Community Wishlist Survey 2023/Larger suggestions/A way to see WhatLinksHere directly, excluding transcluded links

This proposal is a larger suggestion that is out of scope for the Community Tech team. Participants are welcome to vote on it, but please note that regardless of popularity, there is no guarantee this proposal will be implemented. Supporting the idea helps communicate its urgency to the broader movement.

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A way to see WhatLinksHere directly, excluding transcluded links

Problem: Special:WhatLinksHere includes links via templates or other transcluded pages. This can make it difficult to trace and update redlinks after moves, e.g. after category renames. We can filter WhatLinksHere by namespace (thanks for this) so that we can first update any links that are in templates. However, we then have to wait 10 minutes or longer (sometimes much longer) for the daemons to update transclusions, before we can see the residual list of pages that link directly to the old page name and need editing one by one.
Proposed solution: Make a way to show only What Links Here directly from links coded in pages.
Who would benefit: Admins mopping up after CfD, AfD etc.
More comments: There is a workaround by searching in source, but this requires more typing & pasting.
Phabricator tickets:
Proposer: Fayenatic london (talk) 14:46, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Related tasks: T14396, T5241. Was on the wishlist for 2016. --Tgr (talk) 06:22, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Way back, before every article seemed to have large navigation templates (say 2008), one of the first things I'd do after creating an article was to check "what links here". Inevitably I'd get something - maybe just something little - that would fit into the article. It was a nice trick until the mass navigation templates came along and 100s of (usually worthless) results would show up. Smallbones (talk) 16:06, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Was also on Wishlist 2021: Community Wishlist Survey 2021/Search/Suggest to Exclude Indirect Linked Articles from "What links here" Akela (talk) 16:20, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And in 2022: Community Wishlist Survey 2022/Miscellaneous/Allow filtering of WhatLinksHere to remove links from templates. --Pequod76^(talk) 17:03, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Voting

Support Ngoclong19 (talk) 19:58, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support (Note that this means links that got included in a template that was transcluded) Aaron Liu (talk) 20:28, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Use case: which pages link directly to a target which has become a disambiguation page and need to be fixed? Certes (talk) 21:44, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Sabelöga (talk) 23:52, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Graham11 (talk) 23:56, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Lupe (talk) 00:12, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support SHB2000 (talk | contribs) 01:33, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Hehua (talk) 02:40, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support * Pppery * _{it has begun} 04:07, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Tgr (talk) 04:45, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Arado Ar 196 (talk) 08:30, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support //Lollipoplollipoplollipop::talk 10:09, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Oltrepier (talk) 10:12, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support CaféBuzz (talk) 11:10, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Tucvbif (talk) 15:47, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Smallbones (talk) 16:07, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
SupportWotheina (talk) 16:25, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support DGG (talk) 03:02, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Yilku1 (talk) 17:19, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Pallor (talk) 19:18, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support --NGC 54 (talk｜contribs) 01:37, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Betseg (talk) 03:40, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support, very important in everday work both interactively and by bot. Dissolve real links from template links is a resource-consuming task that not only for users, but servers as well. Bináris^{tell me} 12:59, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support, it would be a very useful feature, to select direct and indirect links. Akela (talk) 13:21, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support --everyone's favorite Blua lago(let's have a chat y'all) 13:43, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support SpiderMum (talk) 14:51, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support – Csurla (talk) 16:38, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Dodi123 (talk) 20:10, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Waldyrious (talk) 04:51, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Titore (talk) 14:51, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Eiim (talk) 16:31, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support JAn Dudík (talk) 22:04, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Libcub (talk) 07:29, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Just N. (talk) 14:53, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support —Locke Cole • t • c 08:58, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support ZandDev (talk) 10:09, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Aishik Rehman (talk) 09:01, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Hey man im josh (talk) 16:48, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 17:30, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Geraki ^T_L 20:01, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support —‍(ping on reply)—‍CX Zoom (A/अ/অ) (let's talk|contribs) 07:52, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I think this is more achievable then we think if we just give priority to direct links over transclusions and then accept that that the transclusions data might have gaps in it. Technically, the link table is still 1 dimensional then (1 db row if a page refers to another resource) and you won’t know about all the multiple reasons a page refers to a link (which would make this a way way way harder problem). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:53, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Jotamide (talk) 16:01, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Sir Gawain (talk) 00:00, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support — Draceane ^talk_contrib. 12:54, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Yes, a way to see "What links here" which excludes, or distinguishes, the links which are from navbox templates, would be a great help PamD (talk) 15:50, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support --Pequod76^(talk) 17:03, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support cyrfaw (talk) 19:03, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Paul_012 (talk) 20:55, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Hkoala (talk) 17:34, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support This is important for sortings. Thingofme (talk) 01:56, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Helder 10:58, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]