This is a nice writeup. It would make a good addition to the "lists discussion" page you link.
An essay on this that ties into other ways to convert reliable datasources into pages via a list-creation step (sometimes resulting in a list, sometimes resulting in a topic outline, and sometimes resulting in better encyclopedia articles), would also be useful. --SJ On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 5:44 PM, Carcharoth<[email protected]> wrote: > I recently created three lists of winners of scientific awards, partly > because it needed doing, partly to see how good our coverage is now > (and how many articles remain to be written in such fields) and partly > to take a more systematic approach to checking links. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_N._Potts_Medal > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Medal > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin_Medal_(Franklin_Institute) > > The year ranges are: 1911-1991, 1915-1997, and 1998-2008 respectively. > The lists consist of scientists across a range of fields, with 99, > 114, and 80 entries respectively. The number of redlinks vs blue links > (at the time of writing) are: 51 vs 48, 3 vs 111, and 18 vs 62, > respectively. > > The relatively high numbers of redlinks for the Potts Medal is due to > it being a somewhat lesser medal than the other two (which are > essentially the same medal, but the latter one arising after a > reorganisation of the awards process of the Franklin Institute, > Pennsylvania, USA). It was very encouraging to see that there were > only 3 redlinks in the Franklin medal list, but given the calibre and > stature of some of the names there, that was to be expected. 18 > redlinks (from 80) on the medal covering the last ten years is not too > bad when you consider that coverage of current scientists is not > always that good. > > I've summarised this on the talk pages, and also laid out there the > approach I took to checking the links: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Howard_N._Potts_Medal > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Franklin_Medal > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Benjamin_Franklin_Medal_(Franklin_Institute) > > The process is essentially this: > > 1) Create list from reliable source > > 2) Check for typos and other mistakes > > 3) Check all redlinks to see if a redirect can be created > > 4) Check all blue links for wrong links and disambiguation pages > > 5) Disambiguate where possible > > 6) Disambiguate incorrect blue links to red links where possible > > 7) Leave sources behind that were found while disambiguating to redlinks > > 8) List redlinks on talk page and check back periodically to see if > articles created > > 9) Create articles on the redlink list as alternative to waiting for > others to create > > 10) Periodically repeat search for redirects to create, and checking > that links are accurate > > From experience, watching a redlink list like this fill in, or > checking a list of blue links remains accurate, the common and not so > common changes are: > > A) A redlink turns blue, but the article is about someone else (turn > back into redlink by disambiguating) > > B) A redlink turns blue, but it is a disambiguation page someone has > created (disambiguate if possible) > > C) A blue link turns from an article into a disambiguation page (and > someone forgot to fix the incoming links) > > Are there any other common situations where the status of a link changes? > > One of the annoying things is that sometimes you can have a grouping > of possible titles and possble redirects (e.g. A. Other, Any Other, A. > M. Other, Any Middle Other, Any Other (disambiguator), and so on), and > sometimes redlinks for more than one possibility have been created, > but until the actual article has been created, it is not possible to > create the other redlinks as redirects because there are bots that > will delete these as "broken redirects". I've never managed to figure > out a satisfactory solution to this. > > Anyway, I did this "list maintenance" and tracking thing previously > for the Royal Medal article, which is now (thanks to another editor) a > featured list. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Medal > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Royal_Medal > > You can see on the talk page the timings of when the redlinks turned > blue. It should be interesting to see how fast that happens for those > three lists I've set up above, for the lists I created recently. > Providing, of course, that I resist the temptation to create some of > those articles myself (I will, at some point), and that everyone on > this list doesn't rush off to create some of those articles... :-) > > Anyway, what I wanted to know was whether there are places on > Wikipedia where such approaches to lists and checking links is > documented? I do remember something about various lists of entries > from places like the DNB. > > Ah here we are: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Missing_encyclopedic_articles/DNB_lists_discussion > > "List maintenance, first pass. Add {{tick}}, {{dn}} and {{mnl}} > templates, respectively for correct bluelinks, bluelinks needing > disambiguation and bluelinks that are definitely wrong." [...] List > maintenance, second pass: redirecting redlinks. Go through creating > redirects and adding {{tick}} to new bluelinks." > > That comes closest, I think, to what I was describing above. > > Here's the example page from that project: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Charles_Matthews/DNB_Working_List_63 > > That's getting bit away from general list maintenance, towards merging > from public domain encyclopedias, but the list link checking and > maintenance points are still the starting point. > > Thoughts would be appreciated on whether an essay or guideline on link > maintenance in lists would be useful (or a link if it already exists > somewhere). Or whether there are any other common things that need > checking when working with such lists. > > Carcharoth > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
