Wikipedia:WikiProject Orphanage

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Shortcuts: WP:DO WP:DEORPHAN WP:ORPHAN

WikiProject Orphanage is dedicated to clearing up the immense backlog of orphaned articles and images. There are thousands of articles and images on Wikipedia with few or no links to them. While it may seem simple at first, de-orphaning can be a difficult task, and this project aims to make it easier. Plus, if you are new to Wikipedia, de-orphaning articles is a great way to learn a wide variety of useful skills.

Building the web is a big part of Wikipedia, so join in the project and give those articles a home!

[edit] Goals and scope

The Orphanage aims 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.

There were, on last count, 140,650 articles tagged as orphans on Wikipedia. This is over 1% of the total articles, and an incredible amount to work on, so we need your help. As of January 2009^[update], there were over 133,000 articles with NO links from other articles, and many more which fit the less strict definition of an orphan, out of about 2.5 million articles.^[1] While de-orphaning an article is a simple idea, it is often a difficult task, so the more editors we have to help, the better.

[edit] What can I do to help?

Surely you're wondering what you can do to help our cause. De-orphaning an article is a good way to start.

Suggestions for how to de-orphan an article provides information regarding how to find articles that can be linked to orphans and add them.

[edit] Participants

To add yourself to the list of participants, please edit this section and add {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Orphanage/table|Your Username|Active}} to the bottom of the list.

[edit] Active members

[edit] Inactive list

These members haven't been seen around in a while. We hope they'll come back and move themselves to the active list!

[edit] Progress

Summary of tagged orphans (in Category:Orphaned articles)

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

Toolserver list summarizing articles tagged or untagged, courtesy of User:Para.

[edit] Templates

• {{orphan}} - A template to be put directly on the article if it has two or fewer links from other articles satisfying the orphan criteria.
• {{orphan|date=July 2009|att=July 2009}}- Once you have unsuccessfully attempted to de-orphan the article. Leave "date" as the date on the original orphan template (if one exists), and set "att" to equal the month and year you attempted to de-orphan the article.
• {{articleissues|do-attempt=July 2009|orphan=July 2009}} - If there are other issue tags (notability, refimprov, wikify, etc.) on the page, consider consolidating them into one box with {{articleissues}}. Read the specs first to familiarize yourself with it, although it's pretty straightforward. (Needs both the orphan AND do-attempt parameters in order to categorize the article properly!)
• {{Template:User Wikipedia Orphan}} - The userbox for this project.
  
• {{Template:Welcome de-orphaner}} - A welcoming template to encourage new project members.
• {{Template:Welcome de-orphaner2}} - A slightly different welcoming template, to invite de-orphaners to the project.

[edit] Categories

• List of all subpages of this page

[edit] See also

• Build the web
• Drawing attention to new pages
• Lonely pages
• Unused images
• Walled garden
• WikiProject Council/Proposals/Navbox
• WikiProject Integration

[edit] Obsolete orphan lists

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

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Orphanage/Articles orphaned without redirects - List of orphans from a 2003 database dump
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Orphanage/Orphaned Articles - List of articles from a 2004 database dump

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Monitor readership on any Wikipedia page

WikiProject Council would like to inform all Wikipedians that it may be advantageous to: Join WikiProjects of your field of knowledge or interest. This will provide you with a forum in which to exchange opinions, identify common goals with respect to articles under that topic, and coordinate opportunities to share your knowledge. You may also join Maintenance WikiProjects, where the focus is on the organization and functioning of Wikipedia in general. Beware of overloading yourself with WikiProject memberships, however. Keep involved in a handful of WikiProjects to which you can actively and assiduously contribute, and always be willing to help any WikiProject, when you see an opportunity, regardless of membership.