Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Orphanage

Bringing back Lonelypages, need input

I'm writing a toolserver version of Special:Lonelypages. It's basically finished, but the toolserver is expected to be out of sync with Wikipedia until the end of the month, so I won't be releasing the tool soon. In the meantime, I'd like to pin down exactly what qualifies as list/year articles per the criteria.

I'd appreciate comments on which of the article types below should be excluded from the orphan count:

List articles

• List of articles - such as List of bridges in the United States
• Lists of articles - I found about 200 lists that started like this; some were lists of lists, like Lists of American writers, but others weren't, like Lists of English people

Chronological articles

• Year in articles - such as 1999 in music (4 digit years seem sufficient; there are almost no Year in articles with less than 4 digits)
• Day articles - such as January 8
• Year articles - such as 1999
• non-four digit Year articles - such as 885, 8, 5 BC, 45 BC, etc.

Of course, if anyone knows a more clever way to identify lists - or thinks I've left something out altogether - please bring it up! Thanks! --JaGa^talk 09:06, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Just a note (in case this wasn't previously clear): the above sorts of articles should still be listed as orphans, if there are not sufficient incoming links. It's just that links from those articles shouldn't be counted towards de-orphaning an article. As far as determining what articles are lists and chronological articles that fall within those criteria, I think you've done a good job with the above. Cheers,--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 18:36, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Right. This question is only concerned with counting incoming links. Thanks for the clarification. --JaGa^talk 19:24, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Some other links not to count:

• Pages ending in (disambig), (disambiguation), (surname), and (name)
• Deaths in pages (example Deaths in 2000)
• Decades in pages (example 1990s in music) - a variation of the Year in ones above

There are bots that tag articles as orphans. You may wish to ask them as well. -- JLaTondre (talk) 23:23, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments.

1. Covered - I exclude links from pages belonging to the hidden All disambiguation pages category
2. Good idea, I'm all for it - funny we don't have a corresponding set of Births in articles
3. I'm a little squeamish about decades. Some decade articles are more articles than lists, such as 1980s in Brazil. But if there's consensus, I'll definitely put that in as well.
4. I'll get in touch with Addbot and Soxbot admins, I probably should've done that from the start. --JaGa^talk 23:51, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I would Love for Special:Lonelypages to be brought back. One thing I would say about a toolserver app i try to make it easily read by a bot :P. ·Add§hore· ^Talk/_Cont 10:22, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's important that it be bot-compatible, as not many editors are going to want to go through and tag them by hand. Also, I hope that your app will produce a list of ALL orphaned pages; Special:LonelyPages was always limited to 1000 at max, which was not too helpful. Whatever happened to Soxbot? Did it ever resume tagging orphans?--Aervanath talks like a mover, but not a shaker 18:56, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh yes, all orphans are available (minus disambigs as well, something that always bugged me about Lonelypages). I think you'll be surprised at just how many orphans are out there. :) --JaGa^talk 19:23, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Be sure to exclude all the articles that use the {{surname}} template, since these are a kind of disambiguation page. Such articles seem to dominate the early entries on the current version of Special:LonelyPages.--ragesoss (talk) 00:37, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

No problem there - the surname template adds articles to the "All disambiguation pages" hidden category, and I filter for that. IMO, the whole disambig thing is what killed Lonelypages - it filled to 1000 with articles that should not have been de-orphaned or tagged. --JaGa^talk 02:24, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, once we have your tool, we should be better off. Let us know when it's active.--Aervanath (talk) 14:56, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

As for lists, many WikiProjects have a list class, so you could consider any article having the template class="assess-list " style="background: #c7b1ff; text-align: center; " | List transcluded onto its talk page as being a list. --A. di M. (formerly Army1987) — Deeds, not words. 20:09, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Some questions regarding the project.

Maybe I missed it somewhere while reading through this talk page, but can someone explain again why "Our goal is to try to de-orphan newly-tagged orphans as soon as possible, and then work in reverse-chronological order through the backlog." Wouldn't it be better to tackle the old ones first to rid them of the tag that's been there too long? Also I think there should be some more explanation as to the purpose of categorizing de-orphan attempts with the att= parameter, and how this helps with our goal. -- OlEnglish ^(Talk) 23:40, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Thoughts on benefit/use of de-orphan attempt.

• Placemarker for those trying to do initial de-orphaning (i.e., indicates that somebody tried it and when), can be sure you won't wind up looking at the same article twice.
• Items that have already been attempted may be a place for those de-orphaners who want an extra challenge.
• Items where de-orphaning was tried quite some time ago may be easier now. (Many items become easier to de-orphan once more articles in related areas have been filled in, for instance a missing genus article.)

With the fresh lot of tagging in February it will be along time waiting for anything before that if people stick to it. Not clear that everyone needs to focus on same bit of the job. Zodon (talk) 06:01, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

The initial logic behind the "reverse chronological order" thing (which is somewhere in the archive, but I can't be bothered to find it right now) was that there was a lot of newly-tagged orphans were not really suitable articles. So the orphan categories were getting clogged up with lots of articles that really should have been tagged for speedy deletion, PROD, or AFD. And those tend to be the newer articles. We were trying to clear out the junk that was coming in so we could actually get to work on the orphans that were actually worth linking to. The hope was that we would eventually be able to get ahead of the flow, and once we could de-orphan or tag for deletion at a higher rate than articles were tagged with the orphan template, then we could start on the backlog. However, that is no longer feasible with the revelation of just how many orphans there are out there. It's not really set in stone, either. As I recall, the original discussion involved three editors, including me, and I'm certainly not going to object to anyone who wants to switch back to going from oldest to newest instead.--Aervanath (talk) 15:54, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

What is an Orphan

I've been working on an article for some time and have had trouble linking it to other articles. I tagged it with the {{orphan}} article a while back because it had 2 actual links and the rest are disambiguous links, links to lists, or links to users. The list of non-orphaned articles with the orphan tag lists this article because it counts one of the disambiguous links as a real link. The link in question is a link from the only other page on the disambiguous page (For <the other person with the same name>, see <the other person>). My point is, the list being generated isn't picking this up. The pages aren't linked by their subject in any way, only their name. To me, the rule should be that there are three links from other pages that are subject related. I'm going to go back and do my best to just find another link to add to avoid the problem all together but I thought that it was something you might want to check out/be aware of. OlYeller^Talktome 16:58, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I didn't add the name of the article so that the issue would be discussed and not the article itself. If it's truly important to the point/conversation, let me know and I'll post it. OlYeller^Talktome 17:00, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

The thing is, we have so many orphans with NO links AT ALL that orphans with two links already are way down the priority list, so we're not really bothering tagging them. In fact, I think we may be removing those tags, as if we tagged everything below the three link limit, something like a third of Wikipedia's articles would be tagged, and that's way too much for this project to handle. See the discussions above and in the talk archive for the reasons for this.--Aervanath (talk) 17:49, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Navboxes on all pages

Here is an idea: start a WikiProject to place a navbox in every Wikipedia article. In my opinion, navboxes are the best way to de-orphan an article. The typical navbox contains at least several dozen articles, and a single placement provides instantaneous links from all those pages.

In a brief study I did of 10 random articles, 7 of them had one or more navboxes. This does not mean exactly 70% of Wikipedia articles have them, but if that figure were near accurate, there would be close to 860,000 articles lacking them. the three articles I observed that lacked them could have used them.

Since every article fits into one or more categories, every article, likewise, can fit into one or more navboxes. Sebwite (talk) 03:59, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion, navboxes should only be put on articles that are listed in the navbox; it's a tool for navigating between subtopics of a larger topic, not a tool for going from <random page> to the topic. If one thinks of a related navbox when seeing the article, I think it's better to link to the main subject of the navbox as a "see also". --Alvestrand (talk) 10:31, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Obviously, a navbox that is placed on a page should list that article, and the article should be relevant to the type of article in that navbox.

The goal of my plan is to:

1.) Find all the articles lacking navboxes

2.) Identify a navbox where the article can be placed. Add the article to that navbox, and add the navbox to that page.

3.) If there is no suitable navbox where the article can be placed, identify other articles that can share a navbox with the one in question, and create a new navbox for the article. New navboxes should resemble well-established categories that are not likely to be deleted. Sebwite (talk) 15:18, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

• Here it is: Proposed WikiProject Navbox. Sebwite (talk) 15:26, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

You're seriously proposing adding a navbox to EVERY article? Sounds like a lot of work, and seems redundant to the category system. I'm not sure it'll be that helpful to this project. -- OlEnglish ^(Talk) 22:19, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes I am. It is a great idea because the navbox is one thing that in a single, simple edit provides a large number of links to an article, thereby instantly deorphaning it. It also provides on the page a user-friendly way of finding all the related articles, and not guess, guess, guess in trying to find them or figure out if they even exist.

The overwhelming majority of people who visit Wikipedia do so for read-only purposes, and do not even think of editing. Such people are less familiar with the system, and navboxes help this crowd find what they are looking for. The navboxes are also beneficial to the editing crowd by leading editors to the other articles, and ultimately improving them.

I have created quite a lot of navboxes myself, and placed them in articles that previously did not have them. There are many articles that prior to navbox placement were seldom edited and remained stubs. Once they became home to a navbox, they were instantly edited a lot and greatly improved.

It may be a lot of work to add navboxes to every page. But it is not impossible. If the collection of editors who have worked on the English Wikipedia to this day can write 2,866,545 articles, I don't see how a group of people can place navboxes in 860,000. And I never said it had to be done in one day. In fact, there is no deadline.

Sure, navboxes may be redundant to categories. But Wikipedia:Lists#Purposes of lists states that such redundancy between categories, lists, and templates is

[[necessary. Sebwite (talk) 23:42, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

WP:Set index

WP:Set index pages such as England's Looking Glass are a form of disambiguation page and should not have any links, therefor the template {{Orphan}} is not appropriate for such a page. --PBS (talk) 20:55, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Orphan is a maintenance template and should be placed on the talk page

{{Orphan}} is a maintenance issue that does not aid our readers. Editorial maintenance issues should be discussed on the talk page not in the article space -- that is why we have talk pages. If someone was to write in plain text at the top of a page "This article is an orphan, as few or no other articles link to it. ..." it would be removed as vandalism, and the person who put it there would be told to discuss such issues on the article's talk page. Putting such messages in a box does not alter the fact that it provides no useful information for the reader and is only of use to an editor. --PBS (talk) 20:51, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

This is a duplicate of what you posted at Wikipedia talk:Orphan. Duplicate postings are not helpful for discussion purposes. If you feel a need to call something out on multiple pages, the best thing to do is post it at one page and then put a link to it on the other pages. -- JLaTondre (talk) 20:59, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

I followed this link after I posted the other, this would seem to be the better place as it is the project page. (dogs and wagging tails), but the other is specifically about the template so take your pick. --PBS (talk) 23:50, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

But as you have answered at Wikipedia talk:Orphan#This maintenance template should be placed on the talk page lets carry on the conversation there. --PBS (talk) 23:58, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

{{surname}} pages

What is to be gained by labelling Surname pages as orphans? There is unlikely to be any useful link which can be made to the page - they serve a disambiguation-like function - and anyone seeking information on the surname will search, or use "Go", on that name itself. The pages can also be reached via categories. The {{orphan}} tag is ugly and irrelevant on pages such as Addey or Achillini. Please can this project agree that {{surname}} pages should not be tagged as Orphans? I have raised this issue somewhere before, but I can't find where it was, and I don't think anyone replied (perhaps it was the wrong place to raise it!) PamD (talk) 08:26, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Found it: Wikipedia_talk:Orphan#Surname_pages, where one editor replied, supporting my view. I hope it doesn't count as "Forum-shopping" to raise the question here too! PamD (talk) 08:37, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm new here, so I'm not sure what my opinion is worth, but as I've been browsing the 'orphans' I've seen a lot of these...and have no idea what to do to them to get them 'linked in'. I agree that these should not be added to the orphan listings. There's just no good way to get rid of them. They're redirects and should be treated as such. Sabiona (talk) 16:24, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Correct me if i'm wrong, but aren't those supposed to be set index class? (see also User:PBS's post above). If the bot is tagging these kinds of articles, I agree we should make a change to the bot's code. -- œ^™ 00:36, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe there is a bot doing orphan tagging anymore. Or at least, Addbot (which is the one I knew about) hasn't in quite awhile. It hasn't even run its other tasks for several months. -- JLaTondre (talk) 22:09, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Check out Wikipedia_talk:Disambiguation_pages_with_links#Toolserver_update_and_question. I originally categorized surname articles as disambigs, but they aren't considered as such. So they're articles, and subject to the orphan rules. Myself, I prefer thinking of them as DABs, but that isn't consensus. We'd have to nail down this surname identity crisis - with agreement across projects (I'm not sure what project is in charge of surnames - Anthroponomy?) - before I make changes in the code. Otherwise I'll be doing a code rewrite every month or so and it isn't easy. --JaGa^talk 08:57, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Er, one person's opinion is not consensus and that is all that is demonstrated there. Despite what he may want, the vast majority of surname pages are nothing more than disambig pages. But for the sake of argument, let's accept them as not dabs and ask ourselves "why should they still be marked as orphans?" I still don't see the point. -- JLaTondre (talk) 20:27, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Right. I agree with you - I'd prefer to mark them as disambigs and have them non-orphan. But just as consensus wasn't defined there (there were other discussions but I haven't found them), it can't be defined solely here, either, because the decision would affect other projects, such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy and Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation. I probably should have just left my code as it was, considering surnames to be DABs, but all I can do now is make sure I don't make the same mistake again. So my point is, we need a decision made on a more visible level than this. Perhaps an RFC is in order. --JaGa^talk 11:50, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Disagree. Orphanage does not need to worry about whether surnames should be considered disambigs or not. It need only consider the question as to whether surnames (and name pages in general) should be considered orphans or not. There seems to be general agreement that the shouldn't. The simplest solution is to update the orphan criteria to add an exclusion for name pages the same way there currently is one for disambigs. -- JLaTondre (talk) 14:19, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh yes, please! How do we get that done? And then we need a mass cleanup to remove these unnecessary tags from the pages where they've been wrongly placed. PamD (talk) 12:34, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I've been WP:BOLD and amended the criteria at Wikipedia:Orphan#Criteria to follow what seems to be consensus here. PamD (talk) 23:02, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

This catscan lists articles in the category Surname having within them {{orphan}}. About 612 of them at the time of writing. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:14, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes but a fair number of these are pages about a particular surname, not {{surname}} pages. -- Hebrides (talk) 06:47, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

There's no distinction - the page which lists people of a given surname ought to include content about the name too, as I understand it. But it is unlikely to have any legitimate incoming links, except possibly from related surnames, although it will be found by people searching for the name using "Go" or "Search". PamD (talk) 09:39, 19 June 2009 (UTC)