Template talk:Orphan/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Top or Bottom?

Currently the template is usually added to the top of the article, and the documentation implicitly recommends this by saying this is the easiest way to add it. However De-orphaning a correctly tagged article involves editing not this article but others potentially related to it, which is not really newbie territory. I would suggest that the preferred location for this tag should be discretely at the end of the article, this won't make any difference to those of our editors who de-orphan articles, but it will improve the look of the pedia, and fit in with the general ethos that tags at the top of an article should be warnings to readers rather than internal cleanup for editors. Naturally I am not suggesting that the existing orphan tags be moved, just that we change the preferred location and then get Twinkle changed so that new tags are usually added at the end. ϢereSpielChequers 11:05, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

"Every reader is a potential editor". This is one of the things that is heavily circulated around Wikipedia. We have constructed everything based on this logic. Almost all cleanup templates go on the top for this reason. We have tools, bots, scripts, etc. for the same purpose. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:11, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

maintaince templates, like this one that is an editor to editor communication should go on the talk page. Only if they serve a dual purpose and have some use as a warning to the causal reader such as {{unreferenced}} should they go in article space. Failing agreement on that it would be better if it were to go at the bottom of the page. -- PBS (talk) 12:54, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree that every reader is a potential editor, but how many if any start by de-orphaning articles? If some do then by all means leave it at the top, but if this is not an entry level editing task then it would be better put at the end. ϢereSpielChequers 13:03, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Matter of fact I did start out de-orphaning articles! It's one of the maintenance tasks that got me addicted to Wikipedia in fact. And it's an excellent entry level task.. see paragraph from WP:ORPHANAGE: "if you are new to Wikipedia, de-orphaning articles is a great way to learn a wide variety of useful skills. De-orphaning, when done correctly, will allow you to learn how to navigate within Wikipedia, how to format wikilinks, how to utilize cleanup tags, as well as how to determine an article's notability. Which in turn leads into learning how to look for references, how and when to perform a merge, and how and when to propose an article for deletion. All while learning interesting tidbits of information that you'd probably not find anywhere else!" I still considering de-orphaning to be the funnest, most worthwhile way to improve Wikipedia (maintenance-wise) -- œ^™ 10:04, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Like - Leng T'che (talk) 13:58, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Do-attempt

Do we still use this do-attempt parameter? I noticed there are less than 1,000 pages in Category:Attempted de-orphan while we have 100,000 orphan pages. Moreover, what difference does it make that someone attempted to fix a page in April 2008? It's been 2 and half years since then. I suggest that we deprecate this parameter (which I forgot it existed!) -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:32, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I ran my bot today. Population reduced to 736. The rest weren't orphan anymore i.e. 3 or more links. These tags are really outdated. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:04, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I think it doesn't hurt to have a category for articles that are just a little to stubborn to de-orphan. For example, when I was clearing out August 2006, of the last 100 or so, less then 6-7 really met that category of just too stubborn to de-orphan and it would be silly for someone else to try to de-orphan it unless they were really creative or experienced. Having the attempted category allows the articles to be put in a holding area, which doesn't get rid of the record of their original tagging as orphans, Sadads (talk) 06:46, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I think we should keep the att feature. There's good reasons given over at WP:CANTDEORPHAN#Using the att parameter. I won't repeat what's already there. -- œ^™ 10:08, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't disagree. But it looks unmaintained to me. If the idea is "give low priority to these pages" we don't gain much at the moment! -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:55, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Ya it's more of a planning for the future type of thing. -- œ^™ 23:22, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Meanwhile, this page says "and also hides the article message box", which used to be the case, but appears not to be its current behaviour. TheAMmollusc (talk) 11:55, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Add link to tool (2)

It seems the "#Add link to tool" doesn't work for articles with special characters in their name, e.g. Mozart: Violin Sonatas gives http://edwardbetts.com/find_link?q=Mozart:_Violin_Sonatas which stalls (Firefox) or fails (IE, Chrome). The tool doesn't return anything for 5408 Thé nor for many other article names. I suggest to remove it from the template until the tool gets fixed. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:24, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

FYI, there are no links for 5408 Thé because all 6 pages with it verbatim on the page already have links to the page, that is an intentional function, so that we aren't repeating the links that are already present in Wikipedia, as for the other issue that is not crippling. You should bring it up to the host of the tool at http://edwardbetts.com/ . I find the tool extremely useful, and it allows users who don't use WP:AWB to find and add links in mass with little or now familiarity with search tools, Sadads (talk) 11:36, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying the operation of the tool. I have no intention of contacting edwardbetts.com, I just wanted to report the tool's deficiency as I encountered it. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:54, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Edit request to fix category suppression

{{edit protected}}

There is a sandbox version that will fix the category suppression, since this template uses Ambox, the "all" parameter needs to be in use, so that only article pages get categorized. Also, Ambox has a "subst" parameter, which I have updated also. Otherwise, the "Help" and "Wikipedia" pages where the template is used as an example keep getting into the article category. Thanks, --Funandtrvl (talk) 23:36, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Done. --Closedmouth (talk) 15:38, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Edit request to fix template loop

Apparently, having the "name" parameter within the template, along with the "subst" parameter causes a template loop to show the /doc pg twice. See: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (article message boxes)#Template loops. So, the sandbox has a revised version that needs to be implemented to fix the problem. Thanks, --Funandtrvl (talk) 22:07, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Done. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:47, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Have reimplemented using the name parameter. Hopefully this causes no issues? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:16, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

It looks OK. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:26, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Article's that can't be de-orphaned

I think that "Please remove this template if the article is impossible to de-orphan" or "Please use the att parameter if this article is impossible to de-orphan" should be added to the template. While using automated tools such as AWB, I add orphan tags to articles that may not be able to be de-orphaned. It is impossible to check every article to see if it is possible before I tag it. Ryan Vesey contribs 01:36, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Heresy?

At the risk of promoting heresy: I suggest that the visible box on this template be removed. All the other hat templates give a warning that the article may suffer from some issues (COI, lack of references, POV, etc.). However, orphanhood is not in the same league. We still have the category so wiki editors will see, find, and attempt to find links to the orphans, but users do not need to worry that the article at Z Apodis, e.g., is compromised because no one has bothered to create a slew of lists on which that star would appear. Since, typically stars are far from one another and unless they happen to align sight-wise from Earth or are of similar types, they have little to do with one another logically either - and both those characteristics are currently (and better) handled with categories, rather than links. So nearly every star article at WP will be as lonely as its real counterpart in space; but the taggers, they tag, and the viewers see these tags and infer something is amiss, when no such thing should be. There are no doubt other broad categories of objects for which templates providing links would be overwhelmed by sheer quantity, and most individuals will have few, if any incoming links, but will be found through search and category. So, I think the visible box be removed from the template and only the category be placed. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 21:49, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

First, a note on star articles tagged with {{Orphan}}. Many orphan tags are added with AWB even the one that you referenced. If it is not possible to de-orphan an article you should just remove the orphan tag. On another side note, if you would like to help create links to it you could add the star to {{Stars of Apus}}. That template should probably be added to the article by the way. Now for a more serious question, is there a difference between Z Apodis and Zeta Apodis? I notice that Zeta Apodis is found on List of stars in Apus while Z apodis is not. I also found that Ζ Apodis redirects to Zeta Apodis. (I don't know how this is possible as they both seem to have the same title.) I believe they are the same star and should be combined. With Z Apodis redirecting to Zeta Apodis. I have brought the redirect question to the help desk so you know. Ryan Vesey Review me! 23:02, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Tags aren't necessarily placed on articles to warn readers, they are placed on articles in the hopes that readers will fix them. For example {{wikify}} doesn't warn readers about a problem but encourages readers to fix the article. This may be a problem in that most readers don't understand what it means to wikify or de-orphan an article and I would support a Wikipedia policy proposal stating that all templates that do not warn a reader and instead relate to more internal matters should be moved to the talk page. I think that a proposal such as this would ultimately fail because most editors are of the opinion that casual readers will see these templates and improve the articles. For templates such as {{orphan}} and {{wikify}} I think this is false. The orphan template could never be changed to just add it to a category of orphans without some sort of policy change. Now, what about a solution that makes the orphan template more subtle.

This article is an orphan, as few or no other articles link to it. Please introduce links to this page from related articles; suggestions may be available.

This template could easily be added to articles without {{ambox}}. Someone would need to figure out a way to still add it to the correct category. Ryan Vesey Review me! 23:02, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Let me answer your star question first: without repeating or going into to much detail (which can be found in Star designation), Zeta Apodis is a bright star in the constellation, which Johann Bayer designated with the Greek letter zeta (see Bayer designation), hence the redirect you found from Ζ Apodis (note that the first character is not the letter "Z", but a capital letter Zeta). Variable stars are named differently, by Latin letters starting at "R" through "Z" , etc. (see Variable star designation), hence one constellation can both a Zeta star and a Z star. OK, fascinates me but probably bores you...but hey you asked. :-)

I agree with you that many people probably think casual viewers will edit. I also agree, they probably won't. It would be good to put these "please help" on the talk pages; by the way, this is done with photo requests. Similarly, things like the templates noting missing dates of birth, years of birth, etc., only show up as hidden categories not an in your face template like this one. Presumably, a casual editor would be more willing to supply the birth date of someone s/he has looked up than go around to other articles to provide incoming links to it. But, hey, maybe no one else thinks that way. Regardless, I think this should be handled in the same way (hidden category or talk page). As for {{Stars of Apus}}, alas, if it included all (known) stars - for some constellations that would run in the hundreds of thousands - it would be so large to become both unwieldy and un-useful. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 17:23, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Regarding moving maintenance templates to the talk page, this is a perennial proposal and you may want to read some of the past discussions on this first if intending on making a serious proposal at the village pump or elsewhere. -- œ^™ 03:40, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Undeorphanable Articles and AWB

(I don't care, it's a word now. :-p) As the template documentation and others above have mentioned above, some articles might always be orphans. However, Anyone using AWB with the tagger will automatically add the tag, even when it is not desired. I propose a template, such as {{orphan whitelist}}, be created to add to articles that will always be orphans. This template doesn't need to have any visible content output on the page (maybe just a hidden category for tracking?). But it can be added into AWB's logic - so that if a page is an orphan, but someone has placed the above tag on it, deeming it "undeorphanable", AWB will not apply the orphan tag. Thoughts, comments? ^Avic_ennasis @ 06:02, 11 Elul 5771 / 06:02, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Not a bad idea. Deleting this template entirely would be even better :) Kaldari (talk) 03:12, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

AWB already supports some kind of whitelist. This includes dab and sia pages and some more. Any example of pages that could be whitelisted? Areyou sure these pages can't be included in some kinf of list? -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:40, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I'm sick of people tagging every arthropod species article with this tag. A typical arthropod species article will generally have a link from the genus article, or if there is no genus article, it will be unlinked. In either case, people always add the orphan tag, even though it serves absolutely no purpose in these cases. Why can't we just replace this tag with a hidden category or delete it entirely? If there is a legitimate article to link from, it takes just as much time to add the link as it does to add this tag. 9 times out of 10, though, this tag is completely pointless. Kaldari (talk) 06:39, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Orphan has a section titled "Articles that may be difficult to de-orphan". I encourage editors to add to that list any other article types that are likely to always remain orphaned. -- œ^™ 10:57, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

It belongs on the talk page

I dislike this template. It seems to be used for drive-by tagging and uglifies the reader's experience to no good end. It's used on undeorphanable articles as noted by various editors above, and will doubtless continue to be regardless of instruction to the contrary. It's fine on talk pages though, so I suggest adding this to the template's documentation: "This template is for use on talk pages, not article pages". Any objection to this? Herostratus (talk) 05:55, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree and have been saying so for ages (Wikipedia talk:Orphan#This maintenance template should be placed on the talk page, [1],[2]) -- PBS (talk) 10:49, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

• Primary objection can be found here. -- œ^™ 11:01, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

That link is biased as it only presents one POV. Something I have raised on its talk page.

1. Every reader is a potential editor and the maintenance tags give potential editors ideas of how to improve an article.
   • See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Self-references to avoid
2. The tags also serve as warnings to readers about potentially problematic and low-quality content.
   • How does this tag serve as a warning to readers?
3. The {{ambox}} "meta-template" used by the templates means that they are not nearly as cluttered-looking as previously.
   • This is a matter of opinion I think that they are more cluttered than they were before, They would a dam site less cluttering in article space if they were moved to the talk page. If someone was to put most of these boxes as plain text into an article the person would be accused of vandalism. Putting it in a box does not fix that.
4. The implementation costs would be large: Hundreds of thousands of articles have maintenance tags; moving them all to talk pages would be a massive undertaking, even using a bot. The documentation on all the templates, several editing help pages, and any bot or script that edits or reads maintenance tags would have to be updated.
   • Doesn't apply as this proposed change will only affect articles going forwards. People don't have to go through the back and catalogue, changing them as they will eventually be removed by natural wastage. People don't have to use bots and if the bot operator wants to change their bot to maintain the usage on the talk page they can when it is convent for them to do so as the change to bots does not have to be done immediately. The second point does not apply this proposal is only for this template's document. -- PBS (talk) 12:44, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

And the status quo is for editors to just manually remove the tags if they see it misplaced somewhere; same as any other tag. What's wrong with that? How can you be concerned for the esthetics of all these other orphan-tagged articles when they aren't even being seen by anyone, as the state of being orphaned implies. Moving all the tags to the talk page en masse would not only be a waste of time and resources but it would create a major inconsistency in how articles are tagged for problems; it would require a major consensus change that could only move forward via a very publicized RfC at the Village pump. -- œ^™ 14:56, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Readers may access an article through links from other articles, but they are just as likely to arrive at the page from a search engine link, so the aesthetics are a concern. No one is suggesting moving the tags en mass, there is no need. The process can be done by simply adding new ones to the talk page rather than into article space. "create a major inconsistency in how articles are tagged for problems" How so? You say such a change would be a major consensus change, but where was the alleged consensus for the current placement last show to exist? -- PBS (talk) 22:54, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Proposal - Change this to a hidden category template

The proposition is to make this template invisible by removing the text parts. Articles tagged with this template would still appear in Category:All orphaned articles. Herostratus (talk) 16:41, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

(See usage: Category:All orphaned articles - used in 58,628 pages (live count.) comment added by Wikid77

Comments

This template provides no useful information to readers, only to editors. The purpose of this template is served just as well by a hidden category as a glaring notice at the top of the article. It has been suggested that this template be moved to the article talk page, but such a change would involve either (1) a massive move of all of the existing template inclusions, or (2) inconsistent use of the template. Also, I would argue that talk pages these days are already cluttered up with enough notices. The simplest solution would be to change this template so that it just adds a hidden category to the article, rather than a notice and a category. I would especially favor this solution since a large proportion of articles tagged with the template are difficult or impossible to de-orphan, thus making a notice a waste of space. Kaldari (talk) 22:20, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

• For the record, I don't necessarily have a problem with changing this template to a hidden category. Except that there is the problem of users not knowing what to do with an orphaned article once there is no template message. At least the tag provides some instruction as to why the article is deficient, and provides links to useful tools that can help with de-orphaning. Simply adding a hidden category would not spur users to actually go and de-orphan articles, which I believe is a worthwhile maintenance task (and fun). Also, this would still create an inconsistency in how we tag pages for problems. There is no precedent, that I know of, of a maintenance category being populated directly by adding the category to the article, and not via a template. Users will not know to do this intuitively as they do with any other maintenance template. Although this can be a benefit by slowing down the huge rate of backlog accumulation so I'm not necessarily opposed to it in that respect. Just so long as this is the only change that is made, ie. no changes to the orphan criteria and definition, and that the proposal gains consensus through a properly publicized RfC. However I still think it's unnecessary as there already is ample instruction on how and when to use the template at WP:Orphan and at the template docs itself. I think the main reason why so many articles are being tagged as orphans indiscriminately is because of AWB users being given the option to do so. AWB does not discriminate between article subjects, and AWB'ers, who often go through hundreds of articles in a sitting, are simply tagging based on what AWB tells them is an orphan. The solution could be as simple as removing orphan tagging from AWB altogether. Why don't we try that first? User:Avicennasis also had an interesting proposal for an "orphan whitelist" in a section above that may have merit. -- œ^™ 04:01, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
  • I don't even understand the point of the find link tool. What's the difference between it and just searching for the article title? Kaldari (talk) 08:47, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

The tool combines smartly what you do when you try to de-orphan an article. Instead of having to compare the results of a search through the whole Wikipedia with the result of "What links here", the tool will suggest articles where the term occurs but is not linked. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:18, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

• Strong support. Not every article can be backlinked from others, and it's one of the most misused tags by new page patrollers, some of whom who appear to use it when they can't think of any other issues to tag an article for, instead of doing something useful such as adding stub templates or minor MOS clean ups. The template conveys no useful information for a reader. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:39, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose – I think the current situation is just right. It may not convey useful information to the reader, but every reader is also an editor, at least potentially. If editors want to do something about this flag in an article, following WP:ORPHAN, they can either remove it, or de-orphan the article. As for inappropriately placing this template on pages: those editors should be spoken to on their talk pages, maybe with the help of a new user warning template. Analogous to {{uw-badcat}}, maybe {{uw-badorphan}}? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:18, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose Burying the template will only make sure that even fewer people try to de-orphan articles. The template serves our WP:BUILD policy well. Getting rid of the template might make articles prettier, but won't improve the wiki. --JaGa^talk 21:18, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

• Making articles prettier does improve Wikipedia for its readers, the people that matter. Phil Bridger (talk) 13:24, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

• I would think for our readers being able to find the information takes priority over aesthetics. What good is a pretty article if it can't be seen? -- œ^™ 09:05, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• Strong support. This year, I have seen how 80% of orphan-tagged articles were no longer orphans about 1 year later. Hence, the orphan-tag box was an 80% incorrect rant at the top of the page, making Wikipedia seem unable to accurately make judgments about articles. Compare that to the judgments of "Additional sources are needed" or "Tone inappropriate", which would likely be correct for years after tagging. The orphan-tag template should only link the hidden categories, with no tag-box displayed in the article. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:54, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
• Support. Far too many of our articles are disfigured by issue templates that distract readers from the content. In the case of some other templates this may be justifiable in order to warn readers about shortcomings of the article they are reading, but being an orphan is not a shortcoming of the tagged article but of other articles, so that justification can't apply here. Phil Bridger (talk) 13:24, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
• Support. Many problems with this template: it uglifies articles to no real benefit, serves mainly as a drive-by "Hey, this sure is an obscure subject" tag, doesn't warn the reader of anything useful (as 'take with a grain of salt' tags like POV and COI and UNREF'D etc. do), and indicates a problem almost no readers can solve after one has tried the "suggestions" link. Herostratus (talk) 16:41, 13 December 2011 (UTC) (I'm setting this up as a proper RfC per my unobjected-to suggestion and have redacted my comments somewhat. Herostratus (talk) 16:41, 13 December 2011 (UTC))
• Oppose I would like to add myself to the Wikipedians who OPPOSE this proposal. I think that the tag might serve some useful functions. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 20:31, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
• Strong oppose: this template is about issue with article. If there is no issue, the template should be removed. If the issue remains, this template should be visible enough to inform about the issue. Apart from being visible this templates is useless. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 07:55, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose Every maintenance tag should be visible, and this should be an exception. Armbrust ^{Talk to me about my edits}_review 23:54, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
• Support We should only have templates in articles where we need to warn readers. All other maintenance tags should be replaced with hidden categories. Far too often these templates are used to template bomb articles, disfiguring mainspace, discouraging editors and taking attention away from those templates where we do genuinely want to warn our readers. Also a hidden category could be automatically maintained - appearing on all applicable articles and automatically disappearing when an article is de-orphaned. This would make them way superior to our templates which often linger on long after the issue has been resolved. ϢereSpielChequers 01:16, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

I wholly concur. In addition to what I have said above, the orohan tag is not one that warns a reader of any possibly unreliable information or poor quality in the article, and there are plenty (I believe) regular editors who work through hidden cats. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:34, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Comment. I understand these concerns and agree, but wouldn't it make sense to try to have the best of both worlds? Perhaps we could make display of cleanup templates an editor preference, for instance? Or, have them display only when you have recently edited an article? Or, maybe this is crazy, but perhaps moving all cleanup tags to a collapsed box somewhere on the top, that only shows small colored vertical bars for each issue tag added (think like bookmarks type shapes draping over the top of the article), and have the box curtain down when hovered over to show the tags. Just some random thoughts. Also, of all of the maintenance tags on articles, this one would be the easiest to have a bot be able to remove invalid ones.    Thorncrag  16:50, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose This is the same old "I think they're ugly!" versus "They have the potential to convert readers into editors, and in a way that is more likely to lead to editor retention" debate, and I still support the latter. If people are misapplying the tag, talk to those people. And this particular tag is extremely amenable to being automatically removed by a bot when no longer valid. Anomie⚔ 21:31, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
• I strongly support a test of this change that tracks whether editing of these articles increases or decreases with the change. The way to test this is really easy and I would be happy to help facilitate: you just take every orphaned article we have, split the group randomly in two, change half to the hidden category, and then let it sit for 30-60 days. Gathering the data on edit counts (if you have a list of articles) would take about 5 minutes. Steven Walling • talk 23:38, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
  • OK, but... the way to do this (I guess) would be to create a template "Orphan2" which is invisible but still keeps the category, and replace half the instances of Orphan with Orphan2. Right? But it says here that there are 174,707 orphaned articles. So that's 87,353 edits. How do propose to do that? Herostratus (talk) 03:42, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose because having the template might encourage people who have not edited to try and help out and deorphan the article. if someone is there because they are looking up something maybe they would be in a good position to do that. Bouket (talk) 23:30, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Extended discussions

(First two comments by User:Herostratus and Kaldari moved here from above section with some slight redactions for readability. Some comments may no longer apply to this RfC.) Herostratus (talk) 16:41, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I was mooting an RfC over making it a talk page template. However, apparently for some editors are not in favor of this since it would require one of these:

1. A massive operation moving the existing templates from articles to talk pages. I don't see why a robot couldn't do this (over time), but let's assume that this is not possible.
2. A state of inconsistency, where the old placements are on article pages and the new ones on talk pages. (Probably this would slowly resolve, but only over a period of many years, and not be completely resolved for a very long time.)

I just quite frankly don't see what the problem is with #2. Lots and lots of human endeavors change mode over time. If your town decides that paving with concrete is better than the asphalt they have been using, you don't usually hear the objection "Yes, but but then (absent a huge repave-everything effort which we can't afford) we'll have a situation where some roads are concrete and some are asphalt, for a long time, and this is not acceptable, and so even though using concrete would be an improvement we can't do it". Right? I mean, so what if there's an inconsistency? How does this cause any real harm? It's a minor annoyance is all, and against that you have that no more templates will be added to article pages which has a big upside.

If an editor likes the current status (placement on article pages) and uses the "inconsistency" point as one of his arguments, that doesn't matter. He's against moving them to talk pages (or to a hidden category) anyway. However, if a significant number of editors are likely to be of the mind "I wish we could move the template to talk pages but I can't support this because of the inconsistency problem", then it'd be a waste of time to RfC this and we should instead go ahead with RfC'ing your suggestion of rewriting the template to not appear. (I'd rather not do this because it might generate the argument "Oppose, it should appear somewhere, why not just move to talk pages?") But whatever is most likely to work. I'd be interested in hearing if there are editors who:

• Wish that the template specified it was to be on talk pages, but can't support this because of the inconsistency problem, or
• Think that other editors are likely to be of the mind "Wish that the template specified it was to be talk pages, but can't support this because of the inconsistency problem". Herostratus (talk) 22:55, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I think the main problem with it being inconsistent is that it will confuse editors, and we'll have people moving it back and forth because they aren't aware of the change or have only seen it one place or the other. It's definitely possible to move them all to the talk page with a BOT, but I personally think that talk pages are already cluttered enough.

I think this template made sense as a notice a few years ago, but at this point a very high percentage of the articles it is tagged with are probably not going to be fixed, realistically. Just look through the first couple pages of What links here. These are all very obscure topics that it typically makes sense to be orphans. This template also has a tendency to aggravate editors and, in my opinion, does more harm than good. What would we lose by making it a hidden category instead of a notice? Kaldari (talk) 23:31, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

For the record, there is some discussion on the thread preceding this RfC, which points to some earlier discussion: (Wikipedia talk:Orphan#This maintenance template should be placed on the talk page, here,here, perhaps others). The objection that is a a perennial issue (see Wikipedia:Perennial_proposals#Move_maintenance_tags_to_talk_pages doesn't really hold water in my opinion as this RfC concerns just the Orphan template, not all maintenance tags.) Herostratus (talk) 16:53, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

ORP redirects here

ORP is the Polish Navy prefix. It is equivalent to HMS or USS.
We now have Template:HMS and Template:USS, which are the well-organized way of generating links for British and US ships.
I have use for a Polish ORP template on World War II pages, but "ORP" currently redirects here.
Varlaam (talk) 16:19, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

{{ORP}} does not exist, and attempts to use it will fail; the search picks up {{orp}} because it's trying to guess what you were referring to. So feel free to create the template you need at Template:ORP. Anomie⚔ 18:02, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Wonderful. I'd say it in Polish but I don't know how.

Thanks, Varlaam (talk) 02:00, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Edit request for wording change

Could the template be edited to show the current definition of Orphan ~ an article with no links from other pages in the main article namespace ~ please? Currently, of course, it says "few or no other articles link to it". This refinement will help people like me. Thank you. Cheers, Lindsay^Hello 17:13, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

I would suggest that "main article namespace" is a quite technical to include in this message. Changing "few or no other articles" to "no other articles" could be done, but let's leave the suggestion here for a while to see if others have any comments on this. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:24, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

It ready says, "...as few or no other articles...", and links to WP:ORPHAN, which is clear enough without getting too technical. People who do not regularly edit Wikipedia will not be aware of what the "main article namespace" is. --RA (talk) 20:27, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not obvious what the rationale is here, and the interpretation given by the above two editors (that we should apparently start referring to these "namespace" things in cleanup templates) doesn't sound like a good idea. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 08:51, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Hold one, pilgrim; I think you're misunderstanding the request (which admittedly could have been clearer). I think the requestor is referring to the "few or" modifier. In other words, he's drawing attention to the "no" rather than the "in the main article namespace" clause of this (the opening sentence of Wikipedia:Orphan):

"In the Wikipedia:Glossary, an orphan is defined as 'an article with no links from other pages in the main article namespace.'"

This is reiterated at Wikipedia:Orphan#What is an orphan? ("Orphan: An article with no incoming links which meet the criteria for linking below") and emphasized even more strongly at the internal link given there, to wit:

"An article is orphaned if no other articles link to it. It is recommended to only place the {{orphan}} tag if the article has ZERO incoming links from other articles."

The bolding and all-caps are in the original, so I have to assume that they feel pretty strongly about that. (Of course, inbound links from user pages, disambiguation pages, essays, and so forth aren't counted -- they aren't, after all, articles -- and this is indeed made clear at Wikipedia:Orphan. And there are other clauses to prevent a Wikipedia:Walled garden situation and so forth.)

But they then go in true Wikipedia fashion to muddle the water with

"Although a single, relevant incoming link is sufficient to remove the tag, three or more is ideal and will help ensure the article is reachable to readers."

If I'm reading this correctly, we thus have a state where one is enjoined from (or at least advised against) placing the orphan tag unless there are no incoming links, but if the tag is in place one is enjoined from (or at least advised against, if one wishes to achieve the "ideal" state) from removing it unless and until there are three incoming links.

This asymmetrical state of affairs is not very logical or, really, acceptable, but that is outside the scope of this page. However, let's think this through: We have that

1. The text in Wikipedia:Orphan repeatedly, clearly, and with strong emphasis declares that an "Orphan" is "An article with no incoming links".
2. And indeed this fits the what common sense tells us what the term "orphan" would mean in this context. After all, "orphan" does not mean "child with no parents or only one parent". It means zero parents, period. (Actually, technically, we should use "only child" rather than "orphan" here, but nevermind about that for now.)
3. And even the one modifying clause that militates against this does after all clearly state that "[A] single, relevant incoming link is sufficient to remove the tag."
4. And in addition to that, "few" is inherently ill-defined while "zero" has a clear definition, and all things being equal it's much better to use clearly-defined terms to avoid sterile arguing.

Against this you have only the hand-waving reference to some pie-in-the-sky "ideal" state where all articles have at least three incoming links. Very well, after we have solved world peace we can work toward this ideal quiverfull-like state for articles. (Possibly we should have a separate template, "near-orphan" or something, for articles that have only one or two incoming links, but's outside the scope here.) Given all the above, I think the following edit is in order:

Strike "few or" from the first sentence so that it reads "This article is an orphan, as no other articles link to it." Herostratus (talk) 15:38, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

 Done to more accurately reflect our current understanding of what an orphaned article is. To sum up past discussions on this matter: IDEALLY, we want three or more links to each article. PRACTICALLY speaking, there are so many articles with ZERO incoming links that widening our focus just diverts our efforts away from the articles which need de-orphaning the most.--Aervanath (talk) 18:49, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

I'd very much rather that the template were simply reworded to expunge the term "orphan" in this case. We definitely need a cleanup template for "practically nothing links here", and I'm pretty strongly opposed to what would seem to be a realignment of this template that would likely make its placement invalid on a significant number of its existing transclusions. For the time being, I reckon this should be reversed pending further discussion. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:53, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

But it is invalid on a significant number of its existing transclusions, at least according to the definitions given at WP:ORPHAN. That can be fixed over time (perhaps with bot aid) I guess. If you'd rather change WP:ORPHAN to match the ("few or" version of the) template instead, that'd be OK. But one way or another, they need to match, I would say. --Herostratus (talk) 14:52, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Herostratus, for making clear what i thought i had made clear; i guess what's obvious when it's in my brain isn't when it comes out. 'Preciate the help, Cheers, Lindsay^Hello 16:57, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but this is backwards. Are we really suggesting that we need to change a long-standing cleanup template with a well-accepted rationale because of what a WikiProject page said when until two days ago that WikiProject page itself said the same as this template does, all because WP:GLOSSARY says something different? What standing does WP:GLOSSARY have? Both of those changes should be reverted pending discussion, as neither of them are uncontroversial. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 19:00, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I changed the lead to the Project page a couple of days ago, based on the changes previously made and the discussion here. For what it's worth, i agree with what i take to be Chris's point that the changes were wrong; i'm not sure that the change to the template is for the best; i merely asked for the change to conform with what was apparently the community's decision. On reflection, though, i suspect that it wasn't ~ that it is, indeed, controversial and needs more discussion. Cheers, Lindsay^Hello 19:34, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Right. Does anyone therefore disagree that, pending further discussion, this template should have its previous wording restored, along with a revert to the same effect at WP:ORPHAN? Assuming that's the case, I'll make those changes and also raise a request to have WP:GLOSSARY updated to reflect the prevailing understanding of what an orphaned article is (in other words, an article which is only barely tied to the rest of the encyclopedia rather than just one which has literally zero inbound links). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:04, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

For what it's worth, you absolutely have my support for this very logical course. Cheers, Lindsay^Hello 17:26, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes we should go back to "very few" in all places, not least because the changes have been propagated from a single change based on very little discussion, if any. Melcombe (talk) 12:08, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Image upate

I think the current image, of a little puzzle piece, adds little and ought to be replaced, to wit:

I'm dead serious about this by the way. My reasoning is that the proposed new image:

1. Has a lot more impact
2. Gets the meaning of the template across much better (and images which convey meaning graphically are much superior to those (like the current image) which are mere decoration)
3. Is probably better at motivating readers to solve the problem, which after is the (avowed) point of the template.

We're not corporate drones here after all. A lot of editors -- most editors, probably -- think the template shouldn't even be on articles (it should go on talk pages instead), but Wikipedia doesn't works by majority rule. But if we are going to have the template does it have to look like something from the oughts designed by a some business-casual-wearing cubicle drones at a medium-size, second-rate, slowly failing design firm in St Louis? We want to attract a new cohort of editors or don't we? Let's get on board with the program, people. Herostratus (talk) 16:05, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Let's see:

1. Unsubstantiated assertion of a silent majority. I'd slap that with a {{ww}} if it were made on articlespace.
2. False dichotomy between "teenager on 4chan" and "corporate drone". The less said the better.
3. Copyvio image.

If this is a serious suggestion, it's not one likely to make people receptive to one's future serious suggestions. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 19:08, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 25 October 2012

Dear Sirs, I have added External Links to the page. How can de-orphan it? Thank you Samerajour (talk) 10:48, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

You de-orphan articles by linking to them from other relevant articles, then you can remove the orphan template (to do this, simply remove the text "{{Orphan|date=February 2012}}"). You can read more at Wikipedia:Orphan. Also, this page is used to discuss the orphan template in general, not how it is used in individual articles and you do not need to add a request to edit non-protected articles (use {{help}} to request help). Give me a moment and let me see what I can do to help this article. jonkerz ♠talk 13:33, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

this template defaces wikipedia articles

I can see the need for the template, sometimes. But it's inclusion in most cases is not subject to any consensus, and makes wikipedia look plain ugly. Can we at least move it to the bottom of the page for the humans to review first before it is moved to the top?

Leng T'che (talk) 10:18, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Please don't. The normal place for maintenance tags is close to the top, per MOS:LEAD. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:41, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge there is no consensus that maintaince tags (meaning editor to editor messages and not messages that also directly aid readers) should be placed in article space. -- PBS (talk) 08:06, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup; it several times mentions placement at the top of the article. Several dozen banners are listed; {{orphan}} is one of those listed under Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup#Verifiability and sources, where there is the note "Message boxes may be used at the top of an article, or in a specific section of an article". Indeed Template:Orphan explicitly states "at the top of the article". --Redrose64 (talk) 14:38, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Ok... this isn't a scientific survey or anything but "the vast majority of people I have spoken to think they are "ugly, intrusive and distracting." Now, what is your basis of a "consensus"? IMHO: The last thing a "orphan article" needs is a bundle of verbosity at the top.

move to bottom - my "vote", for the record.)

(Also for the record: I have been previously tagged "Troll?" by PKT(alk)

Leng T'che (talk) 23:30, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

See WP:CONS. Also, this is not the place to discuss a major change to article layout policy; much better places would be either the talk page for MOS:LEAD, which is Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section; its parent, Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style; or alternatively, WP:VPP. --Redrose64 (talk) 00:00, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

You say "See WP:CONS" What consensus? The place to discuss a a page is on the page's talk page. That is what they are for, and is the reason that placing this template in article space is inappropriate.-- PBS (talk) 08:06, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I put "See WP:CONS" in response to Leng T'che question 'what is your basis of a "consensus"?'. But this template is one of a large group, so the principles of placement should be considered for the whole group, not for just three specific templates. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:38, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

What large group? -- PBS (talk) 15:47, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

This large group. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:24, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I have done as you wish. But note that Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style and WP:VPP are about general Maintenance issues, where as I am talking about this specific template. So your "suggestion" "this is not the place to discuss a major change to article layout policy" does not apply. Indeed posting there could be akin to canvassing for the Status Quo. e.g. Round up the usual suspects. - Leng T'che (talk) 02:15, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

This template, and the other clean-up templates for that matter, do not look nice at the top of articles but there is a good reason for them. I think particularly for the Orphan tag it is important to highlight to the reader that no article links to it. That no other page references it shows the reader some level of caution should be given to the contents of the page. There are a number of spoof pages or pages written from a single source. Also if it is a page with good content then people should be encouraged to remove the tag by making links to it from other pages. An in your face tag is one way of doing this. --Traveler100 (talk) 03:56, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

What are the specific objections to the template? Is it size, length of wording, colours or just position? Any suggestions for improvement to its style? --Traveler100 (talk) 03:56, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

In crude terms the template is "Butt Ugly"... and the "admin issue" detracts from the encyclopaedic experience.

However your comment prompts me to think as an alternative to putting it at the bottom, maybe it could shrunk and put near the time like the .

Take for example: "Huntsville, Alabama"... the "Template:Coord" is at the top, clearly visable, and not so totally ugly and intrusive.

I concede that Template:Orphan serves a purpose. So shrink it and put it next to "Template:Coord" at the top. And make it BG RED. At least then I don't have the top half on my screen hogged by the butt ugly banner.

One other issue with Orphan Articles is with the ones that are a member of a "Category:". Technically (and in actuality) these are not orphans. They a simply pages linked to via a category, which beats (is more structured then) adding a "See Also" list item in an "only vaguely" related Article (of which I see a lot).

move to top right, shrink, make BG red e.g. Orphan - my updated "vote" - Leng T'che (talk) 04:56, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

There is no reason why it can not be moved onto the talk page (as can all the templates that are primarily editor to editor messages) and do not serve as a warning to readers, as does (for example) {{unreferenced}}. -- PBS (talk) 08:06, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually I didn't suggest move it onto the talk page. A small Orphan on the top right of the actual pages would be good enough to debloat it. Maybe as a template. But a comment (and date) on the article's talk page to clarify would help too. Leng T'che (talk) 10:25, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

You may consider this template to be "Butt Ugly", but it has an appearance consistent with many other banners; their appearance is governed by the {{ambox}} template. Changing the size and general appearance of {{orphan}} requires a change to {{ambox}}, which affects many cleanup banners, therefore this is not the place.

I don't know what you refer to as "the admin issue". The word "admin" was not used on this page prior to your comment, and it does not occur at Template:Orphan at all.

{{Coord}} is not a maintenance template, so should not be considered in any way to be like {{orphan}}. Regarding its placement - when it is given the parameter |display=title, it always puts the coordinates upper right, regardless of the template's position in the wikicode. In the specific case of Huntsville, Alabama, the title coordinates are generated by {{Infobox settlement}}.

Orphan articles are defined in several ways, but they all concern direct links from other articles - presence in categories is not a factor. An article that is not in any categories should be given {{uncategorised}}, which typically does go at the bottom.

Whether maintenance templates are used or not, what they look like or where they are placed does not prevent the placement of a more verbose note on the article's talk page; indeed, that is encouraged. Many maintenance templates permit a link to be included, directing users to a specific thread on the talk page. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:38, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

This basically serves a maintenance function - enabling people who de-orphan orphaned articles to find orphans. But as such we could do a better and less intrusive job by replacing the orphan template by 4 hidden categories - this article is linked to by 0, 1, 2 or 3 articles. That would enable it to be allocated and regenerated by bot and it would solve the current problem that the template may not be correct. It would also do a better job of finding orphans. I'm willing to accept that some templates serve a useful purpose in warning the readers, but it shouldn't matter to our readers whether an article is an orphan or not. If we are going to combat the template bombing problem then we need to get rid of templates like this one. ϢereSpielChequers 15:06, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

small

Added small=left option to display a smaller message box, please copy sandbox to template. See User:Traveler100/sandbox/orphanexamples#with small --Traveler100 (talk) 06:55, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

In what circumstances would a smaller, less informative tag be useful? DoctorKubla (talk) 08:03, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

When the content is more important then the tag.

move to top right, shrink, make BG red e.g. [Orphan] - my "vote" - Leng T'che (talk) 14:03, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) In the previous section, Leng T'che (talk · contribs) describes the present banner as "butt ugly" and also wants it made smaller. Typically we would use the small feature of {{ambox}} for those maintenance templates used in sections, such as {{refimprove section}}. It is not difficult to locate articles which are generally well-referenced, but where the refs in one or two sections are scanty; but it is difficult to envisage a situation where an article itself isn't orphan, but a section within it should be considered as needing more inbound links. Therefore, it is inappropriate to place {{orphan}} in a section; which means that its width should match that of other whole-article maintenance banners. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:08, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Not done: Sorry, I can't see any consensus for this change. I agree with Redrose64 that this is a principle of placement for a large group of tags, rather than a minor change, and that it needs to be discussed as such. This is the kind of change that would require an RfC, but before you go to the RfC stage you might want to ask on an appropriate talk page or noticeboard to get some more input and advice. (Also bear in mind that there is a perennial proposal related to these kinds of tags.) Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{(have a chat)} 14:37, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Category:Orphaned articles about a place

I just happened to notice that this template is attempting to place Plaça del Rei into Category:Orphaned articles about a place from June 2012, due to |geo=yes. But since the parent category doesn't exist (it was deleted in 2009), there's not really any place to put this subcategory were it to be created. If this categorization is useful, please create Category:Orphaned articles about a place and place it in Category:Wikipedia maintenance categories sorted by month, and AnomieBOT will automatically create the June 2012 subcategory; if it is not useful, let's remove the special case categorization so the template will place Plaça del Rei into Category:Orphaned articles from June 2012 instead. Anomie⚔ 19:55, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Since no one replied at all, I just removed the special case categorization. Anomie⚔ 14:20, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

This deleted category was designed to be populated by the now-deleted template {{Geo-orphan}}, which was for geographical orphans (mostly hundreds of US municipalities) created in a bot run – see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/FritzpollBot#Thoughts. I'll remove all remnants of this usage from the current template. – Wbm1058 (talk) 16:37, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 28 July 2013

In the text introduced by the incat parameter, please refer to the segment:
link to it] ''',
There is an extra space here between the text and the comma. Please change to:
link to it]''',
Asserted as uncontroversial. Thanks. – Wdchk (talk) 16:16, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Quite so; Done --Redrose64 (talk) 19:08, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

"Few links" template?

Was there ever any decision about the "no links" vs "no or few" wording? Surely if it remains at none, there should also be a separate template for "few links". At present it's far from clear what to do with articles with one or two links: this template isn't applicable, but the advice about removing it is extremely equivocal. 84.203.39.242 (talk) 05:01, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

The task if finding incoming links to a page has been proven very difficult. Orphan originally meant "few links, at most 3" but we had to prioritise to those with no links due to the increasing number of pages. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:08, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

The advice about removing the tag seems clear enough. WP:ORPHAN: "Once the article has one or more links that fit the criteria, remove the tag". DoctorKubla (talk) 07:20, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Orphanage#additional parameters --Traveler100 (talk) 05:40, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Could someone please copy the sandbox edits to the live template. --Traveler100 (talk) 06:28, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Question: There are two lines

| date = {{#if: {{{att|}}} | {{{att|}}} | {{#if: {{{incat|}}} | {{{date|}}} |{{#if: {{{few|}}} | {{{date|}}} | {{{date|}}}
}} }} }}

which are either buggy, or can be simplified. Consider this: the innermost test (on {{{few|}}}) returns {{{date|}}} in both "true" and "false" outcomes, so this becomes

| date = {{#if: {{{att|}}} | {{{att|}}} | {{#if: {{{incat|}}} | {{{date|}}} |{{{date|}}}
}} }}

and we then have the same situation for the test on {{{incat|}}}:

| date = {{#if: {{{att|}}} | {{{att|}}} | {{{date|}}}
}}

Please confirm intended behaviour. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:22, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

My intention is the following (I tried #switch but could not get it to work). Could have probably made it simpler but thought this makes it more flexible as can decide to change which date is displayed. Appreciate someone taking a second critical look over this. --Traveler100 (talk) 15:29, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

• If att is set use the date set in that parameter
  • else If incat set use the original value set by the date parameter
    • else If few set use the original value set by the date parameter
      • else If non of these parameters set use the original value set by the date parameter

To me, those four bullets simplify to just one:

• if |att= is set, use the date set in that parameter, otherwise use the original value set by the |date= parameter

or in wikicode:

| date = {{#if: {{{att|}}} | {{{att|}}} | {{{date|}}} }}

--Redrose64 (talk) 16:22, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes that is the same logic. Just did it the other way so I could edit it easier if someone requested a different date logic. But as no one else has made requests for change I guess we can go for the simpler to read syntax. --Traveler100 (talk) 16:31, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Done, see here. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:04, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Just a note that the consensus for this change did not last, as it was reverted on 16 September 2013. Wbm1058 (talk) 20:18, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

"Reviewed orphan"

As of this edit, the |att parameter changes the wording of the template to "This article is a reviewed orphan, as no other articles link to it." First off, I don't think it's very clear, to someone unfamiliar with the template, what this means. And secondly, I thought the idea behind the "attempted de-orphan" thing was that some articles will always be orphans (i.e. only linked to from one or two articles), and that this isn't a problem, but the orphan tag can't be removed because AWB users will keep re-adding it; therefore, the tag is simply hidden. That may no longer be a relevant concern, given the new definition of an orphan as an article with zero links, which most AWB users abide by, but if it's no longer necessary to hide the template, I don't think the |att parameter should change the wording at all; it should just put the article in a different maintenence category. If there has to be a visible change in the template, it should be something less confusing – maybe a second line in small text saying "An attempt was made to de-orphan this article on [date]". DoctorKubla (talk) 10:47, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

The att indicates that somebody tried to de-orphan and when but is still indicating it needs links and someone else could attempt to de-orphan or just wait and come back to it a few months later. As you say an orphan is now defined as zero links. Agree could come have better wording, but could we come up with something shorter than an additional sentence.--Traveler100 (talk) 20:43, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Why is it necessary to change the wording at all? DoctorKubla (talk) 13:21, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Just to identify that it has been reviewed and moved to attempt category. But I see your point it does not have to have different text. --Traveler100 (talk) 17:03, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Just a note that the consensus for this change did not last, as it was reverted on 16 September 2013. Once again the "reviewed orphan" messsage is hidden and the template is not visible. Wbm1058 (talk) 20:28, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Hidden if alone, display as normal if in Multiple issues

Mr. Stradivarius, I was wondering if I could get you to modify this module. I would like to add a wrapper id of {{lc:{{{name|«messagebox type»}}}}} and I would like it to add a style to that id of display: {{#ifeq:{{yesno|{{{hidden}}}|yes|none|inherit}}; To be able to test this idea and make Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive 109#Alternate_idea.3F a reality since there seems to be unanimous support for this method at this time. Thanks. Technical 13 (talk) 04:44, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Couldn't you just do this with the |style= parameter, like this? I suppose you would still get the error messages if the template was substituted, or if an invalid |type= parameter was specified, but it is probably a good idea to keep those anyway. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 06:27, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

• Okay, based on your suggestion, I've made some changes to Template:Orphan/sandbox with examples on Template:Orphan/testcases If you see nothing I missed there, this can be moved live. Technical 13 (talk) 13:42, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Orphan tags need to be added to the talk namespace instead of the mainspace following RfC

Following the outcome of this RfC, orphan tags need to be added to the talk namespace instead of the mainspace. Ramaksoud2000 ^{(Talk to me)} 01:50, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 23 – Wbm1058 (talk) 00:52, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

FYI, the editors at Wikipedia:VPR#Alternate_idea? believe they have consensus to keep the orphan template on the article page, but hide it if it's not within {{multiple issues}}. GoingBatty (talk) 01:31, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

The RfC is now archived Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 108#Proposal to move the Orphan tags to the talk page. The closing admin was clear on what the consensus is. To start another RfC over this issue is disruptive. -- PBS (talk) 12:19, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

• PBS, unfortunately the closing consensus of that RfC was disruptive as it technically broke multiple tools and therefore has been re-discussed and consensus seems to have changed. Have a nice day. Technical 13 (talk) 13:16, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

• The consensus produced by an RfC which runs for two months and produces a consensus involving more than two score of editors does not change in less than a month. To try to evade or disrupt the implementation of the consensus of such an RfC is disruptive it is not disruptive to implement the decision that was reached by consensus. -- PBS (talk) 14:15, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, hold on. It depends on what tools are broken, how they are broken, what's involved in fixing them, and perhaps other matters.

• According to this, Twinkle can't put templates on talk page, so the Orphan tag has been removed for now from its arsenal, which is probably OK since Orphan is one of the least-important templates. I presume that there are clever people who can presently give Twinkle the ability to write templates to talk pages, so Bob's your uncle there.
• According to this, the Articles For Creation Helper Script is currently configured to put Orphan tags on the article pages. Whether this is fixable or how hard it is to fix it, how important this script is, how much it's used, whether it would be simple to remove this script's ability to place Orphan tags at all until the problem is studied and how much of a loss that would be -- these are all questions that I don't know the answer too, although other editors might.
• Ditto concerns re AutoWikiBrowser.

Overall, I think that if some tools, for a short while, must of necessity put orphan tags on article pages, the tool is not broken. It's just not operating optimally. Yobot 23 will clear all this up sooner or later, I would think.

For my part, I actively want the Orphan tag to appear on the talk page, I think. And remember, some non-trivial minority wanted it continue to be visible on the article page. So let's not assume that making it completely invisible to humans is what everyone wants. We need to discuss this. There's no hurry.

I think before we move forward we want to get a feel for how many tens, hundreds, or thousands of man-hours and calendar days we are talking about to fix the tools. There's no need to rush any of this, so why not leave the current RfC result as the operative rule, but continue to discuss this awhile before running Yobot 23 or doing mass moves of the template? Herostratus (talk) 21:04, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

On the other hand, looking at the original RfC in question, it's clear that very many of the people supporting moving the tag to the talk page were mainly motivated by a desire to get the ugly honkin' thing off the the article page, and few commentors specifically said that the appearance of the tag on talk pages would be a positive good. So this is something worth continuing to discuss I think. Herostratus (talk) 21:21, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Testing

I should have tested earlier, but just confirmed the common.css solution works. Kudos for this idea. We can update the template documentation to explain this.

Just one issue I found. Look at Template:Orphan/testcases. Can someone fix so that the bullet points line up inside {{Multiple issues}}. Confess that I don't fully understand how this magic works, so I don't know what to do to make them line up. Thanks, Wbm1058 (talk) 21:45, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

P.S. You will need to look at it with your common.css activated to see what I'm talking about. Wbm1058 (talk) 21:50, 9 January 2014 (UTC) @Mr. Stradivarius:, @Technical 13: - can one of you figure this out? Thanks, Wbm1058 (talk) 01:57, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Not really sure about this - I think you might need to ask a real web designer. :) I did take a screenshot so that other people can see the problem without editing their common.css though. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 06:08, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

@Mr. Stradivarius:, @Technical 13: - OK, something's changed, maybe related to the bug I reported at user talk:Technical 13#Lua print. Now both the stand-alone {{orphan}} and the {{Multiple issues}} version are missing "This article " before "is an orphan", and the {{Multiple issues}} message, instead of being just off to the left, is now way out in right field. Wbm1058 (talk) 17:12, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

It looks like there is some code in Module:Message box sect = 'This ' .. that displays strings "This article" or "This section" or "This <something>" that is not working in the current Module:Message box/sandbox version. – Wbm1058 (talk) 17:46, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Something that's gone live broke the hidden-by-default feature of {{orphan/sandbox}} – I'm guessing it's the new Module:Arguments. In testing I always see the orphan template now, even without the special common.css code installed. I'm hesitant to revert to the 18 December 2013‎ version of Module:Arguments to test my theory, not knowing the impact, even for a short test. Wbm1058 (talk) 21:40, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

• It's my birthday so I'm not going to look into it today. I'll take a look next week sometime when I'm more clear headed. ;) Technical 13 (talk) 23:00, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Maybe Mr. Stradivarius will take a look while we're sleeping. I see that he's in another time zone, far from the one we're in. Wbm1058 (talk) 23:31, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
    • The hidden feature is working now, maybe it was never broken after all. I can't find anything that's changed. When toggling tests, you need to be sure to purge the page or do a null edit for the change to take effect. The bullets not lining up issue is still there. Wbm1058 (talk) 18:36, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Is it possible to have the functionality provided in the Toolbox?

One problem with the Multiple issues template is that the Orphan information is reduced down to just a few words; significantly, the 'related articles' and 'suggestions may be available' links do not appear. I find these extremely useful when attempting to de-orphan articles, and so have to put in an extra edit first to separate out the Orphan tag from the Multiple issues template... only to put it back again on a second edit if the de-orphanage attempt fails,

Would it be possible for these two links simply to be added to the Toolbox in the left-hand pane?

Meanwhile, unrelated to this, can I take this opportunity to note that this page says "and also hides the article message box" for the att tag, which used to be the case, but appears not to be the template's current behaviour. TheAMmollusc (talk) 11:54, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I've corrected the documentation to reflect the new functionality of the att parameter (although I still don't understand why it has to change the wording of the template). I'll let someone who knows more about coding answer your other question. DoctorKubla (talk) 16:48, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I reverted your correction because the change did not stick. It again hides the article message box. Clearly the current consensus is trending in the direction of fewer tags at the top of articles. See also discussions #"Few links" template? and #"Reviewed orphan" above. Wbm1058 (talk) 20:41, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

"Issue" and "fix" separated to different template parameters

@TheAMmollusc: – Regarding your first question, to which nobody has yet responded: The issue was created by this 25 June 2012 edit, which split the former text parameter into the new issue and fix parameters, as documented in the issue and fix section of the {{Ambox}} documentation. When placed inside {{multiple issues}} only the issue is shown. I agree that this is a problem. Either we revert to using the full message with the text parameter or rework the parameters so that the important links are included in the issue parameter. Or can we specify smalltext for {{multiple issues}}? Perhaps the best solution is to have a verbose issue & fix message for the stand-alone version and a brief issue & fix message for the multiple issues version. I'd have to try that in the sandbox to see if it would work. – Wbm1058 (talk) 22:54, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

I undid that change, and brought back the single text parameter. – Wbm1058 (talk) 21:28, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Edit request to fix link to Find link

When the template is added to the talk page (e.g. Talk:Ornithochilus cacharensis), clicking on "suggestions may be available" asks the Find link tool to look for links to Talk:Ornithochilus cacharensis instead of Ornithochilus cacharensis. Could someone please change {{orphan}} so that Find link looks for links to the article instead of the talk page? I think this could be done by changing the variable from {{FULLPAGENAMEE}} to {{ARTICLEPAGENAME}}. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 03:24, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

• Not done for now: I believe this can be more simply accomplished by simply removing "FULL" and using {{PAGENAMEE}} instead of {{FULLPAGENAMEE}}. I'd be happy to implement this change GB if you can put it in the sandbox to test it and inform the AWB and Twinkle developers of this proposed change per the notices on the template's doc. Thanks. Technical 13 (talk) 05:12, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

@Technical 13: I've updated Template:Orphan/sandbox and posted a note about it at Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser#Orphan tags should be moved to the talk namespace following RfC. I didn't post a note at Wikipedia talk:Twinkle#Orphan tags need to be added to the talk namespace instead of the mainspace following RfC since they're going to remove the template from Twinkle. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 05:33, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

@GoingBatty:  Done, with this 23:13, 7 February 2014 edit. Cheers, Wbm1058 (talk) 23:29, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Proposed wording change

This was already suggested in passing by User:Wbm1058 at the recent RFC.

I think the "suggestions may be available" text that currently links to the find links tool should be changed to read something along the lines of "try the Find links tool for suggestions" This should make it more obvious where the link will go and hopefully encourage more people to try it. Jamesmcmahon0 (talk) 15:47, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Support per Wikipedia:Easter egg. GoingBatty (talk) 04:25, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, FYI here is the link to the specific section where I commented about the Find link tool. Wbm1058 (talk) 21:14, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

 Done, with this 00:02, 8 February 2014 edit. – Wbm1058 (talk) 00:06, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Using the few= parameter to populate Category:Low linked articles

This bold 16 September 2013 edit by Kaldari "reverting to previous version, if an article cannot be de-orphaned, there is no point in showing the notice" had as a (perhaps unintended) side effect the depopulating of Category:Low linked articles. I'm going to revert that part of this edit, so that the category may be repopulated. If for no other reason, if may be useful as a means of diffusing the overpopulated orphan categories. I think any potential removal of this category should be discussed here or at WP:Categories for discussion. Let's see how widespread use of the few parameter is. Wbm1058 (talk) 17:19, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Sorry about that. Didn't mean to affect the category. Kaldari (talk) 18:36, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

OK, the category will be populated again, and I updated the documentation. Wbm1058 (talk) 20:37, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Placement

I'm confused by parts of the discussion above which seems to assume an outcome different to what I see at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 108#Proposal to move the Orphan tags to the talk page ("There is consensus to move orphan tags to the talk page") and this template's documentation ("This should be added only to the talk namespace, following an RfC.)" (original emphasis) & passim. Despite that RfC, is this template still to be placed on the article itself (whether an attempt to de-orphan it has been made or not)? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:32, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

• That is because the consensus formed in Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 108#Proposal to move the Orphan tags to the talk page has been deemed technically infeasible and there are multiple new fragmented discussions (*sigh*) going on at WP:VPR#On Orphan tags again, WT:Twinkle#Orphan tags need to be added to the talk namespace instead of the mainspace following RfC, WT:AutoWikiBrowser#Orphan tags should be moved to the talk namespace following RfC, WT:WikiProject Articles for creation/Helper script#Script needs to be modified to put {{orphan}} tags in the talk namespace following RfC, WP:VPR#Proposal: Delete template, turn into hidden category, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 23, WP:VPR#Alternate idea?, #Hidden if alone, display as normal if in Multiple issues, and WP:VPR#This rfC is disruptive... Get yourself a nice pot of coffee and be prepared to spend a whole day reading if you want all the background. Happy editing! (fwiw, I'm working in the sandboxes right now trying to learn Lua so that I can make the change I proposed that will hide the template only if it is the only one on the page.) Technical 13 (talk) 14:24, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your comprehensive response; I wish hadn't asked. I take it then that, because it "has been deemed technically infeasible", a move to the respective Talk pages is not going to happen. So I'll stop doing that on articles I come across (1 so far: Bernd Purkrabek and Talk:Bernd Purkrabek). If so, it might help to avoid similar confusion by reverting Template:Orphan/doc to its December 12 version. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:52, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

I reverted that documentation update with this 15:32, 11 January 2014 edit. Working on a new solution which I hope and believe will meet the spirit of the earlier consensus. Wbm1058 (talk) 21:32, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

• By the way a quick "what links here" search finds significant long-term usage of the orphan tag on talk pages, e.g.:
  • The tag was added to Talk:Back Palm on 15 June 2007 and remains there today, see the latest version. Glossary of magic (illusion) and The Expert at the Card Table both link to Back Palm, so it's not really an orphan anymore.
  • Talk:Titchener v British Railways Board was tagged on 4 April 2009, and remains tagged as of the current version. English tort law, List of leading Scottish legal cases, Occupiers' liability in English law and Volenti non fit injuria link to it, so no longer an orphan.

{{Orphan}} is transcluded on some 58 talk pages. If these two, randomly selected, are any indication, then this doesn't bode well for the idea that these tags would get more attention if they were put on talk pages. Unless, maybe the problem is just that editors don't understand that they're supposed to remove the tag after fixing the issue. Wbm1058 (talk) 22:09, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

We could crate an edit filter to stop addition of the tag on article pages. That should be feasible. After checking the edit filter logs we can find out who is trying to add the tags and issue the correct instructions to them. At this point in time we should not auto/block the tag adders as it may not yet be bad faith addition. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:47, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

That is because the consensus formed in Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 108#Proposal to move the Orphan tags to the talk page has been deemed technically infeasible No it has not -- it is trivial to run a bot job to move them all to the talk page this is stalling by people who did not like the outcome of the RfC at the very least the wording in the template should be removed immediately and those that remain in article spaced should be moved to the bottom of the page. -- PBS (talk) 11:45, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

That ain't what I heard. Here's what some people said:

• User:Technical 13: [The decision to move the template to the talk page] "technically broke multiple tools"
• User:This, that and the other: "Twinkle isn't capable of adding tags to talk pages at the moment, since we don't have the logic needed to deal with the multitude of talk page header templates that exist"

There was a much longer discussion, which I can't find now - I guess it was not on this here talk page -- where it was detailed in considerable detail how it was beyond our CS skills to make this happen... something along the lines of, it's not possible to have a script open a page and its associated talkpage at the same time, and much else that was beyond me. It is true, I think, that it would be fairly easily to run a bot to move the templates from the article to its talk talk page. What's not possible, I've been given to understand in some detail, is for Twinkle and other tools to be configured such a way that an author comes upon an orphaned page, and then inserts a template onto the corresponding talk page. It's just flat-out not possible to do this under the software we use.

So you could have a scheme (I think) where the template is placed on the article page, and then a robot comes along presently and moves it to the talk page. Or, of course, people could add it to the talk page by hand. Both of these approaches are undesirable for various reasons. Herostratus (talk) 21:14, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

It's not impossible to add tags to article talk pages: I almost made it work once. But I lack the time to finish off the code and integrate it into Twinkle. — This, that and the other (talk) 10:14, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

comma

I believe the sentence should read, 'This article is an orphan as no other articles link to it'. 'As' is a subordinating conjunction. Kayau (talk · contribs) 09:29, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

@Kayau: – Well, yes, I believe there is a subordinating conjunction here, but I don't think any changes need to be made. The current text, "This article is an orphan, as no other articles link to it", differs from your proposal only by the inclusion of a comma, which I think is appropriate. However I'm not certain of that, and Talk:Conjunction (grammar)#Examples for subordinated conjuncions makes a good point. – Wbm1058 (talk) 20:00, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Discussion on placement

A discussion that will determine placement of this notice is happening at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 108#Proposal to move the Orphan tags to the talk page. Please discuss at that location. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:18, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Note that this, and subsequent discussions, were just the latest in a series of discussions on this topic. See Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2013 January 5#Template:Orphan placement discussion for a similar January 2013 discussion. – Wbm1058 (talk) 20:15, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

And, an earlier, more sweeping proposal at Wikipedia talk:Perennial proposals#Move maintenance tags to talk pages. – Wbm1058 (talk) 20:26, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I am confused

But persuant to the discussion two threads above

1. It was quite decisively decided remove this template from article pages. The alternative offered and accepted was to have it be on talk pages instead.
2. But it was vouchsafed that, for complicated technical reasons, this isn't realistically possible. This has not been refuted. The alternative offered was to make it continue to exist on article pages, but be invisible (no text appears).
3. Although there wasn't a huge discussion with consensus on this, it's quite clear that of the three possibilities that are actually possible -- 1) leave it as is, 2) leave it as it but invisible, or 3) delete it altogether -- number 2 is self-evidently the best, and by far comes closest to being what the community wants, as it addresses the main objection offered in the RfC described in bullet #1 above (avoid ugly and unhelpful text on face of the article), while not adversely affecting the Orphan Wikiproject, which uses the category rather than visual identification to identify orphan pages, and which is apparently the main player in de-orphaning pages.

So OK, Bob's your uncle.

So why hasn't this been done? Just erasing the text is trivial, is there any reason for this not having been done? Absent objection I propose to do this presently. Herostratus (talk) 21:28, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

One reason is that I kind of took the lead on this, but have been multitasking projects and swapped this one out. A concern I have is the impact that making orphan notices immediately invisible would have on Project Orphan. Ideally I would like to see more analysis of how articles are currently de-orphaned. Perhaps most use the category rather than visual identification, but we don't really know the actual percentage of use each gets. There is also the question of how editors using AWB and Twinkle to tag orphans will react when they don't see the tags that they thought they just added. To get an idea about how well newly identified orphans are de-orphaned, at the end of last month I noted the number of members of Category:Orphaned articles from February 2014. Three weeks, later, the number in that category has been reduced from 2,404 to 2,098 – so 306 or 13 percent have been de-orphaned. Not a very good percentage, but would making the tag invisible make it worse? Maybe we could keep the tag visible for orphans identified (dated) during the current and previous month, and then make the tag go invisible after the next month begins. So orphan tags would be visible for at least one full month, e.g., an article tagged on February 26 would be visible until April 1. This might be done with monthly manual updates to the template. Or maybe date-checking logic can be written, perhaps using a Lua module. We have a {{CURRENTMONTH}} variable, but I'm not aware of a variable for the previous month. The previous Village pump discussion was archived at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 109#On Orphan tags again. In the sub-section Continuation on orphan tags I detailed changes which would hide the orphan message only when it is not part of {{multiple issues}} and allow editors to override that and make it visible with an opt-in gadget. What I would like to do is still keep recently placed tags visible as well as those sandwiched in {{multiple issues}}. Do we need a third round of discussion to approve this, or can I just go ahead and implement? Wbm1058 (talk) 03:47, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

So "Bob's your uncle" eh? I had to look that one up, never heard that before. Wikipedia is wonderful for such things. Wbm1058 (talk) 11:28, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

• I haven't read your whole response here yet, and am not fully awake enough to absorb it, but I can tell you that the code for "last month" is {{#time:m|-1 month}} which returns 04 where {{CURRENTMONTH}} returns 05. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 16:12, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Actually, on second thought... I just created {{LASTMONTH}} which is template that returns the same thing. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 16:14, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Great. Now that I go looking for it, there's also a Template:LastMonth. It shouldn't be too hard to use one of those so that newly tagged orphans are allowed to stay visible for a minimum of one and a maximum of two months, depending on what day of the month the article was tagged. Do we have a consensus for that? I realize that this is a relatively incremental change, but that's the point. I think it's better to do something less radical here, as more radical changes have more potential to be disruptive to our exisiting de-orphaning systems. But even this change should effectively remove the visible message from tens of thousands of articles. Wbm1058 (talk) 17:16, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

"There is also the question of how editors using AWB and Twinkle to tag orphans will react when they don't see the tags that they thought they just added." Editors using AWB and Twinkle they ought to respect the outcome of the RfC and ought not to add this template to article space, if they want to include them then they ought to place them on the talk page. As to accessing the category from the talk page: AWB has the ability to deal with this problem: (see in AWB "[dropdown tag List]-->convert from talk pages"; Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/User_manual#List). -- PBS (talk) 11:31, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Just to make clear everyone understand the problem: (In)Visibility is not a problem for AWB since editors can see the source code of each page and AWB can also search if page has a tag or not. What AWB can not do is to check whether a page is orphan and add a tag to the corresponding talk page. Visibility can be arranged by changing the template's code I presume. Tagging must probably will become impossible if the tags are moved to the talk page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:53, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I see from your account User:PBS-AWB that you are an experienced and active AWB user. You should realize that most of AWB's orphan tagging is not something that editors are consciously doing, but rather something that AWB is automatically doing when editors opt in to that feature. I updated the {{Orphan}} documentation to show how AWB tags orphans. See also User:Magioladitis/AWB and orphans. Perhaps User:Magioladitis can comment on whether they are willing to technically implement your solution, and whether they feel such a change to tag talk pages would be desirable. Effectively, what I think you are asking for, is that, while editors are using AWB to edit articles, when they click the green "Save" button, they will be saving two pages: both their article changes and an orphan tag to the talk page. Wbm1058 (talk) 13:12, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

I have serious problems with making the tag entirely invisible: having the Edward Betts' findlink tool visible on pages, in my experience, brings non-power users into de-orphaning and creating interwiki links. I too would like to see a test of deorphaning frequencies, but I think you would have a backlog that would grow much quicker (especially with high visibility, easy de-orphan content), than without it being visible, Sadads (talk) 15:15, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

To answer the question above: AWB will discontinue to auto tag/untag orphan pages if orphan tags move to talk pages. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:21, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes

Yes Wbm1058 go ahead and implement.

I think the best way to handle complicated questions like this is to go ahead and implement, then adjust as needed.

I can't really speak for the community, but I'm going to anyway, based on my understanding of the issues discussed over time and so forth. The main task is to implement the decision, as soon as reasonably possible and and close to the spirit of the decision as reasonably possible.

So if the text is visible for only the first couple months of placement, that'd be reasonable. So let's implement if you can implement soon. Dunno about an opt-in for longer-term visibility and I don't see the reason, BUT it's not worth arguing over. Implement. We can discuss down the road if that is working or not.

Ditto {{Multiple issues}}, this is a separate issue and also secondary. Copy the existing Orphan template to (say) Orphan-visible and edit the Multiple issues template to display that, as a kludge for now, or whatever. Everything does not need to be all Sir Garnet at once.

I understand that you'd like to see more analysis of how articles are currently de-orphaned and so on, but this is secondary to getting the tag off the article pages soonest. The needs of the Orphanage project aren't negligible, but they are secondary. If the lack of visible text in the tag impinges on the functionality of the Orphanage project, well, it is what it is. Any reasonable accommodation, provided it is done in the spirit of respect to the community's decision, implement, and we can discuss down the line how it's working.

So let's do this.

Sadads, re "I have serious problems with making the tag entirely invisible", what can I say? There're a large lot of people who don't agree. And this has been a many-years-long discussion where, generally, most people have held that opinion, culminating in well-populated RfC where a considerable majority expressed the belief that it's time to do this. We can have another RfC down the line offering some other option, but we can't stall implementing this one for now, Herostratus (talk) 22:16, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Very well then. Sir Bob is working on it ;) I'll give a shout when changes start going live. After this first step is done, I'm hoping the next phase of dealing with orphans will be to better leverage that Find link tool; I have some ideas on how to do that. Wbm1058 (talk) 19:35, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

 Done – The changes are now live, and the orphan messages are now disappearing from the specified articles. It may take some time for them all to go invisible, but this seems to be happening rapidly, so a null-edit bot should not be necessary. Cheers, Wbm1058 (talk) 12:40, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Wbm1058 I started adding {{Multiple issues}} where is needed i.e. in all pages with two or more tags. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:20, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Very good, this will help consolidate and condense the ambox clutter at the top of many articles with multiple maintenance tags. I just updated this template's documentation. Wbm1058 (talk) 17:23, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Statistics: 117343 pages transcluding {{Orphan}}, 43012 inside {{Multiple issues}} and 74331 without since there the sole tag in the page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:38, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Per the Rfc the Orphan template should not be in article space. If it has to remain there for a limited period while people come up with piratical tools to implement the RfC then so be it. But it defiantly should not be displaying text in article space. If text is needed then place the text on the talk page. Therefore Option is not an issue that should present text in the template {{Multiple issues}} -- PBS (talk) 22:17, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

PBS consensus changed after more thorough discussion. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:38, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

The Rfc "Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 108#Proposal to move the Orphan tags to the talk page" was very large and recent. If you think that a sizeable number those who took part in the RfC would be persuaded to change their minds by any of the post RfC arguments then hold another RfC, but I suspect rightly that would be seen as disruptive given how large the RfC was and how strong the consensus was. -- PBS (talk) 23:17, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

There was a strong consensus to stop displaying a "big", "ugly", "defacing", "scream at every visitor", "distracting" and "grotesque" message at the top of articles, to "minimize its impact on the article's readability." I believe that by hiding that message on over 70,000 articles we have reasonably fulfilled the spirit of that consensus. There was no clear consensus regarding {{multiple issues}}. There was significant support for removing the orphan tag altogether and effectively abandoning WP:WikiProject Orphanage, but I think we fell short of a consensus for that. I did not see a consensus for displaying a "big", "ugly", "defacing", "distracting" and "grotesque" message at the top of talk pages, nor did I see any significant rationale for how displaying such a message on talk pages would help the project. Moving to the talk page was simply the means proposed for minimizing its impact on the article's readability. I have used an alternative means, hiding the message, to achieve the desired goal. If you still feel strongly that talk pages should have visible messages, then perhaps you should start a new RfC calling for that. I'd recommend supporting your proposal with a positive message about how WP:WikiProject Orphanage would benefit from such a move, rather than the negative message about screaming at every visitor, as that reason for moving the template has been mitigated. – Wbm1058 (talk) 02:23, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Help Needed!!

I frequently used the {{Orphan}} tag in preview editing of an article so I could use the link it provided to check the list of articles that linked to it. It was very useful if I moved an article and wanted to fix the links from the old title to the new title. Now that the orphan article has been changed can anyone tell me an easy way to access that? Thanks for your help! Spidey104 21:56, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

There should be no need to "fix" the incoming links, apart from double redirects. Regarding the latter, when you move a page, you get a checklist like this, containing a bullet beginning "Check what links here to see whether the move has created any double redirects, and fix the most serious ones. ..." If you click the "Check what links here" link, you only nee to fix those listed there. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:18, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

@Spidey104: If you edit your common.css as documented on the Template:Orphan page, then {{Orphan}} will always be visible in preview and you can continue with your past editing practices if you like, and they are appropriate. Editor judgement is advised when deciding whether redirect links should be fixed or not. – Wbm1058 (talk) 13:21, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

@Redrose64:, thank you for assuming I don't know what to do when I've been a file mover for a couple years now.

@Wbm1058:, thank you for assuming I'm doing the correct thing and I was just using a simple example to get some simple help. And thank you for providing that help. Spidey104 01:55, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Edit request

Hi there, I just want to replace

[...]this page from [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&redirs=1&search={{PAGENAMEU}}&fulltext=Search&ns0=1&title=Special%3ASearch&advanced=1&fulltext={{PAGENAMEU}} related articles]; [...]

this part of the template code by

[...]this page from <span class="plainlink">[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&redirs=1&search={{PAGENAMEU}}&fulltext=Search&ns0=1&title=Special%3ASearch&advanced=1&fulltext={{PAGENAMEU}} related articles]</span>; [...]

Actually the mentioned link is not an external link, it is within Wikipedia so why should we use [link] format? My proposal is to use

<span class="plainlink"></span>

in this case. Another related thing is that, it increases the server load; is used by bit.wikimedia which increases the server load by adding a file after the link. So I wanted to change it since this template is used in more than 100,000 article. Many thanks. Jim Carter ^(talk) 10:47, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Done — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 11:30, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Hey, @Technical 13: just noticed the change now. There is a minor problem can you please change <span class="plainlink"> to

<span class="plainlinks">

this is the correct code. It is my fault sorry. :P Jim Carter ^(talk) 18:26, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Done Typo corrected. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 19:07, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Mistakes by Tool

I was asked to describe "mistakes" in the tagging of articles with the tool. On 4 June 2014, I discovered a bad link in a list of legendary ancestors of the Irish people to Bile. I created a page Bile (Irish legend), corrected the link in the list of legendary ancestors, and added a link to Bile (disambiguation). Then Bensci54 tagged the article as an orphan. I removed the tag. The history of Bile (Irish legend) will show this. In a subsequent (now archived) discussion at the WP:Help Desk, other Help Desk regulars said that they had seen this from time to time. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:19, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

• Ahh... Now I see, it was the Page Curation "tool" that added the tag. Kudpung, since I know you (are/were) one of the more active page curation interested people, can you please bring me up to speed on how that tool helps the editor decide if pages should be tagged as orphans? I'd like to figure out why pages are apparently being tagged as something they are not (if that is in fact what is happening). Where is the source code for that script anyways? Thanks for any insight you can offer. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 23:37, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
• This is really easy to research. Simply go to the new-page feed as indicated on the page curation tool instructions. Therem, for example I saw Subhamiltonian graph that David Eppsttein has just created. It is marked as an Orphan, although David has linked to it from two other articles already. We can make the assumtion, for now at least, that the new-page feed is using the old defn. of "orphan". All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:32, 16 June 2014 (UTC).
  
  • Is it using the old rule-of-three, or is it using cached data whereas the new links are just not registering yet? — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 00:50, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

If the tool is using the old rule-of-three, then the wording of the template should be changed. Alternatively, if the tool is using cached data, can it be updated so that it automatically refreshes the data? I know in this case that I had moved the article from user space to mainspace and immediately updated the bad link (which had been what alerted me to the need for the article in the first place) and added the link in the disambiguation list. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:22, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Also, tagging an article as an orphan if it has fewer than three links to it is, in my opinion, not a good idea. Many articles that are still worth keeping, but are stubs, may not have three articles that link to them. One stated rationale for the "orphan" template is that any article should be able to be reached by navigation, no matter how long the navigation. An article with two links can be reached by navigation. Should there be a "semi-orphan" template? A semi-orphan, with one or two links, can be reached by navigation. There is another type of article that cannot be reached by navigation, and that is an article that is in a true Wikipedia walled garden. In my opinion, walled gardens are a more serious problem, although less easily solved problem, than semi-orphans. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:28, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

• Repeating a post I made on this page two-and-a-half years ago (just scroll up):

Not every article can be backlinked from others, and it's one of the most misused tags by new page patrollers, some of whom appear to use it when they can't think of any other issues to tag an article for, instead of doing something useful such as adding stub templates or minor MOS clean ups. The template conveys no useful information for a reader.

--Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:44, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Has this template stopped working?

I just added the "orphan" tag to the new article titled G-measure. But the usual "orphan" notice does not appear at the top of the article. What's going on? Michael Hardy (talk) 18:54, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Some people don't like the banner, and wanted it removing from all articles. Others said no; a compromise was reached (see earlier on this page and elsewhere) whereby the banner is only visible if certain conditions are met, see Template:Orphan#Visibility. I dated it which will make it visible until 30 September. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:12, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Edit request to fix typo

Could someone please change the text in this template from "Find links tool" to "Find link tool"? As you can see at https://edwardbetts.com/find_link the name of the tool is "Find link" (with no "s"). Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 16:24, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Done. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:38, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Avoiding encouragement of junk links

The current wording added by the Orphan template ("Please introduce links to this page from related articles; ...") encourages people to go find victim articles to degrade by adding junk statements into them to link them to low-quality articles. IMHO, the wording should be made softer to avoid encouraging this. Links should only be added into articles if they will improve the article that is getting the link added into it. Links should not be added into articles merely to ensure that every low-quality article gets promoted by having some victim articles that link to it. Low-quality orphan articles should stay orphans (or be deleted) if they are not helpful to other articles. COI and topic-fan editors shouldn't be encouraged to broadly spread their mess. I suggest changing the quoted wording to "If there are related articles that would be improved by introducing readers to the information in this article, create links in those articles to help people find it; ...". —BarrelProof (talk) 23:16, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Four months and no reply. Should we reword as I proposed? —BarrelProof (talk) 20:39, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

You make an interesting point and propose a good solution, in my opinion. I say go for it. --Bongwarrior (talk) 20:45, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Fine with me also. But then I'm pretty "wet" when it comes to articles being orphans: I don't care that much. I think that "Low-quality orphan articles should stay orphans... if [adding links to them in other articles] are not helpful to [the] other articles" is probably a fairly contentious statement: the state of being an orphan is considered in and of itself an error or failure of the article, and rectifying this is worth some degradation of the other other article, maybe. (But neither is being an orphan considered very strong grounds for deletion, by itselt.) We're creating a network of articles here, and the quality of the network has precedence over the quality of individual articles. That'd be the argument and its a reasonable one which is why we have this template and WikiProject Orphanage. It's not an argument I'd tend to agree with (I do agree with it to a point) but it's reasonable. Herostratus (talk) 22:49, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree that there's some value in creating a well cross-linked network of articles, but a few times I have seen some pretty questionable behavior that seemed motivated by the desire to just find something to link to an article – creating statements in articles that seem sort of like "To build its 172nd office building in 1992, MegaHuge Corporation hired Joe's Otherwise-Orphaned Construction Company" (which is perfectly fine to say in the article about the little construction company, but has a seriously WP:UNDUE effect on the article about its much-larger client). I think the template's text should be worded to avoid encouraging that. (I can't edit the template myself, as it is protected from editing by mere Wikimortals such as myself, and that's probably as it should be.) —BarrelProof (talk) 23:32, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

You raise a good point. I went looking for an appropriate article for linking to your theoretical construction company and found this article which had been redirected out of existence. But I feel there is a need to balance this with the desire not to make the template notice too intrusive. More detailed instructions should be given at Wikipedia:Orphan. Wbm1058 (talk) 00:42, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

How to check current status?

How to check current status of an article if it is still orphan? Bladesmulti (talk) 12:15, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Bladesmulti check "What links here". If there are no links then it's still orphan. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:31, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

• I don't remember all of the details about the template or whatever, but I vaguely remember wanting to write a user script that would notify project members using the script what the orphan status of the page was inside the template and offer a one click solution to untag as appropriate. I'll start thinking about that some more.. If you hear nothing from me on it, poke me in a week please. :) — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 17:53, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

• User:Technical 13 So what now? Bladesmulti (talk) 06:12, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the reminder, I've been working on a lot of scripts lately and this one had slipped my mind. I'll start working on it soon. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 22:06, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
    • Bladesmulti, good news! I have a prototype script that helps with article deOrphaning! To try it, add the following code to your custom.js:

importScript('User:Technical 13/Scripts/OrphanStatus.js');// Backlink: [[User:Technical 13/Scripts/OrphanStatus]]

I know the script fails to deOrphan pages if there are no changes, and it has a hard time parsing some of the old {{Multiple issues}} parameters. I'll add better regex to account for those later. In the mean time, it seems to work really well most of the time, and I suggest ALWAYS clicking on the "diff" link when it completes processing to see what it did. Please, report any errors that you find, so I may improve it accordingly. When reporting issues, messages from the error console are always good and it is really handy if you can give me the userAgent string and if it is a layout error, a screen resolution is a good idea too. Happy editing! — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 04:21, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Multiple issues logic broken

I could edit this myself, but I wouldn't dare. I'll leave it to someone who knows what they're doing.

As I understand from the documentation, the template text box appears when it is inside a {{multiple issues}} tag. As you can see from the article Jitu Patwari, the template isn't appearing.

If you reset the date to November or December 2014, it does appear. However, its appearance in a list of multiple issues should be independent of the date. ~Amatulić (talk) 22:05, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

@Amatulic: Not done: It's working as intended, see e.g. #I am confused or #Has this template stopped working? above. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:06, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Um, no, it isn't working as intended, so I have reset the 'answered' status on this request. I read this talk page before posting this request. To address the sections linked in the previous reply:

• The #I am confused section appears to show (as far as I can tell) an agreement that the template should be visible inside multiple issues tags.
• The #Has this template stopped working? section is about a stand-alone template and not relevant to this request.
• Further more, the page documentation clearly states: "It is also visible on all pages where it is used inside the {{multiple issues}} template." This statement is separate and distinct from the statement about November/December 2014 causing it to appear when standing alone.

Either the template needs to be fixed, or the documentation should be clarified. All indications are that this template's presence inside a "multiple issues" tag should cause it to be visible regardless of the date. ~Amatulić (talk) 23:41, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Not done: please make your requested changes to the template's sandbox first; see WP:TESTCASES. I understand that you don't know what kind of changes you need to make in order to "fix" what you perceive is "broken", but the TPER template that you are using here is not intended to encourage discussion on the topic. It's purpose is to only carry out consensus in the form of a "please change the live template with the sandbox version". Feel free to continue discussing it, and when you have a request that is ready to be carried out and enacted, then feel free to reactivate this template. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 00:23, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

The answer above has no relevance to the request, and fails to address any of the points already made. The documentation is not consistent with the behavior of the {{orphan}} template. Either the documentation is broken, or the template is broken. One of them needs fixing. That's what we are discussing. ~Amatulić (talk) 05:42, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Feel free to discuss modifications to the documentation, the template seems to be working as intended to me. Show some examples of where it is not doing this. Thanks! — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 05:44, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

I already showed an example, in the Jitu Patwari article. The template fails to appear when placed inside the {{multiple issues}} tag, contrary to the documentation. ~Amatulić (talk) 05:57, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I have confirmed the issue and am looking into it, as I am the template editor who implemented this functionality. The template logic is a kludge and thus prone to being broken by unrelated changes. – Wbm1058 (talk) 13:08, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

• Wbm1058, it seems to be working fine. The documentation says:

The template message is visible on all pages where the date parameter is set to either December 2014 or November 2014. It is also visible on all pages where it is used inside the {{Multiple issues}} template. Older-dated orphan templates are invisible by default, but are still categorized.

The source on that page is:

{{multiple issues|
{{notability|bio|date=December 2014}}
{{refimprove|date=December 2014}}
{{Orphan|date=February 2014}}
}}

"February 2014" is not "November 2014" or "December 2014". The note about the "Multiple issues" template only says that this functionality is not broken by being stuffed in that wrapper template. Therefor, this seems to be working as documented. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 14:34, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

I distinctly recall implenting this as you wanted to (see #Hidden if alone, display as normal if in Multiple issues above). It is wrapped inside {{multiple issues}} and should thus still display regardless of what the date parameter is set to. Wbm1058 (talk) 15:14, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

• Yes, Wbm1058, that is the way that I wanted, but that is not how it is currently implemented OR documented. I do remember you having a large part in working on this project, and would be happy to let you take care of it how you see fit. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 15:25, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
  • OK, I updated the documentation to clarify this. Is that better? Sorry that it was unclear to you. – Wbm1058 (talk) 16:57, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Documenting my previous installation

The following is copied from the Village Pump archives. – Wbm1058 (talk) 16:09, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

I have found a technical solution which makes T13's proposal to hide the orphan message only when it is not part of {{multiple issues}} possible. It's not pretty, but I think it works. Implementing a more elegant solution requires another redesign of {{multiple issues}}. That template has already been redesigned once, and the need to continue supporting the legacy design contributes to the complexity of the solution.

• First, I have cleared the backlog of edit requests for {{orphan}} and brought the template documentation up to date, so, before reading further you may want to review the template:Orphan documentation.
• To support the old syntax of {{multiple issues}}:
  • Modify {{Orphan}} per this diff which adds a new parameter multi, which when set, displays the orphan message rather than hide it.
  • Modify {{Multiple issues/message}} per this diff to pass the parameter multi when calling {{orphan}}.
  • Modify {{Multiple issues}} per this diff to set multi = multi and pass it to {{Multiple issues/message}}
• To support the new and current syntax of {{multiple issues}}:
  • Further modify {{Multiple issues}} per this diff to support display of orphan messages in {{multiple issues}} when using the new syntax.
• Review the test cases at Template:Orphan/testcases (I added more test cases to cover all the scenarios)
• Install this code in your personal common.css file to un-hide the hidden orphan messages.
• We will probably want to file a request at Wikipedia:Gadget/proposals to make this special code a gadget, so that the orphan patrol can simply check a box at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets to show the hidden orphan messages.
• I still see the "cosmetic glitch" in both Chrome and Internet Explorer after I activate the special "gadget code", which misaligns the bullet for the orphan message in {{multiple issues}}. I am mystified about what is causing it. I went so far as to save the html source from a page to compare the differences between the displayed html when the bullets align to when they don't. Here is the diff from that test, which leaves me clueless. But, as this glitch is only cosmetic, and would only effect those editors who opt-in to the gadget, I suppose we can live with this issue.
• Kudos to Jackmcbarn for pointing me in the right direction when I got stuck.
• No Lua required; no new CSS class required.

(. . .) Wbm1058 (talk) 17:17, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

This should be fixed now. Jackmcbarn (talk) 16:52, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Jack! I was on the trail, but I'm sure you found it faster than I would have, and saved me some time. I updated the test cases to include use of older dated parameters, confirming the fix. Note that the "Old-style orphan parameter (NOT template)" wasn't broken and still displayed fine with the older date. – Wbm1058 (talk) 17:21, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the fix. My issue that started this discussion has now been addressed. ~Amatulić (talk) 20:07, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Gadget for those wishing to deOrphan articles

• On the progress of this, I've started creating User:Technical 13/Scripts/OrphanStatus.js to address the idea of having a gadget available for those wishing to deOrphan articles as part of WP:O. I've requested help on figuring outclarifying how the script should react for some use cases on the WikiProject's talk page, and will continue to develop this script once I get some replies. Once I'm comfortable that the script is working properly in all (or at very least, most) cases, and the members of the WikiProject that have helped me beta-test think it does what it is suppose to based on their specifications, I'll make any needed changes to prep it for a request to turn it into a gadget. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 17:04, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Categorizations

Resolved

Hi, I just went through the "few" links categories and many had three or more incoming links or were unsourced and probably not notable stubs with a sentence. I updated all the "|few=" parameters to May 2015 but none of the articles got moved into that category. I would think that the template would categorize pages into date categories by last activity instead of first activity. Is there any way that anyone can update the template to exhibit this behavior? I think it would be beneficial and reduce working over each other. Thanks. 3gg5amp1e (talk) 15:52, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

@Technical 13: TheMesquito^buzz 19:51, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

• I'm wicked backed up with schoolwork and finals. I'll look into it in a couple weeks at best. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 20:23, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Nevermind. I needed a 15 minute break from exams anyways, so I just did it. Let me know if it isn't what you were hoping for and I'll make further changes as requested. In the future, {{Help me}} is probably not the way to get assistance with such things. {{Edit template-protected}} probably would have been better here... — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 21:36, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Technical 13, I don't see any benefit in using another parameter instead of "date" for the date; to me this seems more an issue of updating the documentation. I also don't see the purpose of "updating" the date; there's no benefit to not being able to tell for how long a maintenance tag has been on a page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Huon (talk • contribs) 21:59, May 5, 2015 (UTC)

• @3gg5amp1e, TheMesquito, and Huon: I was just doing as requested. I can see the point made by the OP that there is no sense in six people trying to work together to keep checking the same article multiple times because they can't tell which one has(n't) received any attention recently. That said, I can also see your point of wanting an overall scope of how long the tag has been there. I'm thinking of revising it again so that "date" is always used to put the article in the Orphaned pages since {date} category and then if {att} or {few} exists, using the most recent of the two and also putting the article in do-attempt since {att} or few since {few} respectively. Will that work for everyone? — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 22:20, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Will that change how it works now? The fixes you made are exactly what I was hoping for after going through and looking at the few category before I went through the att category so I don't keep checking the same articles over and over. 3gg5amp1e (talk) 22:28, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

• [[User:|]]. it doesn't appear to, I worked hard to accomplish your goal while accommodating Huon's concern.

• Huon, I do believe that Special:Diff/661189761 addresses your concern. The template now always places the pages in "All orphaned articles" and "Orphaned articles from {date}" and if {att} exists it also adds the page to "Attempted de-orphan from {att}" and if {few} exists it also adds the page to "Low linked articles from {few}". The template (when displayed which should be never after the first month unless inside multiple issues or you're using my script/custom css) displays the {date}. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 01:57, 7 May 2015 (UTC)