Forum:How best to fix broken links - aka WantedPages

Forums: Index > The Wizengamot > How best to fix broken links - aka WantedPages

As there are several people helping out to fix broken File links, I would like to discuss the best methods for handling these files, and what not to do when trying to fix them.

When there is a red link to a File on a page, it means that File can not be found anymore. It might be tempting to simply remove the File link text or make it no longer a link but just plain text. The problem with this approach is that the previous versions of that page still have the old link and still cannot find the File that was once there. While deactivating the link will remove it from the Wanted Files list, it actually just covers up the problem, leaving many links unfixed and much more difficult to identify.

Similarly, one might try to update the File link so it points to the new File name. While this helps fix that version of the page, it still leaves the previous version with a broken red link.

Just changing the File link text on the page doesn't fully fix the problem and makes it harder to find those File links that do need to be properly corrected. When these are images in articles, they will no longer render making it impossible to view the page how it appeared at that version.

This is why I specifically asked those helping to fix the problem to not remove the red broken File links from page text as it makes the job harder to fully and properly correct.

So how should one fix a red File link? If the new name of the file is known one can create a Redirect that has the old File name and points to the new File name. That way any page or page version that links to the old File will automatically be forwarded to the new File name. If the new File name is not known, one can look in the Move log or Delete log to try and figure out what happened and then make the proper Redirect or ask for assistance in having the File restored and linked.

I hope this all helps - please let me know if there are questions. Thanks --Ironyak1 (talk) 14:37, July 2, 2020 (UTC)

A lot of the images in Special:WantedFiles have been deleted altogether, which is normal, just in need of a link clearout once the images have been investigated to check for accidental or erroneous deletions or whatever. There are also, however, quite a few images in WantedFiles that seemingly never existed in the first place, which is rather odd. -  MrSiriusBlack  Talk  15:05, July 2, 2020 (UTC)

The Deleted files will definitely need to be reviewed and some of them possibly restored given some of the breakage seen within the page versioning system. I also noticed you've been correctly making Redirects to fix some widely used images like File:WeirdSisters.jpg where dozens of pages were affected and not displaying correctly but the single Redirect fixed all of them. Many thanks! --Ironyak1 (talk) 15:17, July 2, 2020 (UTC)

You're very welcome, I'm glad to help.

But yeah, what about the links in Special:WantedFiles to images that have never existed? There's a few examples of a filename that is included as part of a custom signature on talk pages, despite the image never having existed, but others are just random failed attempts at adding photos, either garbled names or filenames that don't even include file suffixes. -  MrSiriusBlack  Talk  16:18, July 2, 2020 (UTC)

As you noted, if you can understand which dead links have never existed and can safely remove them then that is fine of course. Cheers --Ironyak1 (talk) 17:29, July 2, 2020 (UTC)

Alrighty. -  MrSiriusBlack  Talk  17:39, July 2, 2020 (UTC)

I think its better that I leave a longer response other than not replying.

I typically do not leave redirects because there is little need to do so. I use a script so that the pages can self update the files links. There are a few issues that arise from this.

First, the issue of Samm’s blog. It was a dedicated blog for duplicate images and was meant to highlight them. I had renamed a few images listed on there and the page was subsequently not updated. I am unable to edit the page to update it because I lack the requisite permissions. Currently, that is limited to herself and administrators. For example, I renamed this image to a better name but its on Samm’s blog, so I cannot edit it to update.

The second would be the a good chunk of the files in special:wantedfiles are of *not caused by me*. Let me give a few details.

A good chunk of the files, especially the photobucket ones, are from users who create a user profiles. A good portion of them link and use a photobucket link via a public embed so that the image would show up on the profile. The site changed the site rules so that the public embeds are broken, leaving the wiki with a lot of web urls as red links. I have corrected for a few of them a few days ago, and the number of files there has shrunken from 250+.

Then there are users who link stuff but images are not even uploaded. I gave you example of User:Ukeeba, whose profile page includes a link to an image that was never uploaded. More examples include, the images on User:Niloserver and User:ShotgunsAndSass.

Then there are instances of files being deleted by other admins from years ago. Instances such as this old revision of a userpage leads to images deleted by others years preior. This is one of numerous instances of other admins deleting stuff and not cleaning them up. Numerous deletions of the years has led to red links on pages. Let me grab a few examples. Manson - Doll Dagga Buzz Buzz Ziggety Zag this image is/was still on a userpage 8 years after its deletion. Other examples include Screenshot.jpeg this, this, and this image, and finally this one

Then there are people who used imaages in their signatures, which are global. Global in this context means it appears exactly the same on every wiki in the same manner. Therefore, a signature will link to images that are not shown on wiki, nor locally uploaded. this being a prime example. Then there is User:Donut4’s personal image File:Donut4.png, which has multiple links despite never having been uploaded locally.

Finally, there is one image we’ll have to ask staff or the user. This file -File:\nImage:", is part of a user’s personal Javascript, and it takes the user or staff to alter.

To address my own issues, I can fix the problems of red entries on the special page. This would mean I have to manually check everything after I fix, or I can just leave redirects. MechQueste 17:01, July 2, 2020 (UTC)

"I typically do not leave redirects because there is little need to do so." This to me is worrisome as there have been hundreds of active pages affected by choosing not to leave a redirect and you not bothering to checking your work after running automated scripts to make sure everything actually went as expected.

Given that not leaving a Redirect has a cost having caused problems on hundreds of pages and unnecessarily mangles page versions and the ability to review page histories, what exactly is the benefit in not leaving a Redirect that makes it always preferable to you?

The other red link issues above are worth cleaning up of course, but are not an immediate concern for me at least. However, given some of the concerns voiced by another Content Moderator about the choices being made in renaming many, many files without an understanding of their formatting nor any discussion with anyone in the community before taking these steps, I am going to strongly suggest we pause on this File renaming and Deletion activity and come together to discuss how best to proceed. Thanks --Ironyak1 (talk) 17:40, July 2, 2020 (UTC)

I had typically not left redirects. When I renamed a file, I tend to rename the file, and they normally all of them get updated. Most of the occurrences are harmless as they do not cause problems. Of course, I acknowledge there are a few issues caused by the file renaming. I among others are going through the wanted pages to fix them all. MechQueste 18:21, July 2, 2020 (UTC)

As of a few days ago, before you started cleaning up the mess that I had to bring to light, at a glance there were at least these broken files caused by your Renaming without a Redirect or bothering to check the results of your automation:

• File:WeirdSisters.jpg (56 links)
• File:Nearlyheadlessnick.jpg‏‎ (27 links)
• File:HarrywithNimbus.jpg‏‎ (18 links)
• Sorcerer's stone cover.jpg‏‎ (15 links)
• File:MermaidPainting.png (5 links)

There is also the thousands of page versions mangled which for us are a constantly-used rich source of finding old archived images and resources that may only exist on this site and have been part of a past page version saved years ago by a conscientious editor. Do you not care that your unwillingness to do something as simple as click a box to leave a Redirect is impacting and limiting this community's long established ability to do research and improve the current articles?

How about the concerns from the other Content Moderator? Are you not willing to discuss and work with them on how best to handle some of these files that they are very familiar with from their years of volunteered efforts?

This approach of dismissing the input of others and overriding the hard work previously done by many people in the community here is the basis of my strong concerns with your actions. --Ironyak1 (talk) 18:44, July 2, 2020 (UTC)

I suggest both of us ease back now before this goes into a full blown conversation. We, the community will need to discuss recent behaviour/concerns on the wiki so everyone can see.

to answer your inquiries, I do care. I said before, I will keep the "leave a redirect behind" checked so that redirects are created. The box will stay checked.

The concerns of the other content moderator have been seen. Seeing that it was a two way conversation between you and Samm, I have not went into and commented.

The work of the people here are not erased. MechQueste 18:53, July 2, 2020 (UTC)

As you know, there is a Forum space established four days ago to discuss these concerns. I look forward to you following up on your statement earlier to begin contributing there. Cheers --Ironyak1 (talk) 19:02, July 2, 2020 (UTC)

I could have sworn that the amount of files on Special:WantedFiles was little over 250, but suddenly it has become 1,000+ like WantedPages. The problem seems to be a lot worse than feared. -  MrSiriusBlack  Talk  19:17, July 2, 2020 (UTC)

Actually the cached number of WantedFiles seems, fingers crossed, to be only 717. Welp, onwards and upwards, as they say. -  MrSiriusBlack  Talk  19:20, July 2, 2020 (UTC)

well, the only way forward is driving the number downward. MechQueste 13:04, July 3, 2020 (UTC)

I'm happy to announce that it looks like we have a solution for replacing the missing redirects! Here is the First batch of fixes.

Many thanks to Sammm鯊 for recommending tools to check out and to Yechezkelb for talking to Staff about options and finding some dev help to answer questions! I'll be adding these redirects into the system in small batches to make sure everything is working, but we should see a reduction in broken links across the site as the process goes on. Let me know if there are any questions. Cheers --Ironyak1 (talk) 12:44, July 5, 2020 (UTC)

Great news and excellent work folks, though it remains true that the vast majority of WantedFiles are ones that have been deleted or never existed, rather than renames. The work never ends :P -  MrSiriusBlack  Talk  12:55, July 5, 2020 (UTC)

The WantedFiles list has been shifting around a lot over the last week, between the image orphans being returned, sets of files being restored, and the hard work being done to remove old links. Thanks to everyone who is helping out on the house keeping! "The work never ends" badges will be handed out when we're done. ;) --Ironyak1 (talk) 13:07, July 5, 2020 (UTC)

I'm glad its being slowly cleaned up. MechQueste 13:48, July 5, 2020 (UTC)

Ditto, the progress is slow, but it is progress.

Also, the majority of deleted or nonexistent WantedFiles are those that appear in the userpages of long-since inactive users. Surely there's got to be a robotised way to deal with those in bulk?

Also I've come across quite a few WantedFiles which are redlinks that appear in user blog posts, thus I'm unable to fix them, just thought that might be worth pointing out -  MrSiriusBlack  Talk  13:55, July 5, 2020 (UTC)

After having offered Kates39 to look at using the bot for some of this, I haven't seen any easy way it could help. Red links are tricky (impossible?) to automate in that a human has to judge whether or not the link is legitimate or not and then investigate the underlying issue. Humans can quickly judge why a link has problems even having never seen an example of that problem before, whereas automation needs to have all the ways a link can be wrong defined up front. Then after the problem is determined this alternatively leads to the text just being removed, or slightly corrected to make a valid link, or sometimes a File is restored. Humans are smart in understanding all the context involved and wisely making such decisions; bots not so much, that's why they're called bots.

Not sure what the activity of the user has to do with how to handle fixing a red link, but feel free to expand on the idea. However, as we're still sorting through the detritus left from previous scripted activities, I cannot imagine how further automation is going to be able to successfully maneuver through this space currently.

For the red links in user blogs, just make a list of them somewhere, and I or another admin can take a look and resolve. Thanks again to everyone doing the drudgery work! Now back to the coalface --Ironyak1 (talk) 15:56, July 5, 2020 (UTC)

Have you tried the Linksweeper script? MechQueste 16:16, July 5, 2020 (UTC)

I personally have not, but it still doesn't prevent the need for a human to review and make a reasoned judgement to remove the link in the first place. Does seem like a good follow-on though for when a File gets deleted. I'm guessing if there are more than a couple links to an item then the script would probably be faster, but given a lot of what I am seeing are one-off mistakes, it may be about the same to just edit the page, a task with which more people can help? Cheers --Ironyak1 (talk) 16:59, July 5, 2020 (UTC)

I haven't been able to find a good, clear of way of easily bulk editing and cleaning WantedPages by using a bot either. I keep finding varying underlying issues by digging deeper into each link, and so I have to judge a separate way of solving it. If needed, I will just keep going through and sorting it link by link. Perhaps when we have less WantedPages (and files), it will be less awkward and we could find a better way of using a bot.

I need advice on how to handle links on pages I can't edit because it's been protected (or it's in a blog). I need people who have permissions to do it instead. I could take note of any links I find that need changing or unlinking on protected pages and blogs, and what it needs changing to. Can anyone can think of a good place on the wiki to put the pages I need help with on? - Kates39 (talk) 18:10, July 5, 2020 (UTC)

Well I'm glad I'm not the only one struggling with finding an automated solution! As for user blogs, I of course can fix them. If you want to just keep working on the other namespaces, I'll look at pulling a list of the blog entries from the WantedPages html Scratch that, won't work, but should be able to build a list of blog pages another way. Maybe leave protected ones to near the end and then those of us able can unprotect and fix? Thanks --Ironyak1 (talk) 22:09, July 5, 2020 (UTC)

Yeah that sounds like a good plan. Thank you. - Kates39 (talk) 22:20, July 5, 2020 (UTC)

Ran across some oddities involving templates and Talk pages - Talk:Class 107 is in WantedPages because Class 107 has the {{Transcribed image}} that links to the Talk page. Thoughts on how we should handle these? Cheers --Ironyak1 (talk) 22:37, July 5, 2020 (UTC)

Is it absolutely necessary for the words 'talk page' on {{Transcribed image}} to actually link the talk page? Apologies if I'm being dense, but surely everyone knows how to access an article's talk page? -  MrSiriusBlack  Talk  22:45, July 5, 2020 (UTC)

That's definitely the easiest fix, just seeing if anyone had strong feelings about delinking or some tricks up their sleeves. Cheers --Ironyak1 (talk) 22:46, July 5, 2020 (UTC)

Quick update - I removed the Talk page link from {{Transcribed image}} and had the bot queue up some of the easier items to fix. As such a decent chunk of the current WantedFiles list is resolved but will have to see what the refresh brings.

Seems to me Wanted Files probably needs the most human attention to sort out the causes involved with each. Cheers --Ironyak1 (talk) 11:01, July 6, 2020 (UTC)

Well I'm happy to report that Category:Pages with broken file links now has few enough pages in it to show them all in one page. Progress! -  MrSiriusBlack  Talk  12:39, July 6, 2020 (UTC)

Although I've just noticed that that category only lists some of the blogs that contain WantedFiles, not all, and also thinks Template:Plant-stub contains a broken file link despite the fact that it doesn't, which is rather weird -  MrSiriusBlack  Talk  12:53, July 6, 2020 (UTC)

I think I have found a way to keep the talk page link in the {{Transcribed image}} template without it ending up a WantedPage because it's been unused up to now. We could put it like an external link instead by using: [{{fullurl:{{TALKPAGENAME}}}} Talk Page] so it can still guide people to the right place if needed. - Kates39 (talk) 13:55, July 6, 2020 (UTC)

Interesting, thanks! Figured there was some dark arts possible. I would suggest we leave it off for now so that we can get through the WantedPages easier and then experiment later. In the meantime, I'm going to stub in some of those Wanted pages - article editing, it's been so long, how nice to see you again! --Ironyak1 (talk) 14:00, July 6, 2020 (UTC)

You don't even need to do the whole url, you could do it like this: [[:en:Talk:{{PAGENAME}}|talk page]]. Disguises it nicely as an existing page in the same wiki :P Observe:

This page does not exist

-  MrSiriusBlack  Talk  14:18, July 6, 2020 (UTC)

That won't work because it doesn't send you to an actual talk page without using {{TALKPAGENAME}} instead of just {{PAGENAME}}. I tried it out with {{TALKPAGENAME}} and it led to an "Error" page and says it's invalid. But the one I suggested will work. I tried it out on the Class 107 page using Preview and it wasn't a redlink. You just put the code in the template and it sends you to the talk page anyway. - Kates39 (talk) 14:45, July 6, 2020 (UTC)

[[Talk:{{PAGENAME}}]] only works on articles in the main namespace, but as no pages in any other namespace will ever need a transcribedimage tag, that shouldn't be an issue.

Alternatively, and perhaps more sensibly: [[:en:{{TALKPAGENAME}}|talk page]]. Just leaves the words 'talk page' looking like a normal link instead of having the blue arrow thing that external links have, ie like this instead of this -  MrSiriusBlack  Talk  15:25, July 6, 2020 (UTC)

As you all clearly passed your N.E.W.T.s with flying colours, does anyone know of a way to force WantedPages to reindex? Be good to know what the remaining total looks like to prioritize tasks. Thanks --Ironyak1 (talk) 15:44, July 6, 2020 (UTC)

Sorry Sirius, I've got your first idea working now so I understand what you were suggesting! Your second idea works too, and I think we should do that one if we go ahead and put the link back in because it doesn't have an external link arrow like mine. We will go back when we've got through WantedPages and try it out / experiment.

I don't think we can force WantedPages to update, but the cache should update every twenty four hours. - Kates39 (talk) 17:09, July 6, 2020 (UTC)

Updated - still maxing out at 1000 so plenty to do. The bot is handling the "Wizarding World Giveaway/@comment" entries, but everything else is fair game, although sticking ones head in the sand like an ostrich might be more tempting. Thanks for all the help! --Ironyak1 (talk) 18:28, July 6, 2020 (UTC)

Would someone be able to go through the redlinks in the templates at Category:Pages with script errors if you have the time? I'm not certain what we would do with these kind of links, but I know we don't even use at least one so perhaps they should be deleted? Thank you! - Kates39 (talk) 17:15, July 7, 2020 (UTC)

Just as an quick update: {{Cleanup}} had the same problem with its Talk Page link so I've flattened that text for now as well and added it to the list of fixes needed afterwards.

A little House-elf magic is proving to be quite versatile and able to transfigure a wide variety of links with minimal supervision. However there remains a pile of files in Special:Wantedfiles that will need some informed human review to figure out what happened and how best to resolve them. Cheers --Ironyak1 (talk) 23:34, July 7, 2020 (UTC)

Similarly, {{Rename}} always leaves a redlink as the suggested new title name; to me this seems unnecessary, because you don't need to follow a link to rename a page anyway -  MrSiriusBlack  Talk  23:47, July 7, 2020 (UTC)

Ah yeah, I had noticed that too. Do we want to simply disable it for now, or do the Content Mods want to process the current queue of suggested renames and clear them from WantedPages? Cheers --Ironyak1 (talk) 23:50, July 7, 2020 (UTC)

I mean can't you edit the template to remove the redlink, like you did with Cleanup and Transcribed image? -  MrSiriusBlack  Talk  23:52, July 7, 2020 (UTC)

Of course, just tossing out options to see what others may want to do. WantedPages doesn't reindex for another ~18 hours so plenty of time to stub in articles, handle some renames, work on those tricky files, and other steps that also reduce the Wanted Pages. Regardless, I'll be sure to remove the Talk page link in {{Rename}} before WantedPages runs again. Cheers --Ironyak1 (talk) 23:58, July 7, 2020 (UTC)

As an update to this process, the house-elf can tackle about 350 of these messes each day, which isn't bad, given how short he is. However, there is a large set of Files that take up space in this queue that the house-elf trips and falls over constantly because of the multiple deletes/restores, or moves, or other oddities that require human insight and special handling. I am hoping the Harry Potter Wiki:Content Moderators would lend their expertise to these problem files especially as many of them were recently created.

Anyone else who is able to review Special:Wantedpages and help clean up the broken links, the help is appreciated. A little community effort goes a long way (and won't somebody please think of the house-elf!? ;) Cheers --Ironyak1 (talk) 22:22, July 8, 2020 (UTC)

Another quick update: the house-elf got impatient waiting for Special:WantedPages to update once a day, and so went investigating the User_talk namespace to find the User greeting messages that often contain a broken link. While I thought the Inverness coat, deerstalker, and pipe were a bit much, he insisted they helped. And it is hard to argue with results - over the last few days the house-elf cleared out ~2000 redlinks before they even made it to Special:WantedPages. That should help out a bit so we poor Muggles don't have to do it all by hand. If you see him whiz by maybe give em a nod of thanks and a biscuit - he'd appreciate it. Cheers --Ironyak1 (talk) 07:45, July 12, 2020 (UTC)

Hello there,
I am sorry that I have not commented earlier, as I had real life things that I had to deal with, which obviously take priority over my wiki content moderation. I will probably begin to help with this soon, and I will possibly leave a lengthier comment about all this later.
I hope you all are staying safe and healthy,
(owl post) 08:37, July 12, 2020 (UTC)

The bot has been doing excellent work, thank you Ironyak! If it's not too busy, could it perhaps tackle the Template:QotW/Archive soon? These links have taken up lots of space in WantedPages, and it would be very helpful and hopefully insightful to see what it looks like when they have gone. - Kates39 (talk) 17:47, July 12, 2020 (UTC)

I was going to ask about that interesting little recursive puzzle of quotes. When he gets back from his latest outing, I'll see if the house-elf can actually untie this Gordian knot. Cheers --Ironyak1 (talk) 17:56, July 12, 2020 (UTC)

With all the links simply being in Template:QotW/Archive, it was just a matter of pointing the house-elf there and letting him shake down each link in turn as if it were Mundungus Fletcher with a pilfered House of Black relic. The redlinks are currently wrapped in nowiki tags just so it was easier to check the changes, but it would be trivial to Find and Replace these for <!-- Comment --> tags to improve the readability of course. Cheers --Ironyak1 (talk) 21:31, July 12, 2020 (UTC)

Are they going to stay wrapped in nowiki tags? It looks a tad messy. Great work with the bot, though! -  MrSiriusBlack  Talk  21:49, July 12, 2020 (UTC)

Oh wait, I might be being thick - the Quotes of the Week that were redlinks, are they awaiting creation, or was there actually no Quotes of the Week those weeks? -  MrSiriusBlack  Talk  21:52, July 12, 2020 (UTC)

There were no quotes for those weeks which were redlinks - see this version. Using nowiki tags just made it easier for me to see that the house-elf didn't chew off any part of the original link (can get a bit aggressive at times). As I have no idea who, if anyone, would be viewing this page in the future, it's unclear if it's better to show the deactivated links, or to comment them out and prettify the display. Either way works to solve the WantedPages issue and I have no strong feelings about either solution now that I've confirmed the automation worked as intended. Cheers --Ironyak1 (talk) 22:23, July 12, 2020 (UTC)

I do not think there is much for me to say about this, but I will now start to help with this, as I have more wiki time now.
(owl post) 22:28, July 12, 2020 (UTC)

Unfortuanately, some more real life things came up, meaning I will not be as active as I thought I would be.

(owl post) 22:53, July 13, 2020 (UTC)

Hi all - I wanted to get your tonput on something. The house-elf is getting a bit punchy with these redlinks and identifying and undoing redlinks to Users such as seen in this edit. To be fair, these are redLinks as can be seen in the previous page version, but I'm not sure if we're concerned about unlinking these or not given the link still works and leads to the User. Given this one page it's simple to rollback and filter out User: going forward, and easy as well to just let the house-elf continue on its merry way. Thoughts? --Ironyak1 (talk) 14:58, July 14, 2020 (UTC)

Would it be feasible to have the userpage link instead link to their contributions page, like it does for IP users when you click their username where it appears on the revision history? -  MrSiriusBlack  Talk  15:09, July 14, 2020 (UTC)

Also, how come userpage redlinks exist? I thought that the FANDOM bot creates user and user talk pages automatically upon a user's first edit? -  MrSiriusBlack  Talk  16:15, July 14, 2020 (UTC)

Going in reverse order, in some cases the user's profile page was deleted (e.g. User:Snapeisgreat) and others look like the bot never fired as there is no edit history? Most of these issues appear to quite old so not sure if we can figure out what caused them several years back.

As for repointing User redLinks to Contributions instead, it is entirely doable and a great idea! Thoughts on if Talk redLinks should be handled similarly or in some other fashion? (see Rawr609 near the end of the Talk:Horcrux page as an example). Thanks for the feedback - the house-elf training regiment is much improved by it! Cheers --Ironyak1 (talk) 17:32, July 14, 2020 (UTC)

Hmm...well if your bot'll be going through editing signatures anyway to get rid of the redlink, if the user doesn't have a talk page, could the (talk) part of their signature just be removed altogether? Still leaving behind the username & date of course -  MrSiriusBlack  Talk  17:41, July 14, 2020 (UTC)

While is it possible, my inclination is to not to remove content from pages as it obscures what the original message contained, and given the enormous complexity and variety of markup used in signatures it could get very complex to get right and do consistently. I'd much rather just redirect the Talk link to Contributions also, if that works for everyone, or perhaps nowiki the link to deactivate it but keep the content. Other thoughts along these lines are welcome - no real pressure on these redlinks compared to some of the others IMHO. Thanks --Ironyak1 (talk) 19:11, July 14, 2020 (UTC)

I don't really see how removing one single parenthesised word from a signature 'obscures what the message contains', but alright, whatever works for you -  MrSiriusBlack  Talk  19:23, July 14, 2020 (UTC)

In the most simple cases it is just one parenthetical word, but for instance in your signature it's:

[[User talk:MrSiriusBlack|<font style="background:#ff0000;color:#ffff00;"> '''Talk''' </font>]]

That is a lot of markup to successfully parse, and just one example among hundreds of similarly ornate Talk links that would need to be properly handled. It's far simpler and less intrusive to simply adjust "User talk:" to ""Special:Contributions/User:" as a comparison, but there may yet be a better option. Will leave this open for now to see if anyone has other ideas. Cheers --Ironyak1 (talk) 19:38, July 14, 2020 (UTC)

Didn't think there would be any fancy-signatured fellers out there with no user or talk pages on this wiki - fair enough then, I get ya.

Also should this forum be renamed 'WantedPages and WantedFiles' or something like that? The purpose of it is for WantedPages after all, and only talking about WantedPages is teeechnically off-topic since the title specifically says 'WantedFiles'. A trivial detail, I know, but then that's me all over sometimes to be honest :P -  MrSiriusBlack  Talk  20:25, July 14, 2020 (UTC)

That's a fair point about the fancy signatures. I tend to favor general solutions that cover as many possible instances so there are less gotchas when walking across thousands of pages, but can see your point for this likely set of links. I would suggest then that linking User: to Contributions and simply deactivating User_talk: makes the most sense. Also this Forum topic has been renamed as suggested. Thanks --Ironyak1 (talk) 17:13, July 17, 2020 (UTC)

Kates39 - as you initiated the work on Special:WantedPages, do you have a goal in mind that signals when we've reached a reasonable place to slow down or stop and reorganize? Obviously we should work to get all the redLinks resolved, and the house-elf can go non-stop, but with several competing topics of pressing concern for the site, I'm trying to get some sense of how you might see this currently fitting in with other priorities. Thanks --Ironyak1 (talk) 17:13, July 17, 2020 (UTC)

It's getting sparse and harder now to find links in WantedPages that are wrong. We have gone through such a huge bulk of WantedPages, and newer links showing up every twenty four hours have gotten less and less. It shows that we have done a good job at getting it sorted!

The goal I have right now is to get WantedPages to a place where we know every WantedPage we can see should be needed. Then we can slow down and just try and create pages to see what else could still be wrong, and if the Bot could be used. Then it's just about creating pages, and patrolling any new redLinks. I have a couple of issues I have been struggling to sort out right now, and that's protected pages and certain templates. A few templates have been unused. We have still have a few redLinks to unused talk-pages too. I could start dotting down any pages like that I find. It can be looked through when we have a better time to do so.

Given the Policy Review project, WantedPages can't be first priority for the community right now. I think everyone should be focused, and I don't want anyone to feel like they have to do something else. The best thing everyone can do right now to help until it's sorted out: create needed WantedPages whenever you can, and of course avoid adding new, unneeded redLinks! I can keep checking WantedPages every day and seeing what else I find, so you could let me worry about that for now. - Kates39 (talk) 18:33, July 17, 2020 (UTC)

Sounds good. I'll let you figure out your hitlist of problematic items and I'll continue to stub-in the occasional article as needed. I'll also probably send the house-elf out on a mission or two just to make sure those routines are solid. Please do let me know if you need anything in particular from me to help & Thanks --Ironyak1 (talk) 18:47, July 17, 2020 (UTC)

Just an update: WantedPages has stopped saying we have 999+ pages and started counting down! It's now at 992, and work has been done today so it will be lower when the cache updates today. So, the end goal of having cleaned up Wanted Pages and Files has been getting very close. Good job to everyone who has been helping out when they can! Ironyak, how could we go about sorting out the templates and links to Message Walls that appear in WantedPages? I think the bot could be useful for doing so. Can you see a way to use it? - Kates39 (talk) 11:13, August 31, 2020 (UTC)