Last modified: 2013-11-28 17:45:31 UTC

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Bug 6373 - Provide a list of unsuccessful searches
Provide a list of unsuccessful searches
Status: NEW
Product: MediaWiki
Classification: Unclassified
Special pages (Other open bugs)
unspecified
All All
: Low enhancement with 1 vote (vote)
: ---
Assigned To: Nobody - You can work on this!
:
: 7969 26308 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2006-06-19 09:43 UTC by Dejan Papež
Modified: 2013-11-28 17:45 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

See Also:
Web browser: ---
Mobile Platform: ---
Assignee Huggle Beta Tester: ---


Attachments

Description Dejan Papež 2006-06-19 09:43:34 UTC
I'd like to propose the addition of a new special page that would display all the 
searches that were unsuccessful. This would be a log of recently searched for but 
unfound items. By sorting them on the basis of times they were searched for and not 
found, we could more easily fill the gaps that still remain in the databases. This 
would be complementary to Special:Wantedpages and Requested articles that are part of 
some Wikimedia projects.

The log available to all users would contain the following data: 
* terms that have been looked for
* their frequency (how many times they have been looked for)
* the date of the first and of the last search for each unfound term.

It would also be very useful to be able to limit the displayed time period and to set 
the sorting order (ascending/descending) and whether to include all results or only 
those that have been searched for more than once in this time.

This would be very useful for smaller projects to know where to focus their limited 
manpower, but also for larger ones to know which areas are not covered well and which 
redirects should be created but have not been yet.

We've had a discussion here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28proposals%
29&oldid=59410881#List_of_recently_not_found_results

Three problems were mentioned:
* possible server overload or impracticality due to server setup
* privacy issues - hereby my opinion is that if the log does not show IPs or 
usernames, the privacy is protected
* someone would have to take his time to code this ;)
Comment 2 Brion Vibber 2008-12-28 21:31:04 UTC
*** Bug 7969 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 3 Chad H. 2010-12-16 16:50:50 UTC
*** Bug 26308 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 4 Dejan Papež 2012-03-16 11:38:06 UTC
I think, in addition to the reasons posted to the duplicates (using the system to improve the search system etc.), the feature would contribute most to the development not only of Wikipedia but particularly of Wiktionaries.
Comment 5 Tisza Gergő 2012-04-02 18:58:40 UTC
There was some discussion about that here:
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/wikitech/186831

Also, Wikisticks provided a list of top missing search queries at one point (by rewriting search URLs so that they get collected in the squid logs, then removing existing pages), but it is broken now:
http://wikistics.falsikon.de/2008/wikipedia/en/wanted/
Comment 6 Waldir 2013-11-28 17:45:31 UTC
For the time being, User:West.andrew.g's list can be used to get this information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:West.andrew.g/Popular_redlinks

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