Forum:Project - Orphaned pages

Forums: Index > The Wizengamot > Project - Orphaned pages

Recently, we had that issue with that obscure Ministry Regulations page, and it got me thinking, we have a lot of orphaned or "lonely" pages around here. In fact, according to this here, we have over 600. Orphaned pages are bad news - these are pages that are just sort of floating around the wiki without anything that links to them, which means that the only way anyone is going to be finding these pages is if they happen to do a search for them or punch in the address of a page they know of in the address bar. We need to start linking to these pages on the appropriate articles and I intend to start coming through them and doing just that, and I think would benefit the wiki if some others dove into them as well and took care of some of them. ProfessorTofty (talk) 00:05, September 13, 2012 (UTC)

I am rather interested in this cause, but as I must sleep tonight for school tomorrow I cannot yet. If you would save a few for me to do, I assure you I will start tomorrow. Hunnie Bunn (talk)

Save a few? Unless you shoot me full of caffeine and chocolate, hand me a Time Turner, and grant me a pass to the Historia Crux, I don't think I'll be finishing work on anywhere close to 600 pages by tomorrow. ProfessorTofty (talk) 01:08, September 13, 2012 (UTC)

BTW, another way to go about this is if you're already on a page that you suspect might be an orphan to go to the toolbar at the bottom where it says "My tools" and use "What links here." If that page comes up empty, then you've just found an orphan. ProfessorTofty (talk) 01:24, September 13, 2012 (UTC)

I shall see what I can do to. I've just found one a couple of minutes ago... Let me just find it and I'll post it here, I think that it could be linked to something. Rainbow Shifter (talk) 16:08, September 13, 2012 (UTC)

I've just done it. The page was Albus Dumbledore's journal and I linked it to the section of "Possessions" on his page. 1 down, 599 to go! Rainbow Shifter (talk) 16:13, September 13, 2012 (UTC)

Good call. There should be a number like that which are easy to fix - if you find one that seems a bit more troublesome, then just leave it and it can always been handled later once some have been thinned out. ProfessorTofty (talk) 18:11, September 13, 2012 (UTC)

I think here happens a misunderstanding. I looked into the page Albus Dumbledore's journal and it links to none other page. A category it had already and now it has two with the "Possessions" but there is no linking to another page.  Harry granger   Talk  contribs 20:44, September 13, 2012 (UTC)

I think it's you who misunderstand. No other pages linked to Albus Dumbledore's journal. Rainbow took care of it and now one page does, Albus Dumbledore. ProfessorTofty (talk) 21:38, September 13, 2012 (UTC)

Oh, sorry! I really mixed Albus Dumbledore with Albus Dumbledore's journal. Thanks for the explanation.  Harry granger   Talk  contribs 21:43, September 13, 2012 (UTC)

More, More, More

Anyone else want to work on this? I've been chipping away at it, but there's still a lot to be done. ProfessorTofty (talk) 19:46, October 6, 2012 (UTC)

I was wondering... do you think I ought to create a list (since I don't know how to make categories) of disambiguation pages? That'd help, methinks, since a fair few orphaned pages are disambiguations, and it'd be sort of interesting. --Hunniebunn (talk) 19:50, October 6, 2012 (UTC)

I don't really see any need at the moment; perhaps once more of them have been cleared out. The disambiguations may not even need to be fixed, they're not linked on any other pages for a good reason. On a side-note (and this is directed to those who have done it), stop creating orphaned pages. If you make a new page, use "What links here" to make sure it is linked on at least one other page. If it's not linked on any other pages, find appropriate pages and link it. If you cannot think of any or many, your page may be prime candidate for either deletion or notability flagging. ProfessorTofty (talk) 19:54, October 6, 2012 (UTC)

I've made some good head-way on this and am planning to do more today. However, there remains another more troubling problem - phantom orphaned pages that don't properly show as orphaned because they have a link from somewhere such as somebody's talk page or a file page, but aren't really linked from where they need to be. So I urge again - please don't just create a page - it needs to be linked up in the proper places so people can actually find it without simply chancing upon it by clicking on "random page" or something. ProfessorTofty (talk) 17:08, November 24, 2012 (UTC)