Wikipedia talk:Special:BrokenRedirects

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This is the talk page for the special page at Special:BrokenRedirects.
For general information on this and other special pages, see Help:Special page.
For recent talk about special pages, see Recentchangeslinked/Specialpages discussion

Are these just links that need to be linked somewhere? Or just links without somewhere to go? Cheers -- Reedy Boy 07:58, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Surely they are links whoich don't go anywhere. The fix will depend upon what they are. Some will need the redirect changing to something that does exist. Otehrs will need the destination article writing. Yet others should be listed on WP:RfD. -- SGBailey 12:06, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Having fixed one link, I see it listed (upon refresh) struck-thru. So this means the list has some element of "live"ness about it. Yet another link has already been fixed and works (I tried it) yet is still listed with the wrong destination page and not struck-thru. What's up? -- SGBailey 12:06, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

I realised that if there is actual content under the redirect link and there is a red link in that content, it will show up in [Special:BrokenRedirects] even if the redirect is not broken.(example - [1]) --Dodo bird 16:43, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Seems a bit confusing... What is needed is brief instructions and a key on the project page, but I don't know it! Leevanjackson 12:49, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I check the deletion log of the target page. If it exists, then I add a speedy delete tag {{db|this page is a redirect to a deleted page}} to it. If it does not, I look at the edit history of the redirect page to try to figure out the cause. Sometimes the target page gets moved to a new page and the redirect breaks(find the correct page and fix the redirect). Sometimes the redirect is added by mistake or by a vandal(revert the edit) . If there is no edit history and target page/history is empty, I add {{db|this page is a redirect to an empty page}}, but if it seems like a possible article may exist and the broken link is a result of spelling/lettercase error, then try searching for the correct term and redirect it there.--Dodo bird 16:43, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] List needs updating

Looks like these are all completed, aside from a few personal talk pages. We need a new list !! ColtsScore 01:19, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

It gets updated every few days. --Rory096 23:58, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bug in the list

For some reason, when the bad links are deleted, they are no longer crossed out. The bad link is replaced with Category:User Cello. I have no idea what this is about, but I feel tat this needs to be fixed. It worked fine a few days ago. --Willy No1lakersfan (Talk - Contribs) 15:13, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I have the same problem. Links to deleted pages are still blue, and it appears to redirect to Abderrahim Goumri. --BANG! 02:46, 10 November 2006

[edit] Another - or same? - bug in the list

Now the fixed links are showing up as Category:User Piano. This appears to have been changed after the update at 01:01, 8 November 2006 SkierRMH 09:35, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

It's still at update 1:01 8 November 2006, but the links are going to Abderrahim Goumri instead. --BANG! 02:49, 10 November 2006
I wish someone that has access to the internal workings of these special pages would go in and fix this problem. I have left three messages at the Village pump but have not received a satisfactory response as of yet. I even tried writing to Jimbo but was rediected to the Village Pump.--Willy No1lakersfan (Talk - Contribs) 21:12, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

See bugzilla:7890. --Rory096 08:02, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quick way to remove double brackets from text

We need a quick way to remove brackets and double brackets from text. Often pages have numerous dead (or broken) links, which appear as red text. This is because careless editors mindlessly create links without checking to see if they go anywhere. We need a edit button that can convert all the dead links on a page into plain text, or we need a software protocol that warns the user if dead links exist and gives the user a choice of fixing the links or allowing them to be reverted to plain text.Anthony717 06:15, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Redlinks are good; we don't remove them just because they're redlinks. They encourage creation of new articles on information that isn't yet covered by Wikipedia. See WP:RED. When there are entire articles (that include redlinks) below redirects, however, it's sometimes better to remove that text completely, as it's not showing up and isn't doing any good, and the redirect should be removed to reveal the content. It depends on the circumstances, so look into the situation. --Rory096 08:06, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Broken Link...

On the Great Day in Harlem page, the link, in the list of artists in the photo, that is associated with Max Kaminsky is linked to a different person with the same name. I hope this message is within context of this group. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.222.178.249 (talk • contribs) 09:22, November 25, 2006

Fixed. Max Kaminsky the hockey player is not Max Kaminsky (musician).
 Schweiwikist   (talk)  16:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bad link [actually a Category]

On the Potassium Dichromate page a bad link is shown to "photaphic chemicals". It should go to "photographic chemicals." I hope this message is within context of this group.--132.198.153.183 00:59, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Fixed "link" was a category! -- RCEberwein | Talk 12:17, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Broken redirects to Charlse S. Wright

There were a whole load of redirects that were deleted as pointing to non-existant page. It looks as if they should have pointed to Charles S. Wright - which does exist either. But looking at that list on the broken redirects - how could they all have pointed to the same place - they seem a very wind range of topics. Did the deleter check to make sure there weren't genuine page histories behind the redirects ? -- Beardo 07:33, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

There is a recurring error that happens every now and then that causes links that need to be crossed out to instead be broken redirects to another page that never existed. It eventually corrects itself, but it is just an annoyance that we have to deal with.
Another problem that is common among most other special pages is that they have not been updated in almost two weeks. I have no idea why that has not happened, but I hope they get that fixed soon. They are normally updated twice each week: on Wednesday and Saturday. --Willy No1lakersfan (Talk - Contribs) 17:28, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
The Charlse S. Wright bug seems to have propagated from the current abundance of Wikipedia:Community Portal/Opentask transclusions onto user talk pages (hundreds of them! (update: close to 4400 transclusions!)). I resolved the lack of a "Charlse" article by co-redirecting it to a list article with the name Charles S. Wright (no separate article on this person either, so I made a redirect to list entry). The special page then changed the "bogus" targets to Harrod-neutral, which also appears as part of the Opentask page under "requests". My perception is that somehow there's a "leak" onto Broken Redirects whenever there are a large number (who knows how high) of identical redlinks in the database, or too many redlinks in a specific article (again, who knows how many is too many). This looks like a "degrees of separation" issue, in that every entry appearing on "Broken Redirects" that can be "chained" to the Opentask page (with "Harrod-neutral") with sequential links, has that (empty) target, rather than just its immediate (coded) redirect target (if any).  Schweiwikist • (t)  19:00, 18 December 2006 (UTC) (updated)

[edit] what does this syntax mean?

I'm new for this page, please kindly help on this:

"(Edit) → /1"

1) What do these two links mean? (given that the page in question is usually deleted)
2) How do people "fix" redirects here? what will they see on the list other than the above?

Thanks,Godric 19:46, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

This page has a few odd bugs, but it's still mostly usable. Every report has some random deleted page as the page it displays, this time it's "/1". I have no idea why this happens, but they are usually longer articles names, like "The war of 1812", it can be anything, but it's always deleted. bug If the list item is showing that it's redirecting to this magical page, what it means is the redirect has been deleted, so it's done. One that is not done will look like this,
  1. Northen Suburbs Rugby Club (Edit) → Northern Suburbs Rugby Club
It's saying the first link is redirecting to the second, which is non-existent. So, just go to the first one and delete it. I guess someone thought it would be useful to include an edit button here although I don't know why, it works, but I don't see why you would want to edit the redirect. A delete link would be far more useful. In fact... new bug. Also, you may not have noticed, but the list is truncated at 1000 entries, this is a problem with all of these type reports, and is bug 3149. Other than deleting the broken redirect though nothing needs to be done. - cohesion 20:37, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your explanation! Godric/Talk 09:00, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] About users redirecting to their contributions page

These don't work and are basically useless, so...is there any procedure for getting them off this list? I was blanking a few, then suddenly had the thought that maybe I should ask about it I before diving head-long in. Opinions? --Closedmouth 13:20, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

You could replace them with a "soft redirect" – a simple link to the target page accompanied by some kind of explanation if necessary. There is a template, {{softredirect}}, which will do this, although it's probably unnecessary on a user page. Alternatively, redirecting to the user's talk page (which does work) might be better instead. Bear in mind, though, that there's no rule against having a redirect that doesn't work on a userpage, and these things should be resolved through discussion with the user in question – Gurch 19:51, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I don't really care about their mere existence, I was really just thinking of getting them out of this list, because they take up such a large amount of it. I guess dealing with the users individually through their talk pages is something to add to my todo list. That is, if I had one. --Closedmouth 07:44, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Version of this page on the toolserver

For those who want to bypass the cached version of this page, I have just created a "live" (update every 15 minutes) version on the toolserver at http://tools.wikimedia.de/~schutz/output/brokenredirects.html. It executes the exact same SQL request that Special:Brokenredirects uses, but depends on the toolserver being fully replicated. If anyone has any idea of further processing that could be applied to the page before display (e.g. information about edit history of each page), I'd love to hear about them. In any case, if anyone uses it, please leave me a note on my talk page so that I know there is some interest around. Cheers, Schutz 20:01, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I forgot to mention that currently, only redirect from/to the main namespace are displayed; this is easy to fix if anyone needs it. Schutz 20:04, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Nice job! There's a small bug, though, with pages with quotation marks in the title, i.e., with "Cesar_Bernhardt" → Cesar_Bernhardt the first link just points to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Hopefully that makes sense seeing as it'll be gone from the page soon --Closedmouth 04:40, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I see exactly what the problem is. I have corrected it for the shortpages parser, just have to add the fix to this script as well. Thanks for noticing it ! Schutz 10:51, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
This seems to be still happening. Also, if you're reading this soon after I've written it, you can see there's a problem with Unicode characters, resulting in some...very odd links :-/ --Closedmouth 08:32, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New bot

RedirectCleanupBot will be going through this list periodically, but it will only delete pages with one entry in their history, which means people still need to go through the list and clean it up manually. --Closedmouth 10:14, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Still, the bot will make things a lot easier for the rest of us (less links to fix or delete). - Mtmelendez (Talk) 11:10, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Of course --Closedmouth 11:11, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Requestion about the removal of Redirects

Hi,

When a redirect is fixed, it is simply has a line put through it. Is there a way to delete it off the list, or for a bot to be created to delete it off the list, after it has confirmed the list works, otherwise could it be archived in any way?

The Helpful One (Talk) (Contributions) 18:04, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Update

How often is it updated? Almost all broken redirects have been fixed, and it has been two days since it was updated. Maximillion Pegasus (talk) 01:34, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Once the toolserver has caught up with the main database again, this list is more accurate and is updated more often. These days this special page is mostly just used by RedirectCleanupBot. --Closedmouth (talk) 06:40, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] More up to date list

I've put together a more up-to-date list, at User:SQL/BRedir, it's based on the same SQL Query that Special:Brokenredirects uses, run daily (or, more frequently, by request) on the toolserver. SQLQuery me! 03:40, 14 March 2008 (UTC)