Discuss: What links here and links from nav templates.

[Dashbot]

It's apparent that the what links here suffers from that if a specific page is on a nav template. Then the 'what links here' special page is filled with pages with the nav template, not the actual link. Take for example all the items in a specific game, if one is to track the pages that links to the item, he would be lost in the number of links that come from "every" page related to the game, due to the nav template. If the nav template links were not posted. The links would be easier to track.

Possible solutions:

• Using special extension to exclude links from nav templates from appearing in 'what links here'
• Using External Links inside nav templates with special formatting to not look any different
• Ignoring the issue and moving on.

And before taking any serious actions, and because it's a minor inconvenience to some extent, I wanted to see the community's opinion on that.

 

[LeftyGreenMario]

I have this problem as well, especially when I tried eradicating the incorrect usage of "Mushroom World". These navlinks are highly irritating, so if there is an option to hide them, I'd appreciate that.

 

[Walkazo]

Assuming an extension even exists, it's not mainstream and widely-used, and this is a pretty minor quibble all things considered (most whatlinkshere usage is updating redirects afaik, and fixing the templates first gets rid of the issue immediately), so it wouldn't be worth adding some shifty 3rd party stuff to the database over.

Using external links in templates would be a terrible waste of time, effort and space, and would make templates very difficult and inconvenient to edit. Again, not worth it.

In cases where using whatlinkshere is not a simple redirect problem, you could always just temporarily disable the links in the templates involved: as long as you specify in the edit summary that it's for maintenance and fix/get the links quickly and revert it, no one should have a problem with it. If it's for a couple hours while a handful of links are fixed, no worries, but if it's a long project, I'd day just copy the links into a document rather than having to leave the template faulty for days on end or having to keep toggling the link on and off.

 

[LeftyGreenMario]

If it's long term, why not remove the links for one day, restore it when you're done, and repeat it until you're complete? But even then, what about for links that are in several nav templates? I guess it would just be more inconvenient, but...

 

[Walkazo]

Kinda gunks up the template's history, but I guess that doesn't matter too terribly much, since it wouldn't really be spam. But I'd still say aim to get stuff done in as few sittings as possible when it comes to requiring whalinkshere in this manner (and save the "little bit here, little bit there" maintenance work for things that can be done with searches, categories and redirect-links), especially if multiple templates are involved (in these cases, just remove the links from all the templates, which can be found using the namespace drop-down menu in whatlinkshere).

 

[Dashbot]

You could always just temporarily disable the links in the templates involved: as long as you specify in the edit summary that it's for maintenance and fix/get the links quickly and revert it, no one should have a problem with it.

Yes, this will work, I just thought that fixing the problem from the "source" could have been better. But this is always a second reliable option. Sometimes, I just look into the whatlinkshere, for the heck of it. Like checking how certain pages are linked (especially the list of glitches, and stuffz), But I dunno, it could only be me.

Using external links in templates would be a terrible waste of time, effort and space, and would make templates very difficult and inconvenient to edit. Again, not worth it.

Maybe, but first, the "changes" I would purpose are like follows: [[Mario]] -> {{external|Mario}} or even if a shorter template name is allowed -> {{x|Mario}}. Less convenient, but not a major inconvenient.

 

[Walkazo]

Using external links in templates would be a terrible waste of time, effort and space, and would make templates very difficult and inconvenient to edit. Again, not worth it.

Maybe, but first, the "changes" I would purpose are like follows: [[Mario]] -> {{external|Mario}} or even if a shorter template name is allowed -> {{x|Mario}}. Less convenient, but not a major inconvenient.

Nope, still too much grief for something as basic and ubiquitous as putting links in templates, especially for a minor and easily circumnavigable inconvenience as whatlinkshere including templates.

You could always just temporarily disable the links in the templates involved: as long as you specify in the edit summary that it's for maintenance and fix/get the links quickly and revert it, no one should have a problem with it.

Yes, this will work, I just thought that fixing the problem from the "source" could have been better. But this is always a second reliable option. Sometimes, I just look into the whatlinkshere, for the heck of it. Like checking how certain pages are linked (especially the list of glitches, and stuffz), But I dunno, it could only be me.

If they ever update the basic whatlinkshere extension to have an option to strain out nav templates, that'd be great, but for the time being, we gotta do it by hand, either that way, or using this other medhod that jsut occured to me, hich will work for both maintenance and curiosity: Searching for "[[Link" (including the quotation marks).

The search results tell you what pages and templates uses the link directly, and does not include pages that only have the templates. Try it by searching "[[Pauline's items" (a non-template-linked-to redirect), and then comparing that to Special:WhatLinksHere/Pauline's_items (Special:WhatLinksHere/Pauline's_items) - everything's listed, including things using the uppercase version of "Items". If you search for "[[Goldbob", you also get a nice small list of results, as opposed to whatlinkshere's 100s of pages (Special:WhatLinksHere/Goldbob), due to the inclusion of Goldbob in two nav templates. The only downside to this method is that it also includes links to Goldbob Guide (even "[[Goldbob]]" searches do), but otherwise, it seems to work pretty well - and it doesn't require messing around with template links.