Database name change breaks wiki links

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nd5y

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I don't know if this belongs in the wiki or database forum.

When database admininstrators change database page names it breaks the link from the database page wiki button to the associated wiki article.

Both of these:
OKWIN -- Oklahoma Wireless Interoperability Network Trunking System, Various, Oklahoma - Scanner Frequencies
OKWIN -- Oklahoma Wireless Interoperability Network Project 25 Trunking System, Varies, Oklahoma - Scanner Frequencies

Used to link to:
Oklahoma Wireless Information Network (OKWIN) - The RadioReference Wiki
 

AK9R

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For the time being, fixed with a couple of redirect pages.

Thanks.
 

nd5y

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mciupa

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If you know the former article's name, it may be redirected to the new orphaned page.
 

AK9R

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I've done the redirect, though there may be other links that are now broken.

As for the "db admins struck again", any suggestions for how to the tell the boss that he broke a Wiki link? ;)
 

mciupa

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It happened again.
Several Oklahoma state agencies were renamed and broke several wiki links.

Perhaps contact the Administrator involved with the name changes, he may be unaware this has happened.

I used to be guilty of doing that with database duties until it was pointed out to me. In the interim, I have restored Highway Patrol with a redirect. I will try and fix any others *if* I can. The "old" name of the articles would be most helpful, otherwise I'm blindly guessing.
 
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QDP2012

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It happened again.
Several Oklahoma state agencies were renamed and broke several wiki links.

Perhaps contact the Administrator involved with the name changes, he may be unaware this has happened.

I used to be guilty of doing that with database duties until it was pointed out to me. In the interim, I have restored Highway Patrol with a redirect. I will try and fix any others *if* I can. The "old" name of the articles would be most helpful, otherwise I'm blindly guessing.

Good afternoon,

nd5y, thanks for pointing out the broken links.

mciupa, thanks for trying to reconnect links.

To save labor in any future efforts at reconnecting DB-to-Wiki or Wiki-to-DB, you can save the effort of guessing what the old might have been, by using the Wiki's categories to navigate to the list of existing pages, and check to see if a page exists that would match the desired RRDB listing. If there is no page that would correspond to the DB listing, then you won't need to try different combinations of Wiki Redirects. <Edit> If there is a page with a very similar name, then navigate to it to determine if it is a correct match. If it is a match, then "MOVE" it so that it becomes renamed to the new name. This keeps the page's history-logs intact after renaming.</Edit>

Example #1:

For the newly named "Highway Patrol (OK)" page, I would recommend checking the Category:Oklahoma Law Enforcement page for any possible listings. On this category page, was the listing for "Oklahoma Highway Patrol (OK)". Then after navigating to the "Oklahoma Highway Patrol (OK)" page, it was "MOVEd" so that its name became "Highway Patrol (OK)" to match the new name in the DB.

The above MOVE has already been done, so you now see "Highway Patrol (OK)" in the Category:Oklahoma Law Enforcement page. The other Wiki pages that linked to the former page have had their links updated to point to the new page, to avoid a redirect. The redirect (which points old page to new page) also has been cleared after it became unneeded.


Example #2:

For the newly named "State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) (OK)" page, checking the Category:Oklahoma Law Enforcement page will show that there is no existing page with a name representing the OSBI. Seeing there is none, will save the effort of guessing what the name might be and of trying various combinations of Wiki Redirects.


So far, it seems that the majority of the pages that were renamed in the DB don't have a corresponding Wiki page.

<Edit2>The difficulty with multiple attempts at creating a redirect which points from the new name to the old name, is that the existing Wiki page can be "MOVEd"-over-redirect by regular Wiki-members only when the new-name page has only one redirect listed in its History-log, If multiple redirect attempts are applied to the new page, then only a Wiki Admin can "MOVE" the existing page so that it is renamed to the new name.</Edit2>

Thanks again and Hope this helps,
 
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mciupa

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Thanks for the pointers and I'm happy that the majority of those pages have yet to be created.
 

QDP2012

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Welcome to RadioReference avavida,

But with pages in the revision history database, URLs are different

Content that has been removed from a Wiki page should be considered invalid
As you would expect for any Wiki page, the current-page supersedes previous versions of the page. Therefore if you find a link on an old version of that page which is not listed on the current version, then the link is currently considered invalid (for whatever reason -- either the link is dead or no longer points to valid information related to that Wiki page).


How to avoid the "old-page-version" pitfall
If you use a search-engine to find an RR Wiki page, you might get a result that points to an old version of an RR Wiki page. When you navigate to that found Wiki page, you should always click the "Page" button (2nd button in the left navigation column) to go to the current version of that page. This will help you ensure that you are always looking at the current page, unless you deliberately want to see an out-of-date version. This way, you can trust that the links on the current page should work, and can avoid accidentally expecting links on an outdated page to work.


Hope this helps,
 
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