Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-09-20/Dispatches

This article is a continuation of Tools, part 1, in a series meant to introduce readers to useful tools for editing. This time, we will be treating tools related to internal links (wikilinks), and the version histories of wiki pages.

Many tools consist of user scripts, JavaScript code running in your browser, that can be imported by adding  to your skin.js page. Compatibility varies with skin and browser, with Internet Explorer being the most problematic. A more extensive script list is at WikiProject User scripts/Scripts.

Various other tools are hosted on the Wikimedia Toolserver (currently provided by the German Wikimedia chapter) and can be accessed via a web interface. Some are also hosted on non-Wikimedia websites.

Dabfinder
Dabfinder adds a "Find disambiguations" link to your sidebar, outlines disambiguation links in green and allowing you to fix them on the fly without having to go to a separate page. Unlike Begriffsklärungs-Check ("disambiguation check") from the German Wikipedia, it works on all languages.


 * Author : Splarka
 * Placement : Adds a "Find disambiguations" link to the Toolbox sidebar.
 * Demo : Paste  into your browser's address bar while viewing or previewing the article of interest.
 * Installation : Add  to your Special:MyPage/skin.js page.

Dablinks and Dab solver
Dablinks is a Toolserver tool which checks for disambiguation links. It can check individual pages or up to 500 pages from a category, list, or a user's recent contributions. A companion tool, accessible via "(fix links)", Dab solver provides an easy to use menu driven interface for resolving all links. The tools also collects statistics to assist WikiProject Disambiguation.


 * Author : Dispenser

Linkclassifier
Linkclassifier assigns over a dozen possible attributes to links. Users can opt to use either the default style sheet or create their own with the looks and color they want for each attribute. The default highlights disambiguation and self-redirects links and outlines non-free images. What sets this tool apart from others is the ability to identify Set index articles. While there is no firm standard, they are typically hybrids between a list article and a disambiguation page. Writers may intentionally link to these if they wish to have a description or history of a Ship's name, for example.


 * Author : Anomie
 * Placement : Highlights are inline, configurable to page load (default) or button click.
 * Demo : Paste   into your browser's address bar while viewing or previewing the article of interest.
 * Installation : Add both  and   to your Special:MyPage/skin.js page.

Contributors
The [ Contributors] tool lists users who have edited a page, based on the number of their contributions. This is a good way to identify the major contributors to an article. The tool can also display the page history in other formats. (Documentation)
 * Author : Duesentrieb

Article revision statistics
Article revision statistics by X! also shows users who have edited a particular page, sorted by number of edits; but it provides many other statistics about the page's history, such as the number of edits per month, or the percentage of anonymous edits.
 * Author: X!

WikiDashboard
WikiDashboard displays an article together with a timeline showing editing activity, and also lists the contributors with the most edits to the article. Editing while using the dashboard is not possible. It was the subject of an article in Technology Review last year; see also the Signpost coverage of its release in 2007.
 * Author : Palo Alto Research Center

Revisionjumper
Revisionjumper allows easier navigation of a page's history, generating diffs between arbitrary revisions or time periods with just a few clicks. It was developed on the German Wikipedia and is used by around 1500 users.


 * Author: DerHexer
 * Demo : [ Try it in the Wikipedia:Sandbox]
 * Placement : Adds drop-downs between the revision info and the revision diff
 * Installation: Add  to your Special:MyPage/skin.js page, or go to Special:Preferences, check its box under "Gadgets", and click "Save".

WikiBlame
WikiBlame (documentation) searches revisions of a page for a text string in either the HTML or wikitext. It then displays the revision dates where the string exists or does not by a green circle and red X. This is useful if one needs to ask the author of a particular statement for a clarification or a reference, and is certainly faster than doing it by hand. Article Blamer by X! promises similar functionality in a streamlined interface. WikiTrust (see below) is another alternative.


 * Author: Flominator
 * Placement: The tool is linked as "Revision history search" from the History pages on the English Wikipedia.

WikiTrust
WikiTrust analyzes an article's history and the contributions of its authors to calculate a trust score for each part of the text, which is displayed as a color (white=trustworthy, yellow or orange = unstable). It is also possible to check directly who contributed that part: A CTRL-ALT-click on a word will take you to the diff where it was added.

WikiTrust is currently available as a browser add-on for Firefox. The Wikimedia Foundation has indicated that it may eventually be integrated into Wikipedia itself (see Signpost coverage).


 * Author: Online Collaboration Lab at the University of California, Santa Cruz
 * Placement: Adds a "WikiTrust" tab on top of the page

Page view statistics
Page view statistics graphs the number of views per day for a Wikipedia page. The tool aggregates a list of the "most viewed pages", although this is often several months behind. The data is also used in a new, still experimental tool by Emw that graphs over larger periods.

Note: Due to past problems with the underlying data (squid logs), page views may be under-reported from November 2009 to July 2010.


 * Author: Henrik
 * Placement: The tool is linked as "Page view statistics" from the History pages on the English Wikipedia.