Wikipedia:WikiProject Red Link Recovery

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Shortcut WP:RLRWP:RLR

See Wikipedia:Red link for how-to info and links to updated todo lists.

Introduction

In Wikipedia, editors add links to articles where they think a reader might want to know more about something. Where links are blue, readers can click on them to see a more detailed article on that subject. However, when Wikipedia doesn't contain an article for a particular link, it shows up as a red link (like this one).

Red links are not always bad, as explained at Wikipedia:Red link. However, Wikipedia's user experience is better when red links are managed appropriately. WikiProject Red Link Recovery is a WikiProject looking at all methods of reducing the number of unnecessary red links in Wikipedia.

They can exist for one of several reasons:

• Wikipedia doesn't have an article on the linked subject ...
  • ... because one should exist, but nobody has started it yet.
  • ... because an administrator deleted the article and did not remove backlinks afterwards.
  • ... because the subject doesn't meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines (though it might be part of an article with larger scope).
  • ... because the link makes no sense — it may be a mistake or vandalism.
• Wikipedia does have an article on the linked subject, but under a different title ...
  • ... maybe the editor just typed its name incorrectly.
  • ... maybe the spelling of the article name in the (red) hyperlink used to be correct, but someone "moved" (re-named) the target article, without first being diligent enough about checking "What links here" and updating as appropriate. (This probably happens more often with changes to names of sections, than with changes to names of articles. An editor could easily forget that a section can be mentioned in a hyperlink cross-reference — such as the link from Retting to Jute#Production. Links to nonexistent sections are not red links, however, so long as the named article exists.)
  • ... it might be hard to find because it is stored under an unusual title and needs to be moved.
  • ... perhaps alternative names need to be given to the article using redirects.

Tools

• List of lists of red links - these can often benefit from being tidied up by checking for close-matching titles.
• Outdated lists used prior to the above tools can be viewed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Red Link Recovery/Old lists here.

Participants

The list of past and present participants in this project can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Red Link Recovery/Participants.

There is also a project userbox:

This user is part of WikiProject Red Link Recovery.

{{User WikiProject Red Link Recovery}}

Related

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red
• Most red links – Articles containing the greatest number of red links
• Wikipedia:Most-wanted articles – The most common targets of red links
• Category:Wikipedia red link lists – Lists of red links meeting certain criteria
• Wikipedia:Templates with red links – Red links in templates are likely to represent red links in many articles.
• Wikipedia:Requested articles
• Wikipedia:Link rot – A project of similar scope, but for external links as opposed to internal links
• Wikipedia:TOPRED – The most-visited red links (no longer updated after July 2016)

Sub-pages

• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Red Link Recovery – The general project discussion page
• /RLRL and /Unlikely links – Discussion pages for these two tools
• /Stats – Data about numbers of red links and historical work done by project members