Is there any chance for progress to be made on this? I recently ran into this problem again at a featured article candidate I was reviewing. It is has a very worthy 'National Historic Landmarks' set of templates at the bottom, but unfortunately this leads to massive template linkage bloat. Of the over 100 articles that link to this article, I estimate that only three links are from within the text of other articles - the rest are from the templates.
If I had been able to see at a glance that this article was linked from two other articles, I would have been able to make a suggestion to link back to those articles, and maybe link from other articles. As it was, I was unable to do this and this caused some problems (which it is best not to go into here).
So is there anyway to encourage or help with whatever needs to be done here?
Carcharoth
On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 4:10 AM, David Goodman dggenwp@gmail.com wrote:
agreed. The footer templates are the biggest source of linkage bloat. the templates are useful, and we need some way of keeping track of what should be in them when we add or delete articles, but they make working with what links here for any practical purpose extremely difficult. They'd be much more helpful if they were separated.
On Sun, Feb 6, 2011 at 9:52 PM, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 1:34 AM, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 07/02/11 10:56, Carcharoth wrote:
On Sun, Feb 6, 2011 at 10:19 PM, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
Many of these links are due to templates, which I can do little about.
Can *anyone*, even in principle, do something about that? It really bugs me that the "what links here" function doesn't distinguish between links arising from templates (often not directly relevant) and links directly from the article wiki-text. If the answer is something to do with parsers, please do explain!
Yes, it's possible. It was necessary to register links from templates in the pagelinks table so that when a page is deleted or created, the HTML caches can be updated so that the link colour will change. With a schema change and some parser work, it would be possible to flag such links so that they are optional in "what links here".
That would be wonderful. It might even get me to create a bugzilla account to vote for a bug if there is one open on this...(of course, one problem is still that some templates are relevant to article content and some are not - the ones that generate distracting links are the navigational ones that tend to be at the bottom of pages, the footer templates - and I'm not sure if infobox links would count as template links or not - they are generated from parsing of a template parameter, but don't appear in the template itself, unlike the footer navboxes).
[In case anyone is confused, an example is the massive footer templates that can lead to Nobel prize winners decades apart linking to each other, or diverse topics within a broad area linking to each other, though only through templates and not in the text. Oh, and some links appear in both footer templates, infoboxes, and the article 'text'. Not sure how that is handled.]
Carcharoth
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On 04/04/2011 12:56, Carcharoth wrote:
So is there anyway to encourage or help with whatever needs to be done here?
Have a look at [[Template:Protected Areas of Massachusetts]], for example. This nearly doubled in size early in 2011, with a couple of hundred red links added.
What we have here is "quadratic": if it is assumed all those redlinks are articles that will get added (there may be no reason why not), and that this footer is added to all those articles, the linkage created grows as the square of the number of links. So a footer with a 1001 links implies a million wikilinks.
It would be sensible to have a guideline that says "break down footers that have many links", to reduce the effect.
Charles
On 04/04/2011, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Have a look at [[Template:Protected Areas of Massachusetts]], for example. This nearly doubled in size early in 2011, with a couple of hundred red links added.
What we have here is "quadratic": if it is assumed all those redlinks are articles that will get added (there may be no reason why not), and that this footer is added to all those articles, the linkage created grows as the square of the number of links. So a footer with a 1001 links implies a million wikilinks.
It would be sensible to have a guideline that says "break down footers that have many links", to reduce the effect.
Do we actually have any thousand link footers?
I'm pretty sure we don't.
The principle is that it shouldn't be possible for a normal user to break or significantly slow the site, and I'm sure that even if a thousand link footer existed that the Wikipedia wouldn't break. And speaking as a techy guy, I know that the tech guys have lots of tricks they can do; so seriously don't worry about it. They could make something appear to be a million links, whereas internally in the database it's really only a thousand. They could cache the template in lots of crazy ways you wouldn't believe.
But in any case a million things isn't actually that big; the database is currently what? Thousands of gigabytes? And growing all the time. A few footer templates like that wouldn't be *any* problem. A million things is still only a drop in a very big ocean.
Basically, what matters here is readability and usefulness.
Charles
On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 3:18 PM, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:
Basically, what matters here is readability and usefulness.
And knowing how many links are from within templates and how many from within the actual text of an article is not useful? "What links here" is a useful tool for editors that has become useless because of the use of such templates. This has been known for a long time, and sometimes technical people say that something can be done, but rarely does something actually get done.
Carcharoth
I agree entirely with Carcharoth, and have been having the same thoughts for the past year. It's not even possible to momentarily delete an article from a template in order to see what other articles actually link to it, because the "what links here" can take days to update fully. It'd be really helpful if a solution could be found.
-Will Beback
On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 7:53 AM, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.comwrote:
On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 3:18 PM, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:
Basically, what matters here is readability and usefulness.
And knowing how many links are from within templates and how many from within the actual text of an article is not useful? "What links here" is a useful tool for editors that has become useless because of the use of such templates. This has been known for a long time, and sometimes technical people say that something can be done, but rarely does something actually get done.
Carcharoth
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Dredging up an old post to ask those reading this list what the best way is to make progress on this. I suspect the answer is to post again to something like wiki-tech-l, but that didn't really get things moving last time. I'm asking this time because I'm struggling to make "what links here" work for the articles listed at this rather large template:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Polar_exploration
What I'm looking for is the ability to filter links to articles that are due to that template being transcluded on other pages, and links that actually come from the non-transcluded areas of articles. Preferably with the links from transclusions annotated with the name of the transcluded item generating the link.
Carcharoth
On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 12:07 AM, Will Beback will.beback.1@gmail.com wrote:
I agree entirely with Carcharoth, and have been having the same thoughts for the past year. It's not even possible to momentarily delete an article from a template in order to see what other articles actually link to it, because the "what links here" can take days to update fully. It'd be really helpful if a solution could be found.
-Will Beback
On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 7:53 AM, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.comwrote:
On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 3:18 PM, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:
Basically, what matters here is readability and usefulness.
And knowing how many links are from within templates and how many from within the actual text of an article is not useful? "What links here" is a useful tool for editors that has become useless because of the use of such templates. This has been known for a long time, and sometimes technical people say that something can be done, but rarely does something actually get done.
Carcharoth
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On 8 November 2011 15:32, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
What I'm looking for is the ability to filter links to articles that are due to that template being transcluded on other pages, and links that actually come from the non-transcluded areas of articles. Preferably with the links from transclusions annotated with the name of the transcluded item generating the link.
I was going to suggest filing a bug, but it seems the problem's been in bugzilla for six years:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3241
Judging by the comments there, it looks like it's technically quite difficult to do.
Back to the drawing board... fixing whatlinkshere apparently won't work, and limiting the templates (by removing links or obfuscating them with redirects) will cause more problems than this one solves, so what's the third option? Can something be scripted on the toolserver as a stand-in?
On 8 November 2011 17:08, Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk wrote:
On 8 November 2011 15:32, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
What I'm looking for is the ability to filter links to articles that are due to that template being transcluded on other pages, and links that actually come from the non-transcluded areas of articles. Preferably with the links from transclusions annotated with the name of the transcluded item generating the link.
I was going to suggest filing a bug, but it seems the problem's been in bugzilla for six years:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3241
Judging by the comments there, it looks like it's technically quite difficult to do.
Back to the drawing board... fixing whatlinkshere apparently won't work, and limiting the templates (by removing links or obfuscating them with redirects) will cause more problems than this one solves, so what's the third option? Can something be scripted on the toolserver as a stand-in?
Actually, the answer to the question is to deprecate such ridiculous templates and apply the appropriate categories. These enormous templates make articles difficult to open on slow or mobile connections, which encompasses a significant number of our users. This is a usability issue, and an inappropriate use of templates.
Risker/Anne
Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
Actually, the answer to the question is to deprecate such ridiculous templates and apply the appropriate categories. These enormous templates make articles difficult to open on slow or mobile connections, which encompasses a significant number of our users. This is a usability issue, and an inappropriate use of templates.
IMHO these large theme boxes should be converted into nice portal pages. Portals can be designed more optically appealing and hold even more links. And the articles themselves only need a link to the portal page, which also addresses the file size Problem.
Perhaps the usefulness of portals and categories can be combined. For example, but unrealistic in the short term, clicking to a standard category link should open the portal page of the same name if it exists.
Peter
On Wed, Nov 9, 2011 at 11:29 AM, Peter Jacobi peter_jacobi@gmx.net wrote:
Perhaps the usefulness of portals and categories can be combined. For example, but unrealistic in the short term, clicking to a standard category link should open the portal page of the same name if it exists.
That is one of the best ideas I've seen for a while.
For a brief time, there were extended descriptions and even images at the top of broad category pages. You can see this in early versions of the Nature category:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Nature&oldid=32341398
You can see the portal browse bar up there as well.
I think most footer navigational templates should be a link to the templates, rather than a transcluded set of links. Just as we link to categories and portals and lists instead of transcluding them. But that would take a huge culture shift and would (understandably) meet great resistance from those that have built and maintain such templates (a natural reaction if people see months or years of work being made less visible, being a click away rather than directly visible).
Carcharoth
On 09/11/11 22:29, Peter Jacobi wrote:
Perhaps the usefulness of portals and categories can be combined. For example, but unrealistic in the short term, clicking to a standard category link should open the portal page of the same name if it exists.
You could just put {{Portal:{{PAGENAME}} }} at the top of the category page, although I appreciate how difficult it is to change the relevant policy.
I came to the conclusion many years ago that the easiest way to make a policy change on Wikipedia is to spend 6 months writing and deploying software that requires or implements the change. It's a lot easier to get a majority in a software deployment vote than it is to build consensus behind an editorial policy.
-- Tim Starling
On 09/11/11 22:29, Peter Jacobi wrote:
Perhaps the usefulness of portals and categories can be combined. For example, but unrealistic in the short term, clicking to a standard category link should open the portal page of the same name if it exists.
You could just put {{Portal:{{PAGENAME}} }} at the top of the category page, although I appreciate how difficult it is to change the relevant policy.
I came to the conclusion many years ago that the easiest way to make a policy change on Wikipedia is to spend 6 months writing and deploying software that requires or implements the change. It's a lot easier to get a majority in a software deployment vote than it is to build consensus behind an editorial policy.
-- Tim Starling
Evil elite workaround.
Fred
On Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 12:36 AM, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 09/11/11 22:29, Peter Jacobi wrote:
Perhaps the usefulness of portals and categories can be combined. For example, but unrealistic in the short term, clicking to a standard category link should open the portal page of the same name if it exists.
You could just put {{Portal:{{PAGENAME}} }} at the top of the category page, although I appreciate how difficult it is to change the relevant policy.
I came to the conclusion many years ago that the easiest way to make a policy change on Wikipedia is to spend 6 months writing and deploying software that requires or implements the change. It's a lot easier to get a majority in a software deployment vote than it is to build consensus behind an editorial policy.
Not really. Two sofwareside attempts on Finnish Wikipedia crashed and burned, despite me trying to nurse them along.
If an article is bloated with links or templates just remove the clutter. On Nov 11, 2011 7:33 PM, "Jussi-Ville Heiskanen" cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 12:36 AM, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 09/11/11 22:29, Peter Jacobi wrote:
Perhaps the usefulness of portals and categories can be combined. For example, but unrealistic in the short term, clicking to a standard category link should open the portal page of the same name if it exists.
You could just put {{Portal:{{PAGENAME}} }} at the top of the category page, although I appreciate how difficult it is to change the relevant policy.
I came to the conclusion many years ago that the easiest way to make a policy change on Wikipedia is to spend 6 months writing and deploying software that requires or implements the change. It's a lot easier to get a majority in a software deployment vote than it is to build consensus behind an editorial policy.
Not really. Two sofwareside attempts on Finnish Wikipedia crashed and burned, despite me trying to nurse them along.
--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
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On Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 10:08 PM, Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk wrote:
On 8 November 2011 15:32, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
What I'm looking for is the ability to filter links to articles that are due to that template being transcluded on other pages, and links that actually come from the non-transcluded areas of articles. Preferably with the links from transclusions annotated with the name of the transcluded item generating the link.
I was going to suggest filing a bug, but it seems the problem's been in bugzilla for six years:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3241
Judging by the comments there, it looks like it's technically quite difficult to do.
Back to the drawing board... fixing whatlinkshere apparently won't work, and limiting the templates (by removing links or obfuscating them with redirects) will cause more problems than this one solves, so what's the third option? Can something be scripted on the toolserver as a stand-in?
Thanks for the link to that. That is not the bugzilla discussion I saw previously, though maybe the discussion I am remembering was on wiki-tech-l. I think it was, but there was also discussion in another wiki-en-l thread about the same time (February 2011). See what Tim Starling says here (on wiki-en-l):
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2011-February/108486.html
The wiki-tech-l discussion had this comment from Brion Vibber:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2011-February/051647.html
Given that both Tim and Brion had commented and nothing got done, I sort of gave up at that point.
Carcharoth