Help:What links here

From GRWiktionaryHelp

Every page has a link labelled "What links here" (or, more generally, labelled with the text in mediawiki:whatlinkshere), also called backlink.

The in-page forms are:

• Special:Whatlinkshere/John Smith
• {{SERVER}}{{localurl:Special:Whatlinkshere|target=John_Smith}}, on this project: http://pgrdictionary.org/help/index.php?title=Special:Whatlinkshere&target=John_Smith

This facility provides a list of all pages in the same project which link to the specified page.

Before MediaWiki version 1.5:

The maximum number to be shown can be specified:

http://pgrdictionary.org/help/index.php?title=Special:Whatlinkshere/John_Smith&limit=999

The default for this limit is 500, a specified limit of more than 999 is reduced to 999.

Contents 1 Limitation 2 Redirects 3 Cases of transclusion 4 Order 5 See also

Limitation

Not listed are subpages that just have an automatic link to a page.

Redirects

The backlinks feature shows which backlinks are redirects.

The backlinks of the redirect are also shown, and if they include a redirect, the backlinks of that also (not more).

This makes it a useful tool for finding double redirects, which do not work, and, except in special applications (see below) can better be replaced by redirects to the final target.

Cases of transclusion

Whether there is a link from A to C is relevant for backlinks as well as Related changes. If C does not exist, only backlinks are applicable.

• in the case of a template, referral to it is treated as link
• a link from A to C counts as such even if the link is not explicit in the wikitext of A, but due to the inclusion of template B, which links to C
• if template B calls a template that depends on a variable or parameter, then:
  • the question whether A links to C depends on the value of the variable on page A, or the parameter with which A calls B
  • the question whether B links to C depends on the value of the variable on page B; in the case of a parameter, considered from page B, the page does not call a valid template name (it calls one with a name with braces), so B does not link to any valid C

Thus a link from A to C may be due to the inclusion of template B, even when B, considered by itself, does not link to C. Thus, to find out what templates cause pages to link to C, it is not sufficient to check for templates in the backlinks of C; some templates can only be found by checking what templates are used in the backlink pages.

Examples:

• Template:H:f calls Template:h:f {{NAMESPACE}}. Considered by itself that is the unused Template:H:f Template [1], [2]
• This page Help:What links here links through Template:H:f to Template:H:f Help [3], [4]. This page is therefore a backlink of the latter, but Template:H:f is not listed.

Even without a template name depending on a variable or parameter, if page A links to page C due to the inclusion of template B1 which redirects to B2, which links to C, A is in the list of backlinks of C but B1 is not.

Summarizing, for the purpose of backlinks and Related changes, A links to C if there is, in that order, a chain of template calls, a single redirect, template calls, a single redirect, etc., template calls, and a chain of redirects.

In the case of an image, using it in a page is listed in the third section of the image description page, but not in "What links here" of that page

Order

When the link tables in the database are rebuilt, the lists are alphabetically ordered. However, adding a link subsequently causes it to be added to the end, and thus these occur in chronological order.

See also

• Categories - Relation with "What links here?"
• w:en:Wikipedia:What links here