User talk:Dispenser/Archive 8

Toolsaver
been using the toolsaver to DAB links the last week. The counter and points have stopped working for me. I also keep getting the same pages to edit back, so they are blank (as they've already been finished). What's up? Am I doing something wrong? I sign in with the credentials everyday, BTW. GenQuest "Talk to Me" 15:25, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Problem in ruwiki
Hi. Welcome back to wikipedia :) Please, check this topic: User talk:Dispenser/Dablinks. Thanks in advance. --Rave (talk) 16:52, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikiminiatlas and ml.wikipedia
Hi,

It is known from WikiMiniAtlas that you are maintaining the text label database for that. What is the frequency of updating the database? Now, the data used for ml.wikipedia is pretty old. Please update it if possible.

With regards --Vssun (talk) 02:20, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Non-titles can have redirects
~dispenser/cgi-bin/rdcheck.py?page=Russonorsk_ is telling me "Russonorsk does not exist on wikipedia:en". True, but that is no reason why it should not look for redirects! Please fix soonest. &mdash; RHaworth (talk · contribs) 10:20, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Jinki disambiguation
One part of your edit is a redlink.
 * Jinki Fortress, part of the Guantanamo Bay detention camps

Perhaps this small mistake comes from the 1241 "Unclassified Summary of Evidence for Administrative Review Board in the Case of Abdel Aziz, Abdullah Mohammed" at p. 7 which mentions the Qala-al-Jinki Fortress battle?

I have removed the link. --Ansei (talk) 19:23, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Safari bug on wikimapia.org links in geohack
Hi there.

I stumbled on the following bug, browser-specific, as it pertains to Safari 6.0.* and perhaps the earlier versions (6.0.4 in my case on Mac OS X 10.8.3):

When you choose the Wikimapia as the map provider, clicking either Map or Satellite link fails to position you at the mapped site, instead, in my case, I get the map of Chicago, where I happen to be (and my Wikimapia profile points to, but I only set that up yesterday; the bug predates my profile location-setting in Wikimapia). No problems with Google Chrome doing the same operation. Perhaps the geohack code needs to generate a slightly different URL for Safari? Safari does fine with the other map services such as Bing and Google Maps.

Best, --Mareklug talk 21:32, 30 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Mareklug and I talked on IRC. This problem appears in the mobile interface and on Safari 5 (Windows).  The problem  was solved by  to the URL.  If anyone cares there's ~50 other wikis that need this change.  — Dispenser 23:09, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Language parameter and location title in geohack
Hi Dispenser,

It seems that Google Maps URL generation works differently for various languages. Location title (in parentheses) is not generated when language=en or when the language parameter is not set at all.

For language=ru the location title is generated correctly.

Example:

The following two links do not produce location title for Google Maps: [links to enwiki GeoHack]

The following link works correctly: [Link to ruwiki GeoHack

Best regards, --Klimov talk 14:02, 11 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Works on the phone now, thanks!
 * It would be also nice, if the users would see a marker in desktop Firefox too.
 * All the best,
 * --Klimov (talk) 18:23, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Your recent changes to Geohack have broken the page. Selecting a link to Google Maps now does not work properly and Google says that it cannot find the page. It appears that Google will accept only the latitude and longitude and not the page title. •••Life of Riley (T–C) 18:10, 11 May 2013 (UTC)


 * It seems already fixed. --Klimov (talk) 18:25, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Looks like it is OK now. You must have been working on it even as I wrote. •••Life of Riley (T–C) 18:34, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Your changes to Geohack still do not work properly with Google Maps for names with parentheses in the title. Try this one: Adlai E. Stevenson High School (New York City), then click on the coordinates and then on Google Maps in Geohack. You will see that Google Maps cannot find the object. •••Life of Riley (T–C) 18:51, 11 May 2013 (UTC)


 * This seems to be fixed too. Works in desktop Firefox, but doesn't put a marker there yet. Thanks --Klimov (talk) 19:50, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Not fixed. Google Maps cannot find the desired object. •••Life of Riley (T–C) 20:12, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

So this was introduced in and removed , because it never quite worked right. So I test the following undocumented schemes:


 * lat,lng - Show a green marker that often blends into the background. It also searches for a nearby point in the database and places a noticeable red "A" balloon.  Users often get confused when looking at parks.
 * Title near lat,lng - This performs a search for "title" in the area and marks the top 10 results
 * Title@lat,lng - Unpredictable behavior
 * lat,lng (Title) - This is what we what. Show the point without jumping to a nearby street and pull up the "information window location" with  .  However, if there are two open parenthesis it wont work.  I could get GeoHack to substitute them with a Unicode lookalike, but Internet Explorer doesn't show them.
 * loc:lat,lng - This is what I've settled on. Works better than what we originally had, but lacks title information.

Thanks for baring with me. I've learned more about Google Map's URL parameters than I even care to really know. — Dispenser 02:44, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Webreflinks is 404?
http://toolserver.org/~dispenser/view/Reflinks

The page you requested was not found on this server. This could be because:


 * You followed a broken or outdated link
 * You typed the page address incorrectly
 * The page no longer exists, or has moved to a new address

If you followed a link from another page, please inform the owner of that page about the broken link. Your browser sent this as the referring URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dispenser/Reflinks

If you think you are receiving this page in error, or you have a question, please contact the owner of this document: dispenser [at] toolserver [dot] org. K7L (talk) 01:41, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
 * See Village pump (technical)/Archive_111. GoingBatty (talk) 02:02, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Another bad Geohack link to be fixed
While you are in the business of fixing Geohack links, how about trying to fix the link to the National Map Viewer at National Map Viewer? It has been broken for a long time. Thanks. •••Life of Riley (T–C) 19:59, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Error running RDCheck
I got the following (copy/pasted) running rdcheck on Shuttlecraft (Star Trek):


 * for m in (bar.finditer(html, html.index(""), html.index("")) if '' in html else bar.finditer(html, html.index(""), html.index(""))):
 * : substring not found

Is there something on the page that's causing this? – Cbbkr (talk) 21:05, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

rdcheck.py failing with the option 'redirects only'
Hello Dispenser.

~dispenser/cgi-bin/rdcheck.py?page=A_Room_with_a_View_(1985_film)

gives an error message instead of the expected list of links.

This was reached by doing 'Whatlinkshere' on A Room with a View (1985 film) and then clicking on the option 'Show redirects only'. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 15:31, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It's not just this one page - I was trying it with several templates yesterday and had the same problem. GoingBatty (talk) 23:05, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It seems to be completely broken at the moment. ~KvnG 15:34, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Someone else brought it up at Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_112 GoingBatty (talk) 04:02, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Transcluded changes
I'm getting a SQL error on Transcluded changes - Template:WikiProject Globalization: : (1317, 'Query execution was interrupted', None) --Meclee (talk) 13:45, June 6, 2013‎

watcher tool
Hi. This seems close to an XSS vulnerability. I'm not sure it is (I don't think I'm sufficiently clever to inject a &lt;script&gt; tag), but the un-sanitized output really ought to be addressed, I think. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:26, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:29, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Maxed out
Unable to use the tools for several hours now since the id is maxed out at 15 connections. Vegaswikian (talk) 02:02, 30 June 2013 (UTC)


 * The server was rebooted and wiped out the custom query killer program. This wont be happening again as I've finally figured out how to automatically launch screen from a shell and manipulate it.  I've also added automatic JS reloading to a few more tools.  The problem is partly exacerbated by browser increasing simultaneous connections from 2 to 6, reducing my simultaneous users from 7.5 to 2.5.  — Dispenser 05:30, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Username
Hi Dispenser, your username is confusing. Lotje (talk) 11:12, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
 * What? --MZMcBride (talk) 01:21, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Dab Solver
Are there any plans to move dab solver onto labs. With the unreliability of the toolserver and how good a tool this was just wondering if you were considering it. Blethering  Scot  18:25, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Upcoming migration to Labs
Hey, if all goes well, I'm hoping to migrate all my stuff to Labs next week. How does this affect you, what kind of coordination do you need from me? I can leave the scripts running on Toolserver as long as you like; I see no reason to shut them down once I've started them on Labs. Let me know if you need anything. -- Ja Ga talk 03:47, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Recent change tool
This tool is excellent transcluded changes. Wondering if there is an easy way to determine how many changes are made to the main space of medical articles per day? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 13:39, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Checklinks is down
~dispenser/cgi-bin/webchecklinks.py answers with 404. -- Rotlink (talk) 10:30, 4 September 2013‎(UTC)


 * Fixed Apparently I accidentally deleted the script while doing some related work. — Dispenser 16:54, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * https://toolserver.org/~dispenser/view/Checklinks gives a page with Moved Permanently and a recursive link. (I can probably confirm it's not in my cache, since I'm hearing of the tool first time today) ~ Nelg (talk) 09:57, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Seems to be working now. GoingBatty (talk) 23:33, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Your abuse filter request
Hello,

I've taken a look at your request for an abuse filter. How common are these edits? Can you provide some other examples?

Triplestop (talk) 11:08, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I just noticed now that the request was over a year old. Is this still enough of a problem to warrant a filter? Triplestop (talk) 11:25, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm going to say yes. — Dispenser 05:52, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Today's special is hash
After many years of being vaguely aware of the dab solver I finally gave it a try, and here's what happened. EEng (talk) 03:12, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
 * That happens with older versions of Internet Explorer - what browser are you using? GoingBatty (talk) 03:24, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Internet Explorer 8 and newer. The implementation created XSS exploits with their sanitizer, so they patched it to blank pages when that happens.  The best you can do is disable it.  — Dispenser 05:52, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
 * For the record I'm on IE10. Your "disable it" link gives 404 so this is turning into a typical software clusterfuck -- I think I'll go back to disambiguating the old-fashioned way. Perhaps the bot's notice on editors' Talk pages, re links to dab pages, should mention that IE users should steer clear of the disambiguator. EEng (talk) 06:05, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
 * You could also try Firefox, Chrome, or another browser. GoingBatty (talk) 12:43, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Fixed link. Anyway, there's a big warning box that you didn't see because IE10 dropped conditional comments when switching to HTML5 parsing.  I've fixed this.  Still a poor experience with the need to sign in, but its in WMF hands to fix the problem (so vote for the bug :-).  — Dispenser 13:48, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Dabsolver default edit summary suggestion
When using dabsolver and the only action on a page is to add, the default edit summary is "Help needed". This isn't particularly informative so I've been using "Disambiguation help needed" which gives context as to what help is required. I think this would be useful for the default when the edit summary doesn't otherwise include the word "disambiguation" (or "disambiguated" etc). Thryduulf (talk) 21:02, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * It would also be more informative if Dabsolver added disambiguation needed instead of dn. Thanks!  GoingBatty (talk) 23:31, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * As to the first point, I like to use "Help needed: which DISAMBIGUATION PAGE TITLE ?" --R'n'B (call me Russ) 18:38, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Dabsolver database connections
Hi, Dispenser. I'm getting a lot of "User dispenser has exceeded the maximum number of database connections" errors lately when using dab_solver, although they are intermittent. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 18:38, 6 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Fixed I accidentally set  which caused related.py to consume up to 3 times more connections (1 user=6 HTTP connections=12-18 Database connections).  Since I was also changing the query-killer (see Maxed out), it took longer to figure out.  — Dispenser 19:33, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Coord template/GeoHack/GoogleEarth doesn't support dim/scale params
When using this in an article: 30.68333°N, 81.23333°W if you click on the resulting link: https://tools.wmflabs.org/geohack/geohack.php?pagename=Lake_Rakshastal&params=30_41_00_N_81_14_00_E_region:CN_dim:100000 the summary at the top of the page correctly shows Zoom=4 and Scale +/- 1,000,000. However, the link under Global Service for Google Earth in the Satellite column is: https://toolserver.org/~kolossos/earth.php?long=81.233333&lat=30.683333&name=Lake_Rakshastal i.e. with no zoom/scale setting. Note that the Other column link (w/meta data) does correctly include the scale: https://toolserver.org/%7Epara/earth.php?latdegdec=30.683333&londegdec=81.233333&scale=1000000&title=Lake%20Rakshastal

(Sorry if you prefer bug reports elsewhere. I couldn't see how to create one (perhaps without creating yet another account) on the jira SVN, and I'm already 4 articles deep in my "stack" and running out of time and energy) —&#91;  Alan M 1  (talk) &#93;— 19:27, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation/Participants on toolserver
[//toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/useractivity.py?page=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation/Participants&days=365&view=table Wikipedia:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation/Participants on toolserver] has far more information than is needed for the WP:AFC project and its convenient listing on a public web page has privacy implications. Consider showing only what is needed for the AFC project.

Of the information you show, I recommend the following changes, especially #1.


 * 1) Unless an editor "opts in," only show information available to non-logged-in users.  This means removing the Email yes/no, for example.  Even if the user opts in, do not show information not available to "normal" logged-in users.
 * 2) Let users "opt in" to show extra information and "opt out" to be removed from the list completely.
 * 3) Clarify what "timeline" means - it seems to mean "total edits" including deleted edits (I'm guessing here, as my number is a couple thousand more than my non-deleted edits).
 * 4) If you show the total edits, any number above a few thousand isn't relevant to AFC work.  Just show as "higher than X" where X is a number above which we can assume the editor is experienced.
 * 5) Change the "registered" field to show the actual date only for very recently registered users (say, under 6 months), and replace it with "over X months ago" for users with a moderate amount of tenure or "over 1 year ago" for editors with more than 1 year of tenure.
 * 6) Only privileges which provide the ability to do things that otherwise could not be done, such as sysop, reviewer, or filemover are relevant.  Whether a person has rollbbacker, autopatroller, autoreviewer, etc. is not relevant.  Specialized permissions like those related to the Educational Program are likely not relevant unless the person's AFC duties cross over into those areas.
 * 7) Clarify what "Active" means.
 * 8) Clarify what "Stalkers" means and consider changing the name, as the term "wiki-stalking" is strongly discouraged.  "Watchers" may be a suitable term.
 * 9) Gender is irrelevant unless the editor specifically opts to show it in this list.  In fact, it could be distracting, I recommend removing it.
 * 10) Last edit should be replaced with something like "less than X hours ago," "less than X days ago," "less than X months ago," or "more than 1 year ago.
 * 11) Clarify what the red and green dot mean in the "last edit" column.

Until the changes in #1 are made, please make them for my entry or remove my entry from the list completely. davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)  16:54, 24 September 2013 (UTC)


 * The information is largely available from the user API (|registration|blockinfo|groups|implicitgroups|gender|emailable Example for Davidwr), the notable exception is the lower threshold user talk page watchers (active and total). As this tool is for project management it does not make sense to let users opt-out.
 * So the point on the interface: Timeline had an activity timeline until WikiDashboard when down (I'll look into reviving it).  Active & Stalkers are the number users watching the given talk page.  Users are considered Active if user_touched is within the last 30 days (Same as auto-logout).  The activity color dot transitions color between green (current) to red (last active 365 days ago, or what's set for Inactivity flag).  Columns are sortable— Dispenser 20:41, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Ghel database
Hi I got lost in Ghel database. For example for dewiki query SELECT page_title, gc_from, gc_lat, gc_lon, gc_type FROM PAGE JOIN u_dispenser_p.coord_dewiki ON gc_from = page_id WHERE ( `page_id` =5979 AND gc_primary =1 )

gives

page_title gc_from  gc_lat  gc_lon  gc_type Ägypten 5979  30.05000000  31.23333333  landmark Ägypten 5979  31.35000000  27.23333333  landmark Ägypten 5979  31.21666667  29.93333333  landmark Ägypten 5979  31.25000000  32.28333333  landmark Ägypten 5979  30.78333333  31.00000000  landmark Ägypten 5979  29.98333333  31.13333333  landmark Ägypten 5979  29.96666667  32.55000000  landmark Ägypten 5979  29.06666667  31.08333333  landmark Ägypten 5979  29.18333333  25.36666667  landmark Ägypten 5979  28.08333333  30.76666667  landmark Ägypten 5979  27.86666667  34.28333333  landmark Ägypten 5979  27.21666667  33.83333333  landmark Ägypten 5979  27.18333333  31.18333333  landmark Ägypten 5979  26.73333333  33.93333333  landmark Ägypten 5979  25.33333333  30.60000000  landmark Ägypten 5979  25.70000000  32.65000000  landmark Ägypten 5979  24.10000000  32.90000000  landmark Ägypten 5979  28.50000000  33.95000000  landmark Ägypten 5979  26.03333333  29.21666667  country

Why it gives 19 different coordinates, but article de:Ägypten only has one coordinate link? How to query to get this one coordinate link? --WikedKentaur (talk) 08:02, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Using Webreflinks on Monty Hall problem
Hi Dispenser, a quick question about the Webreflinks tool. I attempted to use it to fix the article Monty Hall problem but it was of no use, I'm guessing because it presents references in the form of and Gardner 1959b. Can the script be modified to process these kind of references or am I stuck with manual one-by-one reference fixing over there? Cheers. Gaba (talk)  13:41, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Transcluded changes toolserver tool
I was wondering if there's a technical limit that prevents having a "next page" button, to get more changes. If not, I'd like to put in a request for that sort of thing - it was present on User:Tim1357's now defunct WikiProject watchlist tool, and I would appreciate restoring that functionality. VanIsaacWS Vexcontribs 13:05, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Notification
Please see Wikipedia_talk:Disambiguation_pages_with_links. Blethering  Scot  20:03, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Watchlist at WikiProject Women's History
Hi,

I see that clicking the the external watchlist at WikiProject Women's History gives an error message. Just wondering if there is anything that can be done about it? Thanks in advance, XOttawahitech (talk) 01:12, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Checklinks wanted in Tool Labs
Hi Dispenser, I was talking to someone who named your Checklinks tool among his 4 favourite tools. I would like to convince you to migrate it to Tool Labs. I know you are sceptical. But are there any reasons why your stuff would not run in Tool Labs? Please consider to migrate - for those you like your work! Silke WMDE (talk) 09:11, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Dab solver is one of my favorite tools - it's the only Wikipedia editing I can do on my tablet. If you're not interested in moving your tools to labs, would you be willing to pass along your code to someone else?  Thanks!  GoingBatty (talk) 16:58, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

redlinks.py is down
Hello!

It looks like redlinks.py has been down for a few days now, at least before the week-end. http://toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/redlinks.py?page=Test returns: "Table 'enwiki_p.logging_ts_alternative' doesn't exist (Error 1146) Please try again in a few minutes." Other languages have the same behaviour. Is there a way this can be fixed? Place Clichy (talk) 15:00, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, that's been ! Or at least, it now works as before. Place Clichy (talk) 08:11, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Interwiki links on GeoTemplate page
Hi, if you have time, could you check this problem? Thanks in advance. --Rotpunkt (talk) 10:51, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Coordinate tools non-functional
I see that you haven't been active on en.wp for a while, but I'll post this in the hope that you will see it. For several weeks, your tools coord-enwiki.log and glupt.log haven't been operating correctly. They seem to be running their daily updates, but each day's results are identical. Old errors that have been fixed are still being listed each day, and no new errors are being identified. It's as though the tools no longer have access to the current version of en.wp. Perhaps you've given up on your tools entirely; but if you haven't, you may want to look into this. I used to patrol these logs regularly, and they certainly caught many errors that aren't being caught otherwise. Deor (talk) 11:45, 22 November 2013 (UTC)


 * A related question: I'm wondering about the Transcluded changes tool, which hasn't been much use lately due to the replication lag. Are you planning to migrate these tools to WMFLabs? (Or should I start asking around for someone to create replacements?) --Paul_012 (talk) 15:01, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I came to ask about the Transcluded changes tool as well, which I used to use to check recent changes for certain WikiProjects. If this user isn't much around, I hope the current dysfunction can be addressed elsewhere and hopefully fixed. With regards, Iselilja (talk) 12:59, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Reflink error when using IE
Hi, I recently attempted to run Reflinks on the page Sobieski Vodka using the Internet Explorer browser. In addition to hanging up for several minutes during conversion, it added a "#" in the text, rather than the actual reference number. When this error was pointed out to me, I tried again using IE with the same result. I then attempted the conversion using the Chrome browser and it worked fine. Just an FYI. --  O liver   T wisted (Talk) (Stuff) 09:41, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
 * This is a known issue with some versions of IE - see https://toolserver.org/~dispenser/view/Help for more information. GoingBatty (talk) 14:24, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

GeoHack and Yahoo! Maps
Hello, Dispenser! There’s probably a better place to post this—sorry—but I’ve noticed that the “Map” links to ''Yahoo! Maps'' from GeoHack coordinate pages are reading West longitudes as East, taking one to the wrong hemisphere. The “Satellite” links appear to work fine. It might well be a bug at their end, for all I know, but I thought I’d let you know, anyway, in case you don’t already.—Odysseus 1 4 7  9  05:54, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Reflink error?
Just started getting i/o errors with Cristina Saralegui and Mykonos. Since no one else seems to be having that problem, I suppose it's got something to do with unseen code I'm using. css? js? Firefox is basis. Student7 (talk) 01:53, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * , cleaned up somethings. WMF also had trouble server issues a few days ago.  — Dispenser 03:32, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

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TS face detection
Hi Dispenser!

Are you still working on this? Please let me know... :) Thanks and Greetings --DrTrigon (talk) 19:39, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

watcher
Hi. Is your tool can work well with hewiki? i tried and could not I would appreciate if you could answer in he:שיחת משתמש:חיים_7 חיים 7 (talk) 13:36, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Tool down?
I seem to be getting page not found errors? Sportfan5000 (talk) 18:30, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Dabfix needs update
Dabfix tool changes TOC right (actual name) with its redirect tocright. Check this edit for instance. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:42, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Ping. Can you please change the code so it uses ? -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:58, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Maybe you haven't noticed that Dispenser's tools have been blocked. Hope this can be resolved amicably soon!  GoingBatty (talk) 00:30, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Redlink finder
Hello, Dispenser. I really appreciate this tool, which I think you created/maintain: http://toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/redlinks.py?. It has not been working for about 3 days now, and I was wondering if you could see if you could help sort it? Best wishes, Boleyn (talk) 14:49, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Dablinks and Reflist
Hi. I don't know are You aware, but your tool inserts references tag, even when reflist template is already in an article. -- Bojan   Talk  20:53, 20 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Fixed Due to yesterday's language fix the correct templates are now used, but since noreferences.py has no entries for  nothing was loaded.  Fixed this by falling back to enwiki instead.  — Dispenser 21:19, 20 May 2014 (UTC)


 * It works now, thanks. Btw, could You add support for localised names of namespaces (Template->Шаблон; Wikipedia->Википедија and Portal->Портал)? -- Bojan   Talk  21:48, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Coordinate logs
Hi Dispenser, your #log:coord-dewiki.log shows errors for:
 * mountain with negative height (seamounts)
 * isle and adm1st with large numbers of inhabitants
 * long titles.
 * Is there a way to sort those false positives out? And do you plan to move those logfiles to the new Tool Labs? --тнояsтеn &hArr; 06:20, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Question at Village Pump
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#AfC_Invite_Template_Questions

Migrating your tools to Tool Labs
Hi Dispenser! Please see Village pump (technical)/Archive 127. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 14:07, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for creating User:Dispenser/Toolserver migration. I hope your tools aren't lost!  GoingBatty (talk) 23:13, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

External links checker
Sorry to bother you with something that might be a fish of 560 nm, but I've seen a number of posts in the DYK nom area that suggest the "external links checker" that is part of the DYK tools is not working properly. It appears to be suggesting dead links that are working OK for humans. Maury Markowitz (talk) 15:01, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

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Wikistalking tool
MZMcBride suggested that you might have an alternative to the soon to die on toolserver stalking tool. If not, would you be interested in migrating it to wmlabs? SpinningSpark 02:06, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Reflinks discussion on AN
Administrators'_noticeboard --Neil N  <i style="color:blue">talk to me</i> 04:26, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
 * The discussion moved to VPT. I concur that tools such as dab solver and redlinks (afaiac) were very useful and I used them very frequently. I wish a solution was found. Place Clichy (talk) 09:10, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

dab_solver.py shutdown
It's very disappointing to see that you were unable to migrate your tools to Labs. Would you be willing to make the source code of dab_solver.py available to me so that I could try to operate it myself? It is an invaluable tool that I use literally every day. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 10:11, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I'd second this for all of the tools. I used reflinks, checklinks, dabsolver, and dabfix a lot. I knew that this was coming, though I had hoped something would change. —Ost (talk) 17:31, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Old School
I like your Old School user page. Looks like you go back to a text-only internet like I do! Nice job - by the way !  Kosh Vorlon    10:54, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Note to users
I hope you dont mind but I added the historical tag to some of the shut down tool pages - as seen here. I hope all works out in the end. Your tool has been a great service to the community and we cant thank you enough for the time we had with. --Moxy (talk) 18:49, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

A Barnstar For You

 * I echo that. Please port it to Tool Labs, whatever the real motivation for not doing so up to now. Please! --  Ohc  ¡digame! 02:54, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

A table showing the old Toolserver tool and its replacement
I started this table, and was wondering if you'd be so kind as to help fill it in a bit.

Link: Wikimedia Labs/Toolserver replacements

If it exists already somewhere, please say and I'll delete it. Many thanks, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:47, 2 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I added your "Show redirects only" tool to this table at Wikimedia Labs/Toolserver replacements. GoingBatty (talk) 13:36, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

A beer for you!

 * I'd like to second Piotrus on just about everything noted. (Especially the beer - hell, for Reflinks alone I'd be willing to provide you with a vat or two of the stuff.)  Your coding work has done an immeasurable amount to help improve Wikipedia, and it would be a great pity should that all have to come to a screeching halt. -- Ser Amantio di Nicolao Che dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 19:12, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Question about copyrights
I would like to ask two things. Why haven't you released your toolserver tools under a free license? And if you have no plans to do so, would you be willing to sell the copyrights (and if so, for how much)? PS. Once again, thank you for developing those immensely useful tools. --<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 10:18, 3 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Westmalletrappist.jpg. . . and if the tools had to remain copyright-not-left such-and-such-an-organization, could they be hosted on a different website (financed via Indiegogo or whatever), and/or could they be adapted and made available for installation on would-be-users' own computers? -- [[User:Hoary|Hoary]] (talk) 13:29, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I did consider crowd funding, until I met Evan-Amos at WikiConferenceUSA. For his Kickstarter campaign to make goal he needed to write an article for a major video gaming website and then he signed a book deal to get better equipment.  (WMF doesn't have a Kickstarter account, they don't support FLOSS?  Not for even a token amount.)  I may still consider a bitcoin tips jar now that Newegg accepts them.  — Dispenser 02:52, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Reflinks, the best of the bunch, is up and running.

Thank you, Dispenser. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 14:13, 3 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Checklinks appears to be up, but didn't work when I last tried it. Perhaps somebody is working on fixing it. -- Hoary (talk) 21:43, 3 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I would be curious to know why your tools are not FOSS as well. Zell Faze (talk) 12:39, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
 * It's easier to copy and paste code from the 'net without worrying about attribution and licensing. And let not forget WMF is arrogant wanting everyone else to use FLOSS (They like Google Docs).  It would likely take over a week to sort out the copyright issue, time that could be better spent elsewhere.  — Dispenser 02:52, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * Pluswhich: I really, really, really like your userpage. –  SJ  +  23:33, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Soliciting comment...
Hi! Would you care to review my FA nomination for the article Of Human Feelings? The article is about a jazz album by Ornette Coleman, and the criteria for FA articles is at WP:FACR. If not, feel free to ignore this message. Cheers! Dan56 (talk) 08:58, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Change to cleanup-bare URLs template?
Hi Dispenser! Could you please help me understand why you made to Template:Cleanup-bare URLs to have the template point to the defunct toolserver instead of the new tool labs? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 19:57, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
 * WMF privacy policy doesn't allow redirects outside Wikimedia properties and I'm hosting the tools on another domain. — Dispenser 20:02, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your quick reply. When I made the change, the toolserver link was redirecting to the tool labs link.  I see now that the toolserver link is redirecting to http://dispenser.homenet.org instead.  Thanks!  GoingBatty (talk) 20:42, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

RegExp.escape is not a function
Hi, I get the error "RegExp.escape is not a function" in alttextexplorer.js. I'm using Firefox 31 (with Firebug, of course). A silly but workable fix would be to define:. Thanks for the great script :) --h2g2bob (talk) 22:15, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Oops, that fix won't work at all (escapes "s" as "\s", which is wrong!) --h2g2bob (talk)

Me again, this is a working solution: if (RegExp.escape === undefined) { RegExp.escape = (function(tx) { return tx.replace(RegExp("[^a-z0-9]", "g"), (function (m) { return "\\" + m })); }); } In firefox, alttextexplorer stops after the first line if RegExp.escape isn't defined. This defines it. --h2g2bob (talk) 03:06, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Privacy policy
What was the problem with ? Helder.wiki 11:48, 16 July 2014 (UTC)


 * The foundation wants links pointing to their properties to uphold their privacy policy. This means that Tools cannot include third-party scripts (such as Google Analytics, OpenStreetMaps, Twitter integration, YouTube) or images (like Google Charts API), nor can they redirect to third party websites (cough) without displaying a notice first.  Currently I'm using redirects pointing to wherever my server is currently hosted at and the Toolserver domain has no such restrictions.  I would update it at toolserver.org, but I'm currently kicked out.  — Dispenser 19:13, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Another well-deserved award!
For all of your great work here on Wikipedia, but especially for your Reflinks tool. The fact that it can do all of this is amazing! - Sweet Nightmares  04:13, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

At HOPE X
Thought I'd let anyone there watching my page. Apparently, my tool notices don't get read. — Dispenser 17:32, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Reference manager
Hello, could you show me your reference proposal? Here is a list of some of the ones I have found. meta:Grants:IdeaLab/Reform of citation structure for all Wikimedia projects I would like to see someone take on this project. I have no technical aptitude for developing software, but I do have the need for the tools.  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  13:47, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

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Nomination for deletion of Template:Toolserver IP
Template:Toolserver IP has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. GZWDer (talk) 09:47, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Altviewer and custom thumbnail frames
Is there any way to flag Altviewer that a custom thumbnail frame is used, a la ? One example is Debian using CSS image crop. 84.127.80.114 (talk) 17:48, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Sighs
Sorry you have hit a brick wall over Reflinks and WMF. I've used it daily for ages, and have valued it. Fiddle  Faddle  20:51, 30 August 2014 (UTC)


 * The foundation made a choice when it decided to kill the Toolserver, reafriming that the community written software is worthless. (Like how nearly all extension in production need to be written by WMF employee or contractors.)  They could've kept it, but figured it was cheaper beginning from scratch again.  — Dispenser 04:51, 31 August 2014 (UTC)


 * What we must never forget is that, for all the blather about consensus and the community, the alleged wisdom of crowds is mostly dispensed by those lacking the intellect to be able to show true wisdom. Oh, and that Wikipedia is a colossal social experiment, owned and run by WMF. Fiddle   Faddle  10:24, 31 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Frankly, when a bureaucratic organization cracks down on innovation like this, it's a sign that the experiment is over. At this point, it's time to start planning to fork.  And to do it successfully, I calculate you'll need to have the support of at least 400 people, with a major Kickstarter (or equivalent) campaign run by a highly organized group of respectable insiders in education and technology. You'll also need to offer a killer app or innovation of some kind that WMF can't offer or easily copy.  Combine that with early adoption in the student, research, and academic community, and you'll have the ability to compete with the current site. Focus only on the weakness of Wikipedia and improve upon it, offering good alternatives.  Ask each one of those 400 people you've invited to use the new site to invite 2 active editors from Wikipedia, and it's all over.  It doesn't matter how much Google juice they've got if you can match and exceed their rate of editorial retention and involvement. It's goodnight Irene (remember MySpace?), sayonara.  It can be done, but it's a lot of hard work, blood, sweat, and tears. Viriditas (talk) 05:47, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

IEG: Tools for using wikidata items as citations.
Hi,

Someone on IRC said you were the one to ask for advice on and/or potentially join this IEG https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Tools_for_using_wikidata_items_as_citations

Thanks! (and sorry about your ban :/) Mvolz (talk) 19:12, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Not working
I get on 400 metres with Dab solver:

<type 'exceptions.AttributeError'>: 'unicode' object has no attribute 'iteritem' args = ("'unicode' object has no attribute 'iteritem'",) message = "'unicode' object has no attribute 'iteritem'" Trackinfo (talk) 21:22, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
 * See User talk:Dispenser/Dab solver.


 * Fixed Wrote the API port late at night, sleepy. I made the mistake of reading key name instead of their contents and never tested.  Query continue's double nesting is being eliminated in the next MediaWiki version so I'm using that instead.  And, it was  . — Dispenser 04:40, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Can Dab solver still be used for Wikipedias other than English?
I'm trying to use Dab solver at this URL on Simple English Wikipedia pages. I used to be able to do that by prepending "simple:" before the page name (for example ). Now, though, it just gives me the message "There were no mixed-up links in the words". One page I tried this on was simple:Creativity, which links to the dab page simple:Capacity. Am I doing something wrong? Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 05:43, 17 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Fixed I was lazy in implementing using the default language instead of the parameter passed in. — Dispenser 12:45, 17 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Thank you! --Auntof6 (talk) 03:37, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

This seems to have stopped working. I was trying to use it on simple:The Divine Comedy, which has links to at least two dab pages, but the tool didn't find any such links. Can it be fixed to work again? --Auntof6 (talk) 01:36, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Webreflinks is down
http://dispenser.homenet.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/webreflinks.py?page=number_pooling&citeweb=checked fails with K7L (talk) 18:44, 18 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Still broken. Is there another URL for this tool? K7L (talk) 21:02, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Dablinks
Is there any hope that Dablinks will work again in near future? The tool helps me a lot, other solutions such as Dab solver and solve_disabiguation.py have limited abilities --<font style="background: black" face="Courier" color="white"> Bojan  <font style="background: white" face="Courier" color="black"> Talk  07:32, 27 October 2014 (UTC)


 * I addressed a some i18n issues (see below) the other day see if it works now. — Dispenser 17:14, 1 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks. It works partially. Pop-up windows with message API warning: [object Object] undefined appear always. And another error is <type 'exceptions.IndexError'> --<font style="background: black" face="Courier" color="white"> Bojan  <font style="background: white" face="Courier" color="black"> Talk  12:23, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I fixed the API warning earlier, if its still a problem: hold down CTRL+SHIFT+R on the page to clear the cache. I looked into IndexError problem, it seemed to happen when checking non-mainspace pages.  The library has limited support for non-mainspace pages (difficulties in implementing a time and memory efficient for all wikis), I have enabled the limited support to address this.  — Dispenser 16:31, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

It works, but still not perfect. Anyway, it is a big step forward, thanks. --<font style="background: black" face="Courier" color="white"> Bojan  <font style="background: white" face="Courier" color="black"> Talk  15:36, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Dablinks
Please see this. It looks like Dablinks doesn't support the "–" character -  NickGibson3900 Talk 06:09, 30 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Fixed The Unicode strings were passed back instead of the expected (and MW backward compatible) UTF-8 strings. I also fixed several other i18n things, so it works again on the Japanese Wikipedia.  — Dispenser 14:34, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Reflinks and peer reviewer
Hello Dispenser, first of all thanks for your help at Template:featured article tools/sandbox. Two of those tools currently display errors: Reflinks shows "Unknown database 'enwiki_p'" and peer reviewer displays "API warning: [object Object] undefined" in a small popup window. Considering recent events, I would fully understand, if you are no longer willing to spend time and energy on those tools - I was just wondering, what the current status of those tools is (I know, that reflinks is supposed to have a WMFlab replacement, but this one seems inaccessible at the moment). Whatever is decided, your contribution of so many useful tools is greatly appreciated. GermanJoe (talk) 13:33, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Just realized, reflinks is already reported a few posts ago. Sorry for the duplicate. GermanJoe (talk) 13:38, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I fixed API warning to display correctly and address the API changes. Regarding Reflinks/Checklinks development is being held up by time, money (Donate BitCoins!), and me looking for a job.  Hopefully when everything is resolved we'll have a reliable server for them. — Dispenser 22:31, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the information, Dispenser and good luck with your job-hunting. GermanJoe (talk) 11:21, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Transcluded changes tool: down
The Transcluded changes for project watchlists has apparently been non-functional for several months, and possibly as far back as November 2013 judging from previous comments on this page. I'm just wondering it there's an update or fix in the works, or if ther are any equivalent tools for finding recent changes/additions within projects. Cheers, and thanks for all you do. --Animalparty-- (talk) 03:30, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

rdcheck.py
Getting error conditions on the following:


 * Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress
 * George H. W. Bush

-- Green  C  14:56, 17 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Fixed The backlinks generator was set higher (500) than the allowed content requests (50), most likely when I rewrote it for the new continue method. — Dispenser 15:21, 17 November 2014 (UTC)


 * It was working for most names just a few produced that error. It is currently not working for all names. -- Green  C  18:06, 17 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Me being stupid when adding a comment to the source explaining it. Sorry about that.  — Dispenser 18:18, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Redlinks.py
Hello!

Many thanks and congratulations for making your tools work from a new home! Any chance the great red links by prefix tool will be up again? Place Clichy (talk) 12:36, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

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Show redirects only tool is not working
Hi Dispenser! When I went to Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Multiple_issues and clicked on the Show redirects only link, I got an error stating "The connection has timed out". Could you please let me know when this is fixed? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 13:38, 6 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Fixed There were routing issues yesterday. Attempts to fix this only botched it up more as I lost my IPv4 address and gained an IPv6 address (minus the IPv4 Internet).  I slept hoping it would go away.  I called customer service this morning who had me plug into the modem directly to get it working.  Apparently, Comcast had added my router model to their MAC Address blacklist.  — Dispenser 19:35, 6 December 2014 (UTC)