Template talk:Orphan/Archive 3

Blanked template
Someone just recoded the template, but now its blank and people may not find out that an article is an orphan unless they look at the categories. --TL22 (talk) 20:49, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Which article is this on? -- Red rose64 (talk) 21:25, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Its on Journal of Mobile Technology in Medicine. --TL2<b style= "color:#FFA700">2</b> (<i style= "color:green">talk</i>) 21:38, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. It should be displaying, since although it has March 2013 which is more than two months ago, it's not inside . -- Red rose64 (talk) 21:42, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I don't follow what the problem is. Because the tag is over two months old and is not inside, it will not display unless the user edits their common.css file as described in the Visibility section of the template documentation. This is by consensus and design. I just checked Journal of Mobile Technology in Medicine; with a blank common.css I don't see it, with  .ambox-Orphan{display: table !important;} , I do. Wbm1058 (talk) 21:57, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * , you can meet the minimum requirements for de-orphaning by simply adding a link to this article from List of medical journals. Wbm1058 (talk) 22:03, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Shows up for me using Technical 13's OrphanStatus script. I see it's a long article with only a "List of..." link, so I tagged it with FEW. 3gg5amp1e (talk) 22:16, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I got it wrong way round. My previous comment should read: It should not be displaying, since it has March 2013 which is more than two months ago, and it's not inside . -- Red rose64 (talk) 22:53, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Att= parameter broken
Articles with |att= parameter should not show up in general orphan categories. For example Agathion should not show up in Category:Orphaned_articles_from_August_2008. This was working until recent changes by. ~Kvng (talk) 18:21, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
 * , this was per request in a couple of sections above this one. So, I'll ask you, are those articles that have been attempted to be deOrphaned no longer orphans? If they're still orphans, then it makes sense for them to be in "Orphaned articles from {date}" (which Huon wanted to maintain the original dates instead of use the {att} date). —   20:06, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
 * ,, , have a look at Orphan for a description of purpose and expected behavior of the |att= parameter. If you don't like that described behavior we should discuss changing it. For now, I'd like it if we reverted the template changes so that the template behavior matches the documentation. ~Kvng (talk) 02:40, 16 May 2015 (UTC)
 * , considering there are over 125,000 transclusion of this template, I'd much rather update the documentation to match the behavior until there is a consensus one way or the other rather than tack that much of a load back on to the job queue considering it's still recovering by trying to process jobs from a month ago when the backlog on the queue hit 28+ million. Would that be reasonable with you, or do we really need to revert, discuss it further, restore and update the documentation adding over a quarter million jobs back to the queue.  I will revert if you really think it is imperative to revert it before discussing, but I really think that is a bad idea for something like this. —   03:17, 16 May 2015 (UTC)
 * You apparently did not give job queue issues much consideration when you made the change the same day as the request on this obscure talk page and with little or no discussion. Why are you so concerned about that now? The change has broken the workflow for orphaned articles. Articles that editors have attempted to and failed to de orphan remain in the "Orphaned articles from {date}" categories we are attempting to clear. I'm not sure how I would rewrite the documentation to make it sound like the new behavior is reasonable and intended. ~Kvng (talk) 14:25, 16 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I wasn't aware of the job queue issues until after the changes made here. An editor requested this, a another user apparently supported the request and pinged me to carry it out, I made the changes requested which only updated the child categories to use their own dates instead of the date the article became an orphan allowing them to not double (or triple) process a page and to reduce overlap to improve the workflow of deOrphaning. Then, Huon (an administrator) suggested that the articles should still be categorized by the original date, so I modified it again for that request. Just so we're clear, which change do you object to, the second one that just includes the parent category since they are all still orphans despite having been attempted to be deOrphaned or all of the changes?  I see the few linked orphans category has all been gone through and re-attempted and the attempted deOrphans categories seem to be being worked on as well and there is a lot of improvement there. I'm hesitant to interfere with that progress because one person out of five has an objection. That said, I'll still revert the change if you clarify which change exactly you object to, since there were two changes. —   03:36, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Regarding the Job Queue, see the discussions here and here. T98621 has been closed. Apparently there is more than one queue, but if the "jobs" statistic at this link is a useful indication, it's apparently shrunk from 15.7 million to something in the ballpark of 283 thousand. Per the phab comment "so we're back to business as usual even though there is still some backlog to recover", I take it that we can take this reason for delay off the table. Per this May 7 edit, you were aware of this job queue problem before your most recent of three Template:Orphan edits this month. We should ensure that there is a consensus for changes before making them live, and as you've already made three edits go live this month, you clearly haven't done that as well as it could have been done. Not that an occasional misreading of consensus should be a big deal. Wbm1058 (talk) 14:46, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, I don't mind updating the docs if you rather me do that. —  13:42, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Please update the Template:Orphan/sandbox documentation (Template:Orphan/sandbox/doc), so we can discuss the proposed changes to functionality. Thanks, Wbm1058 (talk) 15:10, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
 * This will also allow template code reviewers to review the template changes to ensure that they conform to the agreed-upon changes to functionality, as documented by the updated /doc. Wbm1058 (talk) 15:31, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I have opened a new discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Orphanage to discuss any desired changes to |att= and |few= parameter behavior. can you please revert your changes while we discuss what we want to do here. I am not a master of templates and the changes are extensive so don't feel comfortable doing the revert myself on such a widely used template. ~Kvng (talk) 20:39, 17 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm not at home or at a computer so I undid all of it to the TfD removal which seems to be the last thing with consensus. I hope to be back home tomorrow night. —   23:00, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

No, or few
The template presently reads that it is for articles with "no" incoming links from others, but the actual usage pattern is to use it for those with no or very few (e.g. 1 or 2) links from other articles. Per the general rule at WP:POLICY that we codify actual best practices, don't try to force new ones, I think this template and any related documentation should be updated to use "no or very few" wording to match actual Wikipedian expectations about this particular labeling. I made an edit in this regard to the template, and someone objected (in user talk), so I've commented out those changes, and opened discussion about the matter here. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:42, 5 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment If this change is made (and I'm neutral at present), then more careful advice needs to be given as to when it should be used. I'm particularly concerned about articles about biological species. Most WikiProjects under WP:TOL have as their ultimate goal the creation of an article on every known species; it seems to be widely accepted that a species is inherently notable and worth an article, provided there are reliable sources. Species that are currently poorly known often end up with only one incoming link (from the article on the genus) and perhaps one more from the describer of the species or a list of species for a geographical area. It's not helpful to tag such articles with this template.
 * So we should be clear that the "orphan" tag is useful if, and only if, it's reasonable to expect there to be more articles that should be linking to the given article. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:06, 5 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Oppose The template should match the recommendations of existing policies and guidelines, it should not contradict them. Glossary and the lead section of Orphan both say "an article with no links from other pages in the main article namespace"; Orphan says "An article is orphaned if no other articles link to it. It is recommended to only place the Orphan tag if the article has <u style="font-variant: small-caps;">zero incoming links from other articles."; and WikiProject Orphanage says of that it is "currently recommended for use only if an article has zero incoming links". Please get consensus to change all of these before changing the template. -- Red rose64 (talk) 12:22, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree that this should only be used in cases where NO links are incoming (per a bot run a did in 2009 cleaning up usage of the tag)  ·addshore·  talk to me! 14:23, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Redrose64. The word "few" should only be displayed when using the few parameter.  GoingBatty (talk) 21:35, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment Then we might have to create a new template that is to Template:Orphan just as Template:Underlinked is to Template:Dead end, Template:Refimprove to Template:Unreferenced, Template:More footnotes to Template:No footnotes, or Template:Improve categories to Template:Uncategorized. 96.41.0.15 (talk) 02:06, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Or, we could promote the sandbox code to the live template - see Template:Orphan/testcases. GoingBatty (talk) 04:00, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
 * The sandbox code displays "This article may be an orphan, as few other articles link to it", which doesn't make sense to me. Either "orphan" means "no incoming links" or it means "few incoming links"; either way "may be" is wrong. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:57, 6 February 2016 (UTC)


 * My understanding is that, in template Orphan's original conception, articles weren't considered well-integrated into the encyclopedia unless they were well-interconnected with multiple articles linking to them. That was before we had a multi-year maintenance backlog of "orphaned" articles, few editors working on the problem, and many more complaining about the unsightly tags complaining of a non-problem. Plus so many obscure species and BLP articles that are hard to link to from (many) other articles. So, the solution was to tighten up the requirement so that no articles would be tagged by AWB and other tools if they had even one single incoming link – they had to truly be orphans. Also, the message now becomes invisible when the orphan tag is more than a couple of months old, unless the article has multiple issues. But, as there may still be articles tagged that do have an incoming link or two, maybe that's why the tag might be a little imprecise. I think consensus now is that the tag should be removed if there is even one single incoming link.


 * We have a parameter  that editors (not automated tools) may use to override that default if, in their judgement, an article really should have multiple incoming links. That parameter populates Category:Low linked articles, but which as you can see, "few" editors actually use that parameter. The parameter doesn't alter the displayed message. A month before he left Wikipedia, user Technical-13 made a sandbox version that did show a different message when   was set. Someone could implement that. As this seems confusing maybe it would be better to make a new, different template populate Category:Low linked articles, instead of this template with a special parameter set. Wbm1058 (talk) 20:44, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Note that while AWB general fixes will tag an article as an orphan if it has zero incoming links, it only removes the tag if the article has more than two incoming links. GoingBatty (talk) 22:49, 6 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Should we create Template:Low linked, migrate all uses to the new template, then remove parameter   from Orphan? While Orphan may still be populated by AWB and other (semi-)automated processes, Low linked should only be populated manually, as that's a judgement call. Wbm1058 (talk) 17:23, 8 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Oppose - Message should match current policy. A single mainspace link (excepting disambiguation pages) allows for removal of the template. See Orphan. ~Kvng (talk) 15:12, 11 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Oppose, I suppose. The current definition of orphaned article is "no incoming links". This has been arrived at over many years of evolving consensus. Originally, we were aiming at a goal of three incoming links per article, but that is clearly not feasible anymore. It wasn't really feasible then, but it seemed like a goal that could be achieved with enough elbow grease. But now it's 2016, CAT:ORPHAN has 130,000 orphaned articles in it, some of which have been there since October 2008. With millions of articles in the encyclopedia, the number of orphaned articles will only grow. If you see people adding orphan to articles that have one or more incoming links, the correct thing to do is to remove the tag and link them to WP:Orphan so they can read it for themselves.Aervanath (talk) 22:56, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Propose to replace FULLPAGENAMEE with BASEPAGENAME
--PBS (talk) 23:07, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I propose to replace  with   in the template. This will allow the search in the template to search on the article name if when the template is placed on an article's talk page.
 * returns ""
 * returns ""
 * Did this ever get resolved? The proper magic word to use here would actually be , but that may have not existed a couple years ago. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 22:32, 16 June 2014 (UTC)


 * only works in namespaces that have subpages enabled.


 * My 23:13, 7 February 2014 edit addressed this issue. The Find link tool is on another website, and is linked to via a URL, thus it requires URL encoded page names. See mw:Manual:PAGENAMEE encoding.


 * does the trick. I tested this by finding an orphan that the tool found a useful link for. Then I copied the Orphan template to the article's talk page, and from mode, I was easily able to add the link to the article by clicking the link to the tool from the talk page. The tool opened up the article page for editing and showed me the diff.
 * So this works on talk pages now. However, as has been discussed extensively elsewhere, there are still other technical reasons why moving the Orphan tags to talk pages remains impractical. – Wbm1058 (talk) 00:26, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Tool broken?
Is the tool broken? I don't see a banner on pages containing this. I tried creating a sandbox page in my user space with no inlinks and stuck a Orphan banner on it, still nothing. (Does it hide itself in User space?) I'm using Chrome in incognito mode on Win 7; would that hide the banner for some reason (it does something with cookies, not sure what.)  Thanks. Mathglot (talk) 04:21, 21 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Read the #Visibility section of the template documentation Pppery (talk) 12:42, 21 June 2016 (UTC)
 * So sorry, and thank you very much. Mathglot (talk) 05:13, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Orphan Tool Needs Further Development (before it should be rolled out)
Hi. This is regarding the use of the Orphan Tool that has been developed. The orphan tool suggested for use (apparently performed on a privately owned URL by Edward Betts) needs some further development before it can be useful or before it should be deployed by Wikipedia. It seems unfinished in both its intent and its technology. At this point in time, it is a simple search - one size fits all broad sweep - that a child could write (I use this metaphor just to remark on its oversimplification, not to disparage anyone), without any ability to narrow the search criteria from the thousands of choices that are listed following the search, or to actually select - assuming you that have found something in the list - what you are searching for. You can't even point it back to the Wikipedia article in question to have it added to the article and solve the Orphan problem. What is the point of automation, if it doesn't really automate anything? At this point, as it stands, it is almost an example of "more is less." Regards... Stevenmitchell (talk) 09:58, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I strongly disagree with your characterization of this tool. It seems quite sophisticated to me. The source code is available on GitHub here; I challenge you to improve it, if you find it that easy to write.
 * What it could use perhaps is a more intuitive interface and more documentation, beyond User:Edward/Find link. A bot that periodically created a list of the most "find-linkable" articles would be nice, too.
 * But it does, in its current edition, do an excellent job of semi-automating the creation of links to de-orphan articles. For example, try Battle of Merta. You may need to make the template visible, per Template:Orphan. The tool brings up this page with three items. Click on "Merta City", the second item. That brings up a preloaded edit, complete with edit summary, ready to either preview or save with a single click. See this semi-automated edit that I made using this tool. That's about as automated as you can get, short of creating a bot to do it entirely automatically and removing human review of each individual edit. – wbm1058 (talk) 14:01, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 21 June 2016
Split

into

and

Reason for change: so the `Please help linking template doesn't show up in multiple issues

Pppery (talk) 12:56, 21 June 2016 (UTC)
 * This change was reverted after a brief discussion (see Template talk:Orphan). Personally I would separate them again but this should probably be discussed in more detail. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:44, 21 June 2016 (UTC)
 * And where would such a discussion take place? Pppery (talk) 13:58, 21 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Here would be a good place ;) We can let and  know that we are discussing this. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:41, 22 June 2016 (UTC)


 * I see a related topic two sections up: . I just responded to that. wbm1058 (talk) 14:11, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
 * One problem is that we are so flooded with marginally notable articles that the tool comes up empty on, e.g. Ewan Affleck. A conventional search only finds the one orphaned article. (Is he related to Ben?) It would be nice if there was a way to remove the tool from the template in cases where the tool finds nothing. – wbm1058 (talk) 14:27, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Above in, a good question was asked: "Would it be possible for these two links simply to be added to the Toolbox in the left-hand pane?" The two links to be added to the interface sidebar are:
 * Special:Search for the title of the page
 * Find link for the title of the page
 * This would be helpful for low-linked articles, which can also benefit from using these tools to add additional links. Having the links in the sidebar would mitigate the need to have them in the Orphan template
 * See mw:Manual:Interface/Sidebar. MediaWiki:Sidebar just has a bullet for "TOOLBOX", which is a "special keyword". The toolbox, which appears under the search bar, is a dynamic element and cannot be easily customized without the use of skinning extensions. So adding new items to the toolbox seems a bit complicated. wbm1058 (talk) 15:20, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Wbm1058, you seem to be confused. This unexpectedly controversial edit request had nothing to do with removing the links to the find link tool or Special:Search. It was just attempting to reducing clutter when the orphan template shows up inside multiple issues, which is the purpose of that latter template. Pppery (talk) 15:41, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
 * No, I don't believe I'm confused about what you are asking for. We disagree about what is "clutter". I feel that Betts' tool is already useful in its current form (though it could still be improved). If the links can be added to the sidebar, then that mitigates the need to have them in the Orphan template, thus allowing that "clutter" to be removed as then there's an alternate location for the tool links. I don't feel that the existing messages are too verbose, but if the message in multiple issues must be shortened, I suggest this:

and

Need to try this in the sandbox to make sure the cosmetics and functionality are good. In this configuration, the  parameter is somewhat redundant, but I suppose that's OK. wbm1058 (talk) 17:11, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Ideally it would be better if it was possible to do something other than concatenating something when the template is used in multiple issues. In any case, some duplication could be removed by using

Pppery (talk) 22:33, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Wait - what I had hoped for in my previous comment is true - one can completely seperate the text inside multiple issues and the text outside of it, using the smalltext parameter, producing no changes to the text parameter and:

.
 * P p p e<big style="position:relative;top:10px">r y <big style="position:relative;top:5px">(talk) 15:42, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

Edit request: change the link of "related articles"
I suggest changing the link of "related articles" from a search of the article's name to Orphan:

imo the information contained there is way more useful for people trying to find related articles than a plain search of the article's title.

A Wikipedia search is also recommended and linked to in that section as well plus it seems it's mostly redundant anyways given that Edward Bett's Find Link Tool also checks for articles that mention the name.

--Fixuture (talk) 01:02, 7 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Oppose - I use these links to to search for related articles when deorphaning. I would not be happy if I had to manually C-P the article title to do these searches. Orphan is getting a bit messy BTW. ~Kvng (talk) 15:33, 8 January 2017 (UTC)


 * So you would say that a link to the article title's search would be more useful than the information contained there? I guess it's a matter of prioritization: for the people who go through Category:Orphaned articles to mass-deorphan articles a link to the search would be more useful, for newcomers (or almost anyone actually) who created an article (or have interest in improving it) the information contained in that section would be more useful. I think it is very likely that the people who mass-deorphan articles are more effective than those who see that template (occasionally) on a page they're interested in. Hence you have a point here. However, the information contained in that section may help people to generally get started with helping out on Wikipedia or at the task of de-orphaning articles - it would increase the number of people editing Wikipedia and increase the number of people mass de-orphaning articles as well as improving the effectiveness of those who do it. And here's a suggestion: what about having both links in the template? I think it would be better to have "introduce links" link to that section. Actually it doesn't make much sense as it is right now: currently it links to Help:Link but "introducing links" is a task whose how-to can be found at the section I'd like to link to - the Help:Link page just describes what a link is and hence it should just be linked from "links" and not "introducing links". --Fixuture (talk) 17:37, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't know whether adding another would be helpful. Why don't you propose something specific for us to review. You should also drop a message on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Orphanage; I don't think too many editors watch this page. ~Kvng (talk)

IMMEDIATE removal of "Find links tool"
I have removed the "Find links tool" link from the template, as there are inappropriate Google Ads on the page. Please do not add it back unless the situation is resolved. -- Fuzheado &#124; Talk 05:10, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Huh. Dang. That sucks. Thanks for catching that. Did you write to Edward Betts? Herostratus (talk) 05:19, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I just wrote to -- Fuzheado &#124; Talk 13:41, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Great, thanks. I wonder what happened. It looks like a malicious entity wrote code into of that page. I'm surprised this is possible at that site. Well let us know if Mr Betts fixes it -- I hope he's not too busy or uninterested, its a useful tool. Herostratus (talk) 14:04, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * The ads helped to fund the server where the tool is hosted, they've been there since about 2010. I've removed the ads from find link. Thanks for getting in touch. Edward (talk) 16:53, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Remove Orphan from article space
There was an RfC (in 2013) in which there was an overwhelming consensus to remove Orphan templates from article space. So why is it on 130,000+ pages and why are people still adding it? -- PBS (talk) 18:26, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Because there wasn't consensus, as demonstrated by the discussion that you linked above. Instead, when is used, it goes invisible a few weeks later. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 23:23, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, for what it's worth, there was a consensus, but it was then vouchsafed that it was technically impossible to move the templates to the talk page -- either it would break certain important things and there was no way to prevent this, or else its not technically possible to write a bot that could do it (I forget the details). So they are kept on the article, but made invisible (after a little while), as the closest thing that could be done. Herostratus (talk) 01:01, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 9 October 2017
Currently, the template is not displaying on any page, including this one, when used by itself. Please fix this. jd22292 (Jalen D. Folf) (talk) 01:32, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
 * That behavior is per community demand. See discussion above. -- JLaTondre (talk) 02:03, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Village pump discussion
There was an October 2017 village pump policy discussion about the tagging of orphans, with potential effect on this template. I'm belatedly posting a notice of that discussion here. wbm1058 (talk) 17:58, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
 * This was brought to my attention on my talk page. wbm1058 (talk) 21:08, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

few parameter
I set the few parameter, but the template still says "as no other articles link to it".

I would have thought setting this parameter changes the message to "as few other articles link to it"...? CapnZapp (talk) 14:13, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
 * The template is not automatic: it is manually added, and manually removed. To check the current situation, use the "What links here" link in the left sidebar, and in the "Namespace" dropdown menu, select "(Article)", then click . If there are one or more articles listed, you may remove the tag. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 15:17, 7 June 2017 (UTC)


 * See Template:Orphan#few and Template talk:Orphan/Archive 3. All the parameter does at the moment is populate Category:Low linked articles, which currently has all of 33 members. I'm open to revisiting this. wbm1058 (talk) 18:16, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
 * You seem to reply to a different issue than the one I am asking about. Please re-read my post, and I'll be happy to clarify anything you might need for an on-target response. Thank you CapnZapp (talk) 21:54, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

The status of this parameter is up for discussion @ Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Orphanage. wbm1058 (talk) 02:11, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I've removed this parameter from the template, per consensus. Category:Low linked articles may still be manually populated at this time, but better criteria for populating this category should probably be developed. – wbm1058 (talk) 13:23, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

questions
Cheers, UW Dawgs (talk) 19:17, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) Can Template:Orphan be updated to render a contextual example atop that page, just as Template:Underlinked renders a contextual example?
 * 2) Is the template working?  See current version of University of Illinois slush fund scandal which includes it, but doesn't seem to render any associated 'Orphan' text.
 * 2. Yes; old orphan tags are invisible by design, per Template:Orphan. &#123;&#123;3x&#124;p&#125;&#125;ery (talk) 19:58, 29 August 2018 (UTC)