A very useful feature in MediaWiki and other Wiki servers is that it shows Dead Links in Red, when the page is shown. Here is an example:
All of the "good" links shown as their normal Blue color, a user that clicks on them will go to the Wiki page. However, when the link is shown in Red, then it is not valid, or at least there is not yet any content. In the case above, Collaboration tools & tips is the Dead Link.
Advantages
- It is easy to identify where a page needs to be added
- Also easy to identify when a target page has been renamed or moved (and the link needs fixing)
Further Extensions
Above and beyond this basic functionality above, which is to reach parity functionally with other Wiki servers and make Connections easier to use, here are a couple of possible further functional extensions that could give superior functionality to Connections:
- Automatically generate or associate a unknown-link tag with any wiki page that has a Dead Link. This allows the owner or maintainers of a wiki to do a tag (cloud) search, find all the pages with Dead Links. When the page is saved and no longer has a Dead Link, the tag is removed.
- Add a Links-to-this-page view or link at the bottom at the wiki page, when clicked on would show a list of the pages in Connections that refer to this page. Links to the page would indicate if it's within this community's wiki, or another (albeit still on w3-connectioins) wiki (and the name would be listed), and there would be a link to that page.
- When a page is renamed, then automatically update all the reference on the pages linking to it.
