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Validate External Links: Difference between revisions
snapshots for OK links now supported, though someone still has to use this feature to find the pages that haven't been archived!; various wording
(→Coming features: important idea for a feature) |
(snapshots for OK links now supported, though someone still has to use this feature to find the pages that haven't been archived!; various wording) |
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While MediaWiki makes it easy to find bad links to pages on our own wiki, marking them in red and providing tools like [[Special:Wantedpages|Wantedpages]], there is no automatic check of external links. MediaWiki compiles external links into a table, but it does not ping the URLs to see if they give any response. Over the years, many links on our wiki went dead as the Web changed and various file hosts went out of business. ValExtLinks has been used to fix over 1,000 link issues on OniGalore. | While MediaWiki makes it easy to find bad links to pages on our own wiki, marking them in red and providing tools like [[Special:Wantedpages|Wantedpages]], there is no automatic check of external links. MediaWiki compiles external links into a table, but it does not ping the URLs to see if they give any response. Over the years, many links on our wiki went dead as the Web changed and various file hosts went out of business. ValExtLinks has been used to fix over 1,000 link issues on OniGalore. | ||
Here's how the process works: at 6:20am and 2:20pm (GMT) each day, a script written by [[User:Admin|Alloc]] dumps the wiki's external links table to [http://wiki.oni2.net/w/extlinks.csv this location]. Val, which Iritscen runs on his computer periodically, walks through the exported table and looks for URLs that return problematic codes such as 404. It also detects other lesser problems with links. Val then makes suggestions for fixing these links and uploads | Here's how the process works: at 6:20am and 2:20pm (GMT) each day, a script written by [[User:Admin|Alloc]] dumps the wiki's external links table to [http://wiki.oni2.net/w/extlinks.csv this location]. Val, which Iritscen runs on his computer periodically, walks through the exported table and looks for URLs that return problematic codes such as 404. It also detects other lesser problems with links. Val then makes suggestions for fixing these links and uploads its report to the location above (note that an RTF and TXT version are also uploaded). A wiki editor reviews the report and acts accordingly. | ||
==How to fix link issues== | ==How to fix link issues== | ||
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===Exceptions=== | ===Exceptions=== | ||
Some links simply have to be presented | Some links simply have to be presented in an unconventional way which Val thinks is a problem. Some links return error codes but actually work fine. These links can be added to the [[/Exceptions|exceptions list]] in order to hide them in future reports. | ||
==Coming features== | ==Coming features== | ||
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*If possible, Val will eventually start warning about externally-hosted images, as many of these have gone down with their file hosts over the years. | *If possible, Val will eventually start warning about externally-hosted images, as many of these have gone down with their file hosts over the years. | ||
==Source code== | ==Source code== | ||
The project is found [http://websvn.chrilly.net/listing.php?repname=Oni2&path=%2FValidate+External+Links%2F here]. Along with the Bash script itself, you'll find documentation on how exactly to run | The project is found [http://websvn.chrilly.net/listing.php?repname=Oni2&path=%2FValidate+External+Links%2F here]. Along with the Bash script itself, you'll find documentation on how exactly to run ValExtLinks on your own computer as well as resources for contributing to the code. | ||
[[Category:Wiki Support]] | [[Category:Wiki Support]] | ||