The Orphanage is a place where orphaned pages, categories, files, and templates are "stored" to prevent them from appearing in Special:LonelyPages and Special:UnusedFiles. Pages (or images) should not be linked here just because they appear in these special pages, but linked because they are "orphans". (See the definition of "orphan" below.)
What is an orphan?
An orphan is a page with fewer than three incoming links.
Some photos are used throughout the wiki, yet only show up in the orphanage for the following reasons:
- Being a favicon
- Being used on Special:Promote
Some templates show up here only due to the fact that they are removed from pages when no longer needed.
Criteria for an orphan
An article is orphaned if fewer than three other articles link to it. The following pages do not count toward the three incoming links:
- Disambiguation pages
- Redirects
- Lists
- Discussion pages of articles
- Pages outside of article space
Pages
A list of orphaned pages and articles may be found at Special:LonelyPages.
Categories
A list of orphaned categories may be found at Placeholder.
Photos
A list of orphaned photos may be found at Orphanage/Photos.
Templates
A list of orphaned templates may be found at Orphanage/Templates. Usage of the orphaned templates may be found at Orphanage/Templates/Usage.