Create page after search not found
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[edit] Enhancement description
"When I try to go to an article that hasn't been created, I get the page that says no such article exists [and there are only] search boxes. There should also be a link Create this article"
- Hemanshu on #wikipedia (freenode)
[edit] Step by step reproduction of current problem (without enhancement)
- Search for "cheesedogxxyz".
- Try to edit (create) the article "cheesedogxxyz".
There is no link on the page to do so.
[edit] Work around
- Create a link to the new article in an existing page, then click the link and an edit page appears.
or
- Manually enter a url in the browser, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/cheesedogxxyz
[edit] Solution
When a page is not found after a search, the resulting page should include a link to create the page.
For an example, see the wikipedia "no go" search results message.
[edit] Discussion
"traditionally wikis are an exploratory medium; you find pages through links from other pages or RecentChanges. creation of new pages is something that's to be done in context, by editing a page to create a link.
"orphan pages are thought of as a problem, and creating a contextless page from a search encourages orphan creation so at least to the old fogeys this maybe is less than ideal
"on the other hand, wikipedia's nature as a reference work puts more emphasis on search than traditional wikis, so maybe it's not totally inappropriate"
- discussion from brion on #wikipedia (freenode)
