Help:Ghost Pages

This is a general description of Ghost Pages and Images. For more information, see User:DanceDanceRevolution/sandpit/categorization.

What are Wiki Ghosts?

Wiki Ghosts are when pages are uploaded into UDWiki with special characters (for example, 'é'), on the older software of Mediawiki. On more modern versions of Mediawiki, these special characters are compatible with Mediawiki and kept, or ignored by the software. However, on an old version of Mediawiki, the characters wrongly manipulate the entry for the page's name, and create a doppelganger page, or a ghost image.

What does a Wiki Ghost do?

The characteristics of the Ghosts is that they have a separate location from the original page that is recognised by Mediawiki as an actual article. For example, if you click on a link to [[La R�volution]], it won't actually take you to that page, it will take you to La Révolution, the one that Mediawiki recognises from the filename. Despite this, [[La R�volution]] still exists within the wiki's databases, and can't be accessed, modified, seen or deleted by standard wiki tools.

The same goes for images. For example, [[Image:%E2%80%8EPDA_Badge.jpg]] takes you to Image:PDA Badge.jpg.

The whacky code %E2%80%8E is originally a symbol that forces text to go from left to right, originally a default addition to text entries in countries whos language goes from right-to-left.

What does this mean?

For a wiki, these ghosts mean that unless you FTP delete the files from the wiki's server (doable only by Kevan on UDWiki), the hidden files behind these ghosts cannot be erased.

The wiki method of deletion doesn't work, and all ghost images/pages indefinitely show up on Special:Uncategorizedpages and Special:UncategorizedImages, Special:Orphanedpages, Special:Shortpages and Special:UnusedImages.

For a more extensive documentation on past users' experiences in dealing with ghosts, as well as a list of details about ghosts, see here.

Help: When modifying Ghost Images

Here is a checklist of things that you can or cannot do with the Ghost Images, and similarly a list of deletion methods that have been tried before. Note: You can't make these images categorised, no exception.. So if you solely came here for that, you may turn away and cry silently now.

Note: Until more experiments on pages are made, these are considered generally applicable to Ghost Pages.

You can:

• Upload an image over the ghost image's "filename".
• Use the image that you've just uploaded.

You can't

• Upload an image over the ghost image with a category tag and then have the image dissapear from Special:Uncategorizedimages.

You can:

• Delete the image that you upload in the place of the ghost image.

You can't:

• Expect this to delete the original ghost image. This doesn't work under any of the following circumstance:
  • Orphaning the image (via usage and links)
  • URL hackage of the ghost image's true filename (As tried here).
  • Uploading the original image, either with the same filename (possible) or with the true filename (mentioned above in Book the Second, impossible)

You can:

• View the original files, and their filenames, via Special:Unusedimages.
• Use the following to bring up the image you uploaded over the original: [[Image:%E2%80%8EPDA_Badge.jpg]]

You can't:

• Use the latter method to view the true ghost images. Only the ones you've uploaded in its place.
• Use the image as a redirect to another page.

Current List of Ghost Pages

1. 7th_Fallschirmj�ger_Div
2. Fant�me_Tequila_De_Serpents
3. La_R�volution
4. St_D�s_Bar_&_Grill
5. Category:Suggestion 10 February 2007
6. Category:Suggestion