Is there a general "what links here" link?

Question

I am used to using "What links here" in WIkipedia to find all the pages that link to the page I am looking at. I can't find the equivalent function in Wikitree. Am I missing something, or is the user interface missing it? I expected to find it in the profile-ID menu at the top.

Reasons I might want to use this are to find Space pages that link to the profile (passenger lists, group photo descriptions) or if the profile is for a minister of religion, to see if any profiles have linked to him/her as the celebrant of their marriage.

Comments

Because your question presents a good case for making "what links here" available as displayed link on all profiles (both profiles of humans and free-space pages) I retagged and recategorized the question to make it a request for adding this feature as an improvement to WikiTree.

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Thank you Ellen. It wasn't originally a tech/improvement question because I thought I was just not seeing the link. Now it is an improvement request because I know the link I couldn't find isn't there, but is technically possible.

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Agree that it would be very useful to be able to see a list of people that “link here”  as like others, I have also inserted links to people who were not in the immediate family into many bios Eg the person’s godparents, the attendants or witnesses at their wedding,  an employer or sponsor, a household guest listed on a census , a special friend etc. Sometimes I add a corresponding statement and link into the other person’s profile (especially if they are related) but not always (eg if they were merely the person’s employer or sponsor). 

Answer 1

Hi Scott. Yes there is, though I think the URL needs to be constructed manually. Here is an example:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Special:Whatlinkshere/Wiki:Franklin-1

Comments

Thank you. I had not guessed the "Wiki:" part, and still thought it should be in the UI not just by editing URLs.

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Indeed. It takes a bit of work, and the wiki:Franklin-1 link on the resulting page is oddly incorrect, but it does the job required.

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If you are using it on a free-space profile, use Space: instead of Wiki:

Answer 2

I think the availability of "what links here" on all profiles would be a valuable enhancement to WikiTree, helping to increase awareness of more connections in our genealogies.

Didn't Chris Whitten declare that 2022 is the year of connections?

Comments

Having an easily visible "what links here" will make it more likely that people will create the links to find with it. I've included a few "random" links to other profiles (married by Reverend <X> in the garden of the residence of <Y>). It would not be reasonable to create the reverse links in the other profile ("Reverend <X> conducted 60 marriages through his career, including the marriage of <A> and <B> in <year>", or "<C>'s sister-in-law was married in his garden".

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I've also linked profiles for marriage officiants. Also doctors named on records, baptism witnesses, unmarried partners, in-laws, commanding officers of military units, and undoubtedly other connections that do not typically show up in profile data.

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I link to other profiles when such exist.  Otherwise I may link to a Wikipedia page (if the other person / people was / were notable in some way).
I have over-researched census returns, to find maiden surnames for the wives of relatives, or schoolmasters, on the off-chance that one day those folk will have profiles.
I have linked to relatives who were not in the immediate family, so are not attached to the profile, and to ministers (baptisms, and marriages) when I remember to see if they have profiles.
I find it interesting to know who else was involved in a life, other than immediate family members.
I will say this has inspired me to go look for a few ministers who officiated marriages, or baptisms just to add those links in.  I will try to remember to do the same for funerals, too, in the future, when such are named in records.

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We'd definitely have to fix the bugs with the person profile version before linking to it.

We could also override the default mediawiki page like we did with the category pages to make it more useful -- any suggestions?

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Instead of linking to a separate page, I'd like to be able to include a command that would create a list on the profile page like the list created on the links page.

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Jamie: What do you mean when you refer to "bugs with the person profile version" or other issues with the default mediawiki page?

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Most links on those pages that point to person profile pages are broken.

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Peggy, can you explain more? What would you like to see, exactly?

Edit: See my reply to Scott below.  Where you thinking of something like that?

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I guess Jamie is referring to:

1. bad URLs like http://wiki.c2.com/?Franklin-1, which is what appears when I click on the backlink in "The following pages link to wiki:Franklin-1:" on the page https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Special:Whatlinkshere/Wiki:Franklin-1
2. the bad results returned when clicking on the hyperlinks in "(← links)" when it appears next to a person profile or a category.

I think we could live without the second kind of hyperlink, if it could be removed. The backlink to the page we started from is a bit more problematic, since users should reasonably expect to find a working link to that page.

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Ian -

I haven't been keeping up.  I didn't realize that "What Links Here" was in the Find menu.  I thought the link code was necessary.  And, of course, I didn't know you had improved on it.  So, now, I'm once more educated.  Your improvement probably does everything I need.

With one remaining BUG:  The first time I right-click on "What Links Here" in the drop-down item on a new profile page, my clipboard is not updated after the "working" item name goes away.  Pasting into an edit field results in whatever was in there previously (for example, my Wordle solution).  A second right-click on "What Links Here" does result in the clipboard update, however.

(Imagine my surprise when you used one of my managed profiles as an example in G2G.)

Thanks.

- Peggy

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Hi Peggy.  I'm glad it seems useful. The links should be copied to your clipboard after it says 'Copied' (after it's said 'Working...').

Answer 3

If it helps... If you have WikiTree BEE, on profile and space pages, you'll find a 'What Links Here' link in the top menu: Find > What Links Here. 

Comments

Thanks Ian. I have Wikitree Bee on Chrome but usually use Firefox which doesn't have it.

Making What Links Here standard would make it easier for casual readers to use it. WIkitree Bee could still add more value then by rendering it in a panel when required.

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Hi Scott.  There is also a Firefox version of the BEE.  

I've just uploaded an update (v.29.1).  Now, when you right-click the 'What Links Here' link, it will get the links and copy them to your clipboard as wikilinks.  For example, on this page - https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Gordon-7009 - right-clicking the What Links Here link will copy this to your clipboard:

[[Gordon-7013|Rachael (Gordon) Kerchner]]

[[Gordon-7018|Amanda (Gordon) Snyder]]

[[Gordon-7015|Mary Jane (Gordon) Snyder]]

[[Gordon-7014|Eliza (Gordon) Shives]] 

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I've taken Jane's idea (below) and added a What Links Here section as an option (in the BEE). So if you select it on the options page, you should get that section on every profile. I hope that helps.

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I've been looking at some 'What Links Here' pages.  Either I've misunderstood the meaning of the phrase 'What Links Here' or the system is a bit flawed.  I've seen cases where space pages have links to members' profiles but the 'What Links Here' page doesn't link to them, and I've seen What Links Here pages with links showing that category pages link to a member's profile even though the category page doesn't have any link to the person. (I hope that made some sense.)   Anyone have any idea what's going on?

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Could we have an example of each please, Ian?

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There is a list of links to members on this space page.  Only two of them have this space page on their 'What Links Here' list.  

It's trickier with the categories, because I exaggerated slightly when I said I'd seen some people with the categories on their 'What Links Here' list - it was two people, who I don't really want to focus on. 

Edit: I think I've kind of found a reason for the category thing.  It seems there used to be a variety of cemetery projects for different places.  I came across a couple of people who I assume were in one of those projects, as the project page shows as a redirect on the 'What Links Here' page and below it is all of the cemetery categories in that place (a long list of them). 

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I'm also seeing odd results in the What Links Here page for profiles linked from https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Riggs_family_photo

It's probably an opportunity for a new tech question about bugs in Whatlinkshere.

Some look plausible with about the number of profiles that would link from the parent/children/sibling lists, plus the Space page - and also the edit link for the Space page. They only show wikitree ID not person's name, although the mouseover popup works to identify a person.

However at least one ( https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Special:Whatlinkshere/Wiki:Parham-1292 ) only shows the two Space: links and no other profiles.

On the pages that look like they work, the (← links) link is broken for profiles, but works for Space links.

I guess if this was a hidden feature until last week, it probably hasn't had much opportunity for testing.

I haven't seen any with categories in the list yet.

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Ian, for the first four members listed on that space page, their profile's What Links Here page does mention the space page. Since four is greater than two, your assertion is wrong, sorry.

When checking I used the version of What Links Here with (up to) 500 entries. If you used the default of 50, maybe the relevant entry for the space page was across the fold.

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Jim, You're right!  I was going off the results of my code in the BEE, but it turns out that my code was not good enough.  So I was wrong about that one (and I'll update my code), but the one about the categories is true. A long list of category pages are supposedly pointing to two people, but none of them have links to them on them.

Answer 4

I would love this to be a visible feature on every page! I've been busting my chops adding people/existing profiles to free space pages and it makes me sad that the people who would get benefit from this don't know about it unless I go and add a link to every single profile (which I'm not going to do). If "what links here" was easy to use it would solve the problem.