Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/Early/20050702 Dmcdevit

Since the software upgrade Dmcdevit is having troubles with the tool he uses to perform Transwiki duties. The original tool is distributed as a binary for Windows systems, the source code is not available, and now the Transwiki backlog is filling up.

Status
Triddle originally opened this case but is not experienced with writing Windows software. This case is currently waiting for someone to help.
 * Kevin Rector has just offered to rewrite it. Thanks for your help. --Dmcdevit July 7, 2005 19:26 (UTC)

Recommendations

 * 1) The source code for the solution to this problem should be attached to this case so this problem can help be avoided in the future.

Initial

 * Because of the software upate, the bot that I've been using to transwiki dictionary definitions to Wiktionary has broken. It may need to be rewritten from scratch (I didn't write the original, and have no idea how). Now the backlog is growing again. Interested at all? --Dmcdevit 2 July 2005 00:18 (UTC)
 * Well, let me make it clearer. Kevin Rector made it for me, but its a compiled executable, and he never released the code to me, and he's basically gone now, so I can't get the code. If you email me first (so I can reply, WP doesn't do attachments), I can email you the bot so you can see the best how it works/what it does. If you're still interested, send me an email, and I'll send you the bot (a .exe and .dll) and a detailed description of its process. --Dmcdevit 2 July 2005 19:04 (UTC)
 * Erm, the program does me no good (I'm on a mac). However the detailed description of what the bot does would help a lot. I will send you an email on that one. Triddle July 3, 2005 00:49 (UTC)
 * I just replied with a pretty detailed email. But, of course, I just remembered something I left out. First, you might want to take a look at wikt:transwiki:Updation and its asociated talk page for an example of a completed transwiki. Now, Wiktionary, unlike Wikipedia, does not have automatic first letter capitalization, unlike Wikipedia, so even the first letter is case-sensitive in Wikt. This means two thinks. Make sure it will be transwikied to http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/transwiki:article name (noting lowecase "t" in the transwiki: namespace). Also, I need some kind of an option so that, even though all Wikipedia articles begin with upper case, I can designate whether the article name in Wiktionary is upper- or lower-case depending upon the appropriateness of the word. --Dmcdevit 3 July 2005 04:56 (UTC)
 * Hey there, how's it going? I feel kind of guilty about dumping this on you (I have the impression that it's a big project). So I'll make another request. This has come up a lot recently, so do you know if there would be a way that the bot could alert me if there is a previous VfD ruling concerning it (like at "Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Pagename") and an option to add a speedy delete tag if so? Many articles are marked for transwiki after a VfD ruling, so this would definitely cut down on the cleanup afterwards. This is definitely not top priority, but I wonder how feasible it is. Thanks. --Dmcdevit July 5, 2005 21:06 (UTC)
 * It's going well but unfortunately I have some bad news. Windows software is well outside my area of expertise; I write small tools for Unix systems but I don't have the resources or experience to solve your problem for your. Sorry about that. However I'll leave this case open and if you like you can refer people here so they can get background info. Triddle July 6, 2005 15:45 (UTC)

Email 1
First, you should probably go to http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Transwiki to familiarize yourself with the process.

So this is what the Wiktionary one I have does:


 * 1) Saves the edit history to wiktionary:transwiki:article talk page (ie, just copy and paste)
 * 2) Copies the article to wiktionary:transwiki:article
 * 3) Saves the article to Wikipedia (with any edits made, really just the removal of, which was done manually in a separate tab, this could be automated)
 * 4) Edits the Wikipedia talk page to add the template.

So it makes four edits for every transwiki. Ideally it would also update the transwiki logs on both project, which I've been doing manually.

I'm going to describe it just as I use it, since I don't really know anything about computing and that's what I can do. I've attached a snapshot of the bot in action so you can see what it looks like and the buttons I'm talking about. This doesn't necessarily mean that's what it has to look like, just functionally the same (or better!)

It needs a user ID on both Wikipedia and Wiktionary. You just enter your username and password for both sites in the appropriate box and then hit the login button. Hit the login on one, and wait for the red light to turn green. Then hit the login on the other and wait for its red light to turn green. Once both lights are green indicating that you have logged on to both Wikipedia and Wikionary you can hit the button marked "Get Page List". A list of pages that have the template on them will appear. Sometimes, there'll be two entries for the same article. That's because people often use the (note the lowercase w) which is a redirect and we end up picking up both the original and the redirect for the list. I don't know if the new version will have this problem too, but you might want to look out for it. I just double click any article in the list. Then wait a moment and the text of the article will appear in the "Page Source" tab. Once the text of the article is in the "Page Source" tab, I must manually remove the (this could probably be automated). After has been removed, hit the button marked "Transwiki Now". This will take a moment and a progress bar will let you know how much longer you have to wait. After the page has been transwikied, it will be removed from the list, and the "Pages to Transwiki" tab will be shown again. When I have transwikied a batch of articles, I have to list them in the log at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Transwiki_log and http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Transwiki_log. The entries for the logs must be manually entered, however, they are pre-formatted under the "Wikipedia Log" tab and the "Wiktionary Log" tab. Just cut and paste those into the appropriate page. I think this could be automated as well. And another problem I just remembered is that when a marked article has quotes in the title, the page source doesn't show up. I've had to manually move them getting rid of the quotes first, then transwiki.

I've probably left out some crucial details, :) but that's about what I can think of right now. Tell me what else you need!