FamilySearch Wiki:Maintenance/General Cleanup

Maintenance Home &gt; General &gt; Cleanup

Dead links (priority 2)

 * Pages with dead links
 * Problem: The articles in this report contain one (or many) broken or dead external links.
 * Why fix: A patron can become very frustrated going to a link they think might have the answer they're looking for only to find it is dead or no longer exists.
 * Steps to resolve:
 * Go to the Pages with dead links report.
 * Click on an article to work on.
 * Find the text [dead link] in the article. The link just before this text is the problem link.
 * Double check to make sure the link is really a bad link. (It might give a 404 Error, or tell you the page doesn't exist.) Sometimes websites are down temporarily, and the dead link could have been reported during such a time, but is now up again.
 * Review the text around the link to find out where the link really should go.
 * Research to see if you can find a replacement for the bad link.
 * If you find one, replace the bad link with the correct link. If you can't, remove the link. See the Help links below if you're not sure how to add or remove links.
 * Remove the dead link template from after the link.
 * Note: As of January 2011, there are hundreds of links that need to be changed from the old FHLC search page to the new FHLC search page. They are similar to dead links problems but can be found here and need the FHL template added: Pages with broken links
 * Help links:
 * About linking in the Wiki
 * Adding links
 * Advanced linking
 * Fixing Pages with Reference Dead Links
 * Fixing Classic FamilySearch.org Links


 * How this problem is reported: Add the template directly after the bad external link. (External links are those that go to web pages outside of the Wiki.)

Ambiguous page title (2)

 * Pages with ambiguous page titles
 * Problem: Shows pages with titles that do not accurately describe their subject matter.
 * Why fix: The page titles come up as the main “focal” points of a search. If the page title doesn’t match the subject matter well, patrons will miss the articles that have the info they need in them.
 * Steps to resolve:
 * Select a page out of the Pages with ambiguous page titles report.
 * Check the discussion page to see what comments have been made about this topic.
 * Read through the information on the page, evaluate the content, and decide on a new page title.
 * Scroll down under Toolbar on the right and click What Links Here. This gives you a sense of how popular the page is. If this is a popular page, there will be many links to the page. If you can, after you change the page name, change the links to this page to go to the new page.
 * Scroll down under the Views area on the right and click Move.
 * Enter in a new page title in the To new title box. Enter the reason why the move is needed.
 * Click Move Page.
 * Check for double or broken redirects, if necessary.
 * Add a note to the Discussion page about the changes.
 * Help links:
 * Article naming conventions
 * Article creating internal links
 * How to report: Add the template to the very top of the page

Requested moves (2)

 * Pages that need to be renamed/moved
 * Problem: Pages with requests to be renamed to a different name
 * Why fix: The page titles come up as the main “focal” points of a search. If the page title doesn’t match the subject matter well, patrons will miss the articles that have the info they need in them.
 * Steps to resolve:
 * Select a page out of the category Requested Moves.
 * Check the discussion page to see what comments have been made about this topic.
 * Read through the information on the page, evaluate the content, and verify that it matches the suggested new title, or decide on a new page title.
 * Scroll down under Toolbar on the right and click What Links Here. This gives you a sense of how popular the page is. If this is a popular page, there will be many links to the page. If you have time, after you change the page name, change the links to this page to go to the new page.
 * Scroll down under the Views area on the right and click Move.
 * Enter in a new page title in the To new title box. Enter the reason why the move is needed.
 * Click Move Page.
 * Check for double or broken redirects, if necessary.
 * Add a note to the Discussion page about the changes.
 * Help links:
 * Article naming conventions
 * How to report: Add the template to the page

Duplication/merging (3)

 * Pages that need to be merged
 * Problem:
 * One or more articles on the same topic.
 * Information in one article on the same topic not in the second.
 * Why fix:
 * All material on a topic should be in one article rather than in many others. Or the very least, links from each of the articles to all the others.
 * Help links:
 * Help Redirects.
 * FamilySearch Wiki Redirects.
 * How to report:
 * Automatically reported.
 * Steps to resolve:
 * Compare all the articles for content.
 * Decide which article to keep in Wiki which we will call the target article and the other articles we will call duplicates.
 * Take content from the duplicates and place in the target article.
 * Editing of the target article maybe required to make the information flow in a logical manner. Material may have to be restated to match the langauge of the target article.
 * Erase the text from the duplicates and place a "Redirect link;" to take the patron to the target article by the following steps.
 * Log in.
 * In the duplicate article/articles click on the "Edit This Page."
 * In the rich editor box, type: #REDIRECT target article name at the in the rich editor box at the top.
 * Type in Summary box: "Placing redirect link"
 * Place a check in the "This is a minor edit" box.
 * Save page.
 * Check to see that redirect link works.
 * Steps to resolve in Wikitext:(Wikitext processes much faster than rich editor)
 * After rich editor comes up, click on the word "Wikitext" in the tool bar just under "rich editor."
 * Type #REDIRECT target article name
 * Type in Summary box: "Placing redirect link"
 * Place a check in the "This is a minor edit" box.
 * Save page.
 * Check to see that redirect link works.

Archive requests (3)

 * Pages that need archives created
 * Problem: The practice of archiving is particular to talk pages and noticeboards, which often swell to great length and includes items that have been resolved, are very long or are old in application.
 * Why fix: This allows for better searches for pages that will be of true use to all in the Wiki.
 * Steps to resolve: See the steps in Archiving a talk page
 * Help links:
 * Archiving a talk page
 * How to report:
 * To request that a talk page be archived use archiveme template.

External links that should be internal (4)

 * Pages with links to be fixed
 * Problem: Links to other pages that are inside the wiki have been formatted as external links.
 * Why fix: Internal and external linking is done differently, and user expectations are set a certain way when they see a certain type of link (external links look like this with the box and arrow after them). It helps make for a cleaner Wiki to have the links formatted correctly.
 * Steps to resolve:
 * Go to the list of pages with links to be fixed. Note: On that page: 
 * The first link after each number is the problem link. 
 * The second link is the page the wrong link is on. (Note: Ignore Talk/Discussion pages. We generally don't edit contributors' comments on these pages.) 
 * Open the second link in a new tab (right-clicking and opening in a new tab allows you to keep the report open while you work on the individual pages).
 * Scroll down and look for links with the box and the arrow after the link. Put your mouse over them and find the one that starts with http://wiki.familysearch.org.
 * Righ click on each bad link and open in a new tab.
 * Open the linked page, highlight the title, copy it and return to the problem page.
 * Edit the section containing the bad link.
 * Highlight the link.
 * Go to the linking tool, click and highlight the present link and delete it. Paste in the page name (internal link).
 * When you have corrected all the bad links and saved the page, go back to the report, refresh the page, and you'll see that the page you worked on is no longer in the list.


 * Help links:
 * Help:Adding Links
 * Help:Advanced Linking
 * How this is reported:The Wiki software identifies these problem links.

Miscellaneous (2-4)

 * Pages with miscellaneous issues
 * Problem:  These are pages that have been marked with a "To Do" template, for various reasons.  These articles are usually calling for action in the wiki.  They may involve editing issues that will require some time to complete.
 * Why fix: There may be links that are no longer valid, information that needs to be updated, etc. to make the page current and correct.
 * Help links: This will vary, depending on the editing need for the page.
 * Steps to resolve: Read through the document after checking the To Do comments.  Each page will require editing that fits the problem that has been reported.
 * How to report: Add the ToDo template with an explanation of the task that needs to be completed.

Long pages (**)

 * Long pages that could potentially be reworked
 * Problem: Some of these pages would be more readable if they were shorter or broken down into sub-pages
 * Why fix: For readability and to attract more researchers to the page
 * Steps to resolve:Suggest to contributor that page could be broken down into sub-pages or shortened.
 * Help links:
 * How to report:This list is created by the Wiki System.

Lists of pages that meet a specific criteria contain two asterisks; they don't mean that there is a problem with all the pages in the report and don't need to be "cleaned up."