Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Red Link Recovery/Archive 3

Suggestion
May I suggest that lists of all the red link article are created so that when the link is clicked the users is rediredcted to the page with the list in. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ajuk (talk • contribs) 19:41, 14 January 2007 (UTC).

List of redlinks to categories that do not exist?
Is there a list anywhere of redlinks to categories that do not exist? Thanks! --Ling.Nut 19:45, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Any ideas?
There is a perennial situation where a list becomes a veritable link farm, including links to non-RS and advertising for dubious organizations and groups. This article has been plagued by this problem for some time, and the solution that has been used is to convert them all to red links, resulting in an awful lot of red links for articles unlikely to be created in the near future. Here's the latest attempt. Any suggestions? -- Fyslee/talk 07:14, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Redlink / bluelink report required
I am slowly populating Wikipedia with Royal Navy ships. There are 15000+, so this may take some time! It would be good to be able to generate a list of all current links starting "HMS " with an indication of whether they are red or blue. If possible I'd like to run the report myself from time to time, but I have no access to offline dumps etc. Does this facility exist anywhere? Can anyone help? Thanks, Welsh 20:19, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for verification
Please see: Requests for verification

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

It reads:

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

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

Signed Jeepday (talk) 14:06, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Bot suggests dab
For the bot-generated lists, it says that you should remove the entry if the suggestion was correct (and you fixed it), and if it's incorrect, you should mark it with strike-through and leave a brief comment explaining why it was incorrect. What about the case where the bot suggests a disambiguation page? That's not exactly correct since you don't actually want the link to point there, but it's not exactly incorrect either, since bots can't (generally) disambiguate. So what should I do? I tend to think that I should treat them as correct, but I want to make sure, since I'm not really familiar with the history of this project or how the data will be used. Xtifr tälk 12:00, 3 August 2007 (UTC)


 * You're right there's a hole in the logic there. As this lists are to do with 'red links', the intention is that if the red link is 'fixed' - that is removed or mde blue by any means then the entry should be deleted.   The non-deleted (struck-through) entries are used to filter future lists and ensure they are not erroneously suggested again.  So, to go back to your case if a report suggested that a link to Jonh Smith should in fact be to John Smith (almost certainly a disambig page) I'd suggest deleting the entry one the red link is 'fixed' on the basis that it was useful.  In contrast a suggestion that John G Kennedy be changed to John F Kennedy where the former happens to be a distinct, notable person who doesn't happen to have an article yet should be struck-through, even if it inspires you to write the missing article to 'fix' the red link.  I'll see if I can't clarify the instructions a bit, although you're very welcome to do so yourself - be bold.  TB 08:22, 4 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Cool, thanks. About what I expected, but it never hurts to check. :)  Cheers, Xtifr tälk 00:13, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I participated again last year. I think we have to leave only the cases in which the red link is something that can be covered by the suggestion or/and another solution the user suggests. We need the remaining red links in order to unlink them or create new articles. This project is not a bit test but a way to make Wikipedia better. Btw, I think the special characters were dumbed incorrectly. Moreover, I think they must be regular checks of a bot the delete entries in which the article containing the red links doesn't exist (it's a red link itself). This 'll save us a lot of work. -- Magioladitis 16:29, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Red links created by deletions
Does anybody agree that the deletion process ought to mop up the red links that result? There are many reasons for deletion, and sometimes red links are left.

Maybe some of these could be solved by an automated process. When pages are transwikied to Wiktionary (etc) then PRODded, could a bot trace incoming links and change the internal link into an interwiki link? See e.g. Special:Whatlinkshere/Taffy (ethnic slur).

Transwiki-ing also creates red links in the new wiki, e.g. this one at Wiktionary which used to link to other articles in Wikipedia.

Other cases: (i) Spam articles - often when an author creates a promotional article, they also insert links to it in other articles and lists. These remain as a form of free advertising after the article itself is deleted. (ii) Spoof articles - likewise there will be nonsense links left behind. Generally, these links should be deleted.

There are more reasons for deletion, and sometimes the link should be manually changed to something else rather than deleted.

The Deletion Log lists all deletions. Unfortunately you can't use the Popups tool to scan it quickly for incoming links ("What links here"), as it cannot detect these for deleted pages.

Suggestions? - Fayenatic london (talk) 19:37, 9 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The problem that I see is that of a valid redlink future article where a vandal chooses to create a nonsense entry. When the nonsense article was deleted, we'd lose all of the redlinks which might encourage another editor to write a real article.  ~  Bigr  Tex  19:44, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I suppose we need to distinguish between two types of deletion: "WP should not cover that topic" and "this article answers a valid question badly". Certes (talk) 20:32, 11 April 2009 (UTC)