Script Summary: finds external links in Wikipedia-pages, which do not return the HTTP status code 200 and marks them.
Version: 1.2.2
License: GPL 2 or later, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>
| Caution: This script is outdated. The new version is not a Greasemonkey Script, instead it can be used by adding a line the JavaScript-Page of the Wiki-Skin. The complete documentation for that new version can be found at http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Frog23/Dead_Link_Finder/en. Eventually I will update this script as well, so it is possible to use the new features as a Greasemonkey Script as well. This version of the script still works, just not as good as the new one. |
This script automatically checks all external links on any page of Wikipedia (works for all languages).
When a link is found to be dead, it puts a little warning icon behind the link and shows the HTTP-status code of the response (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_statu... ). If there is one or more dead link on the page, the user gets displayed a larger version of warning sign on the bottom of the screen. This warning sign links to the first dead link. The warning sign can be closed by pressing the little [x] next to it. The number of dead links in total on a particular page is also displayed next to the warning sign.
The script sends a HTTP-Request to the sites using the HEAD-method (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP#Request_methods ) by default and checks for the return codes. However, some sites are not able to handle HEAD-requests properly. Sometimes links are marked as dead, even though it is working fine. Using the GET-method for the request will return more reliable results, however the entire website is also loaded, which makes the script slower and causes more (unnecessary) traffic. The method for the request can be switched, using the "User Script Commands" section of Greasemonkey.
The script has the option to show an OK-icon if all links on the page are valid. It can be turned on and off in the "User Script Commands" section. The icon will be displayed in the lower right corner of the screen and will fade out after 3 seconds.
The script has the option to disable it, in the "User Script Commands" section (of cause it can also be enabled there afterwards).
There is an hidden feature in the script. If you add '?browsemode=on' to the URL of a Wikipedia page, the script will automatically call a new random page, if the previous one had no dead links. It will continue like this, until a page with dead links is found. It manually stop the browsemode, deactivate Greasemonkey, add '?browsemode=off' to the current Wikipedia-URL, activate Greasemonkey and enter the URL.
With version 1.2.2 it works on all Wikimedia projects. The browsemode however does not work on all.
