Help:Procedures - ArchWiki

# Help:Procedures

A collection of check lists to be used when performing complex changes to articles.

## Move a section within the same page

1. Open the article in an editor.
2. Cut the text to be moved. Do not save the page now, i.e. do not perform the move in two edits, the first removing the section and the second pasting it, or in the second edit it will seem that you are the author of the section, especially if the accompanying edit summary is not clear.
3. Paste the cut text at the new position.
4. Adapt the heading level if needed, but do not make any other adaptations to the content for the moment, otherwise the modifications will not be visible in the resulting edit diff.
5. Save the page, properly writing the edit summary.
6. Now you can proceed to editing the section text normally, as required.

## Split section to a new subpage

This procedure is useful when moving a section of an article that has become too long to a subpage of that article.

1. Open the origin article section in an editor.
2. Copy the entire section content.
3. Open the destination subpage in another editor.
4. Paste the copied content in the destination editor without modifications.
5. Save the destination subpage with an edit summary like "content split from 'Origin article#Section'", where 'Origin article#Section' is an internal link.
6. In the origin editor, replace the split content with a link to the destination subpage either leaving the section heading in place, or adding a link to the Related articles box of the article.
7. Save the origin page with an edit summary like "content moved to 'Destination subpage'" where 'Destination subpage' is an internal link.
8. Re-open the destination subpage in an editor.
9. Categorize the destination subpage like the origin article.
10. Add a link to the origin article at the top, for example "See 'Origin article' for the main article", where 'Origin article' is an internal link.
11. Adapt the levels of the headings of the new subpage to start from the second level.
    Tip: This step can be done automatically with Wiki Monkey's plugin.
12. Save the destination subpage with a proper edit summary.

Further advanced additional steps:

- Check and fix any broken links to sections in both the origin and destination pages, and in pages linking to the origin page.

  Tip: This step can be done automatically with Wiki Monkey's plugin.

## Deal with talk pages after redirecting a page to another

If page A has been redirected to page B, for example after merging the content of A into page B, and Talk:A exists:

- If Talk:B does not exist, move the entire Talk:A to Talk:B, letting MediaWiki automatically redirect Talk:A to Talk:B.
- If Talk:B exists:
  1. Move the still relevant discussions, if any, from Talk:A to Talk:B.
  2. Ensure that the discussions left in Talk:A, if any, are closed.
     - If Talk:A hosts discussions that have been closed for less than the period specified in Help:Discussion#Closing a discussion, flag Talk:A with Template:Redirect, so that the page will be redirected to Talk:B after the closing period.
     - Else, immediately redirect Talk:A to Talk:B.

## Fix double redirects

1. Read this section to understand what redirects are.
2. Check out Special:DoubleRedirects to see if there are any.
3. For example, if you see `Pastebin Clients (Edit) →‎ Common Applications →‎ List of applications`, it means Pastebin Clients redirects to Common Applications, and Common Applications redirects to List of applications. Therefore, Pastebin Clients is a double redirect.
4. To fix it, edit Pastebin Clients and change `#REDIRECT [[Common Applications]]` to `#REDIRECT [[List of applications]]` to skip the middleman.
5. Enter an edit summary such as `Fixed double redirect` and save.

Tip: This task can be done automatically with Wiki Monkey's plugin.

## Create a new page and its translation

See ArchWiki Translation Team#Create a new page and its translation.

## Move a discussion to another talk page

1. Copy the discussion text to the destination talk page, making sure to add, between the new heading and the pasted text, a note like:
   [Moved from Origin_talk_page#Heading. -- Signature and timestamp]
2. Strike the heading in the origin talk page and replace the content with a note like:
   [Moved to Destination_talk_page#Heading. -- Signature and timestamp]

## Rename a category

1. Move the category page the same way as you would move a normal page, ensuring a redirect is created from the old title to the new one. This will only rename the category page itself, the members of the category will not be recategorized.
2. Recategorize all members of the old category to use the new one.
   Tip: This can be done automatically with a script, which relies on the redirect from the old category to detect the new name and thus it is not limited to changes in capitalization or similar heuristics.
3. Update all interlanguage links.
   Tip: This can be done automatically with a script or Wiki Monkey's bot plugin.
4. Update all backlinks of the old category to refer to the new one.
   Tip: This can be done automatically by running Wiki Monkey's RegExp substitution plugin on the old category's Special:WhatLinksHere page, with a substitution like `(\[\[|\{\{Related2?\|):[ _]*[Cc]ategory[ _]*:[ _]*[Oo]ld[ _]name[ _]*(#|\||\]\]|\}\})` -> `$1:Category:New name$2` (assuming the old category name is "Category:Old name").
5. Mark the old category with Template:Archive, without destroying the redirect (the old category is likely still linked from Table of contents).
   Tip: If the category has no relevant history, it can be deleted by an administrator, after ensuring that steps 2.-4. have actually been performed.

## Remove an entire page

- New but inappropriate page:
  - if inappropriate because of spam or other clearly malicious content (evaluation is made by an Administrator), it is deleted right away;
  - in most of the other cases the article should be:
    - marked with Template:Merge; or
    - marked with Template:Redirect; or
    - moved as a subpage of its author's User page.
- Old article become obsolete:
  1. mark with with one of the following, in order of preference:
     - Template:Merge;
     - Template:Redirect;
     - Template:Archive;
  2. wait at least 7 days;
  3. in absence of objecting discussions, or when these eventually resolve in favor of removal, perform the proposed action;
     - when redirecting, consider following #Deal with talk pages after redirecting a page to another and #Fix double redirects;
     - when archiving, follow the instructions in ArchWiki:Archive.

Category:

- Help