Change Details

This card tracks a top 10 wish from the Community Wishlist Survey: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2015_Community_Wishlist_Survey **Original proposal**: Most external links have an average lifespan of about 7 years before they go dead. As Wikipedia ages, the dead external links problem grows exponentially. Internet Archive has partnered with Wikipedia to ensure all new external links have a Wayback cache. However there has been no formal process of adding the Wayback links to Wikipedia (via the cite web |archiveurl=.. feature for example). There have been attempts to automate with various bots (see en:WP:Link rot) but the coding is non-trivial and multiple volunteer efforts have stalled. Likely what will be required is a team of programmers working full-time, something that is beyond the scope of a few volunteers working spare time. It's the sort of coding work that MediaWiki could sponsor and make a big difference in the quality of content, impacting every article. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 19:27, 7 November 2015 (UTC) **Community Tech preliminary assessment** **Support**: High. Dead reference links hurt our projects' reliability and verifiability, and connecting deadlinks with an archive supports the usefulness of our content. There were some dissents in the voting phase, pointing out that it's better when humans find the appropriate alternative links, rather than a bot that might not choose the right one. **Impact**: High. Improving the quality of citations helps readers as well as contributors. There are some bots currently running on English, French and Spanish Wikipedias. We want to help build solutions that can be adapted to every language. **Feasibility**: High. Cyberbot II is currently active on English Wikipedia, and Elvisor on Spanish Wikipedia. Cyberpower678's work on Cyberbot is being supported by The Wikipedia Library and the Internet Archive. There is obviously good work being done here, and we can figure out how to best support it, and help it to scale globally. **Risk**: Low. Cyberbot II is running on English Wikipedia, with no major issues encountered. It may be challenging to integrate with other wikis’ citation templates. Project page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Tech/Migrate_dead_links_to_the_Wayback_Machine InternetArchiveBot code: https://github.com/cyberpower678/Cyberbot_II

This card tracks a top 10 wish from the Community Wishlist Survey: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2015_Community_Wishlist_Survey **Original proposal**: Most external links have an average lifespan of about 7 years before they go dead. As Wikipedia ages, the dead external links problem grows exponentially. Internet Archive has partnered with Wikipedia to ensure all new external links have a Wayback cache. However there has been no formal process of adding the Wayback links to Wikipedia (via the cite web |archiveurl=.. feature for example). There have been attempts to automate with various bots (see en:WP:Link rot) but the coding is non-trivial and multiple volunteer efforts have stalled. Likely what will be required is a team of programmers working full-time, something that is beyond the scope of a few volunteers working spare time. It's the sort of coding work that MediaWiki could sponsor and make a big difference in the quality of content, impacting every article. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 19:27, 7 November 2015 (UTC) **Community Tech preliminary assessment** **Support**: High. Dead reference links hurt our projects' reliability and verifiability, and connecting deadlinks with an archive supports the usefulness of our content. There were some dissents in the voting phase, pointing out that it's better when humans find the appropriate alternative links, rather than a bot that might not choose the right one. **Impact**: High. Improving the quality of citations helps readers as well as contributors. There are some bots currently running on English, French and Spanish Wikipedias. We want to help build solutions that can be adapted to every language. **Feasibility**: High. Cyberbot II is currently active on English Wikipedia, and Elvisor on Spanish Wikipedia. Cyberpower678's work on Cyberbot is being supported by The Wikipedia Library and the Internet Archive. There is obviously good work being done here, and we can figure out how to best support it, and help it to scale globally. **Risk**: Low. Cyberbot II is running on English Wikipedia, with no major issues encountered. It may be challenging to integrate with other wikis’ citation templates. Project page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Tech/Migrate_dead_external_links_to_archives InternetArchiveBot code: https://github.com/cyberpower678/Cyberbot_II

This card tracks a top 10 wish from the Community Wishlist Survey: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2015_Community_Wishlist_Survey **Original proposal**: Most external links have an average lifespan of about 7 years before they go dead. As Wikipedia ages, the dead external links problem grows exponentially. Internet Archive has partnered with Wikipedia to ensure all new external links have a Wayback cache. However there has been no formal process of adding the Wayback links to Wikipedia (via the cite web |archiveurl=.. feature for example). There have been attempts to automate with various bots (see en:WP:Link rot) but the coding is non-trivial and multiple volunteer efforts have stalled. Likely what will be required is a team of programmers working full-time, something that is beyond the scope of a few volunteers working spare time. It's the sort of coding work that MediaWiki could sponsor and make a big difference in the quality of content, impacting every article. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 19:27, 7 November 2015 (UTC) **Community Tech preliminary assessment** **Support**: High. Dead reference links hurt our projects' reliability and verifiability, and connecting deadlinks with an archive supports the usefulness of our content. There were some dissents in the voting phase, pointing out that it's better when humans find the appropriate alternative links, rather than a bot that might not choose the right one. **Impact**: High. Improving the quality of citations helps readers as well as contributors. There are some bots currently running on English, French and Spanish Wikipedias. We want to help build solutions that can be adapted to every language. **Feasibility**: High. Cyberbot II is currently active on English Wikipedia, and Elvisor on Spanish Wikipedia. Cyberpower678's work on Cyberbot is being supported by The Wikipedia Library and the Internet Archive. There is obviously good work being done here, and we can figure out how to best support it, and help it to scale globally. **Risk**: Low. Cyberbot II is running on English Wikipedia, with no major issues encountered. It may be challenging to integrate with other wikis’ citation templates. Project page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Tech/Migrate_dead_links_to_the_Wayback_Machineexternal_links_to_archives InternetArchiveBot code: https://github.com/cyberpower678/Cyberbot_II