User:Lackinglatin

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I am more of a reader of Wikipedia than an editor, however I often read an article's "talk" page for more than the length of the article.

For instace, I read the talk pages (and the archived talk pages) to Intelligent Design for hours (it was 4am, and I was bored). It was, in a way, as most people view horror movies- It's awful to see, but you just keep watching.

Or like watching "Meet the Parents". Just thinking to yourself- "GAH! NO! I knew that was going to be bad."

I love wikipedia, but I often find the people behind the scenes are true idiots. The most vain people on the internet come to Wikipedia, and it's pathetic. There are, mind you, several veritable saints- but they find themselves a minority to the quip "Never understimate the power of stupid people in large groups."

Fortunately for us, the powers that be above (read: admin) do have reign. And, thank the admins, there are many wonderful essays on proper writing technique, ediqette, & article topicality (and everything in between!) that can be cited, which (some of the time) is enough to shut others up.

You just want to sing "Why can't we be friends?" at times, you know?

Anyways, to the saints and the admins! For a damn fine project. This is the first place I go online when I'm looking for information on well known topics; be proud, ye wikipedians!

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Once upon a time, I made "another" red link page (there have been many, I now know), only to discover the controversy surrounding it. I spent some time doing this, even overcoming the re-direct, which, (at the time), puzzled me.

here was my bare-bones version/ tribute to the page that won't cease to exist.:

{{db-repost}}

Contents 1 Definition 2 How the red link is created 3 Origin 4 Controversy

[edit] Definition

The term "red link" refers to the scenario occuring on the Wikipedia when an article that does not exist in wikipedia is linked to from a web page within Wikipedia; instead of the link becoming blue (an indication of being 'clickable'), the link shows up as red.

The feature serves two obvious features within Wikipedia:

-To prevent a user from clicking on an article that does not exist
-To imply a desire for the 'red link' article to be created

[edit] How the red link is created

If one refers to an article by using the wikiscript "[[article]]" within an article, the text within the brackets becomes a blue link, if the article being reffered to exists. Because the article "blue link" does exist, the link refering to that article is a blue link"=. If the page "blue link" did not exist, then the blue text above would be red; for instance, because there is no article titled "Asdinefreq", if I type [[asdinefreq]], then the result is a "red link": Asdinefreq.

[edit] Origin

Most likely the creation of the "red link" was to create obvious connotations of being the opposite of a blue link, which is a link to an existing location on the internet; see blue link for further reading.

[edit] Controversy

There have been many user-created "Red Link" pages, which have been deleted repeatedly; the reason behind repeated creation was (quite ironicly) that there was a "red link" to the user created page "red link", which in turn was repeatedly deleted, which in turn made "red link" (the article) a red link when reffered to, which in turn....(and so it goes).

The page's deletion in the is sanctioned by Wikipedia,

The problem was largely stopped when all red links leading to the article "red link" were re-directed to "like this one" by NeonMerlin. More recently, though, the page and its talk page were officialy edited so that one clicking on red link would see a page stating that it is disallowed to be made, so that red link would always be red.

It'd be quite ironic if it were blue, wouldn't it?

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This is, therefore, a tribute to the page that tries and keeps on trying to exist.