Hi Katja,
Op 11-12-2011 13:32, Katja Müller schreef:
Hi there,
we are doing information retrieval research on the Wikipedia history. Currently we are thinking about including the archive of Deleted Articles in the analysis.
What is the current regulation on access to the Deleted Archive? According to this page, admins can permit access to single articles on request: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_policy#Access_to_deleted_pag...
However, is there a way (for researchers) to either: a) access (API) or download the whole archive of Deleted Articles b) get statistics or meta data about the Deleted Archive (article counts, revision meta information, logs) ?
If you just want the metadata (and not the actual text) a Toolserver account might be useful. In the archive table you can find all metadata for deleted revisions. More info about this table at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Archive_table . And about getting a Toolserver account: https://wiki.toolserver.org/view/Account_approval_process
Maarten