Template talk:Linkless

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I like this template, but I think it would be more useful if it had text to the effect of "Please remove this template after there are a few links created to this article". New users are the most likely to create orphan articles, and they're also less likely to know it's okay to take off a template, unless we tell them that it is. --W.marsh 14:42, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Thanks for adding it.-- The ikiroid  17:53, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category

Category:Pages that do not link to anything was in there - this tamplate seems to be the opposite. Rich Farmbrough 23:00 11 June 2006 (GMT).

Why not just rename it "Identified Orphaned Pages"?-- The ikiroid  23:10, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Relation to Special:Lonelypages?

I'm not sure of the purpose of this tag, given that Special:Lonelypages exists. Is it just to have something to do when you find an orphan article and can't find a reasonable way to link it - or where the incoming links are of "low quality" such as Wikipedia:Orphaned Articles?

Does someone have cleanup here as his "hobby project"? --Alvestrand 06:40, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

People who create orphan articles generally don't realize they're doing it. If this template appears, suddenly it's clear that inbound links need to be created. If the creator ever sees it, usually they're actually the best suited to create those links. The volunteer system has shown it can't handle huge maintenence jobs like the tens of thousand of orphan articles... so I figure adding this template distributes it out considerably to the community, rather than the handful of people actually doing maintenence.

Eventually it should also let us create much better lists of orphan articles, too (though once linked they technically won't be orphans, but they'll still need meaningful inbound links). The best system would be to have the software warn or even prevent people if they try to create orphan articles, but there's considerable resistance to anything like that. --W.marsh 04:47, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

That certainly makes sense. And it allows judgment - I had one marker taken off by someone with the comment "there won't be much incoming links for a thing like this" - it was a short film, possibly worth noting in the director's bio - but he didn't have an article.... not sure why the film was notable, though.... --Alvestrand 07:11, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Most anonymous editors and exopedians are probably not aware of pages like Special:Lonelypages, so this helps alert them. These people may know a lot about the subject matter, yet they aren't very savvy with how articles get linked and categorized.--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 18:53, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Linkless by date

Since (thanks to my bot partially) the category is getting quite backlogged, I was thinking we should split this up by date, similar to the Wikify and Cleanup categories. That will let us address the oldest items with priority, and make it more clear how long an item has been listed here. If there are no objections I'll do it before the end of the month. Thanks. --W.marsh 13:23, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Do you want to create seperate categories for each month, like the cleanup tag?--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 14:06, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I'll mention this on the category's talk page too. --W.marsh 14:46, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I'll create a "date" version of this template at Template:Linkless-date.--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 14:48, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I'll use my bot to convert the existing templates over to the June category once the template exists (actually probably later today or tomorrow, since I'm getting a lot of page load errors right now). For the long-term task of converting template:linkless to linkless-date, I will do it as well, unless the operator of Pearle or some other automatically scheduled bot wants to add the work to their bot. --W.marsh 14:55, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Talk page template

This template should really go on article talk pages. The fact that an article has no links does not really affect readers, it is largely a matter for editors. - SimonP 15:25, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Putting it on the article page has already shown good results... a good number of the pages get de-orphaned specifically because of the tag being there, and that's just within 3-4 days. I'm not sure if it would be as effective on the talk page. Also, these pages really don't have a lot of readers in the first place other than maintenence patrollers and the people who created the page, that's the whole problem.

Furthermore, I am currently adding this template with a bot and it's not possible to add it to talk pages while ignoring certain orphan articles, as far as I can tell, given the limitations of AWB. If there's a consensus to make the change, I will stop the bot... but I'd like to continue.

I realize it's technically more correct to put it on the talk pages... but that seems like a small thing ultimately, and I'm just wondering if doing that is more important than trying a technique that might finally deal with the backlog. --W.marsh 16:31, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I see the reasoning of both options, yet I agree with W.marsh's more. You do bring up a good point Simon, unfortunately, the reason behind this template is that alerts new, inexperienced users about the article's orphan status.--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 16:43, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm putting the bot on hold till we hear back from SimonP or get some other input. --W.marsh 17:24, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

My experience is that some new users aren't able to find the talk page..... putting it on the article is the most certain way to catch their attention. For me, effectiveness trumps principle. But YMMV. --Alvestrand 19:59, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

So I suppose it's safe to start up Marsh's bot again? ;) The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 18:32, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I suppose I will run it tomorrow. It's currently converting over to the linkless-date tags, I will run it periodically so people can continue using the {{linkless}} tag without having to worry about formatting. And the bot will add directly to the monthly subcategories. --W.marsh 18:34, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] depricated

There's no reason to depicrate this really. It can be converted over very easilly by bot, I will do it periodically, and perhaps the operator of Pearle can schedule it automatically as is done for the wikify and cleanup templates. So people can still use this easier template, as far as I'm concerned. --W.marsh 03:43, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

One is enough, it can handle all cases, no parameter (as it was), good parameter (dated cat exists), bad parameter (as it was). Your bot can fix the stuff with bad / no param easily by looking at the (old) undated parent category. -- Omniplex 04:09, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't see the harm in leaving {{linkless}} as is. If it redirects to linkless-date, it will look like an error to people who don't type in the month/year. {{cleanup}} and {{wikify}} don't redirect to the dated forms, I think we should keep it like that with linkless, too. --W.marsh 04:13, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Check it, {{Linkless-date}} without (or a bogus) parameter...

---

{{Linkless-date}}

---

...works as expected. A redirected linkless does exactly the same. Category "deprecated" only saves the effort to put it in the cleanup template list, or to have redundant / confusing entries in the template category. The other *-date probably don't use #ifexist: for the date category yet to handle bad or missing date parameters. -- Omniplex 13:21, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I still think it doesn't really accomplish anything to redirect, it would make running bots harder actually. And the date appearing as {{{1}}} might confuse some people. At any rate, whatevers done here should be done with the other 2 templates as well... so you might raise the issue there and see what consensus is. Thanks. --W.marsh 01:56, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Isn't it possible that some article are validly un-linked?

I created the artitcle Benoit. This is a first (or last) name. To link a name from an article, like Chris Benoit is clearly inappropriate. In fact, linking a part of someone's complete name, whether it's Saint Benoit or Benoit Mandelbrot seems to violate the general policy of not over-wikifying. Isn't there room in wikipedia for some articles that do not have a lot linked to them, isn't it possible that some people may just look this article directly? Themindset 16:19, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, all articles should have incoming links. The closest thing to an exception is disambiguation pages, which may be commonly searched for, but should rarely be linked to by other articles. In this case, it looks like Benoit should be a name disambiguation page, as we do with other surnames (e.g. Johnson, Greenberg, etc etc). Then it can be linked to from Wikipedia:Links to disambiguating pages and not be an orphan. --W.marsh 16:26, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] streamlining

This is, it occurs to me, a rather big template to be adding to so many pages. So how does this look:

Should be 2-3 lines for nearly all screen resolutions, even with the linkless-date version. I'll change it over later today or tomorrow if no one has a good objection. --W.marsh 12:20, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Narrow it down as you like. Originally, it was only the first two sentences. A few got added, and none were removed.--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 13:39, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh, so I'm the cuplrit, hehe. I'm my own worst enemy... streamlining done, please improve if anyone has some ideas. --W.marsh 16:50, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Linkspam concerns

Suppose Wikipedian A creates a vanity page. Wikipedian B comes along, attempts to verify the subject's notability, decides it is notable enough for Wikipedia (though not nearly as notable as the article claims), and, because it's late and he doesn't want to rewrite it, decides to add the linkless template. Wikipedian A then proceeds to add links to related topics where the subject was not previously involved and trying to get it in seems forced, related topics with only a passing connection to the subject, related topics like the subject's hometown or, worse, idol, and even unrelated topics. The article has become linked-to, but at what cost? Is Wikipedian A justified in removing the linkless template when most if not all of the links are going to be removed? Morgan Wick 17:48, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stub articles

My first encounter with this template was in seeing it (actually the 'linkless-date' version) added to a stub article (the specific article instance in question). I question the validity of adding this template to a stub article at all. The fact that an article is labeled a stub implies that it is (putatively) targeted for expansion, one dimension of that expansion being referencing the article from other articles. My thinking is that adding this template to stub articles is unnecessarily redundant. Your thoughts would be appreciated. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:57, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

In my experience it speeds up the transition from stub to full article. Orphan articles, stub or otherwise, hardly ever get editted except by maintenence patrollers and the people who created the page. While some people do go through stub categories to fix up articles, the number of eyes on an article will be much greater if there are meaningful inbound links to the article... since way more people watch an article on physics than say, the physics stub category... like it or not. --W.marsh 00:09, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Stubs should never exist in only the stub category; the stub article that prompted my input here is in three categories in addition to the stub category. Your argument implies that categorization provides linkages that should be counted when considering linkless-ness. However, I don't think that is what you mean, that categorization is sufficient to satisfy the minimum linking status that this template tries to encourage. What other reasoning can you offer other than that based on categorization? User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:40, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Not sure we're on the same page here. Inbound links are needed for any article... even if it just speeds up improvement by 1% over time, that's still a reason to create those links (by links I mean actual wikilinks from other articles). Categories (stub or otherwise) help a lot, but inbound links are as important (if not more, anecdotally I've seen many pages sit in categories for nearly a year as orphan articles and never get an edit). --W.marsh 01:08, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Improvements

I think that the template should have a link to 'what links here' to that article to show new users why it was added (many of them have likely not seen this function before). Also adding a link to WP:BTW would be wortwile, I think, to show them 'why' those links are important.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus  talk}  23:13, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Go ahead and modify it in the way you see fit. Just make sure to do it to {{Linkless-date}} also. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 23:33, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Need a "deserved linkless" template?

After reviewing The Starriders Saga, I wonder if we need a new template called "linkless-and-deserves-it". The list of linkless pages has a number of items that seem to have nowhere to link and no special reason for anyone to link to them either. Having them in Category:Linkless after multiple reviews slows down the review cycle, IMO. Thoughts? --Alvestrand 21:30, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I maintain that anything that's supposed to be an article should have incoming links. Otherwise, few people will ever see that article. Disambiguation pages and pages in a queue to be transwiki'd are not really "articles" per se and shouldn't have incoming links. But the goal with dab pages, for example, is that they are rarely seen anyway. Other pages exist only to be transcluded into other pages, these are not really articles and should technically be moved to the template namespace.

So, just because an article is obscure doesn't mean it shouldn't have incoming links. It should, even if they're hard to create. For example, in the article you cite, an incoming link from the author's article (once created) would be perfectly called for. --W.marsh 05:01, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure anything notable enough to be in this encyclopedia should be able to have at least a couple of incoming links. Martin 08:39, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Linkless vs linkless-date

I see that linkless has grown an optional date parameter.

Does that mean we shouldn't be using linkless-date any more? --Alvestrand 04:20, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

That's my understanding. But I think we should wait for Martin to field this one for a more definitive answer. --W.marsh 04:58, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi, using the linkless-date will still work as normal, in fact the linkless-date template could potentially just be redirected to the main linkless template and still work normally (though this would needlessy create a lot of template redirects if it was done now). Martin 08:39, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How many links are required?

I'm curious, what is the recommended/suggested minimum number of incoming links to an article before this template should be removed? ThreeBlindMice 02:05, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

My rule-of-thumb is that "it varies". Links from acronym-disambiguation pages or lists of dead pages don't count at all, of course - for book entries, if it is linked from the author, that is often good enough; for offbeat topics like a character in a Playstation game, I think one link is enough (or more than enough); for generic topics, I'd like to see 2 or 3 links from relevant topics. Five relevant links should IMHO always be enough. But that's my guideline - YMMV. --Alvestrand 07:43, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback. My question was prompted by the template applied to Gory, Gory but somebody else took care of it in the meantime. ThreeBlindMice 22:36, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Name of master template

Just a thought, I prefer "orphan" because it implies what it means. Linkless seems to say that it has no links in it. Comments? Rich Farmbrough, 23:05 29 November 2006 (GMT).

Indeed, I think that "orphan" is less confusing than "linkless". IronChris | (talk) 00:36, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

A lot of people get very confused by the template and think exactly that. I probably get one person a week on my talk page confused about it. I dunno, would changing the name really help? I think some people just see the words "no links" and jump to a conclusion. --W.marsh 01:22, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think it would. To me "orphan" is obvious. Clearly the wording of the templte is important too. Rich Farmbrough, 19:56 9 December 2006 (GMT).

What is more, the category is "Orphaned articles". Unless anyone thinks it's a major problem, I will start to encourage use of "orphan", and plan to make that the key template in a few months. Not a big deal I think. Rich Farmbrough, 19:56 9 December 2006 (GMT).

No problem with me. Linkless does seem a bit ambiguous. Note: Pages with no links in them are listed on Wikipedia:Dead-end pages, so I guess they are called "dead ends" - which does make the right picture in people's minds. --Alvestrand 21:14, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Someone has made it redirect now, which is great. Rich Farmbrough, 23:53 30 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] talk page

The only thing I find more annoying than this template is finding it on the article page isntead of the talk page. Could we get a consensus that it belongs on talk? It is of no use to readers, only to editors; I believe such information is usually restricted to the talk page. RJFJR 22:24, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

This template doesn't belong in talk; it's not the talk page that needs to be linked, the article page is. Also, why shouldn't readers be told that there's some work to be done? The whole point of Wikipedia is that anyone can fix things like this, and if people become active editors because they see templates like this, then that's a good thing. --Derlay 00:07, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

It's not really that hard to de-orphan articles, if the template annoys you that much. Orphaned articles rarely have many or any readers anyway, by virtue of being orphan articles. --W.marsh 00:32, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, it belongs on the article page, along with other "health warning" templates. It's obvious from many edits that the editors don't ever look at talk pages. --Alvestrand 08:26, 28 December 2006 (UTC)