FamilySearch Wiki:Maintenance/General Cleanup

Maintenance Home &gt; General &gt; Cleanup

Dead links (priority 2)

 * Pages with dead links
 * Problem and why it should be fixed: The articles in this report contain one (or many) broken or dead external links. 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
 * FamilySearch Wiki: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 and why it should be fixed: Shows pages with titles that do not accurately describe their subject matter. 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 contain the info they need.
 * Steps to resolve:
 * Select a page out of the Pages with ambiguous page titles report.
 * Check the Talk 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 Talk 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 and why it should be fixed:
 * There are pages with requests to be renamed to a different name
 * 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 Talk 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 Talk 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 and why it should be fixed:
 * Problem: There are one or more articles on the same topic. We don't want to have two articles with generally the same type of information in the wiki because that will confuse matters.


 * Help links:
 * Help Redirects
 * FamilySearch Wiki Redirects
 * How to report:
 * Automatically reported.
 * Steps to resolve:
 * Compare both the articles for content. Bring them up in two different windows so you can compare side-by-side if necessary.
 * Decide which article to keep in Wiki. This is the "Target" article. The one we will not keep is the "Duplicate" article. To determine which is the Target, review the following:
 * Title - which article title makes the most sense and is in line with the wiki article naming conventions?
 * Information - which article is more complete?
 * What links here? - which article has more links going to it? (Under Toolbox &gt; What links here)
 * Talk - which article are people discussing more over time
 * Take any information in the duplicate that is not in the Target and incorporate it into the text of the Target article.
 * Editing of the Target article may be required to make the information flow in a logical manner. Material may have to be restated to match the language of the Target article.
 * Place a "Redirect link" to take the patron to the Target article by the following steps in Wikitext:
 * Clickon the words "Edit Source" tab at the top of the page
 * Type #REDIRECT target article name
 * Remove the rest of the text on the page
 * Type in Summary box: "Placing redirect link, merged content with another article"
 * Save page.
 * Check to see that redirect link works.

Archive requests (3)

 * Pages that need archives created
 * Problem and why it should be fixed:
 * The practice of archiving is particular to talk pages and noticeboards, which often swell to great length.
 * Includes items that have been resolved, are very long or are old in application.
 * Fixing the problem 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 and why it should be fixed:
 * Links to other pages that are inside the wiki have been formatted as external links. Internal and external linking is done differently, and user expectations are set a certain way when they see a particular type of link (external links look like this with the box and arrow after them).
 * It helps make 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 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.
 * Right 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 and why it should be fixed:
 * 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.
 * There may be links that are no longer valid, information that needs to be updated, etc. to make the page current and correct.
 * Correcting the pages will create valid, accurate articles/


 * 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 and why it should be fixed:
 *  Some of these pages would be more readable if they were shorter or broken down into sub-pages
 * They should be fixed 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."