Talk:Lori's X-Men Archive
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MPH, wondering why you took off the wikilinks? I would hope many of those authors would get pages eventually. --MegR 10:49, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
- I wondered the same thing. IMO it is much better to put in wikilinks right away (admittedly sometimes not so feasible if you c&p large chunks, but in general) than having to put them in later when an article is made. I mean, often I don't really search that intensely when I make a new one to make sure all instances in text are linked. Also you can see which fans are featured a lot in the articles. I don't actually care much that there are 10000+ wanted pages, I don't think that list, except maybe for the first few places, is useful to find or pick things to edit, whether it had merely 1000 or as now 10000+ links. It does not even keep sorting order when you scroll through if the number of link instances is the same. --RatCreature 12:20, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
- It was a little experiment, one I think is a failed one. Mrs. Potato Head 13:31, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
- Well, it did get me to make pages for several people ;>. --MegR 13:36, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
- In that case, not a total dork move on my part then. :-) Mrs. Potato Head 13:47, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
- Well there's lots of ways to approach editing and different people do different things. Having said that, I'm curious as to why you don't search for potential or repairable wikilinks when you make a page? The search button will return all the pages a given text appears on, so there's really only one level of searching involved--or perhaps I misunderstand your comment about searching intensely. I guess I look at it as if not when the page is made, then when? I don't really expect my cry in the wilderness for people to make wikilinks with the correct formatting to amount to anything, so the only way all that red is going to go away is by finding it once there's a page to link to. I was able to link 9 pages to the Kink Meme page even though not one of them had an existing wiki link that worked once the page was made.--facetofcathy 16:44, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
- with "search that intensely" I mean I may not search for all variants like say I make a page for Deborah Cummins (which I did) for that I had to search for all kinds of varieties, like may she be called Deb Cummins sometimes (apparently not), to Debbie Cummins (very often, to Debra Cummins, to Deborah C. (there it needs checking whether that really is the same fan, Debs aren't exactly rare in fandom) to Debbie C... add middle initials and pseuds and you get long lists for some fandoms. Also sometimes people are just talked about in first names, especially in c&ped text, so if people don't add the wikilinks afterwards you have to research which "Deborah" that quote taked about. So you have to go through a gazillion hits on "Deb" "Deborah" and "Debbie" to catch every first name that might be her. That is what I mean with "search intensely" not checking the exact spelling once and putting in links in three places or whatever. Having the links in place makes all that much easier. Not to mention that the crappy search engine does not search at all for three letter pseuds (case in point I wanted to link all "ELG" earlier and had to use google, nor for does it like some other words.--RatCreature 17:19, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
- ETA: The reason why I think that existing links page that process easier, is that then I can enter the possible variations I'd need to redirect in the "what links here" form and check whether they exist and the pages, whereas otherwise I need to search in the whole text whether variations exist and edit a lot of articles to make the links.--RatCreature 17:28, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
- Ah, I see. I had not had an opportunity yet to look for personal names to link. I can absolutely see how you need to put some limits on how far you search, and how the current search engine is less than useful at times. Fandoms or long terms are much, much easier to find the links that need tweaking--there were four versions of links for the Narnia page, but a search for narnia returned them all. I have no objection at all to making wikilinks in advance of the page, and for people and common terms it's almost guaranteed their will be several made before the page itself. I may wish for more consistent formatting to make interconnections easier and to eliminate needing redirects for all those variations, but I'm not holding my breath. --facetofcathy 17:47, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
- I just tried the way you suggest, tracking down links for an author with an existing profile i.e. Debra Hicks in this case and apart from the problem that she is not the same as Deborah Hicks and there are "Deb Hicks" hits around, it was absolutely horribly tedious. I mean far more than inserting all wikilinks in a page that has none when you come across it to cover the names. Searching got three pages of results and I inserted the same four brackets in more than a dozen pages that were not yet linked to her. So mismatching aside (which always happens, and you can't well anticipate it, I mean I had no ide abefore I came across it here that some spell name smoosh as smushname and the like), overall I think the practice "I insert all potentially useful links in the page I create" and so that there are links in place for new pages, is less tedious than make a page and edit three dozen or more other pages that contain the word so they are interlinked. Which can be easily the case with prolific authors.--RatCreature 18:46, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
- Ah, I see. I had not had an opportunity yet to look for personal names to link. I can absolutely see how you need to put some limits on how far you search, and how the current search engine is less than useful at times. Fandoms or long terms are much, much easier to find the links that need tweaking--there were four versions of links for the Narnia page, but a search for narnia returned them all. I have no objection at all to making wikilinks in advance of the page, and for people and common terms it's almost guaranteed their will be several made before the page itself. I may wish for more consistent formatting to make interconnections easier and to eliminate needing redirects for all those variations, but I'm not holding my breath. --facetofcathy 17:47, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
- Well there's lots of ways to approach editing and different people do different things. Having said that, I'm curious as to why you don't search for potential or repairable wikilinks when you make a page? The search button will return all the pages a given text appears on, so there's really only one level of searching involved--or perhaps I misunderstand your comment about searching intensely. I guess I look at it as if not when the page is made, then when? I don't really expect my cry in the wilderness for people to make wikilinks with the correct formatting to amount to anything, so the only way all that red is going to go away is by finding it once there's a page to link to. I was able to link 9 pages to the Kink Meme page even though not one of them had an existing wiki link that worked once the page was made.--facetofcathy 16:44, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
- Your example certainly brings up another argument in favour of careful construction of the wikilink in the first place. When the page is made is, in my opinion, the best time to make all the wikilinks on a page, to real or possible future pages, and to make sure you're formating them correctly--which is what I'm campaigning for--I've never suggested not making them. My way of dealing with the issue is down to my nature--I studied computer science. I like to write the code correctly the first time (and I fail at that just like everyone else), correct it as the next best option, and make a hack as a last resort. To me, redirects are hacks, but I can totally see why they are needed and used, and I'm not saying they're bad. But you can't just redirect existing Deb Hicks links, because it could indicate either person. If the wikilinks had been styled as Debra_Hicks|Deb Hicks or Deborah_Hicks|Deb Hicks in the first place, you'd be laughing, just make the pages for the two people and away you go, now in that case it's unlikely the page makers all knew there were two people with that name, but to take another example, there was only one existing wikilink on the site that had the correct format for the yet to be made Narnia page, so it was either fix them or make three redirects to catch them all. --facetofcathy 19:23, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
- But that is just not realistic to know how the final article is supposed to look. And you need the redirects also because the search is so crappy. Otherwise the search engine won't find things because the capitalization doesn't match or singular/plural doesn't match or someone wrote the "&" in the title as "and" etc. The search engine has not error tolerance. I mean sometimes you search "blah awards" and the page was created "blah award" and you won't see that unless there is a redirect. It is like that with a ton of pages. I regularly fix duplicates. That is not because someone did not search before, but because the search engine is such crap that I only see the page in the lists I manually maintain. Like yesterday I made a page for "Starborne" the newsletter, having found only other starbornes and that was what it was written in the list I followed. I searched for starborne and starborn and star born and the newsletter wasn't there. So I make the page, then go to add the zine to the lists, turns out on the cover it was written Star-Borne.--RatCreature 19:54, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
- Your example certainly brings up another argument in favour of careful construction of the wikilink in the first place. When the page is made is, in my opinion, the best time to make all the wikilinks on a page, to real or possible future pages, and to make sure you're formating them correctly--which is what I'm campaigning for--I've never suggested not making them. My way of dealing with the issue is down to my nature--I studied computer science. I like to write the code correctly the first time (and I fail at that just like everyone else), correct it as the next best option, and make a hack as a last resort. To me, redirects are hacks, but I can totally see why they are needed and used, and I'm not saying they're bad. But you can't just redirect existing Deb Hicks links, because it could indicate either person. If the wikilinks had been styled as Debra_Hicks|Deb Hicks or Deborah_Hicks|Deb Hicks in the first place, you'd be laughing, just make the pages for the two people and away you go, now in that case it's unlikely the page makers all knew there were two people with that name, but to take another example, there was only one existing wikilink on the site that had the correct format for the yet to be made Narnia page, so it was either fix them or make three redirects to catch them all. --facetofcathy 19:23, 13 January 2010 (UTC)