The article an the template seem ok and the article is relative old. --Kolossos (talk) 21:44, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

mysql> SELECT el_to -> FROM externallinks -> JOIN page ON page_id=el_from -> WHERE page_namespace=0 AND page_title="Hotel_Pagano"; ++ ++ ++ And Vorlage:Coordinate and Vorlage:Zitat are the only templates on the page, seems MediaWiki screwed up saving the page. It'll probably clear out with a null edit. — Dispenser 22:14, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * el_to                                                                                                                 |
 * http://www.goethezeitportal.de/fileadmin/Images/wd/projekte-pool/italien/reisestationen/capri_insel/proelss_pagano.pdf |
 * http://www.goethezeitportal.de/index.php?id=capri                                                                     |
 * http://www.kirche-capri.de/geschichte1.htm                                                                            |
 * http://www.lapalma-capri.com/it/history.html                                                                          |


 * Same problem is at de:Zum Kater Hiddigeigei which also used Vorlage:Coordinate after Vorlage:Zitat . I have changed the order (now first Coordinate then Zitat) to check whether next dump will contain the "Hiddigeigei" coordinates, which could show either a problem with Vorlage:Zitat or with the coordinate parser. -- Gerd Fahrenhorst (talk) 17:16, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * You just needed to make a null edit and its was MediaWiki problem (it never populated the externallinks table). I've identified 880 articles in a similar condition.  — Dispenser 21:44, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, thanks. Probably there are similar problems at other languages? Is there a way to work the list by an automatic batch/script ? -- Gerd Fahrenhorst (talk) 07:01, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
 * You might be able to use AWB, but it would be easier to just ask at de:Wikipedia:Bots/Anfragen.  I didn't find anything problems on enwiki.  The timestamp occur around the same time, so it might be related to the attempted protocol relative switch.  — Dispenser 14:54, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I have started a request at de:Wikipedia:Bots/Anfragen. -- Gerd Fahrenhorst (talk) 19:42, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Problem is resolved now, thanks to de:Benutzer:Umherirrender ! -- Gerd Fahrenhorst (talk) 20:42, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Dab solver and a weird edit
I don't think I did anything odd, but another editor reported. Just letting you know in case this was a bug. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:54, 18 January 2012 (UTC)


 * It's bug 2700. AnomieBOT probably should be expanding the template, though.   — Dispenser 02:28, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Template:Image width/1
is this still in use? if so, we should document it? if not, we can delete it? Frietjes (talk) 20:58, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

redlinks.py
Hello!

I noticed your redlinks.py script when using the wonderful Dab Solver tool, and started using it for other editing unrelated to dab solving.

I get surprising results sometimes though, especially in terms of namespaces. For instance I notice that there is a link to red category commons:Category:10th century BC bronzes on commons:Template:1st millennium BC bronzes and, through inclusion, on commons:Category:8th-century BC bronzes for instance. However this red category is not linked on http://toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/redlinks.py?page=10th_century&namespace=14&dbname=commonswiki although the results are apparently not limited to links from the main or category namespace. How can it be? Place Clichy (talk) 17:45, 20 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Fixed. It was originally made exclusively for Dab solver. To improve suggestions, results like "Escabitchewan" for "Esc" were filtered out since word stems usually aren't the right solutions.  So it used multiple searches based on the WP:Pipe trick list, WP:Subpages, and proper names.  Luckily, the code since been forked for load performance, custom sorting, relationship integration, and excluding links from disambiguation and talk pages; thus I've changed redlinks.py to the expected search behavior.  — Dispenser 00:31, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you! It works like a charm! I don't know what you did, but it seems that other problems I had seen on queries using diacritics (like this one) have disappeared too. Last time I had checked, they were not returnign any result. Good job! Place Clichy (talk) 18:30, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Potential Toolserver search tool
One of the issues associated with working on Featured portals is finding content for Did you know? I've found that the best way to do so is a Ctrl + F search for parts of keywords; for Volcanoes, I used "volc". So, my question is this; would it be possible to create a tool that, given certain keywords, would search through Wikipedia:Recent additions and its subpages and return any hooks containing these keywords? It would certainly make life easier. Thanks, <span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica;"><b style="color:#333333;">Res</b> Mar 03:24, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

dewiki-CoordinateNO and enwiki-Coord_missing.log
Hi Dispenser, After an update of templates (de:Vorlage:Coordinate, de:Vorlage:CoordinateNO and so on) was that list not updated (dewiki-CoordinateNO.log). Can you fix that? --Knochen (talk) 20:21, 1 February 2012 (UTC)


 * ghel and iwcoord use simple URL matching, so they are unaffected template code changes (This is what you're referring to, right?). Although, I have updated iwcoord to HTTPS friendly now. — Dispenser 21:53, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi Dispenser. It does no work for de.Wp and en.Wp. The lists are (nearly) empty. enwiki-Coord missing.log and dewiki-CoordinateNO.log Greetings --Knochen (talk) 00:05, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I've added counters at the end to make it obvious between no results and a broken report. A reason for no results is first 5000 interwikis contain no coordinates.  — Dispenser 19:38, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Some little dabs could be useful
Hello,

DPL bot (talk) seems to think you might be able to run a check for dabs needed on a contributor's Watchlist. If so, I volunteer my watchlist for such a dab run.

In any case, thanks for your contributions to WP.

Georgejdorner (talk) 15:48, 20 February 2012 (UTC)


 * ~dispenser/cgi-bin/watchlist_points.py, works up to 10,000 articles. You could also replace your watchlist with another list easily at Special:Watchlist/raw ;-).  — Dispenser 19:48, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Disambiguation algorithms
Disambiguation algorithms: Wikipedia Signpost/2012-02-27/Recent research (down the bottom). Josh Parris 13:12, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Talkback
—  Jeff G. ツ (talk)   04:28, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

rdcheck.py
I liked that tool very much, but when I look at http://toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/rdcheck.py?page=de:Vorlage:Weiterleitungshinweis it gives me a HTTP 301 redirect to itself. What's up? --&thinsp; ✓ &thinsp; Bergi 02:51, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

dab solver, dn and points
It would appear that if the process of tagging an entry with disambiguation needed leaves it with zero points, it falls out of the top of the list where most editors look for work needed. If something is tagged as DN, it should still be worth at least a point to fix. In any case, those articles needing disambiguation with 0 points should be listed closer to the top. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:57, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
 * This link shows what may well be an extreme example but makes clear that some action may be needed. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:04, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Maybe you'll find your answer here:
 * Most participants are not subject experts and avoid pages tagged with DN, since they're difficult or require research.
 * We don't know which link(s) are tagged as DN. We just know the tag exists on the page.
 * User:JaGa decides what gets points and it's currently top 750 of the most link dab pages and those under 5 ("Bonus links"). Adding more would increase the already high resource requirements.
 * Initial sort: point count binned into 0, 1-4, 5-24, and 25-124 bins, then alphabetical by article title. Resorting can be done by clicking the heading.
 * Zero point articles are only displayed until the list reaches 500 articles (to avoid implementing pagination).
 * Listing WikiProject with zero point cause the query ran for minutes instead of seconds.
 * I am looking for someone coordinate WikiProject, find patterns, changing up things, and setup contests. — Dispenser 23:29, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Vegaswikian (talk) 05:57, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

categorder.py
Thanks again for all your help! I announced the script and WP:BACKLOG changes carefully asking for concerns and questions to go to me. https://toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/categorder.py?page=Category:Wikipedia_files_lacking_a_description seems like the sort of thing that you would want to know about. Is it failing because it has files? I tried it with other categories with files in them, and they do the same thing. Npmay (talk) 08:02, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Nevermind, I figured out what was happening; files aren't articles. Fixed. Npmay (talk) 05:11, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

You might want to take a look at the sources for the first four or so items on http://toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/categorder.py?page=Category:All_articles_with_topics_of_unclear_notability e.g. Special:WhatLinksHere/The LEAGUE (nonprofit) -- that has 8999 incoming links, but only 3 from article space. It looks as if categorder.py may somehow be counting all backlinks instead of just article space. Sorry to bother you, but I'm sure you want to know about this one. Npmay (talk) 19:14, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Dab Solver compliment
Hey, I got a very nice barnstar that should've gone to you, so I'm pasting a copy here: Cheers, -- Ja Ga  talk 15:45, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Tools for simple
Dispenser... I must thank you sincerely on behalf of the Simple Wikipedia, for adapting your tools to our project! It's going to be a huge help to our small community! Osiris (talk) 02:21, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Talkback
Edinburgh  Wanderer  17:12, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Disambiguation images
Nyttend (talk) 02:05, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Category:PDFlink without a parameter
Category:PDFlink without a parameter, which you created, has been nominated for discussion. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 19:22, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Typo in your watcher tool
Hello, there's a typo and missing "." in your watcher tool. "Pages with fewer then 30 watchers are hidden" should be "Pages with fewer than 30 watchers are hidden." Graham 87 04:41, 16 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Fixed. — Dispenser 12:17, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Nudge, nudge
I'd like to second the request made at User_talk:Dispenser, above, and point out that there have also been discussions about it at Template_talk:GeoTemplate and there's a GNU GPU free library here that will fix it. I asked RHworth to do this, but he's not gotten around to it. I'd be happy to fix it myself, if I had access and the slightest possible idea about how to do PHP coding, but I don't. What needs to be fixed are {osgb36easting}, {osgb36northing}, and {osgb36ref} (which also seems to round differently than the two all-numeric formats, in addition to the main error). Please? Best regards, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 18:44, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Reflinks bug - FYI
Hiya! As you may be aware there was a bug in an old version of Reflinks which mistook the text in the commentbox for the name of the uploader which resulted in this kind of stuff. "Meld je aan of registreer je om een reactie te plaatsen!" is Dutch and means "Login or register to comment". No worries; I think I fixed 'em all. AFAIK the current version of Reflinks doesn't have this bug anymore; is that true? Arcandam (talk) 06:29, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, the problem still exists - try Marshawn Lynch. GoingBatty (talk) 01:33, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes the problem still exists. I am not sure if this is a bug in the software or people should just pay more attention to the changes proposed by Reflinks. Arcandam (talk) 15:01, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

@Dispenser: Are you there mate? Please respond. Arcandam (talk) 14:01, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Why are you ignoring me? You've seen the "You have new messages"-banner, right? Arcandam (talk) 01:38, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

? Arcandam (talk) 23:54, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Hello? Arcandam (talk) 13:20, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Ola? Arcandam (talk) 23:59, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

No break space issue
If you have a dab link listed say for SQL Server and then you go the page it shows up as not found. One case where this occurs is if the link is coded as SQL Server using the &amp;nbsp; code instead of a space. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:07, 4 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I've implemented a fix using the  method.  Work for even the funky Ogham Space Mark (SQL Server) and others on Space (punctuation).  — Dispenser 04:17, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:26, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Dabsolver error
~dispenser/cgi-bin/dab_solver.py/West_Croydon_to_Wimbledon_Line

Broke for me, is something wrong? Sfan00 IMG (talk) 16:53, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
 * You are not the only one. It stopped working for me a couple of hours age.--JustAGal (talk) 17:23, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Third voice here! --<span style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#ED791A 0em 0em 0.8em,#F55220 -0.8em -0.8em 0.9em,#1D6B00 0.7em 0.7em 0.8em;"> Tito Dutta  ✉  18:33, 12 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Fixed now. FYI, webchat is a much more effective way of reaching Dispenser than posting here.  --R'n'B (call me Russ) 19:59, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Normally I get an email with nifty debug information for every error encountered and things tend to get fixed rather quickly. Today, cron which runs the email script broke, so I didn't get those 1,214 emails.  The Toolserver admin doesn't know why, but he's switched me to cronie instead.  I probably wont be the last one affected.  Regarding the error, it was a typo on my part:  .  — Dispenser 03:01, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Stnlnk
Some of these show up in Dabsolver, but Dabsolver can't find them :) Sfan00 IMG (talk) 15:47, 13 June 2012 (UTC)


 * What's "stnlnk"? I don't use it anywhere in my source code nor does JaGa.  — Dispenser 16:47, 13 June 2012 (UTC)


 * stnlink is a template, Dabsolver picks up pages using it that link to Disambigs, but can't see the template code in the page as it's a template invocation, NOT a link. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 21:25, 13 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Dab solver requires the link to be completely visible and handles non-standard template by converting them with a regular expression. I've already done so for this template (Replace   with  ), but I do not have the time to do every one of them.  Also, lots of pages don't follow the templates pattern, take Fairfield railway station as an example.  If you need help writing regexes I suggest writing on the WP:TECHPUMP or WP:BOTREQ.  — Dispenser 17:16, 14 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I'll do that... there's a ongoing disscussion about naming conventions in relation to this. Stnlnk was also

recently updated to accept a second parameter 18:02, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

No work found
Can you look at this link which shows over 30 links and yet when you check most, there is nothing there. Maybe some templates or something else. But it would be nice to have it fixed. Also, it seems that this project does not show up in your list with a link count that I could find. So something weird is in play. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:31, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually I just found it in the list for under 100, but the first few items do not appear to be sorted correctly. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:34, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Looks like jct is appending the state so it makes it hard to find the source of the error. Vegaswikian (talk) 05:30, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Data for the list rely on User:JaGa's Dab Challenge database, which is suppose to be updated hourly. I've change the sort method from template name to display name so that should make it easier for you find things.  WikiProjects with zero points are not show for performance reasons (it adds 30+ seconds).  See Stnlnk above for the issues surrounding templates.  — Dispenser 22:07, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Template talk:Disambiguation needed
Please could you comment in this discussion? Thanks &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:47, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

multiple type: in Coord parameters
I'm curious why you removed this pattern from WikiProject Geographical coordinates/coordinates search tool. Best regards, —Stepheng3 (talk) 01:03, 27 June 2012 (UTC)


 * The check is covered as  in ghel, it was previously disabled for   since Commons set a "default" in their templates.  I've been working recently to remove the data pollution there.  BTW, does geosearch.py still work?  — Dispenser 05:09, 27 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't see any harm in having two different ways to search for the same error. Do you?  Also, I regret to inform you that  for some time I've been unable to get geosearch.py to work.  Best regards, —Stepheng3 (talk) 23:51, 27 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I'd like to keep the technical mechanics separate from policy decisions. Also, every pattern does slightly increase the time and CPU consumed.  I've increased the links listed in the report to 25 and changed the wrapping width and behavior.  I hope this is suitable for you.  — Dispenser 07:47, 1 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm happy with the increased number of links and the wrapping behavior. Any chance you could get an interactive interface like geosearch.py to work again? —Stepheng3 (talk) 16:29, 1 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Caching the GeoHack part of the externallinks table is continually taking longer. You could run it while its still hot after generating the report (which is what ghel does), but that kinda defeats the purpose.  I've been rewriting locateCoord today, so eventually it'll have functionality similar to catscan.  — Dispenser 05:28, 2 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the suggestion and also for your ongoing tools work in this area. Cheers, —Stepheng3 (talk) 19:56, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Geohack
Thank you very much! --Port(u*o)s (talk) 20:17, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Since you're around...
Since you're around at the moment, could I ask if you have this on your to-do list? Regards, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 16:06, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Geohack new scale variable
Hello Dispenser. Since a few days French Geoportail has completely changed its syntax for URLs. We have modified fr:Modèle:GeoTemplate, but in order to directly call www.geoportail.gouv.fr, we need a new scale variable (there are already {mmscale} and {osmscale}), this could be {gpscale} (for &z= in the URL), whose value is 2.24579E-9 * {scale} (see talk on GeoTemplate). Could you add this feature to geohack.php on toolserver.org ? (because is not understood by mediawiki). Thanking you by advance, Jack ma (talk) 05:33, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I understood that you are the best positioned to maintain Template:GeoTemplate . I am a bit lost in all these things (mediawiki, ...). Do you know someone in charge of geohack.php or how to procede to get it modified and set this {gpscale} variable ? Jack ma (talk) 15:14, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Question about the DAB Solver app
Greetings Dispenser I had a question about the DAB solver app you made and I was hoping you could help me with it. When I look at WikiProject Rhode Island and several others the app says that there are no DABS to solve. However when I look at WikiProject United States, which supports these projects, they show up. I assume that this is because they fall under the WikiProject United States banner but I'm not sure. Is that true and is there anything you can do to fix that so that we can still use the tool without having to fish through the WPUS project to find them. Thanks in advance for the help. Kumioko (talk) 20:31, 16 July 2012 (UTC)


 * The current system uses a pre-generated articleId and talkId to the Project's banner template that takes 30 minutes to update every week. This approach has a up to date points list and comprehendable categorization scheme.  If I do add a category subset feature, it'll be after I'm going working on coordinates.  — Dispenser 06:26, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Editing my watchlist
I have been trying to edit my watchlist. When I click the "View and edit watchlist" link, I get a Wikipedia error page. When I click the "Edit raw watchlist" link, the resulting page doesn't load at all. I have nearly 24,000 pages on my watchlist, so that may have something to do with it. However, with that many pages, I don't remember all of them. If I could, I would be able to type them in and unwatch them that way.

I know that you have "projects" on toolserver.org, so I was wondering if you have a solution on there. If not, do you know what I can do? Thanks. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 03:00, 6 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I've worked on a watchlist bankruptcy tools, but never completed it as I never developed a good criteria of unwanted item watches. Unfortunately, I'll be busy for the next two week, but after that I'll happily chat on IRC.  — Dispenser 03:34, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Project watchlist
Thanks for hosting that tool. I was missing it, but didn't want to remove the dead link in case it came back online eventually. —<B>Torchiest</B> talk<sub style="margin-left:-3ex;">edits 22:11, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Likewise, thanks! --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:27, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for adding links to your tool to the WikiProjects. One thing I noticed though. You are defaulting them to Template:WikiProject X, however a lot of them are supported by other banners. Will this tool work with something else like Category:WikiProject X articles or something? Kumioko (talk) 22:46, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
 * No plans to add category support, which means US state WikiProject are going to have remove the link. The current operation is a direct replacement for Tim1357 tool.  I honestly don't like how the links were spammed across a thousand project pages, but I'm not going to waste time inventing a better system.  — Dispenser 22:53, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you! One small thing I noticed, the red and green numbers showing the sizes of changes are backwards. –Fredddie™ 23:11, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
 * D'oh! Fixed.  — Dispenser 23:51, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok thanks. Kumioko (talk) 23:58, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Parameter state in File viewer
Hi, why is the parameter state listed there. He is listed in this template to be correct --Knochen ﱢﻝﱢ‎ 02:39, 11 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Me not doing the research when making up new type "spell check" corrections. It been reverts now.  — Dispenser 05:22, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks best regards --Knochen ﱢﻝﱢ‎ 08:33, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

locateCoord.py displays earth map for other globes as well
Hi, just noticed that locateCoord.py displays an earth map even if another globe has been set, example: ~dispenser/cgi-bin/locateCoord.py?dbname=nowiki&lon=137.42&lat=-4.47&range_km=1000&globe=Mars. It seems like the earth map is hardcoded. – Danmichaelo (talk) 20:50, 11 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Fixed Replaced by a neutral gray for non-earth bodies. — Dispenser 21:27, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

GeoHack new variable for Géoportail
Hello Dispenser. Since GeoHack refuses computations with #expr: could you introduce a new variable "gscale" into geohack.php whose value would be  (scale factor for France Géoportail new version, see above) ? Let me know if you are not the right person to do this extension, if not who to contact ? Thanking you by advance, Jack ma (talk) 09:44, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Gardner suggestion
Whaddya think? I'm a bit sceptical, but I'm willing to go along if you and Russ like it. I do like the idea of making absolutely certain the reader understands this is not a warning, but it seems to me that's already obvious. Maybe a pared-down version of Sue's text is in order?

Russ, the discussion in question is here. -- Ja Ga  talk 16:27, 22 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I think that if we can keep it short and sweet, there's no harm in doing it, and maybe it will be appreciated by some of the newbie editors who haven't yet figured out what a bot is. :-) R'n'B (call me Russ) 22:22, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and put her message in as is. Should be fine. -- Ja Ga  talk 23:51, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

R&R
I have this page on my watchlist. When i use Dabsolver in the watchlist section for Disambiguation pages i click on fix list and it takes me to Disambig fix list for R. Any ideas why this is happening. If you reply here could you give me a talkback. Blethering  Scot  17:56, 24 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Fixed Due to a flaw in JaGa's PHP redirect script the  was unescaped when redirecting to the new dpl project.  I've updated the address to avoid the script.  — Dispenser 21:42, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Blethering  Scot  23:13, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh noes! Is there anything I need to do to the redirect scripts? -- Ja Ga  talk 23:52, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Use  when inserting stuff in URLs. — Dispenser 06:22, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Gibraltarpedia is driven by your code
We use this everyday. Its very useful. We would really like to be able to list out articles that have been changed if they are from project Gibraltaredia OR from project Gibraltar. Is there anyway we can do this? Thanks for your help Victuallers (talk) 20:29, 28 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Done Pages are separated by a pipe like  .  — Dispenser 19:44, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Your logfile regioncheck-dewiki
Hi Dispenser, how often is regioncheck-dewiki.log being updated? And please note that ISO 3166-2:AN does not exist anymore (but is listed by your logfile). --тнояsтеn &hArr;


 * Due to the lack of replies after the 3 year hiatus, I assumed it was of no interest and set to update monthly on the 12th.
 * I had attempt my best to wrangle AN geometry into 3 regions. Please, realize it is 14 years old FIPS dataset with bad geometery.  — Dispenser 05:20, 2 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you. --тнояsтеn &hArr; 12:03, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Watchlist(s) for WikiProject Bangladesh
I find that both of these links are functioning for WikiProject Bangladesh. I have not (yet) checked other WikiProjects for the same phenomenon. —Wavelength (talk) 16:56, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * http://toolserver.org/~tim1357/cgi-bin/wikiproject_watchlist.py?template=WikiProject_Bangladesh
 * http://toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/transcluded_changes.py?page=Template:WikiProject_Bangladesh

Removal of hatnote with vague "not needed" explanation
Hi,

You removed the disambiguation hatnote for Checkered Flag (video game) claiming that "Hatnote to Checkered Flag not needed" (but no explanation as to why you think this).

There is at least one other article for a video game entitled Chequered Flag (video game); near-identical name but with the British spelling, certainly close enough to risk confusion. (Please note that contrary to what some believe, dab pages and hatnotes are not solely for identically-spelled articles, but apply to any plausible cases of potential confusion). The dab page also mentions a 1988 arcade game by Konami called "Checkered Flag"- currently redlinked, but still notable, and still a potential source of confusion.

I've reinstated the hatnote. Please feel free to contact me if you disagree with this, thank you.

Ubcule (talk) 21:14, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

New gadget
Can you see my request and you say that you do think my gadget? Please, can you also create my gadget?--Vivaelcelta {discusión &middot; &#32; contributions} 19:14, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Your notice on toolserver
Hello, I like your notice about the future of Toolserver. Perhaps you could email the other Toolserver users to suggest doing the same? We'd need some summary on a wiki page. --Nemo 08:36, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I've created Future of Toolserver. --Nemo 09:31, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Media story about WikiMiniAtlas and other geodata features on Wikipedia
Hi Dispenser,

thanks again for helping to answer a journalist's question about maps and geocoordinates on Wikipedia some weeks ago. The resulting article has now come out on Talking Points Memo: http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/10/wikipedia-maps-inside-encyclopedias-little-known-cache-of-geo-data.php

Among other things, it links to your coordinate statistics and heavily features WikiMiniAtlas, so your input definitely had an impact.

Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 17:35, 12 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for letting me know. I had been wondered if anything's come of it.  — Dispenser 05:27, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

categorder.py error
tools:~dispenser/cgi-bin/categorder.py/Category:All_NPOV_disputes returns an error saying to contact you about it. Can you get it working, please? 81.169.144.135 (talk) 00:30, 14 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Fixed Yikes, that error (an extra indent) was introduced Oct 5 :-(. Thanks for letting me know.  — Dispenser 05:00, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

dab_solver.py extremely slow to load
Have you changed something in dab_solver.py in the past few days that might make it slower to load? Since the end of last week, it seems extraordinarily slow, even though other Toolserver pages seem to load without abnormal delays. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 13:34, 15 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I notified User:DaB. earlier today of anomalous behavior (higher memory/disk pegging) of thyme (current sql-s1-rr) I saw in Munin. He's apparently fixed the problem as no longer getting 2+ dozen emails every hour about queries dying as I've been for the past 2 days.  — Dispenser 04:12, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The problem cropped up over the weekend again and I had some time to work on addressing it better. I switched Dab solver to use sql-s1-user (rosemary), but keep <tt>related.py</tt> which computes "relateness" and suggests red links on sql-s1-rr (thyme).  Also, my custom query killer will now ramp up as I near my resource limit.  However, I had to ultimately email DaB that thyme was Thrashing and he restarted mysql-daemon an hour later.  This will probably happen more as enwiki continues to grow and we don't get any new hardware.  — Dispenser 19:27, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Bad links from reflinks
This edit introduced some bad links, e.g. the link to O-ren Ishii is a bad link because it goes to a redirect page which then redirects to the wrong place. JoshuSasori (talk) 13:23, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Treason
Any idea why this article is proving impossible for Weblinks to resolve ?. About 30+ bare urls in the mix, but the messages at the top of the page must mean something to someone, but are complete gibberish/jargon to me. Thanks,

Derek R Bullamore (talk) 22:48, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Reflinks
Should the user script for Reflinks make it load on my toolbox? Doesn't work that way for me. I have Firefox 16.0.2, Windows XP. I have added the XSS exception to my NoScript. I use Modern skin. I first added the user script to my modern.js, and nothing changed in the toolbar. So, I switched and added it to my common.js yesterday. I still don't see it in my toolbox. Please advise. — Maile (talk) 15:55, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Got my answer on the Village Pump. — Maile (talk) 01:16, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia Goes to the Movies in NYC this Saturday Dec 1
You are invited to Wikipedia Goes to the Movies in NYC, an editathon, Wikipedia meet-up and workshops focused on film and the performing arts that will be held on Saturday, December 1, 2012, at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (at Lincoln Center), as part of the Wikipedia Loves Libraries events being held across the USA.

All are welcome, sign up on the wiki and at meetup.com!--Pharos (talk) 07:04, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Confirmed user filter
Hi Dispenser, We were discussing the issue of handling large volume of bad unwatched edits at the India noticeboard. Is it possible to add a filter, "Hide confirmed users" on the WikiProject watch tool? Thanks. — Ganeshk  ( talk ) 13:31, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Celebration and Mini-Conference in NYC Saturday Feb 23
You are invited to celebrate Wikipedia Day and the 12th anniversary (!) of the founding of the site at Wikipedia Day NYC on Saturday February 23, 2013 at New York University; sign up for Wikipedia Day NYC here, or at bit.ly/wikidaynyu. Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues!

We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience!--Pharos (talk) 01:52, 2 January 2013 (UTC)