[Labs-l] Backlinks counter for Wikipedia articles?

Tue Sep 9 15:49:03 UTC 2014

Navino Evans <navino at histropedia.com> wrote:

> That's great to know, thank you.

> We'll make sure we only use the API within that limit - basically just for
> individual calls when a user adds a new event to our database.

> For the bulk processing, we would need to update the backlinks information
> as a monthly maintenance task, so I wouldn't want to trouble you with this
> each time.

> Would you rather we stick with data dump processing for the large scale
> stuff?

> [...]

Do note that you don't have to channel all your requests
through John :-).  Apparently, you have developers who could
probably set up this themselves easily, so they could just
apply for access.

I'm not sure if there have been precedents, but I assume if
you:

1. don't try to have WMF subsidize your business model,
   i. e. don't move heavy lifting stuff to Labs just because
   you want to save some CPU time,

2. ensure that all tools you create and run on Labs are re-
   leased as open source, and

3. ideally make the query results usable by others

there is nothing wrong with running those queries yourself.

Tim