[WikiEN-l] Tool Server disabled - link to WikiTech-L maillist discussion (Johntex)

[Minh Nguyen]

John Tex wrote:
> Recently, enwiki was apparently moved without warning to a new server.  This
> caused the external toolserver to be unable to perform any analysis of
> enwiki information.  One of the major users of toolserver is Gmaxwell, who
> performs several different beneficial processes using the toolserver.
> 
> He has posted to WikiTech-L explaining what happened and what the effects
> are:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034904.html
> 
> There is also an essay forming at:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Toolserver
> 
> I urge everyone to visit one or both of the above links to learn more and to
> express your support for getting the situation resolved.
> 
> Johntex.

The tools at tools.wikimedia.de were not only used by the English 
Wikipedia, however. Things like the user edit count and Duesentrieb's 
CategoryTree tool were used by other language editions, as evidenced by 
the number of translations for CategoryTree.[1]

At the Vietnamese Wikipedia, the most popular user infobox linked to 
interiot's edit counter,[2] and the CategoryTree tool was even built 
right into the category structure there,[3] via a "cây" ("tree") link in 
every category page that contained subcategories.

tools.wikimedia.org is currently timing out for me, but I hope that it 
won't be down for any extended period of time. Although the English 
Wikipedia certainly accounts for a large chunk of the Toolserver's 
usage, other language editions -- which still worked just fine with the 
tools there -- will find it odd that the tools have just suddenly vanished.

If it has been disabled, please consider restoring access to these 
valuable tools; even though they don't yet work for the English 
Wikipedia or the Asian cluster wikis, there are a number of wikis that 
could still benefit from this service.

[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Duesentrieb/CategoryTree
[2] 
http://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ti%C3%AAu_b%E1%BA%A3n:T%C3%B3m_t%E1%BA%AFt_v%E1%BB%81_th%C3%A0nh_vi%C3%AAn_Wikipedia
[3] 
http://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%E1%BB%83_lo%E1%BA%A1i:T%E1%BA%A5t_c%E1%BA%A3

-- 
Minh Nguyen <mxn at zoomtown.com>
AIM: trycom2000; Jabber: mxn at myjabber.net; Blog: http://mxn.f2o.org/