A redlink, or red link in a wiki appears whenever double square brackets - [[ ]] - are placed around a word or phrase that the wiki doesn't (yet) have a page for.
This is one of the key innovations that makes a wiki successful. A wiki shows the reader that a page could be created, but hasn't yet been created, and gives a one-click path to start contributing.
It is a way of saying that an article should be created for the topic because it is important and would be useful, and acceptable (important for the nervous first-time contributor).
Rather than using red links in lists, disambiguation pages or templates as an article creation guide, it is usually best to write articles, and use Special:WantedPages or community discussion/project pages to discuss, if necessary.
Good red links help the wiki grow, and encourage new contributors to participate. However:
- Only make links that are relevant to the context
- Make redlinks that would make useful and relevant articles.
- As far as you can, follow Appropedia:Naming conventions - don't worry too much, but it's basically all lower case (first letter is case insensitive) except for proper nouns.
A redlink (or red link) is a key ingredient of a wiki: A link to an article which has not yet been created.
When you see a redlink on Appropedia, consider it an invitation to create the article. Just click the link, and start typing, or enter information which you have the right to share:
- public domain
- your own work
- works under a suitable Creative Commons license. There are only two compatible with Appropedia: CC-BY and CC-BY-SA.
Wanted pages - help by creating these pages!
At Special:WantedPages you see the redlinks on Appropedia, starting with the most common. The first thing to check is whether there is an existing link that the pagename should point to - if so, you can create a redirect:
#REDIRECT [[name of the target page]]
If you are using the basic edit option (non rich text), the easy way is to click the "#R" button. (Upper case or lower case of the "REDIRECT" works equally well.)
Create redlinks
Another project here is creating redlinks. User:ChriswaterguyBot is used to create wikilinks, and some of these will be redlinks.
You can also create redlinks, by linking any term that definitely should have a page on Appropedia. If it turns out to be a redlink, you might check whether there's another page it can redirect to.
Displaying "redlinks"
Maybe you don't like these kind of links being displayed as red. Go to Special:Preferences >> The "Misc" (miscellaneous) preferences allow several options for the appearance of links.