WikiIsland

A WikiIsland is a page which is unreachable by any link, anywhere. These pages should not be created. If you make a page, hook it up so people can find it!

Some of these were created with links to them, and then the source pages were changed... and I think it's a real pity that my WikiIsland from the old wiki didn't survive the port. Oh well, some HistoricArtifact?s are destroyed by the ravages of time, I guess...

And help give some orphan pages a home!

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I want to reiterate my position from the last time this "issue" came up, on OpenForum under "coming of age." The Wiki:WikiIceberg is a normal phenomenon that happens on all wikis without causing any problems. (In fact, the only reason ours is so small is that I took the May 2001 software migration as a chance to tidy it up a bit.) Orphaned pages do not interfere with normal use.

I don't think it's necessary to warn authors about this, or that it will keep islands from happening. Nearly all the orphans listed were once in actual use, but were replaced by other pages or otherwise fell out of favor. (That, or they are software artifacts from the very first PhpWiki installation on valis.st.)

It's a feature, not a problem, that such pages become orphaned and hidden when they are no longer used. Also consider: no page is truly orphaned unless it also has no backlinks. Even then it will show up in text searches when appropriate.

-- MattBrubeck

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I'd like to add my two cents to this issue--invoking my OriginalWikiWhore status, if required:

WikiIslands are not bad. They are interesting both in concept and often in content. However, this does not mean they get inherently more cool by "connecting" them to the main connected subgraph of the wiki. If there are links that should belong on said island, then by all means, add them. Marking them all as WikiIslands, though, downplays their coolness. Finding a WikiIsland should be like stumbling across an interesting view when utterly lost--you're glad to see something interesting and new and the fact that you're not sure exactly where you are or how you got there just improves the sensation. Please, don't take much of the fun out of RandomPage? walks. Also, allow these pages to keep their title, as labeling them WikiIslands removes their WikiIsland status. Sad, isn't it?

• What the hell are you talking about? Linking from a WikiIsland doesn't keep it from being an island. The only way to de-island something is to link to it. --RichardGarfinkel
  • Um, backlinks?-MicahSmukler
    • Exactly. And please, I don't mean to offend. This is just my point of view, not a personal attack.--Dan
    • If we were to consider backlinks, which I don't, as they only represent a text search, which would find these pages anyway, all but two of the pages in the WikiIsland backlinks are also backlinked from the. --RichardGarfinkel
      • I think the point is that you shouldn't be able to go "Gee, I'd like to go trawling through the islands on Wiki" and be able to click on a button to find them all. The fact that they're in the backlinks of the is hardly useful, as just about everything is there. I guess the attitude Dan is trying to describe (as I understand it) is that WikiIslands should be secret, and tacking the links onto them removes that facet of their existence. -- ChainMaille

Again, link to and from ones you care about (and that deserve it), but just smile and move along when you stumble across ones that belong as islands. You don't want the terrorists to win, do you?

--DanCicio

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WikiIslands No More

Collection of no longer WikiIslands (originally started by RobinDobashi and BobChen):

• BetteMidler
• BoBa
• FindPage
• IterativeNode
• LoungeFood
• LoveisLikeaCucumber
• MarysWhiteBoard
• NicksWhiteboard
• and one other that ought to remain a WikiIsland.

• Well, part of my reason for throwing out the collection is the block of text right above this one; namely, that labeling them as WikiIslands removes their coolness factor and WikiIsland status. But I suppose that if this heap needs to go somewhere, it may as well go here... ---BobChen, previous owner
• No WikiMan? is a WikiIsland
  • How about a WikiManPage??