Community Wishlist Survey 2021/Miscellaneous/Check if a page exists without populating WhatLinksHere

Random proposal ►◄ Miscellaneous The survey has concluded. Here are the results!

Check if a page exists without populating WhatLinksHere

Problem: Does a wiki page exist? You would expect that this would be a simple thing to check, and it partly is - you can use the #ifexist parser function. However, this has unexpected consequences: the wiki page that does this check will now appear in Special:WhatLinksHere. These false flags causes problems for editors that are working on resolving misplaced wikilinks, such as links to redirects or disambiguation pages. That in turn leads to them objecting to templates that check for the existence of a page to see if they should link to it.
Who would benefit: Template developers and editors resolving disambiguation links on all wikis
Proposed solution: Stop checks for the existence of a page from appearing at WhatLinksHere
More comments: This was included in the 2015, 2017, and 2019 community wishlists: while it only had 1 oppose vote, it did not get enough support votes to be addressed. It is tricky to resolve, but it should be fixed.
Phabricator tickets: phab:T14019 (started on 18 November 2007 - happy 13th birthday!), this is part of the larger task described at phab:T268526 ("Use a dedicated mechanism to track page dependencies")
Proposer: Mike Peel (talk) 22:14, 18 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

I do not know how important this is, but I'll support since it keeps getting asked over and over again apparently. Hopefully, that gets implemented. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 22:37, 18 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I created Template:Linkless exists to address this issue. It has disadvantages: please read its documentation before using! However, I'd still like to see a built-in and supported equivalent. Certes (talk) 01:09, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that, Certes. I thought a simple work-around was possible; I actually opened a tab in my browser pointing to en:Template:If exist as a reminder while I waited the light bulb telling me how to do it turned on (there are probably multiple ways). But I hadn't considered using the PROTECTIONEXPIRY parser function as the trick to implement it. See User talk:Wbm1058##ifexist for links to another work-around implemented in 2016 which used alternative logic that avoided the need to explicitly check if a page exists. Wbm1058 (talk) 15:34, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've supported this fix every year. I hope the 13th is the lucky one ;-) --Andyrom75 (talk) 17:35, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@MarioSuperstar77, Certes, Evad37, Kaybeesquared, Arlo Barnes, Urhixidur, Putnik, Paul1764, Paul1764, Charitwo, Huji, Jack who built the house, Rodw, Pigsonthewing, Wbm1058, Czar, Andyrom75, Matthiaspaul, The wub, SMcCandlish, Beta16, מושך בשבט, Shalomori123, Do2or, Nahum, Shahar9261, אחיה יאיר וודקה, Roxette5, Draceane, Dovi, Atamari, Man77, Teratix, נריה קלר, SebastianHelm, GiFontenelle, Kku, He3nry, Golmore, Uanfala, Amire80, and Pashute: If you're still interested in this issue, please see Community Wishlist Survey 2022/Miscellaneous/Check if a page exists without populating WhatLinksHere. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 19:16, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Voting

Support Per my comment. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 19:32, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Especially useful when the checked page is a dab whose spurious links waste disambiguators' time. Certes (talk) 20:58, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Evad37 (talk) 23:51, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Kaybeesquared (talk) 14:42, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Arlo Barnes (talk) 16:09, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Urhixidur (talk) 16:14, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support — putnik 18:29, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Paul1764 (talk) 20:30, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Cabayi (talk) 20:38, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Charitwo (talk) 21:21, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Huji (talk) 00:56, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support every year 😪 Jack who built the house (talk) 04:32, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Rodw (talk) 08:28, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:31, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Wbm1058 (talk) 01:43, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support czar 18:32, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Andyrom75 (talk) 19:22, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Matthiaspaul (talk) 17:06, 12 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support -- the wub "?!" 18:31, 13 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Anything proposed and supported this long should get implemented. Community Wishlist Survey is rather broken, in accepting only what has the most votes this year, which is never, ever going to be stuff template editors need. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 07:08, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support β₁₆ - (talk) 09:03, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support --מושך בשבט (talk) 09:48, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Shalomori123 (talk) 10:25, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Do2or (talk) 14:04, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support. This issues has been bugging editors on our wiki, but just now we realized it is a global bug. Please fix this!--Naḥum (talk) 12:09, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Shahar9261 (talk) 12:15, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support אחיה יאיר וודקה (talk) 12:24, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Roxette5 (talk) 12:30, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support — Draceane ^talk_contrib. 13:13, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Dovi (talk) 16:55, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support strong support Atamari (talk) 20:00, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support → «« Man77 »» ^[de] 22:36, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support – Teratix ₵ 06:15, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support נריה קלר (talk) 09:25, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support This is rather a prudent bug fix than a discretionary feature request. SebastianHelm (talk) 13:57, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support GiFontenelle (talk) 22:29, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Kku (talk) 07:14, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support He3nry (talk) 07:30, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Golmore (talk) 06:57, 18 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support * Pppery * _{it has begun} 22:59, 18 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Uanfala (talk) 00:06, 20 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 07:41, 21 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Pashute (talk) 14:13, 21 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]