Battlestar Wiki talk:Think Tank/Red Link Policy

Compromise

Suggestion: Flag the Talk: pages corresponding to wanted pages with the template, and leave the main namespace alone. --April Arcus 19:32, 15 December 2006 (CST)

Well, that would seem to be one solution, at any rate. Still we may want to work out a formal policy on how to clean out the erroneous entries in Special:Wantedpages and how to promote the task listing better, as well. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 21:23, 17 December 2006 (CST)

My Input

Personally, I've never taken a look at the tasks page, and the task page doesn't seem to be too advertised. I think the red links are useful because you can see that someone wants to link there, but there's nothing to link to. --BklynBruzer 23:44, 16 December 2006 (CST)

The reason that leaving red links is that if someone, like me, spells something incorrectly in red links, and someone creates an article, there is one more unneeded linking system. I rather have a stable simple page of yellow, than red. If someone was going to add info, they click on the yellow link anyway. Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 00:05, 17 December 2006 (CST)

That brings up one of my personal issues with the MediaWiki stuff, where one small grammatical error would lead to a red link, like The Eye Of Jupiter is a red link, but The Eye of Jupiter is the actual page. I think we should try to fix that, even though it's a small issue. --BklynBruzer 09:19, 19 December 2006 (CST)

Well, the only real solution to that would be to create redirects based off misspellings (the more common ones, not every permutation possible, because that would be a waste of time). However, the point you bring up is a valid one, which is why I feel that tagging pages we need to create as "requested" would be better for us than leaving it alone. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 15:30, 19 December 2006 (CST)

I agree that the task page needs better visiblity, possibly a box on the main page or even above the RC page. The issue is that the articles needing to be created is actually smaller in number than the red links that are on the "Wanted pages" list. There needs to be a better way to organize and direct our contributors' energies, and the task list is the best option, which is where {{requested}} comes in. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 22:41, 17 December 2006 (CST)

I am of the opinion that the "tasks" page is a really good idea and have used it many times when creating pages especially for the Cast and Crew. Perhaps there are better ways of organising it but they are usually better than the red links. the "wanted" pages section is full of many different kinds of things not just actual wanted pages. Perhaps there is a better way or organising them though. Some more tags the bot can pick up on maybe? --Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 03:32, 18 December 2006 (CST)

Additional tags should be fairly easy for the bot to pick up, once it's programmed to detect these tags -- which isn't hard, since the bot structure is already fleshed out, and the functions can merely be copy, pasted, and modified accordingly. Did you have any ideas on what kind of tags we would need to create, Mercifull? -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 10:51, 18 December 2006 (CST)

Sit rep?

Do we need to renew discussions about this issue or no? -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Sanctuary Wiki — New} 09:31, 7 June 2007 (CDT)

Judging by the lack of replies, I figure we'd go ahead and vote. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Sanctuary Wiki — New} 21:30, 10 June 2007 (CDT)

Formal Vote

The voting is just going to be a bit different, since we're voting for two different methods to deal with the "red link". (Therefore the "adminlist" template will not be deployed here.)

Voting will end on Sunday, June 17th.

Use {{support}}, {{oppose}} or {{neutral}} to specify your vote, followed by a short comment explaining your position (if desired) and your signature (~~~~).

Keep the red links until we can fill them with content

• Support Keep them. Tagging suggests that the page content actually exists, which is annoying when you follow a link. The downside is that it's almost impossible to keep track of non-existing pages, but I haven't seen that many red links. --Serenity 01:54, 11 June 2007 (CDT)

Tag all pertinent red link pages with {{requested}}

• Support As this helps us identify and categorize what we need to create, since many red links are caused by image description pages that are not hosted via the wiki itself, but in our media repository. (And thus the contents, such as tags and descriptions, are, in effect, "mirrored" from the Media BSWiki.) -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Sanctuary Wiki — New} 21:30, 10 June 2007 (CDT)
• Support Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 01:58, 11 June 2007 (CDT)
• Support Easier to find (through cats), and reserves the red links for typos. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 03:47, 11 June 2007 (CDT)
• Support BklynBruzer 07:21, 11 June 2007 (CDT)
• Neutral While I've seen both options utilized at one time or another, this appears to be the most common approach to red links. I've seen very few redlinks in my time here. I can go either way on this particular proposal. JubalHarshaw 11:01, 11 June 2007 (CDT)
• Neutral Same reasons as JH. Red is a more active color to find a problem. --Spencerian 12:05, 11 June 2007 (CDT)