Forum:Category redlinks not red

This may well have been discussed before or something, but I've just noticed it now - since when did non-existent categories change to blue, as if their pages already exist? Any reasoning for the change?--Acer4666 12:35, August 2, 2011 (UTC)


 * It happened at least a few weeks ago. It was discussed in one of the technical updates blog.  DaRanger   |  Talk to Me  |   What I've Done  12:39, August 2, 2011 (UTC)


 * It was an intentional change by Wikia, because categories with pages in them "exist". It's since caused a lot of people to try to delete a category that doesn't exist.


 * Probably one of the more stupid "features". The product team thinks red links are "scary", next thing you know they'll get rid of red links for everything else.


 * The idea behind a red link is to get you to create the page. If you aren't for certain whether or not it already exists, that just defeats the purpose entirely. 13:34, August 2, 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, I've found the update: User_blog:Dopp/Technical_Update:_June_28,_2011. I was about to say "Oh dear, I missed the debate so couldn't join in", but reading through the comments I see that the staff have put forward a few mild replies to the arguments against and then got bored and kept it anyway, brilliant. Ah well, spelling mistakes on categories will just have to go unnoticed, what joy


 * @Charitwo - yes, it seems they'll do anything to keep new editors, even if it means not informing them that what they are doing is wrong. It seems that all and any lengths will be gone to to make sure new editors are accomodated, even if it means disenfranchising the veteran ones who contribute most of their content. It's like 10% of the editors create 95% of wikia's content, but that ten percent is sold down the river to make sure the 90% of passers by have a nice carefree time.--Acer4666 13:38, August 2, 2011 (UTC)


 * I feel that it was very much done by fiat. The response to our protests was essentially, “This is how it is going to be, we have decided, we will not listen to you on this matter.” It was quite clear that this topic was not open for debate. The response was chilling inasmuch as it froze discussion. We counted on those red links to let us know when we had spelled a category incorrectly. And, since we no longer see a red link, we don’t know that there is a category at the bottom of a page that needs to be created. I predict that the number of non-existent categories across Wikia will rise because we will not have the red links to remind us to create them. It’s the sole exception to the red link rule. But, sole for how long? — Spike Toronto  09:50, August 3, 2011 (UTC)

To wikia staff: The effects of this change are starting to show themselves, even though you've locked commenting on the blog post. this person was blocked for "creating nonsense categories" on true blood, and on wiki 24 we have had a a user treating categories as if they were youtube-style search keywords, and other contributions from new users not realising the categories they add don't exist. The reason? They don't show up as red, letting them know that they've added something non-existent. The effect? New users get their edits reverted, get told they're doing something wrong, and feel less welcome to edit.--Acer4666 09:58, August 9, 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm running a bot for doing maintenance on categories of several images, because we're renaming some of those categories. The bot nicely link the categories added/removed in the edit summary, but the edit history or the contributions page is displaying both blue, so there's no way to visually state whether the bot is making any mistake when doing the replace or not unless I manually enter on every link to see if the category exists or not. The same with the template that links all categories for easy navigation. All links are blue despite some of them are being deleted and thus replaced by the new ones, making incredibly hard to spot any typo on them and requiring me to click on every link.
 * Of course, Staff members that only make such decisions and do not edit on any wiki do not know what the "maintenance" term means and what work involves. That's why Wikia is becoming more of a social network every day, and they release tools or changes that make maintenance work harder. I could understand this situation, but what I don't understand is why even when we point out how they are mistaken about this they completely ignore us. --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 10:21, August 9, 2011 (UTC)