Template talk:Orphan

Consensus to make this an official template

The Orphan template is used on dozens of Wikimedia projects to "alert" authors and editors alike that there is a minor issue with an article and it needs to be fixed. My proposal is to add it to pages that have zero incoming links from other articles. Opinions? Objections? -- Cheers, Riley 11:19, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

To be honest, I see no reason why we need this template. There are only 56 orphaned pages on Wikivoyage and its a manageable job for one person to fix (I volunteer to do it later today/tomorrow). -- Sapphire (talk) 12:38, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't see "adding links from related articles" being done the same way here as on Wikipedia. There, it tends to be free-form, here each page has some obvious parent (a region for a destination page or subregion, a city for a district, travel topics and itineraries as lists of articles of those respective classes, individual destinations along an itinerary's path for itineraries). We already know which article _should_ be linking to a destination page by the "isPartOf" tag. If that tag is blank, there's already a maintenance category for that. If not, it's easier to just link the destination from the named region than to tag the article. In some cases, pages are orphaned because they're not destinations, travel topics, itineraries, phrasebooks or any of what belongs in mainspace. New user editing tests or spam would fall into that class. Destinations which are missing from the parent region but linked elsewhere (such as "go next" of another town or from itinerary won't be detected by Special:LonelyPages in any case, although this is an error. K7L (talk) 14:58, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

I think this is worth having—and I certainly don't see harm in it. While I don't often look at special:lonelypages (boring), I would notice and fix orphan pages as I patrol them if there was a visible tag. IsPartOf is already easy to notice, since the crumbs don't appear at the top of the page, so I fix that every time I see it. --Peter ^Talk 18:21, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

• While it may be true there are only 56 orphaned pages here, it makes since to add the template for not only the reason stated by Peter but also because this community is growing (Wikimedia is advertising it on some Wikimedia projects) and I won't be surprised if we start getting more and more pages, many of which that might be orphaned. -- Cheers, Riley 05:46, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

• That's also true. Our page-creation had stagnated along with the rest of our project pre-migration. Our new article log has been very busy post-launch. --Peter ^Talk 07:49, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I would say, one for the shelves, for now. I can see your point of how it might, one day, be useful, but for the reasons mentioned by others I agree we don't need it now. What would help even more, I think, would be a bi-monthly automated reminder in the pub or so, highlighting special:lonelypages :-) JuliasTravels (talk) 22:34, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

There is a need for such a template, even if just to add orphans in a clean-up category. Special:LonelyPages only shows pages that are not referenced at all, so articles that are only referenced by redirect and disambiguation pages are not identified. --Traveler100 (talk) 08:20, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Create it now so we don't forget to create it later. What possible harm could it do? -- Alice^✉ 03:36, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Its been months now since the discussion halted. Earlier, four editors including the proposer supported the usage of this template whereas three not. This template has been nominated for deletion today, do you think this template should be allowed for usage on this wiki? --Saqib (talk) 18:18, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't see any point. We currently have zero orphaned pages that need fixing and we typically keep it pretty close to that. As mentioned above, unlike WP, the places our articles should be linked from are systematic and obvious. If you have time to check WhatLinksHere and then go back to the article to tag it with this template, you almost certainly have time to click instead to the parent region and add a link there. I don't understand who would use this template in the first place. Texugo (talk) 18:34, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree with you and I'm inclined to support your deletion proposal. --Saqib (talk) 18:58, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I actually think there are quite a few location (city) articles that are not referenced in a region but would not show up as strict orphans. However have not found an automated way to find these and agree marking pages manually makes no sense. Guess can always recreate the template once get round to looking at this topic again. --Traveler100 (talk) 20:25, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

VFD Discussion

Template:Orphan and Category:Orphaned articles

Unused template that still has the experiment tag on the top of the template page. It had the vfd tag at the top for about 6 years with, apparently, no clear results accomplished (see Template talk:Orphan) and the tag was finally removed in early March. But let's get this sorted out, once and for all. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 23:03, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Keep. I think we should be making use of this. It was mentioned in the previous discussion that this just replicates Special:LonelyPages. I saw a page recently which does not appear in Special:LonelyPages because it was linked on the talk page of the anonymous editor who made it, but was otherwise unlinked from any mainspace page. This template would be a good use case for that. If there exists a truly equivalent special page, or at least a third-party tool, then I would see a case for deletion. ARR8 (talk | contribs) 23:10, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

The concern I have is that, during the nomination there may be some interest in the template, but within a month or two of being kept (if it is kept in the end), it will again return to disuse. If this template has been hardly ever used, if at all, since Wikivoyage was set up, I don't see why the template will become popular in the future. On top of this, the template is still currently in the "experimental" category, and as long as it remains experimental, the Orphan template can only be used on one page, more-or-less making it useless. If we move Template:Orphan out of the experimental category and we use it commonly, I don't mind keeping it, but otherwise, it's just more to take up space that never gets used. That is my concern. But thanks for your input. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 00:10, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Keep. A little longer. If you look at the history I restored this at the beginning of March. Did some experiments to identify articles with no main page links to them. Method I tried did not work but still working on the subject on and off. AutoWikiBrowser should do this but could not get it to work. --Traveler100 (talk) 06:19, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Keep Maintenance templates are often not be used - somebody identifies the problem and puts the template in the article, then the next day another editor fixes the problem and removes the template. Unless the problem can no longer occur, or there is a replacement way of identifying the problem, the template should be kept. AlasdairW (talk) 19:39, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

I have just added this template to Parks and monuments in New England and to Records, which I found in the current COTM push for banners on travel topics. I think that this shows that the template is useful. AlasdairW (talk) 22:18, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

I've nominated the first of those two for deletion, but trust me, that's in no way anything to do with Template:Orphan. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 01:46, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

I now see that the Maintenance Panel links to Special:LonelyPages as Orphaned pages. However I think that the template will highlight the issue to anybody else editing the page, which would normally mean that links would be added to other articles than nominating it here. AlasdairW (talk) 14:05, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

• I won't say too much, but I must say that I am being convinced. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 22:37, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Comment undeleted the category created by the template and added it to this discussion. No sense in keeping one without the other. ARR8 (talk | contribs) 15:56, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, when was the category undeleted? I don't see that in the page history. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 16:34, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Just now - see Special:Log for that page ARR8 (talk | contribs) 16:43, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Sure, thanks. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 17:02, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

• Result: keep. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 15:27, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Status

I worked out a method which needs a little bit of manual effort to locate articles that are not linked from other main space articles. As of 20th May 2019 there were 128 pages. --Traveler100 (talk) 07:25, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Positioning of template in an article

Like Template:Merge, I propose that we add the following instruction for the use of this template:

Place this template at the bottom of an article that requires additional linking.

Rationale: consistent with our policy of putting the traveller first, Wikivoyage's internal housekeeping matters should not be the first thing a reader see when he/she lands on a page. The tag ensures that the article is placed on a maintenance list, so it will enable editors to find their way to the articles needing links.

This should probably be the standard instruction for the use of clean-up tags. Ground Zero (talk) 02:44, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

This is not just housekeeping, but a call for contributions from any passing reader. We are a wiki, and one of our great strengths is that regular readers contribute, too. I don't see how this has any relation to putting the traveler first. The traveler is better served if our pages require less maintenance, and one way to make that a reality is to invite easily, low-barrier-of-entry contributions with maintenance notices such as this. With luck, that may lead to some editors finding they enjoy helping ourt here and becoming regular contributors. I don't think the traveler really cares if they have to scroll two lines further than they would otherwise have to, but the invitations to edit, one of the classic strengths of wiki sites as a whole, hasve huge potential benefits. ARR8 (talk | contribs) 02:52, 30 May 2019 (UTC) [Minor corrections - ARR8 (talk | contribs) 02:58, 30 May 2019 (UTC)]

I agree with Ground Zero. Tags calling for repairs to the article at the top of the article are IMO ugly, most readers won't make the edits but may consider the information in the article unreliable, and anyone adding the tag might want to question why they are not making the changes themselves. When I've noticed this kind of thing and didn't know where the place was, I sometimes added a talk page message. I fear you may be overusing Wikimedia templates, which Wikivoyagers resisted for years because it makes editing harder when more and more code is used. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:31, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

I also think clean-up tags should be at the bottom of the page. I do not think the first think a reader sees is a comment about something wrong with an article. Particularly on mobile it is messy. Current tags are placed at the bottom. --Traveler100 (talk) 05:46, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

When I posted this last night, I could not see the documentation, perhaps because the tag was still experimental. Now that the documentation is there, I see that it says:

"It is created by manually, or through bot, adding {{orphan}}

to the bottom of an article."

It seems that the issue is settled. Ground Zero (talk) 09:50, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Does not have to be settled. I realised after reading your entry here that there was no documentation so I created some. Does not mean it cannot be changed. --Traveler100 (talk) 18:46, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that up. On what basis did you create the documentation? If the precedent is to put the tag at the bottom, then it would be up to someone to propose a change. There seems to be a developing consensus for putting it at the bottom. Ground Zero (talk) 19:04, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes we have had this discussion about merge and translate too. My stated view is best to keep clean up tags at the bottom so as not to distract readers too much. Only exception in my view are quick delete and vfd. Cleanup editors tend to know to look at whole article and use the categories to find them. --Traveler100 (talk) 19:11, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Changing the wording of the template

I pointed out that ARR8 had applied this template to Shopping in China, which has 9 articles linking to it, and that this is not a reasonable interpretation of "Few or no other articles link to it." ARR8 then unilaterally changed the wording to "This article is insufficiently linked." I reverted the edit noting that I disagree with it and invited ARR8 to propose a change and get consensus for it. ARR8 restored the change with the edit summary; "There is nothing to propose. I updated the text to match real usage of the template, and how it has been used across many articles for weeks. This description is for editor convenience, it is not a description of the policy of when to use the template. In other words, nitpicking at the definition of "few" won't change the way this template gets used, because that's what policy is for." Where is the policy? I cannot find any policy linked from the template page.

More to the point, why is the wording of this template the sole property of ARR8? Why does my objection to the change not count for anything? If the usage of the template differs from now it was intended to be used when created, then we should have a discussion about the inappropriate usage of the template, as in the case of Shopping in China (in my opinion).

The wording of this template was unchanged ("Few or no other articles link to it") from January 2013 through the experimental stage and the VfD process. Ground Zero (talk) 01:50, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

What was the intent of the people who created this template and approved its use?

• The template documentation says: "This maintenance tag shows articles with no links from other main space articles."
• Category:Orphaned articles says: "Pages that have no links to them from other main space pages (actual articles) are tagged with {{orphan}}.... Once you have added a link to the orphaned page, for example added to a region page, please remove the orphan tag which should be at the bottom of the article."
• "My proposal is to add it to pages that have zero incoming links from other articles. Opinions? Objections? -- Cheers," Riley 11:19, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Through the discussion above, the only quantification about what "orphan" means was a comment from Traveler100, which again refer to "no links":

• "Did some experiments to identify articles with no main page links to them. " --Traveler100 (talk) 06:19, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

I see the point of not limiting it to "zero links", but "few" is a concept with little room for dispute. "Insufficient" is way too vague and will lead to disputes about what it means. For example, User:ARR8 thinks that 9 links is insufficient, and I disagree. Having had no response from User:ARR8 to my comments above, and seeing no justification for the change, I'll revert it. Ground Zero (talk) 16:09, 3 June 2019 (UTC)