UDWiki talk:Administration/Policy Discussion/Special:lonelypages

You would not believe how annoying this gets when monitoring the maintenance pages. Anyways, feel free to argue additions, changes, and/or removals. ~ Red Hawk One ^{Talk | space for lease} 02:01, 18 October 2010 (BST)

Aye, shoot them in the face. Though it'll be sad to see the death of the only 'janitorial' template named after Yon. 02:04, 18 October 2010 (BST)

Agreed, kill them as they are now. That said, I think that orphan notices are fine, so long as they do not include a link to the page, since it's the link that defeats the purpose of Special:Lonelypages, not the notice itself. If folks still want to post notices that have no link, I'm cool with that. —Aichon— 02:39, 18 October 2010 (BST)

How about the current orphan notices? Should we remove them, de-link them, or leave them as is? ~ Red Hawk One ^{Talk | space for lease} 02:48, 18 October 2010 (BST)

Leave the comments, remove the link. I can actually go kill a bunch of links now by removing the brackets in Yorphan. 02:50, 18 October 2010 (BST)

Exactly. Just edit the template to remove the links from it is how I'd do it. —Aichon— 02:52, 18 October 2010 (BST)

Done. It appears to have orphaned just half a dozen pages. 02:53, 18 October 2010 (BST)

I'm looking, and it appears a lot of the section headers are linked too. ~ Red Hawk One ^{Talk | space for lease} 02:57, 18 October 2010 (BST)

If any are mine, you have express permission to remove any and all of them. 02:58, 18 October 2010 (BST)

Sounds good. I've stopped since there's been a complaint, so the only person currently doing it is Dezonus. It may be good to contact him about this.--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 07:33, 18 October 2010 (BST)

The problem about this, as RHO has stated, isn't the fact that the idea of notifying people of their lonelypages, it was because that information was misused rather than being dealt with qualitatively. People would get notices of unlinked pages within like 2 minutes of making them- that isn't how this is supposed to work. If it were just for noobs who are at risk of not being able to find their page again and just making the same page somewhere else, then it would have helped. Coming from a guy who knew the importance of uncategorised pages and images when dealing with new and potentially shitty pages, it's definitely best that lonelypages get dealt with on a case by case basis, depending on their situation. -- LEMON #1 07:51, 18 October 2010 (BST)

What if we just made the templates' links external versus internal? Wouldn't that solve the problem of the orphaned page negation when the template is placed on a page. The template isn't all bad, honestly. I was notified once when a link to a rarely used page was deleted from the CORAM talk page and it prompted me to request deletion. I've also created pages before that I forgot to link anywhere and it was nice to have a reminder. I wish the reminder wouldn't be so soon after creating a page but I believe that's already been addressed. --~ 20:45, 18 October 2010 (BST)

It's been addressed by the fact that I'm no longer doing Orphaned pages, and I was the one doing the irritatingly fast ones. :P External links (other than being ugly UUUUUUUGLY) are an interesting idea for this.--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 20:52, 18 October 2010 (BST)

<span class="Stealthexternallink"></span> solves that particular issue. 21:01, 18 October 2010 (BST)

Either include the section heading in the template with <span class="Stealthexternallink"></span> or create a policy about linking in the section heading and I thinkyou've got a winner. --~ 21:34, 18 October 2010 (BST)

I love the idea of using stealthexternal link to notify people who we have reason to believe have forgotten to link their pages. It still lets you notify them, while preserving Lonelypages' usefulness. The question then, is whether or not we need to kill the orphan templates at all, since this sounds like a good compromise. Changing the templates so that they no longer help to clear Lonelypages should hopefully get rid of the nuisance factor since no one will have a motivation for spamming them everywhere (and if they do, we can probably just handle it under the spam precedent, honestly). Instead, we'll hopefully see them being used selectively and with people that will likely benefit from the information. So, perhaps killing them outright is an overreaction, and simply requiring (or even just asking?) that they not include internal links is enough. —Aichon— 23:09, 18 October 2010 (BST)

Super victory with stealexternallink! -- LEMON #1 00:07, 19 October 2010 (BST)

Dezonus' View, the only guy currently using it

Orphaned pages are something that we deal with. The principle is that every page should be linked to from somewhere. But just because a page is linked to from a talk page Doesn't mean that should stop it from being deleted.

I think stopping the Orphan Template is foolish, because not everybody links all their pages. I've seen that even certain Sysops don't. We will have a giant list of pages that aren't linked to on that list pretty fast, and then it will become useless. Already there are 14 pages sitting there in the orphanage...I'd really like to deal with them but I will hold off at least until we come to a resolution. -Dezonus- ^(talk) 08:33, 18 October 2010 (BST)

In the newest versions of Mediawiki, these are categorised in Specialpages under "Maintenance reports". That's because they are created for the purpose of maintaining the wiki. Doing what you condone isn't maintaining, it's just dealing with "keep the list empty for its own sake". Dealing with each link individually is the way this should be dealt with, some can be mentioned on the users page if you think it's something they're likely to come back to and need to find, otherwise, some should stay there as indicators that they may one day be deleted if left a long time. Orphaning in the state you, Yon and Mis do doesn't actually solve anything in the interest of the public in most cases, it just hides the pages otherwise unfindeable to those who don't maintain Special:Uncategorizedimages, Special:Uncategorizedpages and other harder to filter pages like Special:Shortpages, and the percentage of users who don't check that is in the >99.5%. -- LEMON #1 09:13, 18 October 2010 (BST)

I pretty much disagree with all of that, but let me highlight this quote: The principle is that every page should be linked to from somewhere. No. The correct principle is that every page should be linked to from places that make sense. The correct way to maintain Special:Lonelypages is not by spamming links on talk pages, but rather by creating quality links in relevant articles. If a page doesn't have a place that it can be linked from that makes sense, then there's a good chance that the page probably shouldn't be on the wiki in the first place (i.e. put it up for deletions if it deserves it). And if it does have a place where a link to it would make sense, the link should go there, not on a talk page. This is common sense.

You seem to have it backwards, and this fascination with trying to empty Special:Lonelypages is unhealthy for the wiki, since it renders it useless for its intended purpose: finding pages that are not meaningfully linked. I'd rather have 500 entries in Special:Lonelypages than 0, since we could actually use it then to find valuable pages that need real links from actual pages or else dig up crap articles that are months old and haven't received any real links yet.

And so what if people don't always link their pages? Sometimes there's a good reason they chose not to link them. I can think of an example earlier this year where I had a good reason and got hit with a series of orphan templates for a project I was working on. To say the least, those links helped me in no way whatsoever (and actually harmed the project, since we were trying to keep it under wraps at the time), and the pages were linked meaningfully at the proper time anyway, no thanks to the orphan messages. —Aichon— 10:44, 18 October 2010 (BST)

I will support any vote which gets rid of the orphan and yorphan templates. I agree with the arguments made here by Aichon and DDR. Furthermore, if Special:Lonelypages becomes a useful tool once more, and if it is filled up with lots of entries that need to be resolved, as a hardcore unmerger I'd be happy to help out with this.--_GANG Giles Sednik _CAPD 12:52, 18 October 2010 (BST)

clause?

I would like to think that telling people about orphaned pages isn't that bad if used correctly. For example, today I moved a page that had one sentence and one edit into the correct namespace and notified the user at User_talk:Radio. The page was initially orphaned, and for all intents and purposes I was doing the exact same thing as what this policy intends to outlaw, but I consider it a necessary part of telling the user where their new page is located, else they may have even more trouble finding it.

Is this just as bad as what we're talking about (not rhetorical)? Should this be outlawed too because it has the same problems? Personally, I'd like to think not, as it may be a crucial part of the user finding the page again to re-edit it (especially if it's a gradual thing like something in the journal namespace like this was). Since this is a niche problem, perhaps make an exception to the rule for page move notifications, or other such concepts as that. -- LEMON #1 09:24, 18 October 2010 (BST)

I don't think it's necessary to add a clause, since the intent is quite clearly different. While both may contain a link to an otherwise unlinked page, in the case of an orphan template, simply posting the link and informing the user of the link (which they ideally and typically would already be aware of) is the point. In the case of a sysop notification, the purpose is to inform the user of a sysop-level action having taken place that they would otherwise not be expecting or aware of. Perhaps more importantly however, that a sysop notification contains a link is incidental and purely for the user's information. That an orphan template contains a link is the whole point of the template. —Aichon— 09:58, 18 October 2010 (BST)

Orphaned Group Pages.

So. We remove the orphaned link on these. Then what? just Leave them as Unlinked? --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 14:52, 18 October 2010 (BST)

We could just link them from the suburb group listing for the relevant suburb. And if there isn't a suburb that makes sense, then I'd suggest just telling them the issue on their talk page, without linking it. Let them handle it from there. —Aichon— 15:43, 18 October 2010 (BST)

But what about all the ones abandoned for years? I personally linked over 100 to their owners pages. They all have content, (otherwise they were sumbitted to deletions) Nowadays its not really an issue, as we specify on suburb pages as part of massacres, but the 2005-2007 groups are an issue. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 15:46, 18 October 2010 (BST)

Honestly, for those pages that deserve to be on the wiki but don't have a sensible place to link them, I'm okay with them being linked from their talk page. In that case, having them in Lonelypages serves no purpose, so an orphan template actually does make sense in this one, very narrow, instance (and that's what the orphan templates used to be used for, I believe, back before it became common practice to post on user pages), since it does help declutter Lonelypages of a page that we otherwise can't do anything with. —Aichon— 18:57, 18 October 2010 (BST)

Then I'm entirely in support of this proposal. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 20:31, 18 October 2010 (BST)

Well, to be fair, that's just what I think. This draft policy currently kills all orphan templates, which is something that may not be desirable after all, as per this line of discussion. See my other comment in response to Vapor above. —Aichon— 23:09, 18 October 2010 (BST)

Hold on a sec. You've be linking orphaned group pages to their own talk pages, and not their creators talk pages? Thats weird. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 15:35, 18 October 2010 (BST)

Mis was doing that back in his +1 phase, and I did it maybe once when the user couldn't be found, or somesuch scenario.--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 15:53, 18 October 2010 (BST)

Its normally easiest to find who uplaoded the group image if its pre purge. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 15:55, 18 October 2010 (BST)

The case I'm thinking of didn't have one, iirc.--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 15:58, 18 October 2010 (BST)

In my defense, it saves on red links when shitty pages get deleted. 16:16, 18 October 2010 (BST)

Orphaned recruit ads

Is there already a method for dealing with recruit ads that are no longer linked due to being removed from Category:Recruiment? If not, how will those be dealt with? The same as described above with Group Pages? --~ 00:36, 19 October 2010 (BST)

Revision One

Based on the input, I'm considering the following revisions:

1. Orphan notices are now officially discouraging (as opposed to banned). Users who repeatedly post such notices without clear justification may be reported to A/VB.

   Justification would be defined as orphan-noticing a page that is otherwise difficult to link, but does not meet the criteria for deletion.

2. Any usage of an orphan notice must be done with external links, such as by <span class="Stealthexternallink"></span>. If we can get a few volunteers to help clean things up, then this will also apply to the current uses of the template.

I believe this should clear up the concern over the occasional valid use of orphan templates. Thoughts? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Red Hawk One (talk • contribs) at an unknown time.

I like it. Relatively simple, deals with the actual problem without overreacting (as it seems we initially did), and workable in the long-term. Sounds good. —Aichon— 04:18, 19 October 2010 (BST)

I can help clean up. What's the best way to identify pages where it has been used? Also, I made a shorthand template, {{Sel}}, that we can use to kill/convert the links. --~ 06:35, 19 October 2010 (BST)

I'd reckon you could just scan the special:whatlinkshere pages for the two orphan templates. 'Course, there's some overlap on them, so it could be a bit messy. ~ Red Hawk One ^{Talk | space for lease} 07:06, 19 October 2010 (BST)