Wikipedia:WikiProject Red Link Recovery/Strategy
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[edit] Strategies for reducing the number of red links in wikipedia
With over 2 million red links in the 15th May 2005 database dump, red links are not a soluble problem, nor should they be - it's perfectly reasonable to link to something that needs an article but doesn't have one yet. That said, there are quite a few red links that aren't necessary. As an initial stab at the problem, I see three ways in which unecessary red links can be dealt with.
[edit] Unlinking text
I believe that if only one red link exists for a topic then there's a chance that the topic in question isn't one an article should exist for. I have in the past produced a list of such things (User:Topbanana/Reports/This article contains the only link to a missing article) - this didn't prove a popular report.
We need to find better heuristics for identifying text that could usefully be unlinked.
[edit] Changing what links point to
A very rough and ready analysis has shown that at least 25% of the current crop of red links could usefuly point to articles that already exist. I've started tackling this by producing by automated means lists of suggested fixes for links, concentrating on heuristics that give low numbers of false positives initially. What few false positives are produced will be retained and used to ensure they're not generated again.
[edit] Adding new articles
The "most wanted" list has consistently proved and effective and popular method of getting articles produced that many things link to. Initially I suggest keeping this list as up-to-date as possible, with a medium-term goal of producing specialised most wanted lists for particular fields of interest.
- TB 18:23, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)
[edit] Add redirects
Additional option: add redirects. -- User:Docu
