Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Orphanage

Recent updates
At WP:Orphan article, I updated Step 1 - Finding an orphaned article with details here. Also, I discovered within Category:All orphaned articles at the TOC, going to "Lj" then (previous page) to display many "List of ..." articles. There are over 600 of these to de-orphan and may be easier for new WP members. JoeNMLC (talk) 00:47, 6 February 2023 (UTC)


 * For the Petscan tool, I created subpage Petscan documentation, then added Wikilink at Step 2: Finding related articles section. While Petscan can filter any category, it is particularly helpful for De-Orphaning. JoeNMLC (talk) 15:26, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Project-independent quality assessments
Quality assessments by Wikipedia editors rate articles in terms of completeness, organization, prose quality, sourcing, etc. Most wikiprojects follow the general guidelines at Content assessment, but some have specialized assessment guidelines. A recent Village pump proposal was approved and has been implemented to add a class parameter to WikiProject banner shell, which can display a general quality assessment for an article, and to let project banner templates "inherit" this assessment.

No action is required if your wikiproject follows the standard assessment approach. Over time, quality assessments will be migrated up to WikiProject banner shell, and your project banner will automatically "inherit" any changes to the general assessments for the purpose of assigning categories.

However, if your project has decided to "opt out" and follow a non-standard quality assessment approach, all you have to do is modify your wikiproject banner template to pass WPBannerMeta a new custom parameter. If this is done, changes to the general quality assessment will be ignored, and your project-level assessment will be displayed and used to create categories, as at present. Aymatth2 (talk) 19:34, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Announcement - Invitation template
Greetings, Over at Requested templates, I requested an invitation template for WikiProject Orphanage. The next step is adding to the Project page (Templates section). I am uncertain of the exact wording to explain 1) Please check "Participants" section first to insure not already a member here. 2) Can be added to a user's Talk page. 3) Ideas to shorten length, make less wordy?

Use the following code:

WikiProject Orphanage invitation
Any suggestions are welcome. Regards, JoeNMLC (talk) 20:58, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
 * This could be more specific about what improvements we're focused on. WP:ORPH doesn't link where you think it does. Here's an improved version for your consideration.
 * You have been invited to join WikiProject Orphanage, a group of Wikipedians working to improve connections between articles by creating links to orphan articles. If you are new to Wikipedia, de-orphaning articles is a great way to learn a wide variety of useful skills, such as how to navigate within Wikipedia, how to format wikilinks, and how to use cleanup tags. To get started see WP:DE-ORPHAN. Also consider adding yourself to the list of participants. Thank you!
 * ~Kvng (talk) 01:44, 6 February 2024 (UTC)


 * @Kvng - Thanks for the above shorter version, and improved. The only thing I would change is "You have been invited" to You are invited. Cheers! JoeNMLC (talk) 15:49, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, that suggestion is an improvement. ~Kvng (talk) 12:40, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
 * @Kvng - Just wondering if there will be more discussion? JoeNMLC (talk) 06:29, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Not from me. It's as good as I can get it. ~Kvng (talk) 00:36, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
 * - any additional Discussion here? Cheers, JoeNMLC (talk) 02:15, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me (other than perhaps a comma or so). Perfect4th (talk) 04:08, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

User:DannyS712 bot
As many will know this bot was set up a few years ago to produce an automated report on articles tagged as orphans that actually have inbound links. It runs this routine every few days. I’ve been using its reports for several years and it has never once made a mistake. Given the slow work of deorphaning what do other editors think about seeking consensus for the bot to actually remove the orphan tags each time it does a run, rather than just adding the article to a report? Mccapra (talk) 23:06, 6 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I would be in favour of the bot removing orphan tags in articles with valid inbound links. Ruud Buitelaar (talk) 01:59, 9 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Seconded. Perfect4th (talk) 02:16, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm impressed but a little bit skeptical that it has never made a mistake but I have never used this report so what do I know. I do support the proposal however because even if occasional mistakes are made, they would not be of great consequence. ~Kvng (talk) 14:44, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * ok when I say “never” I mean “I have repeatedly gone through its output reports and never once found an actual orphan mislabelled as not an orphan”. It’s true that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen but I’ve never found an instance of it. And I guess if it removed the tag from a genuine orphan another bot would come along and reinstate it anyway. So actually if there is consensus to automate the orphan tag removal we’d need to make sure all the bots agreed in a common definition otherwise we’d just have bots edit warring as they removed and re-added the tag. Mccapra (talk) 00:41, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Adding the Big Cyan Button template
Hello! I am suggesting the addition of Big Cyan Button, a template that looks like this:

How do you feel about adding this to the project page? - Master of Hedgehogs (converse) (hate that hedgehog!) 14:42, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Master of Hedgehogs - Two concerns:
 * Very large size button, and does not indicate "Random"
 * Does not march Random page in category button used throughout the backlog months.
 * Right now I'm on vacation & may not respond promptly. Regards, JoeNMLC (talk) 20:06, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
 * There is a parameter (however you spell it) to make it be 50 px, as opposed to how big it normally is. - Master of Hedgehogs (converse) (hate that hedgehog!) 12:17, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * There is a parameter (however you spell it) to make it be 50 px, as opposed to how big it normally is. - Master of Hedgehogs (converse) (hate that hedgehog!) 12:17, 21 March 2024 (UTC)


 * @Master of Hedgehogs - Here is a more direct option for anyone to click on & find a random orphan article. I tested (without saving) and it works okay.
 * Cheers! JoeNMLC (talk) 16:30, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * So, like this? - Master of Hedgehogs (converse) (hate that hedgehog!) 16:32, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * So, like this? - Master of Hedgehogs (converse) (hate that hedgehog!) 16:32, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

@Master of Hedgehogs - Another option with Wiki-letter-W and progress template on right side.

Also, background changes to white on WP page vs. tan here on talk page; and is stacked above lead sentences. JoeNMLC (talk) 20:46, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I like Master of Hedgehogs' version best I guess. 62,000 articles kind of puts me in the mind "Jeez, this is a Augean Stables level problem, I'll never be able to make a dent in it, I'm going to do something else where I can make more of a difference". Maybe that's just me tho. They are both good. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Herostratus (talk • contribs) 17:20, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

@Herostratus and @Master of Hedgehogs - above without backlog template.

This example is more direct; on the project page, background is white instead of the tan shown here. Regards, JoeNMLC (talk) 14:27, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi, like above, but with "computer searching" for first image. Found searching image at commons, so should be okay to use.

Further discussion is helpful. Cheers! JoeNMLC (talk) 14:53, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Orphaned groups?
Hi everyone. @CapnZapp recently shared a video that graphed connections between articles on Wikipedia, which I thought might be of interest to this project (I Made a Graph of Wikipedia... This Is What I Found by adumb). It goes into how roughly 8% of articles don't have links from the wider encyclopedia. But of these 8%, orphaned articles only make up a fraction, while the majority consist of what the creator called "orphaned groups", which are groups of articles that link to each other, but aren't linked to from the wider encyclopedia. The video points out cases such as Iranian villages, which all link to the article on Iran and to each other, but which aren't linked on any other Wikipedia articles. Are orphaned groups something that this Project has looked at in the past? If not, would it be something that the Project would consider taking on under its scope of activities? I think this is something that potentially gets missed, as spotting an orphaned article may be easier than spotting groups of articles that only link to each other. --Grnrchst (talk) 11:14, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
 * There’s Walled garden, which isn’t highlighted as part of WikiProject Orphanage but is linked on the main project page. Perfect4th (talk) 12:04, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I know I just recently joined the project, but the thing I took most away from the video (which is what piqued my interest) is that it appears that there are way more orphaned articles on Wikipedia than the orphan tag is letting on. He mentions finding 355,159 orphaned articles, which is much higher than the current count even if some of those have already been taken care of.
 * My point is, he managed to code something that was able to detect orphan articles seemingly with or without the tag. If something similar to that were to be implemented, could that be a solution to finding all orphans and orphaned groups? Highresheadphones (talk) 07:28, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Addendum: After typing this out, I read through the page on AWB and orphans, and I see that this problem is already being tackled. I think the sheer difference in numbers of what he considered to be an orphan page versus what AWB considers an orphan threw me off. Highresheadphones (talk) 23:04, 7 May 2024 (UTC)