Wikipedia:WikiProject Red Link Recovery/General

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Should we be striking through the ones that are done, or removing them? I went ahead and struck out the ones I did (since that's the way I've seen it done before), but I also noticed that the list started with 10-15, rather than 1-5/9, so obviously those section(s) have been removed. There should also probably be a note about marking out/removing the ones you've done, so people are running around trying to fix stuff that's already been fixed. Lachatdelarue (talk) 15:18, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Okay, here's how I see it. Let's say the list indicates "Wiliam Morris" and suggests "William Morris". You check it out, and indeed, it's supposed to be a reference to William Morris, so you fix it, and then remove it from the list, because it's done. On the other hand, let's say the list indicates "Alan Machreus" and asks if you meant "Allan Machreus". You check it out, and see that "Alan" was a 1960s cinematographer and "Allan" was an 1890s sculptor and poet. In this case, you strike it through. DS 13:58, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
I've moved the block of text giving instructions on how to handle lists into a template (Template:WikiProject Red Link Recovery/List handling instructions) and added a few words about removing or striking out entries that have been handled. I'm sure it could be worded better, please feel free to have a go! - TB 15:20, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Introducing Keywords

Keywords is a new Wikipedia:WikiProject on Wikipedia that deals specifically with the Hyperlink.

The concept of href paired with an aname is an easy concept to grasp. see Hypertext

Also of key importance to understanding namespaces.

Click the discussion button at the top of this page to learn more.

[edit] Ideas for link suggestions

I'm currently planned lists of suggested fixes (see link matching script) based on:

  • Common spelling errors (from the typo team's list)
  • Common letter transpositions (their/thier)
  • Titles in names (dr/dr./doc/doctor)
  • Middle names (Fred Bloggs/Fred William Bloggs)
  • Symbolic abbreviations (and/&)
  • Numbers (1/one)
  • Abbreviations in general (ltd/ltd./limited)
  • Vowel confusions (ea/ae/ee)
  • UK/US spelling differences (armor/armour)
  • Non-english words (French/Francais)
  • Phonetic equivalence (trough/troff)
  • Regexp distance (matchses by removing, adding or changing only one character)
  • Typing distance (hitting a key near the one you meant to)

I'd welcome any more suggestions, or comments on the above ideas. Also, applying the same techniques to make similar red links point to the same thing, giving a better indication of demand for new articles.

-- TB 16:18, 2005 Jun 26 (UTC)

  • Singular/plural form (error/errors) - (subset of regexp distance)

- Mike Rosoft 28 June 2005 17:15 (UTC)

Good one. I tried singulars and plurals about a year ago and had generally positive results. From memory it produced about 10000 suggestions with about 80% accuracy. Will try to rustle this one up in the near future. - TB June 28, 2005 21:36 (UTC)
  • Remove common disambiguation name

Ex: (film), (book), (band) etc. I am trying something similar on the fr: version, looks promising. DiamondDave July 9, 2005 15:55 (UTC)

[edit] Jr/Sr

For names, e.g.: Jr/Jr./, Jr/, Jr./Junior/ (junior)/, junior/ the younger/, younger

Ideally the titles would use ", Jr.". I added redirects from ", Jr." and " Jr" to most of them.

The same goes for senior. Some of them are probably already in some of the other reports. -- User:Docu

Hi Docu. I tried matching on combinations of "junior", "Junior", "jr.", "Jr.", "Jr" and "jr" but (suprisingly) got no results. Same for combinations of senior, doctor, professor, mister, reverend, saint, governor and the military titles captain, commander, colonel, lieutenant, corporal and sergeant. Either someone's been and done these recently, or I've made a mistake. - TB July 1, 2005 09:08 (UTC)
Hi, here is one listed twice in your reports: Special:Whatlinkshere/Robert_Walker,_Jr.
When uploading the redirects, there were about 90 (of the 86000 articles with Birth by year/Death by year categories, but with a title ending in one of the above) where no version with ", Jr." or ", Sr." was available (not necessarily broken links though). I suppose most would show up on one of your punctuation reports.
There are about 250 where no redirect from " Jr." (no comma) is available. Probably, I should upload these as well. -- User:Docu

[edit] Exceptions

I've just rounded up the exceptions from all of the lists of suggestions created so far. There are almost 5000 (this represents a 20% false positive rate over all lists). Looking at the exceptions, I can't help but feel it should be possible to generalise some of them. For example, if it's not right to change a particular red link in article x, is it also not right to change it in article y? All suggestions ('scuse the pun!) welcome. - TB 23:06, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ultimate solution

For those truly offended by “red links”: Add

a.new { color: green; }

to your [[User:username/monobook.css]].

My secret agenda: so-called “red links” are not inherently bad, and it bothers me when people edit articles solely to de-linkify links to non-existent articles. Such edits diminish the effectiveness of Special:Wantedpages, which (it seems to me) is an objective measure of the notability of something. At the very least, red links can serve to establish a canonical title for yet-non-existent articles. In other words, better to think of wikilinks as URIs than URLs. My 2¢. —Fleminra 18:42, 9 May 2006 (UTC)


True true; red links are not necessarily "bad". They do however indicate a link to something that does not exist in wikipedia. This can be for one of several reasons, perhaps best listed in the logic tree below:
  • A red link exists; should what it points to exist?
    • Yes: Does it exist under another name?
      • Yes: Create a redirect page or alter the link
      • No: Create the missing article
    • No: Should it point to something else?
      • Yes: Alter the link
      • No: Delink.
This project is intended to encompass all of these circumstances. Of course turning all red links blue is impossible (and indeed undesirable; wikepedia without red links would be "finished" and we'd all have find a new hobby!). The best we can do is try and fix the more obvious members of each group above ;) - TB 22:48, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

To make this concrete, 13 articles presently link to Intersputnik. Intelsat made 14 until User:71.193.96.169 unlinked it yesterday. I personally think Intersputnik is notable, and I would predict that it will eventually get its own article, but I'm stubbornly lazy and I don't feel like writing it right now. Am I to stand by while 71.193.96.169 de-links the remaining 13? Should I go to some out-of-public-sight List of requested articles to plead Intersputnik's notability case (keep in mind that I'm lazy)?

I would just like to point out that "red links" to not elicit HTTP 404 errors. They are not like broken links on the web-at-large, or broken foreign keys in a relational database with relational integrity gone awry. "Red links" yield HTTP 200 — success — a web page with an invitation to write the target article. It seem to me that this makes them part of the system, and not a blemish. —Fleminra 08:25, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question

Could someone associated with this WikiProject please comment on this template? In its present form it's a call for action to remove red links altogether, without making any effort to review and fix them. I raised a few questions on the template's talk page, and was considering to eventually list it on TfD, but then stumbled upon this projects. It looks like you folks are a lot more qualified to deal with this (rogue?) template than I am. Any comments are welcome.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) • (yo?); 17:24, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

By my reading, the template asks that links to things which would not make suitable wikipedia articles be delinked. I can see a use for it, but only a limited one. - TB 22:51, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
That's not how I read it, and that's definitely not what kind of action it attracted (and that's not the only time I saw this kind of actions in response to this template). If nothing else, it should be re-worded to make its meaning more clear.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) • (yo?); 00:02, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
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