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Wikipedia:WikiProject Orphanage |
| This is a WikiProject, a collaboration area and open group of editors dedicated to improving Wikipedia's coverage of a particular topic, or to organizing some internal Wikipedia process. Please see the Guide to WikiProjects and the Directory of WikiProjects for more information. |
The Orphanage is dedicated to clearing the immense backlog of orphaned articles and images. There are thousands of articles and images on Wikipedia with few or no links to them. While it may seem simple at first, de-orphaning is a difficult task, and this project aims to make it easier.
Building the web is a big part of Wikipedia, so join in the project and give those articles a home!
Contents |
The Orphanage aims to clear the backlog of orphaned articles on Wikipedia, so that all articles can be found by a series of links from the Main Page. In addition to this, however, the project also aims to make the process of de-orphaning easier. Through collaborating with other projects, providing information, and above all helping editors to cooperate, the Orphanage will make the task of de-orphaning a little less daunting.
There were, on last count, 39,044 orphaned articles on Wikipedia. This is over 1% of the total articles, and an incredible amount to work on, so we need your help. While de-orphaning an article is a simple idea, it is often a difficult task, so the more editors we have to help, the better.
Well, here's our definition. Each of these four types are undesirable, and we'd like to build the web to the point that they are all non-existent.
Surely you're wondering what you can do to help our cause. De-orphaning an article is a good way to start.
Lists of orphaned articles can be found in the following places (in order of priority):
If the article already has an {{orphan}} or {{do-attempt}} tag, then you can follow the hyperlinked words "related topics", which will take you to a Google sitesearch of en.wikipedia.org. This will produce any articles which mention the orphaned article without linking to it.
If this doesn't help, then a little more research is required. First, read the article. Then, follow some likely-looking outgoing links from the orphan to other articles, and do a Web-wide Google search for the article topic. Doing these will give you a much better idea of what it relates to. Not only will it probably give you information you can use to add meaningful links from other articles, but it will probably give you enough info to flesh out and improve the orphan itself. (This is, after all, the main purpose of the 'pedia.)
When you find an appropriate parent, insert a meaningful link to the orphaned article.
When adding a link to an orphaned article, please use this edit summary:
Adding link to orphaned article, Wikiproject Orphanage: [[WP:ORPHAN|You can help!]]
Once the article has three or more links that fit the #Criteria below, remove the {{orphan}} tag with this edit summary:
Successfully de-orphaned! Wikiproject Orphanage: [[WP:ORPHAN|You can help!]]
Replace the {{orphan}} tag with a {{do-attempt}} tag, or, if there are already multiple issues, use both the orphan and do-attempt parameters of the {{articleissues}} template (this is necessary to categorize it correctly). (See #Templates, below)
In this case, please use the following edit summary on the orphaned article when converting to the {{do-attempt}} tag:
Unsuccesful de-orphan attempt, Wikiproject Orphanage: [[WP:ORPHAN|You can help!]]
Although a bot regularly checks articles to see if they are orphaned, you can help too. When reading an article, you can check what other pages link to it by clicking "What links here" in the toolbox. You will then be provided with a list of pages that link to that article. Following the criteria below, you can add the {{orphan}} template to the top of the page, marking it as an orphan.
When counting the number of links to an article, count only the links that come from other articles. This excludes links from:
Deorphaning a page isn't just about removing it from the backlog, it is about building the web, and integrating the page into Wikipedia. Ideally, every page should be accessible through a chain of article links from the main page.
To add yourself to the list of participants, please edit this section and add {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Orphanage/table|Your Username|Active}} to the bottom of the list.
These members haven't been seen around in a while. We hope they'll come back and move themselves to the active list!
| Name | Last contribution |
|---|---|
| JetLover (talk • contribs) | 2008 May 1 |
| Lights (talk • contribs) | 2008 July 11 |
| Lex Kitten (talk • contribs) | 2008 February 25 |
| freenaulij (talk • contribs) | 2007 December 14 |
| gs44631 (talk • contribs) | 2008 March 22 |
| kodmkl (talk • contribs) | 2008 July 31 |
| leobold1 (talk • contribs) | 2008 June 9 |
| Fattyjwoods (talk • contribs) | 2008 July 12 |
| LadyEditor (talk • contribs) | 2008 May 26 |
| Karces (talk • contribs) | 2008 July 10 |
| Fbu08 (talk • contribs) | 2008 September 9 |
| Cookiecutter43 (talk • contribs) | 2008 August 5 |
| Ericloyd (talk • contribs) | 2008 September 16 |
These are kept for historical purposes only. They are no longer used.