User:Dispenser/Dab solver

Dab solver
Original author(s)	Dispenser
Initial release	27 January 2010; 14 years ago
Written in	Python, JavaScript
Operating system	Web
Successor	AutoWikiBrowser, JavaScript Wiki Browser, or WPCleaner.
Available in	17 languages
	List of languages English, Bosnian, Danish, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Japanese, Latvian, Lithuanian, Persian, Russian, Serbian, Simple English, Slovene, Swedish
Type	Wikipedia:Tool
License	GPL/Proprietary
Website	http://69.142.160.183/; ~dispenser/view/Dab_solver

The Dab solver tool is broken and no longer functions.

Alternatives to Dab solver include AutoWikiBrowser, JavaScript Wiki Browser, or WPCleaner.

Shortcut

WP:DABSOLVER

Dab solver is a tool developed and formerly maintained by User:Dispenser. It is no longer functioning or maintained.

Dab solver is a multilingual, menu-driven tool for disambiguating links in Wikipedia. The tool assists people in correcting ambiguous hyper-links such as mercury, which could refer to the god, the planet, or the chemical element. This tool is akin to a spell checker for links, giving the user a choice of links when the user clicks on the ambiguous link.

The tool features an interface designed to be fast and intuitive, using pre-caching to load pages and relevancy scores before you start. To further enhance users' productivity, the tool provides intelligent edit summaries, keyboard support, redirect matching, and relevancy scoring indicating what similar pages are linking to. It also offers advanced features unmatched by other disambiguation programs, such as customizable template support, red link suggestion, an article mini-browser, a manual-of-style checker, and smart context that displays only relevant text.

To use the "Disambig fix list" tool which applies the Dab solver tool repeatedly, go to dab fix list (at tools.wmflabs.org).

To report problems or otherwise discuss "Dab solver" with Dispenser, go to User talk:Dispenser/Dab solver.

The tool is used by 70+ Wikipedians to make 15,000 edits a month in across multiple languages of Wikipedia.

How to disambiguate

Pick a topic or Paste an article URL in the text box and press Enter.
Click on the red text brings up the correction menu.
Usually the correct link will be clear from the context.
- If it is not clear, do not guess; instead, pick I don't know / Tag {{dn}}.
- Unlink links that are not important to the context.
- Some links to a disambiguation page are intentional and correct. Such links usually appear in an article's hatnotes and See also section. To make an intentional link, pick Link to disambiguation page.
- Links to Wiktionary (if available) are at bottom for links to definitions.
When done, click Save changes if connected with OAuth or click Show changes.

Finding pages to disambiguate

Features

Menu icons

	No shared links	Visual indicator of the number of articles linking to your and the target
	1 shared link
	2-4 shared links
	5-18 shared links
	19+ shared links
	Circular link	The article links to the current page
		Already linked elsewhere on the page
	Disambiguation link	Open the disambiguation page
	Set-index Article link	Open the set-index article
	Wikidata link	Unused
	Wiktionary link	Wiktionary links will automatically appear if you need to link to a definition (e.g. Tour de force)
	Wikipedia link	Unused
	Unlink	Remove the link from the text Use this if the term is over-linked and Wiktionary isn't appropriate.
	Tag	Select I don't know / Tag {{dn}} request for help. Use this to signal subject-matter editors as needing more in-depth knowledge to solve.
	Undo	Revert link back to the original target

You can change the label of a link by editing the text box above.

Link suggester

The Tool looks (up to 30 seconds) for blue links, red links, and Wiktionary links missing on the disambiguation page. It uses simplified searches from Dabfix and attempts to display the most relevant results. Use Dabfix to add these links to the disambiguation page.

Sorting

Default sort: The original wikitext order.

Alpha sort: A case-insensitive ASCIIbetical sort, excludes numbers.

Year sort: Only sorts by the first 4 digit numbers under 2100.

MOS:DAB checker

Automated Manual of Style checker for disambiguation pages has been built and displays it results in {{ambox}} at the end of the article. This information is also submitted back to the server. See also: User:Dispenser/MOS:DAB stats.

Keyboard shortcuts

Tab ↹ / ⇧ Shift+Tab ↹ Next and previous link
↑/↓ Up or down dab menu list
↵ Enter Use link
Ctrl+↵ Enter Follow link
Alt+⇧ Shift+S Save page
Alt+⇧ Shift+P Show Preview
Alt+⇧ Shift+V Show changes

Popup page shortcuts

Alt+⇧ Shift+C Dab Read
Alt+⇧ Shift+E Dab Edit
Alt+⇧ Shift+J Dab What links here or Dab Fix List
Alt+⇧ Shift+R Dab Refresh
Alt+⇧ Shift+H Dab History

Misc

Esc Close popup
F1 The documentation page
F4 Show/hide popup
F8 Show/hide edit box (read-only)

See also Wikipedia:Keyboard shortcuts

URL parameters

page: The page to disambiguate
link: Pipe-separated list of titles to disambiguate regardless of Dab solver's internal logic. This can be used manually check links to a primary topic[1] or disambiguate Set index articles.
summarytrail: A string to append to end of the automatic edit summary generated by the tool. [2]
editintro: Renders the content of the given paramter similar to WP:EDITINTRO above the box. Note: CSS classes are unavailable, use style=. Used by {{Disambiguation needed}}.

Translation

Translations are stored in JSON format at User:Dispenser/Dab solver/i18n.json. Only NoLinksInText is needed to remove the translate request message. The string selection priority is Your language code, * (Universal), en (English). The @doc should help explain what each string is used for.

If this is too daunting, you can copy and translate the basics block and post it to the talk page.

Note: The DAB Challenge and DPL bot are separate and currently not capable of operating on other wikis.

Third-party content

You will need to set RequestPolicy, NoScript, Privacy Badger, Disconnect, etc. from blocking the following domains:

tools.wmflabs.org - Relatedness and link suggester
wikipedia.org - Articles and disambiguation content
upload.wikimedia.org - Icons and article images
chart.apis.google.com (optional) - summary graph for recent changes

FAQ

Can you enable the save button? Can "This is a minor edit" and "Watch this page" checkboxes be set to my user preference or watch status?

^{[needs update]} Because of a MediaWiki security feature, if the save button were enabled without the correct edit token it wouldn't work for logged in users, instead landing you on a preview page with an error message. Being able to look up a user's personal settings for preferences and watchlist is restricted. Since the Toolserver rules (rule 8) specify that tools cannot ask login information such features will not be provided. There is a workaround in Preferences where you can change the default behavior of watching pages and provide an edit token to temporarily enable the save button.

Image credits

File:High-contrast-dialog-close.svg Close popup
File:redirectltr.png Redirect
Pending redesign: [Help icon]
File:Loading bar.gif
File:RefToolbar spinning throbber.gif
File:Cancel.png
File:Icons-mini-action refresh.gif

Historic URLs

In the past, this tool has been found at the following addresses: