On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 8:31 PM, M Sz <echalone(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
Hello!
There's a new extension called FileCheck that probably would be a good idea
for wikipedia and/or wikimedia commons!
I noticed that MediaWiki doesn't check back if a file already exists on
uploading. Of course, it checks if a file with the same name already exists,
but not the exact same file even if its saved under another name. So I have
written the FileCheck extension. It uses the SHA1 hashcode MediaWiki saves
with every file (since MediaWiki 1.11) in the database. The extension checks
back if the same hashcode is already in the database, and if so, ckecks back
if the already uploaded file and the new file are one and the same. Since
the SHA1 hashcode has an index in the database, it shouldn't be fast enough.
If the extension finds the same file has already been uploaded, it prevents
the uploading and prints out the name and link to the already existing file,
along with an error message.
I think this would be a perfect extension to use on wikipedia and wikimedia
commons. The preventing of duplicate uploads is certainly better than the
tagging of and searching for duplicates like it's currently the case.
You'll find the MediaWiki extension page at:
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:FileCheck
And the projects homepage at:
http://www.chaosreligion.com
If you have any more questions or something else you want me to tell, just
email me at echalone(a)hotmail.com
greetings from Austria,
Markus Szumovski
Try the wikitech-l list; that's more focused on WMF projects.
--
Arr, ye emus,
http://emufarmers.com