[Toolserver-l] Query Service Inquiry

[MZMcBride]

Jim Hutchinson wrote:
> Does this sound like the query service is the right way to go about collecting
> this data and if so can someone point me to the proper procedure for making
> such a request?

Probably not.

https://wiki.toolserver.org/view/Query_service explains the query service.
It's largely for requests such as "I'd like to get the name of every article
on the English Wikipedia containing a deleted image" or something like that.
Those types of requests have a lot of results and would be completely
impractical to do via other means (such as individual HTTP requests to the
API). It's vastly simpler to query the database directly and output the
results to a text file or wherever.

https://wiki.toolserver.org/view/Account_approval_process explains how to
obtain a Toolserver shell account. If you were going to build a tool to
study article contributors or you needed to run queries frequently, it would
make sense for you to apply for an account. In this case, because your scope
is so narrow, it doesn't make much sense for you to apply for an account.

You can try using the dumps, as Platonides suggested, or what I would do in
this case is use the public API. Every Wikimedia wiki has one, for example:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php>. That allows you to easily get lists of
the contributors to any page, which you can then aggregate and analyze.

Feel free to ask further questions on this list as necessary and
appropriate.

MZMcBride