Wikipedia:WikiProject Orphanage

Welcome to WikiProject Orphanage!

WikiProject Orphanage is dedicated to clearing up the immense backlog of orphaned articles. There are thousands of articles and images on Wikipedia with few or no incoming links to them. The value of this project should not be underestimated as the wikilink is one of the important characteristics of a wiki and is indeed what provides Wikipedia with its ease of quick information retrieval. Plus, 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, and how to utilize cleanup tags.

Goals and scope

Special pages (maintenance)Information
Dormant pagesForgotten articles
Broken redirects
Dead-end pagesDead-end pages
Double redirectsDouble redirects
Lonely pagesOrphaned articles
Long pages
Most interwiki links
New pagesNew pages patrol
New pages feedPage curation
Protected pagesProtection policy
Short pages
Uncategorized pagesCategorization
Uncategorized templates
Unused categories
Unused files (images)
Unused templates
Wanted pages
Without interwiki links
See also: Maintenance departments

There are 52,877 articles tagged as orphans out of a total 7,254,097 articles on Wikipedia. This is 0.73% of the total articles, and an incredible amount to work on, so we need your help.

While it may seem simple at first, not every article can be de-orphaned, and de-orphaning can be a difficult task, so this project aims to educate and make it easier. But please remember that de-orphaning is about maintaining and improving the quality of individual articles by integrating them with others in a relevant and meaningful way; it's not about keeping score. The value of de-orphaning is not determined by the number of incoming links you added or how many orphan tags you removed, but rather by the quality of integration. Therefore, the primary goal of the Orphanage is to improve Wikipedia by building the web in a way that enhances the quality of all affected articles.

Note that this project deals primarily with articles rather than images. For orphaned images, see Category:Orphaned non-free use Wikipedia files.

Our current aim is to clear the backlog of orphaned articles on Wikipedia, so that all articles can be found by a series of links from the Main Page. Note that an article with categories can be found in this way because it can be reached from other articles that share the category; however, categories currently are not counted in the definition of orphan. The project also aims to make the process of de-orphaning easier. Through collaborating with other projects, providing information, and above all helping editors to cooperate, the Orphanage will make the task of de-orphaning a little less daunting. If you have any ideas or suggestions on how to help us improve in our goal, please feel free to leave a message on the talk page.

What can we all do to help?

Surely you're wondering what you can do to help our cause. With the current backlog all the help that is offered is welcomed. De-orphaning an article is a good way to start.

Suggestions for how to de-orphan

Suggestions for how to de-orphan an article provides information regarding how to find articles that can be linked to orphans and add them. There is also a host of other relevant information in the main article.

Participants

To add yourself to the list of participants, edit this section and add your username to the bottom of the Active list using this format:

{{Wikipedia:WikiProject Orphanage/table|Your Username|Active}}
To receive Backlog drive notifications on your talkpage please add your name here. If you would like a userbox, to proclaim your project participation on your user page, it can be found in the template section below.

Active members

Progress

Orphaned articles
Subtotals
May 201647
June 2016308
July 2016287
August 2016405
September 2016309
October 2016239
November 2016192
December 2016151
January 2017450
February 2017507
March 2017518
April 2017238
May 2017395
June 2017340
July 201797
August 2017290
September 2017247
October 2017188
December 2017109
January 2018140
February 2018212
March 2018234
April 2018123
June 2018437
July 2018116
August 2018139
September 2018417
October 2018162
November 2018115
December 2018365
January 2019381
February 2019332
March 2019400
April 201998
May 2019176
June 2019246
July 2019188
August 2019169
September 2019149
October 2019482
November 2019274
December 2019106
January 2020175
March 2020161
April 2020269
May 2020375
June 2020182
July 2020201
August 2020148
September 2020220
October 2020316
November 2020240
December 2020178
January 2021598
February 2021336
March 2021308
April 2021290
May 2021272
June 2021177
July 2021267
August 2021184
October 2021273
November 2021504
December 2021756
January 2022750
February 2022510
March 2022410
April 2022885
May 2022360
June 2022376
July 2022323
August 2022319
September 2022383
October 2022500
November 2022848
December 2022364
January 2023409
February 2023205
March 2023360
April 2023380
May 2023280
June 2023380
July 2023474
August 2023971
September 20231,074
October 2023344
November 2023345
December 2023411
January 2024541
February 20241,026
March 2024789
April 2024331
May 2024384
June 20241,678
July 2024303
August 20241,560
September 2024309
October 2024413
November 2024433
December 20241,410
January 20251,318
February 2025244
March 2025359
April 2025304
May 2025465
June 2025478
July 2025376
August 2025471
September 2025550
October 20251,274
November 2025374
December 20251,330
January 2026672
February 2026520
March 2026605
April 2026485
May 2026494
June 2026298
July 20261,383
August 2026942
September 2026720
October 20261,166
Undated articles5

A progress graph and monthly summary of tagged orphans is at Category:Orphaned articles.

Note that the bot addbot started tagging orphans in February 2009, which accounted for the large number of orphans tagged that month.

For in-depth details, see the Wikipedia:Orphan information page.

Templates



Description Template Example
Add link to orphaned articles by subject. {{WikiProject cleanup group|Orphaned articles|Physics}}
Add link to orphaned articles by subject. Within todo list
{{tasks
|cleanup={{WikiProject cleanup list|France}}
|geocoord= {{WikiProject cleanup group|All articles needing coordinates|France}}
|orphans= {{WikiProject cleanup group|Orphaned articles|France}}
|photo= [[:Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in France]]
}}

Categories

Click on "►" below to display subcategories:

Subpages

Tools

Below are some tools that can be useful. Feel free to edit this list.

See also

WikiProject orphan lists

Obsolete orphan lists

These are kept for historical purposes only, they are no longer used:

References