Forum:Broken Links on User, Talk, and Forum Pages

So the other day, I realized how useless Category:Pages with broken file links is due to all of the user and talk pages listed on the page. With all of these pages listed on there, it becomes difficult to see when actual articles have broken links on them. I had the idea to create a template that can be put in place of the broken links on user and talk pages so that the names/destinations of the broken links can still be displayed on the page, but they can be removed from the Broken Links category. When I talked to Sff about this idea, our genderless god also showed me this page, who directed me to this list of more broken links: Special:Wantedpages which contains over 1000 different links that broken, not including the several pages that may use the links. (Many are the Wikia-added "Thanks for editing the page "____"" for pages that were deleted/added as vandalism.)

Sff and I worked on creating a template NoPic that can replace broken file links (so images only, not regular links). The template takes the name of the file and lists it in a way so that it is not a link, so we can still see the file name that was there, but we can actually use the broken file links category to see real problems. It uses the notation .

Example of the template in use:

The main problem with this template, is that in order to replace the links, we would have to make an exception to the rule "Never edit another user's page or post." I think we should allow this rule to be broken in cases that are tied to formatting of the wikia. So, that would include broken links and a few other things that affect how the page is. So if I made a link like this: Monket D. Luffy in a forum, it can be corrected by other users if I miss it.

Also, if I made a box like this by accident in a forum, it could be corrected too.

In short, I think these problems could easily be fixed, we just need the approval of the wikia in order to "bend the rules a bit" first. 23:54, November 13, 2012 (UTC)

Discussion
I agree. Down with the overfilled category! 23:56, November 13, 2012 (UTC)

I think this is a good excuse to edit user pages and old forums. If the Broken Links Category is essential to wikia productivity, then by all means, let's do it. 00:15, November 14, 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the broken file link idea (obviously), but I think the addition of the template must be non-destructive, that is, we should leave all the info as it was in the page, notably including the caption. The good thing is, it is sufficient to remove the square brackets and add in on the right, as shown in the example. So it's not a big deal.

Under this condition, the whole process is easily reversible and no information is lost to the reader (except the file). I don't see no reason to oppose it. As for the other propositions, though, it should be carefully discussed. Some people don't like that their mistakes be corrected, or they like some "wrong" version of a name better and stick to using it. I think we should list precisely what's OK or not to correct, and how it ought to be corrected.

If they have a link spelled a certain way (Yonkou, for example), then we should create a pipe link reading Yonkou. Therefore, nothing is changed, and the link remains intact. 17:39, November 14, 2012 (UTC)

Name, spelling, grammar issues shouldn't be corrected. But unintentional or incorrect formatting can be quite troublesome. As long as any changes don't affect the content of a person's words, it should be ok to change things a bit.

And if it's only on user pages from user content, I don't see any need to correct redirect issues such as Yonkou. Links that are actually broken are problems, but links that still take you to the correct page are fine. That's not a big enough deal to change. 17:51, November 14, 2012 (UTC)

So if nobody has objected, can we start replacing these links now? 03:45, December 14, 2012 (UTC)

Sure, go ahead. MasterDeva (talk) 04:06, December 14, 2012 (UTC)

In my changing of these links, I've noticed that some are just links with no picture. So for those files, I've just made them no longer links (and made them underlined) rather than use the bulky template which adds a picture. 18:46, December 16, 2012 (UTC)

Better use the (new) link parameter:

Maybe it's not a perfect solution, but what about making the old deleted file redirect to a standard image like File:NoPicAvailable.png (or something made especially for that)? This way you will only need to edit the file page, no need to edit any other page.