Forum:Wiki clean-up

Right, now that it's been decided that we're going to carry out the clean-up operation, I'm going to lay out the plan here.

The Procedure
Getting through all the articles will be time-consuming, it's relatively simple. If your sign-up has been approved and your name is on the team list below, then you can start whenever you have time. The entire operation will be run through this page and fortunately, there's no need for everyone to be present at the same time. But if you have signed up, please pull your weight and do as much as you can.

To make it easy to understand, I will lay out the procedures in steps:


 * 1) If you select a page cluster, you will be responsible for going through all pages in that cluster and checking its length as well as whether the author is active or not. Write your username next to the cluster's link so no one else conflicts with your work.
 * 2) Check the author's name with the writer/under construction template. If the page doesn't have either template, check the page history to find the author's username. If the author's name on an article is unfamiliar, it's likely that they are either inactive or banned. Consult the list of users below to confirm if they're inactive or banned, (use Ctrl + F and type in their name to make it easy to find on this page).
 * 3) If the user's name is not on the list, check the author's contributions to see if they are banned. If so, add them to the banned users list.
 * 4) If the user's name is not on the list, check the author's contributions to confirm their last mainspace edit (set the namespace parameter to "(Main)"). If they have not edited since May 1st, 2011, then add their name to the inactive list.
 * 5) If the user's name is on either Flist, skip to step 3.
 * 6) If an article has no content except a writer/under construction template, it is considered a blank page. If an article has no page sections ( ==Headers== ), or multiple page sections with no content under them, or has an infobox and no content outside it, or it is otherwise under 10,000 bytes (use page history to check its length), it is considered a stub article.
 * 7) Stub articles are to be added to the "pages to be namespaced section", if the author is either inactive or banned. This step is necessary for admins as well, to keep a record of all pages that have been namespaced in the clean-up.
 * 8) Blank articles are to be added to the "pages to be namespaced section", if the author is inactive; if the author is banned, the blank article is to be tagged with  . Admins may delete the article without the use of the template, but must add the same reason to the deletion summary.
 * 9) If you are an admin on the team, you must devote some of your attention to moving and deleting the pages left on the list.
 * 10) After deleting a page, add the page name to the "deleted red-links" section. Insert   next to the red link, with the article name replacing the variable.
 * 11) Be sure to move pages without leaving a redirect. After namespacing an article, add the old page name to the "moved red-links" section and provide a link to the new article using Template:Namespace. Insert   next to the red link, with the article name replacing the variable.
 * 12) If you are on the team but not an admin, you must devote some of your attention to fixing all red links left behind by the page moves and deletions. Under the red-links section, add your name to a handful of articles on the list and work through them before you begin. Click "what links here" next to the articles with your name to see the list of affected articles. This task can also be done by admins, although this should be only if they have no more pages to move or delete.
 * 13) If you are fixing a red link to a moved article, revise all the red links on the affected articles with the namespaced link provided by the admin who moved the page.
 * 14) If you are fixing a red link to a deleted article, simply remove the brackets ( ) around the red links.
 * 15) Once you are done fixing all affected links to a page, cross out the old article name with  , but do  not  take it off the deleted red-links list.
 * 16) If you receive any form of communication from a user affected by the clean-up, redirect their attention to me, and I'll sort it out for you.

As a final note, I'd like to thank the volunteers for their initiative and willingness to help, and I trust that you'll do your job well as we work our way through this colossal task. Good luck.

The Team
The team is currently small, but more volunteers are always welcome. If you want to sign up, please do so here.