Suggestion re: redirect checking

Since so many links need namespaces added, it would be best if as many as possible could be added in one edit. Unfortunately, just looking at the page doesn't even tell you which links are redirects, and checking the links one by one takes too long.

To help with this problem, the feature I would suggest would be a tool (similar to other Itty Bitty Wiki Tools) that would take a page and return a list of all links that point to redirects.

Use the "related" button at the top of the main trope page. On the top right of the results page is a list of all the pages that redirect to that main page, and the number of wicks each one has. If you click one of those redirects, you'll get the list pages that have wicks to it.

Like this: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/relatedsearch.php?term=Main/CelestialBureaucracy is the related page for Celestial Bureaucracy. It has two redirects: Afterlife Bureaucracy and Diabolical Bureaucracy. Each of them has one wick.

edited 25th Jan '14 11:22:20 AM by Madrugada

That's not what Prfnoff means, Maddy — he wants something which looks at links on the page to other pages rather than to the page from other pages (which is what the Related function does).

I think that's a great idea, though I don't know how easy it would be to implement, of course.

The crude method I use is to open all to-be-checked links in other tabs and then close them off selectively (which way, depends upon whether you want to see all redirects or all not redirects).

That's not only crude, but cumbersome and slow. Unfortunately, it might be the easiest way right now.

It's the only way we have right now, unfortunately; I dunno if Eddie has either the time or interest in making a mass edit function like that.

A mass edit function isn't necessary, just a tool that says "Hey, all these links on the page are redirects." Similar to the YMMV flagger, maybe. Then we manually fix them.

I don't understand what the point of having redirects is if we don't use them?

We use them for inbounds, not for wicks.

And also for searches. For example, Limb-Sensation Fascination has the redirect New Limb Euphoria, which was an alt title suggested in YKTTW, because it catches more key words.

But not all redirect are bad. Like sometimes we don't have a real page for a work and instead the page is a redirect to the creator/franchise or the original medium. As I understand it, it should still be wicked to the redirect in case someone creates that page.

edited 27th Jan '14 3:18:23 AM by m8e

That's why what I'm suggesting shouldn't be a mass edit function.

The tool wouldn't even have to specify what pages the redirects link to, as that is relatively simple to determine in the cases where it isn't immediately obvious. All the tool would have to do is scan all the links on the page and return a list of the ones that point to redirect-type pages.

Wouldn't it need to tell you what the correct page is? This idea originally came up for help with namespacing. When I'm running around trying to fix all the namespaces on the page, I can easily see that ToAruMajutsuNoIndex isn't properly namespaced; don't need a tool for that. But unless I click on the link, I'm not going to know that the correct link is LightNovel.A Certain Magical Index.

And I should clarify: When I said "like the YMMV tool," I didn't mean that every redirect will show up whenever you open the edit screen. Just that we'll have a tool that we can use that probably works the same way programming-wise, and spits out a report on all the links.

Another function that could be added to this proposed tool would be to list the links on the page that point to pages that don't exist. Since the new redlinker only checks for the existence of one page in any namespace, this would help in fixing links where the namespace is misspelled or inappropriately absent.

I'd like to reiterate my old request for a link-type-checking tool. It would help put in order the work pages I see being created by novice tropers with little regard for namespaces.

What is a "link type"?

I mean the page types of linked pages, and (in particular) whether they exist or not. Right now, you can typo in VideoGaem/ or WesternAnimaition/ and it will still show up as a bluelink if it exists in the right namespace. Tropers can also be careless and link to a Main/ redirect to a work page that might have been cut a while ago, but it will still show up as blue and they'll be none the wiser. I want a tool that will point out these kinds of errors without needing to manually test every single link on the page.

edited 14th Jun '15 10:08:17 AM by Prfnoff

Closing this as "omnibus"; each issue should be reposted in the noticeboards Query Bugs and Query Wishlist as individual issues.