User talk:Ferien/WikiProject TBA

Suggestion for future phase

I'd like to suggest clearing Category:Pages with broken reference names. Most (if not all) of the issues here are from articles being copied from enwiki that have named references. If the place where a named reference is defined is removed but there are other places that refer to it, you get this error. A lot of these could be cleared by getting the reference from the enwiki article.

This might also highlight for people that they need to watch for this when they do transwiki from other Wikipedias. -- Auntof6 (talk) 10:13, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Auntof6, that'd be a good one – thank you! Not that it's that related to this topic exactly, but Category:Articles with broken file links is already back at 27 articles, so many of these categories will have to be revisited anyway, (this one will likely fall into that) whether it be on an individual level or having this project revisit the same category again. --Ferien (talk) 16:37, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Not to mention Category:Templates with broken file links, which is sometimes the source of broken file links in articles. -- Auntof6 (talk) 02:10, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

I wonder if we should just auto change these to be tagged. Maybe have a bot/script that changes say the text is here. into the text is here.

References

Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:22, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

If you say "the text is here," where is "here", exacly? The text might not be in another Wikipedia's article, although I suspect most of them would be.

Also, I'm not sure how this would be better. It would just move things from one maintenance category to another. -- Auntof6 (talk) 23:04, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I think in trying to do an example, I complicated it. My suggestion is to remove the broken references, and replace them with {{cn}} tags. The reference names can be commented out, so we don't lose them in case someone wants to go check for that reference name on another project.

It would remove the quite ugly red warning message for one, and wouldn't falsely show that we have a reference for something. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 06:11, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

@Lee Vilenski: I'm not sure how that would be better. It would just move the articles from one maintenance category to another, and that other one currently already has more than four times as many entries as the one I propose addressing (540 vs. 2,550 when I looked just now). I suspect most of these have a real reference in an English Wikipedia article that we could find if we look. I've certainly fixed a bunch of these that way in the past.

If we really can't find existing references, then your suggestion might be plan B, but I think we should at least look; it's better to have references than just change to a different way of telling us we don't have them. Leaving articles in "Pages with broken reference names" at least tells us that there might be a reference we can find. If looking for the actual references seems like a lot of work, you're right: it could be. But no one will be forced to participate if this task is chosen. -- Auntof6 (talk) 11:08, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Phase III

I feel this current phase is a bit too hard. Over the three months, I would have expected the number to go down to 80 or 90 at least, but it rose. I think we need more people. 🪐 Haumeon the Adventurer 🪐 05:28, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Comment on keeping backlogs annihilated

I think educating editors and patrollers on things would help prevent backlogs from building up.

For phase 1 (unconnected pages):

• Add something to WP:How to copy from another Wikipedia about creating Wikidata links for pages you create.
• Encourage patrollers to check whether new pages are linked in Wikidata. If they are not, patrollers can let the creators know that it needs to be done and help them learn how. (Maybe some of our patrollers don't know how, either, so we could start with that.) It can seem difficult to do a Wikidata link, but it's not that bad once you do it. You don't even have to go to Wikidata. I did this write-up a while back that may help. Feel free to steal.

For phase 2 (broken file links):

• Encourage patrollers to check for this.
• Point out item #6 at Wikipedia:How to copy from another Wikipedia#Steps required to editors who create pages with broken file links, because those broken links are often from transwikied pages that use files that aren't on Commons.

For phase 3 (underpopulated categories):

• Don't allow an underpopulated category to remain for very long. I think many of the ones we have/had were tagged for a long time.

It occurs to me that some backlog things could be addressed during patrol. I suspect not everyone checks the same things when they patrol. Maybe we could add to Wikipedia:Patrollers#How to patrol and encourage patrollers to make sure they consider all the points listed there.

These are just preliminary thoughts. -- Auntof6 (talk) 21:20, 29 August 2024 (UTC)