Category talk:Orphaned articles

Separating orphaned articles by month and year
I'm planning on seperating these by month/year, similar to what is done with the cleanup/wikify categories. See also Template talk:Linkless. --W.marsh 14:47, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Wiki Project
Is there some sort of wiki-project associated with de-orphaning articles? -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 17:54, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes. WikiProject Orphanage – Wbm1058 (talk) 18:52, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Number of Links
How many mainspace links should there be before an article is considered non-orphan? Geozapf 01:43, 8 December 2006 (UTC)


 * The month/year categories state that just "one or more good incoming links" are necessary for an article to be considered non-orphan. However, I prefer to have at least 2 or 3 links to an article, if possible. Thaurisil 09:28, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Wiki project help request
While de-orphaning articles, I find that I do not have the knowledge or ability to properly de-orphan the article. I have started referring these articles to appropriate wiki projects. I have created a template to request this help. which gives us

""

Does anybody have feedback on the use of this template or ideas on how ti improve it? -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 16:44, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

February 2006
Looks like this subcategory of orphaned articles is complete. Is there a special procedure for removing it from the category list? Keesiewonder talk 00:42, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
 * No, you can request speedy deletion in those cases. Just use . Garion96 (talk) 19:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for verification
Please see: Requests for verification

A proposal designed as a process similar to prod to delete articles without sources if no sources are provided in 30 days.

It reads:

Some editors see this as necessary to improve Wikipedia as a whole and assert that this idea is supported by policy, and others see this as a negative thing for the project with the potential of loss of articles that could be easily sourced.

I would encourage your comments in that page's talk or Mailing list thread on this proposal WikiEN-l: Proposed "prod" for articles with no sources

Signed Jeepday (talk) 14:09, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

The oldest orphaned articles
I've been working through a lot of the articles in the June 2006 category, adding internal links where I can.

In many cases, they've got stuck with an orphan tag because they are only a few sentences long and so can only have say 4-5 links. In this case, I'm mainly just changing the orphan tag to thisisace 23:28, 22 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I've just realised I've been working on these articles as if they were dead-end ones ! (ie adding internal links) What is the best way to de-orphan articles ? thisisace 20:01, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

You've got the right idea, you're just looking at it the wrong way. Orphaned articles have no incoming links. You can click on "What links here" in the toolbox on the left side of each article to see where the incoming links are from. If you see 2-3 link from mainspace pages (articles, not user pages or wikipedia admin pages) then go ahead and take the tag down. See my question above for more explination.Geozapf 20:25, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Also, if they are short articles they are stubs. No need to also tag them with the expand template. Garion96 (talk) 20:40, 1 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks, guys. I'll have another go ! thisisace 21:33, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Lists versus categories
I'm looking at the entry for American Wrestling Association alumni on the lists of orphaned articles, and I'm noticing that there's also a category with exactly the same name. Although I haven't checked yet, I suspect that most of the names in the article would also be included in the category.

Is there a preferred approach to a situation like this? It's likely that the primary way the orphan tag could get removed would be to add a "See Also" section to the pages for each name in the article, with a link to the article. But if those names are already in the category, isn't that redundant? Wouldn't it make more sense to make sure all the names are in the category, and then nominate the article for deletion?

I guess what I'm asking is what's the better way to aggregate related information within Wikipedia - lists or categories?

Mlaffs (talk) 14:07, 21 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep both. See WP:CLS.  They're both useful, and provide redundancy (which is a good thing in an encyclopedia).  In this case, I would say that your proposed solution (adding the see also section to all the wrestlers' articles in the list) would be the best one.  Don't forget to make sure that the all the wrestlers' names are wikified to point to their articles.  It might also be cool to edit the category and list together so that there aren't any wrestlers on one, but not the other.--Aervanath (talk) 00:45, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

User Pages
I see some user pages in this category. I'm pretty sure that user pages really don't need to be de-orphaned. Anybody have any objection to me de-orphaning them all?--Aervanath (talk) 00:45, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

robot!
i am finding literally 100s of orphan-tagged articles that are not oprhans. can someone design a bot to remove all the orphan-tags from non-orphan articles? Kingturtle (talk) 21:06, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
 * you can put a request in at Bot requests, although I think what you'll find is that it's hard for a bot to distinguish which articles are truly de-orphaned. Some things need a human eye.  Many times the "what links here" page will show several pages linking in, but only one or two actual articles link to them.  The rest are just categories, lists, and, of course, the Orphaned Articles page.  If you do put in the bot request, i'd also request that the bot place the orphan tag on articles which need it.--Aervanath (talk) 21:49, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I know this is a bit of an old section but User:Addbot just completed its initial run and removed 41 thousand orphan tags (so far)  ·Add§hore·  T alk T o M e ! 11:47, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Anyone here?
Is anyone trying to remove the backlog, as it seems no one has posted here for two years. I want to remove the older articles from the list, but I was wondering if anyone else was trying to remove it. Lord Castellan Creed (talk) 09:14, 25 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm still working on de-orphaning, but more so as I come across them during my wanderings around the wiki, rather than working from this category. It's no longer really feasible to set yourself such a massive goal of actually removing the entire backlog (working on individual months is fine however), rather the current focus is on simply reducing it, by relaxing the criteria, instructing AWB'ers to only tag as orphaned when an article has zero incoming links, and in order to avoid low-quality link-spamming by users trying to 'rush through' the backlog. As for noone posting here for two years; most discussion occurs either on Wikipedia talk:Orphan or the WikiProject talk page. "Category talk:" isn't a very well frequented namespace to begin with, I imagine not too many people have this page on their watchlists. -- &oelig; &trade; 21:05, 25 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Agreed. I'm working on September 2006, and on keeping the undated category empty. Baby steps, as it were. Maybe there's somewhere where we could post a request for everyone to take an article and de-orphan it. I've added a link to a "Random page in this category" to the Sept 2006 page, both because I am lazy and to assist with cleanup - maybe that'll work as well. UltraExactZZ Said~ Did 15:55, 26 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Seems like a good idea, some coordination always helps. It could be worth setting up a sub-page and properly organising it in order of importance. I will gladly help with that if you wish. I am working firstly through the schools on the first page of September 2006. I'm not just de-orphaning them, I am also editing them so that they have more references, details etc. So it may take a while.
 * Lord Castellan Creed (talk) 17:07, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Protect the Orphans!
Noticed the general plea for cleanup; just wanted to advocate on behalf of the orphans. My own projects center on building a list page of Housekeeping_genes. Most of the content that I'm linking up is orphaned, and I just don't want anyone deleting these articles prematurely. The field of genetics is expanding at a break-neck speed...so fast that we're all having a tough time staying abreast. One of the problems is that most genes have 5 or more names/abbreviations and Wikipedia is an ideal medium for linking up the different names so that reasearchers can find articles on their gene (that may be referenced under different names.) Wikipedia is also suited for arriving at consensus statements and for rapid access to reference materials. I try to annotate when I can, but I'm compelled to keep my focus wide. As a teacher I implore my colleagues to explore this exciting medium and ASSIGN orphans for class-room work (at all levels). Save the orphans!doctorwolfie (talk) 13:17, 20 February 2011 (UTC)


 * That actually gives me an idea for a new project.. we already have Wikispecies: right? Well how about.. "WikiGenes"! I was about to propose it at Proposals for new projects until I noticed there already was a http://www.wikigenes.org/ .. but still, it's not a Wikimedia project.. so maybe it's something the Foundation may want to consider. But anyways this is all off-topic.. -- &oelig; &trade; 19:58, 20 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Not so off-topic at all: in order to attract scholarship from folks inside academia, Wikigenes offers credit for authorship (eschewing the almost zen-like anonymity of Wikipedia!) It's not that they are egomaniacs looking for acclaim, it's that most people in academia have to justify their time (on AND off the clock) and need some way of documenting their efforts; without publication, academics can't get promoted.  Although you and I know it's a simple matter to review a page's history and see who contributed which section, it isn't as apparent to some people in academia...which may be why it looks like slow-going in some of the medical projects.  As Wikigenes has grown, it seems like some of the gene pages on Wikipedia are stagnating.  Can you help establish some sort of dialog with the foundation?  I dearly love both projects and wish their was more fluidity between them. doctorwolfie (talk) 11:31, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Me? Oh no I don't have any pull with the foundation, I probably wouldn't be the best person to establish any kind of dialog. -- &oelig; &trade; 18:19, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Request for Comments: link prefix for Wikimedia Commons
There is a cross-wiki discussion in progress as to whether  should be enabled globally as an interwiki prefix for links to the Wikimedia Commons. If the proposal gains consensus this will require the deletion or renaming of several pages on the English WIkipedia whose titles begin with "C:", including one or more redirects to this page. Please take a moment to participate in the discussion. There is also a related discussion on the English Wikipedia at Redirects for discussion/Log/2014 February 16 to which you are invited to contribute. Thank you. Thryduulf (talk) 15:35, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Question
If an orphaned page is listed here, does that make it no longer orphaned? Retartist (talk) 11:45, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Some Explain Further
What does an orphan article mean? Can one de-orphan an biography by naming the said person in a group - that is also an article on wikipedia? That is, supposing he is an engineer, when you name him (with link) in a group of engineer articles, have you de-orphaned the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Prince-Ifoh (talk • contribs) 10:39, 13 March 2015 (UTC)