User:Ricken/SandboxPG/Red links
A red link, like this one, signifies a link to a page that is either non-existent or deleted. It is useful in editing article text to create a red link to indicate that a page will be created soon or that an article should be created for the topic because the subject is within AmtWiki's scope. A 2008 study of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia who uses the same MediaWiki software as AmtWiki, showed that red links helps to grow their wiki. [1]
Articles should not have red links to topics that do not warrant an article, such as topics that are not about Amtgard and therefore are out-of-scope. Red links should not be made to deleted articles, but one may link to the title of a deleted article if one intends to write an article about an entirely different topic that has the same title. In general, a red link should be allowed to remain in an article if it links to a term that could plausibly sustain an article, but for which there is no existing candidate article, or article section, under any name. Do not remove red links unless you are certain that Wikipedia should not have an article on the subject, or if the red link could be replaced with a link to an article section where the subject is covered as part of a broader topic.
Good red links encourage new contributors in useful directions, and remind us that AmtWiki is far from finished.
Creating red links
Red links automatically appears whenever double brackets [[ ]] are places around a word or phrase for which an AmtWiki article of that title does not exist.
Create red links everywhere they are relevant to the context for terms that should exist. An easy example is a persona name of a player who does not yet have a player page. The topic of the red link could actually exist, but under a different page name. The topic may well be covered in a section of another article; it could even be buried in several paragraphs nearby. So it is the responsibility of the person who creates a red link to scan for the topic's coverage. Creating a red link also carries the responsibility to first ascertain that the red link is a valid title of a page, including proper spelling and capitalization.
Do not create red links to articles that are not likely to be created and retained in AmtWiki, including articles that do not comply with AmtWiki's naming conventions. The illustrative red link positioned at the beginning of this page is an example of this type of normally unwanted red link.
An article should never be left with a non-existent (red-linked) category in it. Either the category should be created, or else the nonexistent category link should be removed or changed to a category that does exist.
Do not create red links to files or disambiguation pages.
Dealing with red links
In general, a red link should be allowed to remain in an article if it links to a term that could plausibly sustain an article, but for which there is no existing candidate article, or article section, under any name.
A red link to an article that will plausibly be created in the future should be left alone rather than being created as a minimal stub article that has no useful information. It is better to leave the link red than to create a "placeholder stub" that says only "Page in Progress", with the sole purpose of turning the red link to blue. Red links serve the purpose of notifying readers that a need exists in AmtWiki for creation of a new article with at least minimal information content; the creation of minimalist marker stubs simply to get rid of a red link destroys this useful mechanism.
Likewise, a valid red link term should not be dealt with by removing the link brackets, simply to temporarily reduce the amount of red text in an article.
- ↑ Diomidis Spinellis and Panagiotis Louridas (2008). The collaborative organization of knowledge. In Communications of the ACM, August 2008, Vol 51, No 8, Pages 68–73. doi:10.1145/1378704.1378720. "Most new articles are created shortly after a corresponding reference to them is entered into the system."
