Author Topic: Broken links  (Read 5126 times)

Offline Keef

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Broken links
« on: January 25, 2012, 12:02:35 AM »
While drifting around the Wiki, I stumbled across a broken link on the 'waste vegetable oil' page which I have now fixed.

It was an external link and the page had been deleted or moved which broke the link.

Is there a way around that or do we just have to fix them as and when we notice them?

Offline Tony

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Re: Broken links
« Reply #1 on: January 25, 2012, 09:06:19 AM »
There must be an extension for automatically finding broken links...

*peers at internet*

Something like this?

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:BrokenLinks

http://www.biopowered.co.uk/wiki/Special:Statistics says we have 90 pages, so this would seem sensible for our wiki.
« Last Edit: January 25, 2012, 09:07:55 AM by tony »

Offline Julian

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Re: Broken links
« Reply #2 on: January 25, 2012, 12:06:45 PM »
That would be a great benefit in keeping the wiki current ... any drawbacks, Tony?
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Offline Keef

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Re: Broken links
« Reply #3 on: January 25, 2012, 01:09:24 PM »
Yes, that's just the jobbie if there are no pitfalls.

As a side note, according to the stats our most viewed page is a 404 error page not found?

Offline Tony

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Re: Broken links
« Reply #4 on: January 25, 2012, 01:58:38 PM »
Hmm, must figure out why that is happening then!

Offline Tony

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Re: Broken links
« Reply #5 on: January 25, 2012, 03:36:51 PM »
Installed:

http://www.biopowered.co.uk/wiki/Special:BrokenLinks

Doesn't seem to do much at the moment though.

Offline Julian

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Re: Broken links
« Reply #6 on: January 26, 2012, 12:45:26 AM »
No, I tried it and nothing seemed to happen ... bottom left of the IE window states "Done" but it has a little hazard sign next to it ... assume that means an error.
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Offline Tony

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Re: Broken links
« Reply #7 on: January 26, 2012, 01:41:06 PM »
Yes, that's just the jobbie if there are no pitfalls.

As a side note, according to the stats our most viewed page is a 404 error page not found?

So there are two kinds of 404 page.

One is webserver 404 because files or pages are missing from the server (the server can't find them, and displays special wiki page NotFound instead - the one top of the stats list you mention).
The vast majority of these 404s fall into two categories:

- scripted attacks trying to access the signup pages in the wiki (presumably to then go on to automatically post spam on wiki pages).  We have wiki signup disabled, because all user login and wiki access authentication comes through the forum instead, so all of these scripted attempts fail

- malformed requests from web spiders (one in particular appears to be incapable of getting link URLs right)

The other is 404 because there is an as-yet unwritten wiki page - to display the message "There is currently no text in this page. You can search for this page title in other pages, or search the related logs. "  The way the wiki is integrated into the server allows it to subvert 404 accesses in the wiki area to do this.  Of course  webspiders hit these all the time so the server grumbles in the server side statistics about lots of 404s - but that's OK because it's part of the way the wiki works.

So I don't think we have any real problems to be worried about, despite the rather alarming 404 statistics generated by the wiki and also the webserver.

Offline Tony

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Re: Broken links
« Reply #8 on: January 26, 2012, 03:06:23 PM »
No, I tried it and nothing seemed to happen ... bottom left of the IE window states "Done" but it has a little hazard sign next to it ... assume that means an error.

Fixed it - it was expecting a "progress" image to be displayed.  For now it'll just show a little yellow barrel while it's thinking.

I'm now wondering whether writing our own extensions to Mediawiki might be the answer to our javascript issues, since clearly that extension uses javascript...

Offline Julian

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Re: Broken links
« Reply #9 on: January 27, 2012, 12:05:08 AM »
Well done, works for me now (is it only admin who have access to this facility)?

It would appear that there are quite a few broken links.  I set it to 20 and it didn't take that long to return 5 errors.  It doesn't appear to give the link text, just the URL, so whilst very helpful, it will still take quite a bit of searching on some pages to find the error.

Straying a little bit, is it possible to make a template, added to the bottom or top of each page where readers can report broken links, so an email or PM is sent or a post put on the forum?  Or am I off into the realms of fantasy again?

The JavaScript business sounds like a great idea but ... own-rod-back?  Sorry for my ignorance, but if the new extension uses Java, why can't we use Java on the wiki pages?

Can Muppets learn JavaScript easily? If so I'd be happy to spend a little time looking at it, but I wouldn't hold out much hope of any success!
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Offline Tony

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Re: Broken links
« Reply #10 on: January 27, 2012, 12:51:05 AM »
Well done, works for me now (is it only admin who have access to this facility)?

That is correct.

Since Max.Print seems to be contributing a lot (both content and suggestions) maybe it would be sensible to include him as admin?

Quote
Straying a little bit, is it possible to make a template, added to the bottom or top of each page where readers can report broken links, so an email or PM is sent or a post put on the forum?  Or am I off into the realms of fantasy again?

That sounds particularly tricky!

Quote
The JavaScript business sounds like a great idea but ... own-rod-back?  Sorry for my ignorance, but if the new extension uses Java, why can't we use Java on the wiki pages?

It looks like extensions can employ javascript, so you can use the extension but not influence the javascript it produces in any way.  So we would have to learn how to code extensions (not too hard) and make one for each type of functionality we wanted.

Quote
Can Muppets learn JavaScript easily? If so I'd be happy to spend a little time looking at it, but I wouldn't hold out much hope of any success!

If you got your head around programming a PLC I would say that javascript doesn't pose too much a challenge.

You could start off by saving one of the existing calculator pages locally and tweeking it.  You could view it as a file from your browser and have bit of play.

Offline Julian

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Re: Broken links
« Reply #11 on: January 27, 2012, 10:51:09 AM »
Quote
Since Max.Print seems to be contributing a lot (both content and suggestions) maybe it would be sensible to include him as admin?

Admin ... have you met the guy?  Only joking, yes it's a great idea if he's up for it

Quote
That sounds particularly tricky!
Like I said, realms of fantasy!

Quote
If you got your head around programming a PLC I would say that javascript doesn't pose too much a challenge.

You could start off by saving one of the existing calculator pages locally and tweeking it.  You could view it as a file from your browser and have bit of play.

It was only a ladder diagram, but I've played with CSS and done a very tiny bit of PHP.  Don't know if they are similar but it was very much a case of try this and if it didn't work try something else until it did.  I'll try having a look and see how confused I get.
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Offline Julian

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Re: Broken links
« Reply #12 on: January 29, 2012, 12:32:02 AM »
Sorted 4 broken links ... One correction and three deletions as the pages seem to have been deleted.

One is still reported as "ERROR::Service Unavailable" but the link works fine when you click it.
Used Cooking Oil Collection website ... http://www.surreyusedcookingoilcollection.palmergroup.co.uk