Wikibooks:Requests for deletion/Wikibooks:Top active

Top active
This will be an interesting one I think. I put a lot of effort into trying to resurrect the content here and was unable to get anywhere significant. When this system was put into place here, the MediaWiki database was version 1.4. The database has since been changed significantly and the tables necessary to make the queries are no longer available. Noticing this, I used a tool to attempt to convert the new DB to the old. The full Wikibooks DB (includes all past edits besides the current version) is approximately 3 GB in size. I was unable to get the full DB to run with the tool. Pages with history are needed to generate Top active information and unless someone has another way to do this, these pages are quite old and obsolete. I thought removing them would be a good idea due to their age and lack of accuracy in comparison to the current system. If anyone has any further questions regarding what I tried with this project, please comment. -Matt 04:55, 25 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep - What really needs to be done here is for somebody to write an XML parser over the data dump in its current forum. The database really hasn't changed that much, just the format that the data has been dumped into.  Previously it was a raw MySQL database, while now it is a full XML dump that in theory could be added to any database package, including a propritary one.  Sounds like an interesting project, but downloading the full 3 GB file is more than my bandwidth can allow.  I may experiment with one of the much smaller Wikibooks projects (like Simple English) and see if I can get something working.  I'm thinking of perhaps using C# to develop such a parser to generate these tables.  I don't see any reason to delete this project, as it is something that at some point in the future somebody will come along and repeat again.  For things like this, I wish I could have raw access to the SQL servers of Wikimedia directly (even though querries like this take up a huge amount of CPU time).  That would be ideal for users like myself who know how to program but can't get the bandwidth for a DB dump. --Rob Horning 13:29, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't think you understood me fully. A parser has already been written. That's what mwdumper is. The tool takes the huge XML file and makes a SQL file out of it. The database changes are also quite different, with the move out of 1.4 totally removing the cur and old tables. Those tables are crucial to Top active. I have downloaded the files several times (they also don't download as 3+ GB, that's the expanded size after unzipping) and run them on a dedicated server to see what could happen with little luck. The DB would need to be converted each time the scripts run which will take approximately one day of dedicated processing time. Other projects will work more easily since their DB size is smaller (I have successfully done so). Since this module is essentially a large pile of obsolete SQL scripts, I don't think it has further use. I could find no other Wikimedia project that gets similar statistics so it seems no one as of yet has had an interest in writing queries that use the new schema. I see this as a dead project and I tried pretty hard to bring it back to life. Instead of a delete, perhaps a Move to a project whose DB is small enough to use this could happen. -Matt 18:38, 25 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep I suggest that we keep this page, even if we cannot update it. Old Wikibooks statistics remain relevant today. --Kernigh 23:32, 6 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete It's not at all relevant to the project as it stands today. I can't think of any benefit (and certainly no relevance) in them. Best to clear up the Wikibooks area by deleting, Jguk 16:09, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
 * The idea of keeping it around would be to perhaps inspire somebody else (with bandwidth) to try and take on this project. For some time it was even on the front page of Wikibooks, and that obviously is out of date (the reason it was removed).  --Rob Horning 17:04, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
 * That's another reason why it should be deleted. It's not something we need - what we need is a proper list of what books are completed and what books are near-completed - then another list (or series of lists) of unfinished books in development and dormant unfinished books. The "hot picks" now on the front page tries to identify the complete and near-complete books, but I'm not sure it's there yet. Why should we ever want to have a table of top active again though? Jguk 11:46, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Although it would be nice for someone to take the project idea on, all of this old content is obsolete and not every helpful. Starting from scratch would be far easier. -Matt 22:30, 16 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep, only if there can be someway to update, or make a new one, otherwise delete. --German Men92 19:41, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Kept because the page never had a vfd tag and there appears to be not enough support for deletion. --Kernigh 03:02, 8 May 2006 (UTC)