Wikipedia talk:Orphan/Archive 1

Archived on 2006/08/10
Please do not edit.

Older comments
The list includes a few (working) redirects in the form instead of -- User:Docu
 * 1) REDIRECT: Communications in Iceland
 * 1) REDIRECT Communications in Iceland

Redirected pages should be omitted from this list, e.g. CG Jung. Disambiguation pages, like 1924 Olympics, should be removed too. Shouldn't these two types of page should not have a parent by definition? Including them in the list only drown the real orphans in the unnecessary noise. Kowloonese 01:21, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I'll update the Perl script. Erik Zachte 13:13, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Is it possible to add those pages which only have redirect pages point to them, but with no page point to these redirects? For example Houlton (town), Maine had (until just recently) only Houlton (town), Aroostook County, Maine pointing to it, and no page pointed to that redirect page. andy 18:09, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)
 * This was one of the Rambot moves, the CDP isssue is discussed in the Wiki project for US Counties. Houlton is all better now :-) Lou I 17:54, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

Question: Why does 1209 in literature show up here, when it is just a redirect, and all of the other redirects that point to 13th century in literature do not? Paige 22:13, 10 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Update?
Any guess as to when this list will be updated? -Anthropos 22:03, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
 * I donno. I mean, it's saying mid-2004 currently.  Uh... that was a wee bit back, I'd say.  The Literate Engineer 17:21, 24 December 2005 (UTC)


 * It's 1.5 years old, and when I scanned 20 articles from the T page, I found 19 of them linked. (I deleted the 19). Still, it seems a job for an automatic script to do the checking.
 * There's apparently another list of orphan pages out there too; is that newer? Anyone who knows how to regenerate this thing watching this talk page? --Alvestrand 08:12, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Lonelypages
Special:Lonelypages only includes A's and B's and does not include a more recent list for the rest of the alphabet. The link should probably be removed from here unless fixed. - Texture 23:40, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Thanks, Texture. You are correct about the limited nature of Special:Lonelypages. I've changed the note, and moved it down to de-emphasize it. I still think the link is useful. Anthropos 02:11, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Weird List
Can anyone tell me why exactly this list isn't organized alphabetically? It appears to be...gods, I don't even know what system it's organized by. Are there any objections to me sorting it into proper alphabetical sections? PMC 05:31, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)
 * I encourage you to alphabetize it properly. Kingturtle 05:49, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)
 * Done. Now to go through and start adopting pages. PMC 23:46, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I do not believe this page was updated correctly. It seems to also include those linked only though redirects. This makes it far harder to find real orphans by including many perfectly weel linked articles (e.g. START I). Could we please have the two separate lists again? - SimonP 03:47, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Why are the Pulitzer Prize pages listed?
Why are the pages 1917 Pulitzer Prize 1932 Pulitzer Prize 2003 Pulitzer Prize listed? They are linked from Pulitzer_Prize. Deleteme42 23:21, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * I think the list of Orphaned Articles is starting to get a little old and out-of-date. According to the information at the start of the page, it was generated May 18, and since then, a number of articles have been linked, but they were not removed here. Go ahead and remove articles from the orphaned list if you find ones that are already linked. Kevyn 23:33, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Is it possible to remove articles that are interlinked through special messages or templates? The Raspberry years for example are linked through. Therefore they are really not orphaned in the sense that nobody can get to them. Yardcock 18:46, Jul 31, 2004 (UTC)


 * Agreed. I'm tired, so I commented on it in the wrong place.  See below.


 * However, in the Golden Raspberry Awards by year articles, it was kind of fun going to the movies they nominated as Worst Picture, and adding that to the movie article. :D lunaverse 08:30, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Links point to Redirects
Sorry if this has already been asked, or if it was somehow stated in the description, but something is extremely unclear to me.

A large majority of the orphaned articles I've looked at are linked to through redirects. In other words, the links all point to A B C, and A B C redirects to A b c, and A b c is the so-called Orphaned Article.

In many cases the redirects are for differences in capitalization.

Are these technically not orphaned, so should they be removed from the list? Or do the original links all need to be changed so they're pointing to the real article instead of the redirects?

What's the policy on this?

Thanks for clearing this up.

lunaverse 04:04, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * So I resolved this simply by either moving the page to the one that's most redirected from (if that is the most proper form of the name) or by going through and changing all the incorrect links.


 * My next question is a little similar. There are a lot of articles that are linked a lot because there is a Template for it, but the script is still catching them as orphans.  For examples, see almost any of the links about the Olympics, or any of the "List of...by..." articles under "L".  I think the script should be re-written to ignore these.  If I just remove them manually, they'll be back next time it's run.


 * lunaverse 08:27, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I assume that pages which are included in a category (such as Bloody Stupid Johnson, which is linked from Category:Discworld_characters) should be removed as well.

On the other hand, if article X links to Y and Y links to X, both of them should be marked as orphaned if no other article links to either of them. -- Mike Rosoft 19:23, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * I've been trying to link things that only have Categories. For starters, the Categories system is such a mess right now, it's almost not usable.  For another, I think the purpose is to try to get most things interlinked with actual articles.


 * I like your idea on orphaned twins. Maybe someone should make Orphaned Twins with a script to find them, or something.


 * I'm waiting for someone to write a Wikipedia mapping script, like those maps of the internet.


 * lunaverse 19:43, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This is debatable, but I'd argue articles in even one category are not orphans. Does this idea fit the current definition used in the query? Should it? Derrick Coetzee 23:53, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Purpose
What's wrong with pages not being linked to? Rich Farmbrough 09:33, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
 * It is more difficult to find them. Or they can be duplicates. Or something unencyclopedic. That's why they need intervention. -Hapsiainen 22:28, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

One trick to get people linked....
link them to the List of people by name pages. This obscures the fact that they're not linked anywhere in a "real" article, but it shows that someone looked at them and thought they were worth keeping at one time. Good/bad?--Alvestrand 07:53, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I think the whole point of de-orphaning an article is to increase the ammount of traffic it gets... eh that sounds funny but think about it. The more people see an article, the more it gets improved, this is easilly observed.  An article with 10 useful incoming links gets visitors than does a stub, which gets more than an orphan, which gets very little traffic.  Linking from the list you mention will help a little bit... but ultimately links from more visited articles, and more directly related ones, are better. Still, that's easier said than done... adding it to List of people by name is a good start. --W.marsh 05:17, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Infinium India limited
Is an orphan (except for being in a "please wikify" category) that's not listed here. Should it be? --zandperl 02:36, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Capitalization of article title
Shouldn't this article be called Wikipedia:Orphaned articles? I'd move it, but I don't know if this is some kind of special page, and I'm afraid I might break something. —Bkell (talk) 22:32, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Template for Orphaned Articles
Is there a template for orphaned articles?--Rajah 14:28, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, linkless. --W.marsh 19:16, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Archived on 2013/01/18
Please do not edit.

Orphan images
Moved from Village pump on Saturday, September 13th, 02003.

How can I find a list of images that have been uploaded to Wikipedia but not included in any articles? RickK 01:01, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * Special:Unusedimages. --Menchi 01:09, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Moved from article
What makes a page into an orphaned page? --Renata

What makes a page an orphaned page is that no other pages link to it, which means that no one will find it except through "random page" or a search. To resolve that, just find a page that's relevant and work in a link to the orphan. --KQ


 * What's wrong with finding it through a search? I just discovered what an "ultra lounge" is by checking my favorite quick reference, Wikipedia. But that page has been orphaned because of lack of links. I don't care about links in this case; I just want to know what something is. I think this orphan policy needs a serious rethinking - just because something doesn't have links doesn't make it unimportant. In defense 03:55, 5 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The template is like a request to specialist to set the links. Only the person who knows something about what the subject is may try to use search on it. So, this request for linking to other pages is mostly to you. Do not ask For Whom the Bell Tolls, just set the links in order to give others an idea of the subject and allow them improving the article. Mashiah 11:58, 6 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Of course I set as many links as I can on any page I create or edit. I'm just saying that I wouldn't want a nicely informative page to be orphaned (and possibly deleted) just because it doesn't yet have links. In defense 16:55, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Is there some reason why the orphan pages list is not being updated, it is still from May 13th. -- SGBailey 22:44 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * Two reasons: 1. Because updating the list makes the server stop responding for a few minutes. 2. Because updating needs developer access, and developers tend to be eternally busy with other things. Why do you want it updated? It only shows the top 125, so it's pretty useless anyway. -- Tim Starling 23:54 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Could we get the list from a (very recent) database backup, instead of using the live database? CGS 08:30 9 Jul 2003 (UTC).


 * Reason 1 is why it isn't live - fine. Reason 2 is pragmatic/practical. I want it updated so that I can see what things I know about that I can un-orphan. If it were a static list, it could easily be 1000 entries long without causing a problem - then if that static list were updated say once a week or better still once a day it could be worked on. That wouldn't be useless. As it is, it may as well be removed from the special pages dropdown. -- SGBAiley 2003-07-09 17:36 BST

If an orphan page is linked to on a list of orphaned pages, then it's no longer an orphaned page, is it?

The term "orphan" is used for pages that don't link to regular Wiki pages (linking to a community portal page or policy page doesn't count." Even having just one or two links still makes a page "lonely," apparently.  I agree that for some topics, this doesn't matter - but for others (a person is claiming to be an expert in making steel and to have invented an entire new process, but is not mentioned on the "new processes" part of the steel page...it's a problem.  It's a problem for several reasons, but mostly, if one goes to try and put that person's link on the steel page (taking them seriously and believing them that they are experts), then the fun begins.  Real experts in steel will inevitably weigh in and say, "This person is a nobody, they aren't doing anything more than what hundreds of other people are doing, they have some oddball patent - and that doesn't make them notable enough to even be on Wikipedia!" There are two categories I edit frequently where the orphan thing becomes really noticeable: philosophy and music. A person claims to be a "famous musician." Some then state what genre (that's nice), and you go to that genre page and they aren't mentioned. There's a list, on the genre page, of "famous musicians" in that genre, and the person is not mentioned. How can they continue to claim on their little (usually self-created) bio that they are famous? When I see a neutrality dispute, the little warning that a person with the same name as the "famous" person is heavily involved in editing AND an orphan tag - I think it's time to think about deletion. Sure, we want to be able to find things - but it does not follow that Wikipedia is a phone book. Lots and lots of college professors are particularly happy to put their own pages up, cite all their own citations, and no secondary sources, and then call themselves notable in that field. Not quite right. So the orphan tag, alone, is not really a big deal - I try very hard to find orphan articles "homes" when I see what I think is an orphan, but I add the tag when I can't see a single viable way of finding them a home. If the article is "Person's Name" and they are not in fact notable, then it's unlikely anyone will ever find their article, otherwise (except themselves, their students and friends). Vanity pages bug me.--Levalley (talk) 23:12, 31 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley

What is the template?
What is the template to add an orphaned article to the orphaned articles category?--Rajah 14:26, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


 * use   to tag the article, it will display a template and add to the category at the same time.  Jeepday 18:31, 24 February 2007 (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)


 * What is it about de-orphaning the article that is causing you problems? Jeepday 18:34, 24 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I can't answer for Chris (and thanks Chris for that template - it's very useful, I'm drawn to the same task), but for me, what happens is that, for example, I see an article on Elaine Scarry, a philosopher for whom it is claimed that she is a leading expert in the philosophy of pain. Her work is described in the article as definitive.  Yet, it is not mentioned in either the article on pain or on the philosophy of pain, whose editors have found many other "definitive" and much more notable work to mention.  Clearly, she should be linked to the philosophy of pain article, but when I think about doing it, and look up what reviewers have said about her work, I find that some people think she's a bit of a crackpot or something (she has some views about electro-magnetism and why TWA 800 fell out of the sky that she's also published.  She's criticized by scientists as a non-scientist who writes unsupported things (that's what it says in her orphaned article).  So no way do I think she should be linked, right now, as a "definitive scholar" to the philosophy of pain page, when so many other well known scholars are already there.  I can think of no way to de-orphan her (or any number of other similar philosophical types, all of whom claim to have "solved" some problem or another, but are not linked to the problem in question, because general consensus of the Wiki community is that they're really not up there at the level of Hume or Kant or deSade or whoever it is they claim to have surpassed.  If someone who is editing the article could direct me in the right way, though, I might be able to find a way to de-orphan it.  Lots of academics don't know how to use Wiki - I'm trying to help.--Levalley (talk) 23:19, 31 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley

Images on User pages?
Is there a policy for or against allowing images on user pages?I have an image in mine which is showing up as orphaned and was wondering if I should remove it. Argel1200 02:08, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Orphan Images 2
When I go to an image's page e.g. (click picture) then go to "What links here" It doesn't mention the pages where I've got it thumbnailed. e.g. Inferno (operating system)

So since there are no articles in "What links here", I got messages from bots that it is orphaned.

Redirect reverted
I have just reverted the redirect of this page to the Orphanage WikiProject. The first link, in bold, on orphan, a heavily used mainspace template, is to this page. There is a longstanding rule that we don't insert WikiProject links into the mainspace. For example such links are not permitted on stub notices. The redirecting of this article was causing that rule to be broken. Hesperian 11:18, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Change of the template
Please see my proposed template change to try and make the template slightly shorter and easier to understand.  ·Add§hore·  T alk T o M e ! 20:40, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

An article with categories
An article with categories is not really an orphan, because it can be reached from other articles that share the category. Secdio (talk) 12:35, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I am inclined to disagree:
 * categories may provide a different sort of linking than wikilinks do (build the web appears to relate more to hyperlinks). (Categories provide 1 to many linking, as compared to wikilink (which goes from one article to one article)).
 * If one includes categories it shuffles the link counts (i.e. the levels for what is an orphan would change), but not clear what effect it has on the linking distribution/structure. (i.e. would have to gather statistics on that and revise orphan criteria appropriately)
 * What evidence is there about how people use links vs. categories. Do they use categories in the same way as they use links?  What effect does being in a category vs. being linked to have on things like number of views, rapidity of article development, etc.?  (What evidence do we have that category links and wikilinks are equivalent in effect and usefulness?)
 * While it might be interesting to explore relationship between categories and links, it isn't obvious that we can regard them as equivalent.


 * Since this is not part of the current definitions, please discuss and get agreement before adding to the what is an orphan documentation. Thanks. Zodon (talk) 21:07, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Name
Why is it called an orphan if few articles link to it? Isn't an orphan defined as someone without parents? It should be called something else if it does have articles that link to it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.245.159.198 (talk) 23:24, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
 * A bastard child perhaps? :) --OlEnglish (Talk) 01:16, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Hey! Isn't Mind Breaths an orphan?--Krashlia (talk) 04:07, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Not anymore. -- &oelig; &trade; 15:30, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

This maintenance template should be placed on the talk page
Orphan is a maintenance issue that does not aid our readers. Editorial maintenance issues should be discussed on the talk page not in the article space -- that is why we have talk pages. If someone was to write in plain text at the top of a page "This article is an orphan, as few or no other articles link to it. ..." it would be removed as vandalism, and the person who put it there would be told to discuss such issues on the article's talk page. Putting such messages in a box does not alter the fact that it provides no useful information for the reader and is only of use to an editor. --PBS (talk) 20:46, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The Wikipedia convention is that maintenance tags go on the article. The orphan template is no different than any of the others. The link you gave is to a post in which you provide a link to this discussion. However, a reading of that two year old discussion shows no consensus for your suggestion. While there are merits to your suggestion, there needs to be community agreement and consistency across the differing templates (to avoid confusion). If you wish to advocate for this change, I'd suggest posting to the Village Pump and see if you can gain the community agreement. -- JLaTondre (talk) 21:08, 30 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Who's convention? As you point out the posing is over two years old which suggests there is no consensus to place editorial maintenance tags in article space. As this is a discussion about this template this would seem to be the place to discuss it. What do you consider to be the advantage of placing editorial maintenance templates like this on the top of an article rather than on the talk page? --PBS (talk) 23:56, 30 May 2009 (UTC)


 * The community's convention as can be evidenced by how they are used. Maintenance templates (and there are a lot of them besides orphan) are currently placed on the article. That is how they are used and how the documentation says they are to be used. I recognize that you don't like it, but to claim it's not the convention simply would not match the facts. As for consensus, consensus needs to be shown for a change to be made. In the absence of consensus, things remain how they are. As for advantages, the discussion linked already provides a number. -- JLaTondre (talk) 00:50, 31 May 2009 (UTC)


 * A consensus should be sought for their inclusion, placement of similar templates in mainspace has not receive the general support of the community. Maintenance templates, such as 'stub' and 'unreferenced', are accepted because they summarise a serious shortcoming; being currently unlinked is not one of many potential improvements that inherently devalues any content. The perennial question remains unanswered, at the above link or at the Orphanage, except as a deprecated attempt to solicit their help - what is the advantage to the reader? cygnis insignis 10:55, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I think it odd that you state that "placement of similar templates in mainspace has not receive the general support of the community"; what discussion are you basing this on? Maintenance templates, including orphan, as JLaTondre stated above, have been placed on the article itself, practically since they came into existence.  I think one of the fundamental reasons they should be placed there is to encourage readers to become editors; if a reader sees a template saying, "Here's something which needs to be fixed", they are far more likely to feel welcome to go ahead, be bold, and do it.--Aervanath (talk) 12:41, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Image missing, coordinates missing, I assumed that editors here are aware of those community discussions, and the opposition to tags "cluttering main space". Soliciting every reader to start creating links is the "fundamental reason to remove them", and probably inadvisable as a first edit. cygnis insignis 17:11, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * To claim "placement of similar templates in mainspace has not receive the general support of the community" is another claim that simply does not hold up in the face of the facts. The orphan template has existed since 2005 and has always been used on the article. Wikify, Deadend, Uncat, etc. are just some of the other similar maintenance templates that are placed on the article. As for your perennial question, answers were indeed given at the link above. You may not find the answers compelling, but that is different matter. If you want to argue for a change, feel free. Historical revisionism, however, is not an effective means for doing so. -- JLaTondre (talk) 13:10, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I asked the question in February, and followed the discussion ever since; I have not seen a consensus emerge and a rationale is absent. The discussions, referred to above, should be well known to anyone seeking to make a very large number of edits to main space. Being impolite to those who question the merit of these ventures is not an effective means for doing so, feel free to quote the 'compelling' reason to support your assertions. cygnis insignis 17:11, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Nothing I said was impolite. I gave a matter of fact statement; nothing more and nothing less. You are correct that no consensus for a change has emerged. What you seem to be missing is that lacking a consensus for a change, things remain the way they have been. And how things have been for four years is that they go on the article. -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:42, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * JLaTondre why do we have talk pages? --PBS (talk) 13:28, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That is not a question that advocates your position. Per WP:TALK, talk pages "provide space for editors to discuss changes to its associated article or project page". Templates are not discussions. -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:42, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Are but it does, have you seen the Monty Python argument sketch? Putting forward a statement is the first step in creating an proposition which if contradicted leads to a discussion. As I said above if someone wrote in plain text at the top of the article "This article is an orphan, as few or no other articles link to it. ..." it would be removed as vandalism, and the person who put it there would be told to discuss such issues on the article's talk page. The template is not the issue (because one could use subst to convert the template into inline text), the issue is whether putting an editorial comment in a box in article space makes it any less objectionable than plain text, or if in fact such comments should be placed on the talk page. This is really part of the thinking behind Self-references to avoid. --PBS (talk) 11:03, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * You might want to take a look at the history of the orphan template. It originally was plain text. If someone did remove it as vandalism, than they would really need to re-read WP:VAND as it falls way short of that and they would be doing something far worse than having a template on the article. The misuse of the vandalism label is very bitey and scaring off new editors in such a way is very inappropriate. -- JLaTondre (talk) 12:36, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * (outident) Philip Baird Shearer & cygnis insignis, what you seem to be missing is that I'm not arguing whether orphan template should be on the article or talk page. What I am arguing is that any change should be consistent across all (or all none critical ones) maintenance templates. I am also pointing that you are the ones who want change, therefore it is up to you to obtain consensus for the change. It doesn't work the other way around. My recommendation is that you go through all the maintenance templates, make a list of "critical" (those you feel the reader needs to know about) and "non-critical" (those you feel only editors need to know about) ones; put forth a coherent, accurate argument; and present it to the community via the Village Pump. That would provide the best means of truly judging the community's current opinions on maintenance templates. -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:42, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Why do you assume that it has to be all or nothing? The maintenance templates have been as often as not created without any general consensus from village pump or anywhere else that maintenance templates are a good idea in general or that a specific one is desirable, so there is no reason why the desirability of templates should not be discussed on an add hoc basis. I would suggest that this template is reformatted and placed on the talk page. --PBS (talk) 11:03, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Consistency is important. We already have enough chaos. Wikipedia users should some expectation where to find information about an article. If this truly is an important issue, then it should be important for the other templates as well, no? Why wouldn't you want to "fix" it for all? As for consensus, these templates have been around for years and are used by many, many editors. That says a lot. -- JLaTondre (talk) 12:36, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * "Wikipedia users should some expectation where to find information about an article." Editors do, it is the talk page of the article. The article page is not the place for information about an article, it is the pace for the information about the subject of the article. (the point that Self-references to avoid makes). -- PBS (talk) 18:26, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * No, they have an expectation to find it on the article because that is where it is. -- JLaTondre (talk) 22:54, 2 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Support I agree that maintenance templates should go on the talk page, especially the orphan template which is quite annoying. At the very least it should be made inconspicuous, rather than being a crude and offensive label at the head of an article. Colonel Warden (talk) 14:09, 22 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Oppose The inclusion of maintenance templates in mainspace alerts readers to potential issues in the content the are reading. It may also encourage them to contribute themselves if they feel strongly enough about something. IMO keeping everything exclusively on talk pages is not a transparent approach which is needed to contribute to being here to build an encyclopedia. --Trevj (talk) 07:58, 18 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Support A good additional idea would be to have an optional 'gadget' that adds (orphan) to the end of the already optional classification line (A stub-class article from...). This way editors interested in deorphaning can easily see pages in need of attention without having an oversized banner on thousands of pages that normal readers don't care about  Jebus989 ✰ 12:23, 28 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Support Agree with Colonel Warden, and I would further suggest that any editor be able to signal when a de-orphaning has been done by stating in the Discussion page the articles which link to the former orphan. This could easily trigger a bot to remove the orphan tag and substitute an Adopted tag with copious credit given to the editor who did the de-orphaning (terrible term).  We all love those little prizes, and this would materially move the encyclopedia forward in a transparent manner. Transparent because any spam linker would be easily exposed, and a good linker shown to be thoughtful and intelligent. Caveat: I guess you would not get credit for adopting your own orphan article. That deserves more thought. Alawa (talk) 21:14, 4 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose. I don't think this perennial proposal is going to change years of consensus on this matter. -- &oelig; &trade; 03:57, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Surname pages
Is there any point in surname pages being labelled "Orphan"? It just clutters the page unnecessarily. There are unlikely to be any useful links to such a page - it serves a role similar to a disambiguation page, and may or may not also have information about the surname as a word - and even in this function there are not likely to be links to it, though it will be valuable to people who use "Go" or "Search" in entering WP to find out about the name. For a recent example, see Abu Taleb, where an orphan tag has been added, removed, replaced. PamD (talk) 15:52, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Nope, I agree. Most surname pages are disambiguation pages & the orphan criteria doesn't apply. -- JLaTondre (talk) 22:56, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I have now raised this issue at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Orphanage and suggest that any further responses should go there - not so much "Forum-shopping" as an attempt to find the best place to discuss my concerns. PamD (talk) 08:40, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, they should be called set indices. -- &oelig; &trade; 00:34, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I've been WP:BOLD and updated the criteria, based on what seems to be consensus at the above discussion. PamD (talk) 23:03, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * There is now a consolidated discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Disambiguation. PamD (talk) 15:23, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Coounterproductive bot
There is a bot that removes orphan tags on articles like Mary Pat Fisher, which has 2 lks from articles and 2 each from a Dab and an SIA. Fine if you want to keep the Cat small in order to focus project effort on the worst cases. But why not apply to strict def to the displayed template, and have an option on the template that suppresses that Cat asgmt? As it is, you fail to draw the attention of readers interested in the topic (and thus skilled in knowing what articles are likely to suitably lk to its article!) to its orphan (oh, all right, "technical orphan") status, and sacrifice the opportunity to recruit your best possible resource. Change the bot to use raw main-namespace link count to set the no-cat option (or have multiple Cats for different levels), but leave the tag in place. (In fact, if an article has a dozen lks from articles, but should, in the judgment of those with subject-area expertise, have a hundred, it should take another human being to remove the visible tag.) Stop shooting your project in the foot. --Jerzy•t 18:49, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Sometimes articles are orphans for a reason
Sometimes articles are orphans because they're poorly written, poorly sourced, and possibly non-notable. In that case, wouldn't it be better to request deletion rather than to add links to good articles to which the orphan contributes nothing? ThreeOfCups (talk) 03:49, 24 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Of course, when de-orphaning, as anyone experienced at de-orphaning articles should know, you have to check first if the article meets policies or if it can be merged. Otherwise it would be a waste of time to try to track down links for that article. -- &oelig; &trade; 03:54, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

De-Orphaning script
I have finally finished writing a script for de-orphaning. It adds a tab to every page, which when clicked, de-orphans the page by getting it linked to automatically. You just have to start the process and the script does the rest. More information at User:Manishearth/OrphanTabs Manish EarthTalk •  Stalk 05:59, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Removing Lists from the orphan criteria
Until we reduce the current backlog of orphans I'm temporarily removing Lists from the criteria. Most of the time it's the only way to get additional incoming links from articles, plus Lists can be featured so why not use them to link to orphans? Let's try to make a dent in the backlog first before we start make the criteria stricter by including Lists. Any objections? -- &oelig; &trade; 04:38, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, the criteria should be what the criteria should be. Not what "reduces the count".  By all means change the process to only tag articles with no incoming links (including lists).  I am now seeing articles de-tagged as they have list links coming in.  Again if we decide that an article does not need more incoming links then it should not be tagged.  But really maybe Orphans don;t need the attention the other clean-up categories get anyway. Rich Farmbrough, 00:37, 19 December 2009 (UTC).

"A company with no advertising will not be known to others, and as a result, will get few if any customers."
So what? Is that not a decision that the individual company should be allowed to be able to make for themselves? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.210.176.147 (talk) 02:18, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Who would be making the decision "for themselves" here? We want people to be able to find articles without having to know what the article is called. Not having orphans is just part of good internal linking, and is consistent with our "build the web" motto. Richard001 (talk) 08:10, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Question about the policy?
The criteria for counting incoming links says that links from &#8220;Wikipedia pages outside of article space&#8221; do not count; thus, if the only link to an article is from WP:AFD, the article would still be considered to be &#8220;orphaned.&#8221; But if you click on &#8220;Wikipedia pages outside of article space,&#8221; it only mentions the Wikipedia: namespace. So my question is: if the incoming links to an article are from user space and/or user talk pages, do those links count? Bwrs (talk) 19:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * No. Only links from articles count. Even links from Portal or categories do not count. Rich Farmbrough, 00:39, 19 December 2009 (UTC).

Orphaned essays
I'm not sure I agree with this whole concept of tagging essays as orphaned. Although I do believe it's important that essays be read, our goal and priority should be towards articles. It's the articles that are the foundation of Wikipedia and they are what the orphan template was created for. We should be directing our efforts towards de-orphaning articles. Project-space pages have much less priority and are covered well enough by Category:Wikipedia essays and the various navboxes that group them together. Sebwite: what happened to your goal of putting a navbox on every page? Wouldn't that work better to get wider readership than orphaned essay? -- &oelig; &trade; 23:49, 20 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, I do agree that articles are important. But essays and other project pages are needed to support them being written and maintained well. Presently, many essays are orphaned, and one of the things I am trying to do is to identify them, and to work on solving this problem. Of course, I am not planning to do it singlehandedly, just like I am not planning to put a navbox on every page singlehandedly.


 * As I just mentioned, I do like the idea of putting a navbox on every page. This is not something I expect to be completed in any rush or by any deadline. But navboxes do help to de-orphan pages.


 * In fact, I have created a number of navboxes strictly for essays so that essays can be de-orphaned. But I am far from having created enough for all the essays.


 * I do get your point about prioritizing improvement of articles. But for an analogy so you can understand what I mean, on a professional sports team, the players are the center the team, but the quality of the management and coaching staff is just as important becuase it enables the players to play better.


 * The orphaned essay template is just a special version of orphan for essays. Sebwite (talk) 22:00, 14 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I really don't see the point of orphan tagging essays. Some essays are worthwhile and some are not. If people find an essay worthwhile, they will link to it. If they don't, they won't. Orphanage is not about quality so your analogy doesn't hold true. The links to essays that matter are the ones that people use. -- JLaTondre (talk) 14:08, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

AWB and Orphans
As of 5.0.0.1 (released hopefully next week. Now in snapshot in http://toolserver.org/~awb/snapshots) will be correctly tagging Orphans using the definition of "less than 3 incoming links ...". I noticed that the project encourages people to tag articles with NO incoming links. I proposed this update for AWB Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Feature_requests. My question is this means that we also UNTAG articles with 1 or 2 incoming links? If yes, I have to slightly modify my request above. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:57, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

In January 16, 2010 I ran AWB in Orphaned articles from August 2006 and Orphaned articles from September 2006 and untagged 60 articles (a small portion involves other kind of tagging) out of 1,232. AWB works fine. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:57, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Yobot finished its run tests. Please check the BRFA. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:34, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Yobot approved to start fixing. Releasing the new AWB will prevent editors for causing more mistakes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:40, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Does all this mean that AWB will now only add the orphan tag to articles with 1 or fewer links? And will remove the orphan tag from articles that have more than 1 link? Hmains (talk) 17:13, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
 * 3. Do you wants us to add one option to reduce 3 to 1? -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:18, 5 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Having that as an option would be helpful. It might reduce the sometimes wild reversions by other editors who cannot tolerate the orphan label on 'their' articles. Hmains (talk) 22:24, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

We have three options:
 * We keep adding orphan tags to articles with < 3 links as described in the definition and remove them from articles with >= 3.
 * We add orphan tags to articles with 0 links with the known rules (exclude redirects etc.) and remove them from articles with >= 3 with the known definition.
 * We add orphan tags to articles with 0 links with the known rules (exclude redirects etc.) and remove them from articles with >= 1 with the known definition.

It's not clear to me what is exactly the consensus right now. I already proposed to add an option to AWB for reducing the 3 links but I don't know which rule should apply to the removal of the tag. -- Magioladitis (talk) 02:24, 7 February 2010 (UTC)


 * all excellent; if you cannot find a consensus, maybe you could put all 3 options above into AWB as AWB editor choice. Hmains (talk) 04:53, 7 February 2010 (UTC)


 * "We add orphan tags to articles with 0 links with the known rules (exclude redirects etc.) and remove them from articles with >= 3 with the known definition." This one sounds right. Sorry for not responding to this earlier, I've been ignoring my watchlist lately :) -- &oelig; &trade; 12:29, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
 * We implement it. I hope we release AWB 5.0.1.0 tll end of this week. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:56, 9 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much. I hope so too. Thanks for all your hard work on AWB as well. -- &oelig; &trade; 01:13, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

I am having difficulty finding any consistency with tagging pages as Orphans. I am seeing a lot more folks running AWB against more and more pages..that seems to be the only editing that some people do. But one of the results is a rise in the number of pages tagged as Orphans because they don't meet the AWB criteria. However, I think some pages will by nature lack many associate pages and therefore it is nearly impossible to MEET this criteria. FOR EXAMPLE - obscure structures such as this one Methuen Water Works which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. It's a water works. it is highly doubtful any other pages will link to it aside from the lists of NRHP pages. This page links to National Register of Historic Places listings in Methuen, Massachusetts and appears on many catagory indexes but that is all. By this logic this page will carry the Orphan tag for the rest of eternity? Surely there must be some exceptions. EraserGirl (talk) 03:17, 17 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes exactly, you're right, and there's many exceptions, this is why I've tried doing things like lowering the criteria amount, adding Lists to the criteria, and informing editors of exceptions in the Orphan section; you may add to it too if you think there's others. And I strongly suggest to those using AWB to set it so that it only tags pages that have ZERO incoming links and to always use their judgment on whether an article really needs to have the orphan tag. I often remove it from pages that don't need it or that already have 1 or 2 incoming links and are unlikely to ever get anymore. I'm not trying to diminish the importance of orphan tagging though.. I do still think the orphan tag is helpful, and I frequently work the Orphaned articles by month category, as I believe it's very important to have articles interlink each other (de-orphaning is my favorite maintenance task in fact, it can be a lot of fun!).. I just wish others would use their common sense a little bit when identifying them. -- &oelig; &trade; 06:26, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I wrote User:Magioladitis/AWB and orphans to help understanding the mechanism. Yobot runs every two months to untag pages that aren't orphan anymore. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:41, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Geo-Orphan Template RfD
FYI: the Geo-Orphan template is up for discussion here. -- Avocado (talk) 19:36, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Airline destination lists
Pages such as SATA International destinations are very often orphans under the technical definition. However, it's likely that the only article that will ever link to them will be the "parent" page about the airline itself. I can't really think of a situation where it would be appropriate to link to the destination list (rather than the airline page) from another article. Yet bots, AWB, etc. keep tagging them with orphan, whereas in reality they're like that for a legitimate reason. Using the "att=" parameter doesn't help: it just leaves a template asking for more incoming links, when none are necessary.

What can be done to stop the tagging in situations like this? --RFBailey (talk) 04:00, 14 April 2010 (UTC)


 * AWB has a feature to tag articles as orphans only if they have no incoming links. We can advice editors to activate it.
 * If we create some kind of "signature" all of these articles have then we can program AWB to ignore these pages. A signature could be a template that these pages could contain. -- Magioladitis (talk) 04:52, 14 April 2010 (UTC)


 * This is the (philosophical) problem with orphans. I have remarked before that there is no intrinsic reason that some page should not be validly an orphan, and indeed many pages are only linked to from one or more lists. However I did think AWB was only tagging pages with no incoming links from article-space by default.  I will flick the switch Magioladitis mentions once I find it. Rich Farmbrough, 04:59, 14 April 2010 (UTC).
 * Actually according to the rule 2 sections above "We add orphan tags to articles with 0 links with the known rules (exclude redirects etc.) " this should not have been added. Rich Farmbrough, 05:06, 14 April 2010 (UTC).
 * "Options -> Restrict orphan tag addition to linkless pages." on the toolstrip menu. Articles with 1 or 2 links are still orphans, we only give priority to article with no links at this point of time to help editors who actually add links. (Important: We don't remove tags from article that have only 1 or 2 links!) Yobot removed about 2,000 old tags from articles that had more than 2 (more or equal 3) incoming links in the last few days. -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:20, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Important: We don't remove tags from article that have only 1 or 2 links! That's the problem: articles such as the list I mentioned may only have 1 or 2 incoming links, but they don't need a tag, as there is nothing wrong with that situation.  This is an example of where imposing arbitrary, one-size-fits-all criteria doesn't work.  --RFBailey (talk) 15:14, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry I didn't realise that the switch was there in AWB. Will use it from now on. something lame from CBW 06:32, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

This template should be on the talk page of articles

 * see above 

I've just come from editing an article called Siege of Basing House there a bot called user:WildBot that is placed the template; on talk:Siege of Basing House (see also User:WildBot/m03) which seems much more sensible way to use a maintaince template. I suggest that the guidance for this template is altered so that this template is placed on the talk page. -- PBS (talk) 06:40, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Disambiguation orphan?
Is there any point to tagging a disambiguation page as an orphan? It seems to me that the purpose of a disambiguation page is to guide a reader to one or more possible articles when the search term could refer to more than one article. Therefore the dab is to send the reader elsewhere, not to have a reader arrive there from a link. "What links here" is not the point. --DThomsen8 (talk) 21:20, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * No, a dab page is not an orphan. It is one of the excluded pages in the criteria. -- JLaTondre (talk) 21:49, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

erroneous statement
"Orphaned articles, since they have few links to them from other pages, are difficult to find, and are most likely to be found only by chance. Because of this, few people know they exist, and therefore, they get less readership and improvement from those who would be able to improve them."

It's erroneous because about half the time articles are found by searching, and searching the subject of the article will find them, links or not.

I suggest the wording:

"Many times users find articles by links from other articles. Orphaned articles, since they have few links to them from other pages, are difficult to find this way; therefore, they get less readership and improvement from those who would be able to improve them."


 * I agree with your revised wording and support changing the text to read as such. (psst. you forgot to sign! ;P) -- &oelig; &trade; 18:53, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

List of orphans
Where can I find the list?173.180.214.13 (talk) 05:30, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * You can find all orphaned articles, with an alpha index, here: Category:All orphaned articles. They are available by month of tagging here: Category:Orphaned articles. These links appear in in the Orphan article here Orphan, and on the WikiProject page WP:ORPHAN. Grafen (talk) 12:39, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

the opposite
Do we have a list of most-read articles? Most-linked? Sometimes I would like to make some corrections with AWB, but the problem is too extensive and too minor to change every article. In such cases it would be nice to just correct the articles that are the most likely to be read. — kwami (talk) 02:05, 8 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Yup. Check out Most read articles in 2010. -- &oelig; &trade; 04:02, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Criteria
If there is large backlog on orphaned articles, and "there is still discussion (I assume at WP:WikiProject Orphanage) regarding whether to have a more relaxed definition in order to clear the "immense" backlog of orphans", why the complication in solving the problem? As it stands, "This is a strict definition of the term" (orphan), can only be a definition of any kind from a twisted Wikipedia definition. "If" there is a backlog and  some desire to solve this problem, then create a solution. An orphan by 'any' definition would more likely be "A person or thing that is without protective affiliation". If there is affiliation of an orphan article to one other article this would be adoption thus the article would no longer be an orphan. If that is the case then maybe another classification, such as Isolated article (or some other appropriate name) might be a solution. This way an article could be "de-orphaned" but still need additional affiliation of two or more articles.

I realize this would be a bold move but I noticed there is a backlog to 2003 which is astounding. With one simple move I would imagine the orphan backlog would be reduced considerably and an issue solved (a non-orphaned—orphan article) to the betterment of Wikipedia. I will add this comment to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Orphanage to see if the idea might have credibility. Otr500 (talk) 17:04, 18 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Okay I boldly changed the definition/criteria per our discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Orphanage. I still think we should remove dab pages from the criteria list (that is, allow dab pages to count towards the one incoming link), and I hope to hear others' thoughts on this, as well as the overall change. Also, any other places I missed where the 'three links' definition is mentioned need to be changed. (ps. I don't think we need to change orphan.) -- &oelig; &trade; 06:33, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

I will have to study some on the dab issue. The idea of the links is to interconnect articles but a dab page may not do that correctly. Otr500 (talk) 10:48, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Isolated articles
Per my comments at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Orphanage I am wondering if there would be support for Category: Articles needing additional links or Category: Isolated articles, possibly a hidden category, and possibly a talk page maintenance tag for articles that are not orphans but only have one or two links? A talk page tag could point out that the article does not follow the three links criteria and needs attention along with "You can help". Otr500 (talk)

My apprehension, along with user Sadads, is that isolated articles (more than one link but less than three) will now suffer as there is no way to know without looking at "what links here". JLaTondre commented,  "I don't see much point into breaking this into two separate categories. All that does is move the backlog to a different project, it doesn't actually do anything to solve it or people's concerns over tagging. It's just changes the name. --" . The backlog (back to 2003), as listed, was all articles without three links. Relaxing the criteria not only resolved an issue that was just plain wrong but also allows for the removal of ancient wrongly placed tags. There is still be a need for an orphan category (no links) but there should be a way to follow those articles that are not orphans but do not have three links. This can be done (correct me if I am wrong) with a proper category (maybe even hidden), and a maintenance tag on the talk page. All I am stating is that it is hard to solve one problem without providing a solution for unintended collateral damage. Moving any leftover backlog is important and to me is needed, so yes, there would need to be two categories, but not the unsightly tags. I am trying to figure out why it would be a problem to use separate categories which would be more correct. Otr500 (talk) 10:48, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

So there is no further discussion? The rules being relaxed was the only goal? I guess I will have to bring this somewhere else with the concerns that at least should be discussed for a resolution. Otr500 (talk) 13:39, 22 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry for not responding here sooner. I'm just trying to keep discussion in one place. I did originally want it to be here however it seems the main discussion is already occurring at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Orphanage. -- &oelig; &trade; 07:38, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Thought it was vandalism
Haha, "This page is an Orphan" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arsaces (talk • contribs) 09:43, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

image talk pages
please be careful not to delete image talk pages which are talk pages on wikipedia for commons images. When someone goes to the image talk page link from wikipedia for an image that is on commons, they create a new page which looks like an orphan (the image link appears red as though it is not there - but it is a talk page for the commons image with the same name) --Astrokey 44 04:57, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Deprecate this
I've started a discussion over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Orphanage, in which I propose to deprecate this page in favor of a category-based system. Please come on over and contribute.--Aervanath's signature is boring 21:33, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Links from hatnotes
A page may well have a link from another article ... but only from a hatnote saying "This article is about x, for y see z". If there were more articles with similar names there would be a dab page, and links from dab pages are ignored in the definition of an orphan. I suggest that the list of "links to ignore" should include "Links from navigational hatnotes", as these are not links indicating a real connection to the article. Pam D  10:26, 4 November 2012 (UTC)