They are useful because sometimes people leave thoughts unfinished in the middle of a thread, or people "ask questions" by SmashingWordsTogether hoping they will be filled in by someone more knowledgable. However, in the flux of conversation, they get lost.
But not each page of WantedPages is really wanted. Creating all these pages might produce just "page noise". So consider splitting the LinkPatterns to produce just normal, lovable single words. Alternatively, wrap the entry in <nowiki/> tags.
For example Wiki:WantedWikiPages, or our very own version,
whose [source code] is available as well.
This is a kind of IndexingScheme. Compare WantingPages. See also Why:PageProlepsis.
Right now, I could really use it. I SmashWordsTogether as a kind of "Post-It Note (tm)" to remind myself to add more detail later. But if I wrote everything I thought, I'd never get outside. -- SunirShah
The new script was really easy to write. It's not much different from http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?action=links&names=0&exists=0 except that it sorts the pages by count and adds some hyperlinks. -- SunirShah
You know, of all the new weird and whacky IndexingSchemes, I find WantedPages the most accurate and insightful indicator of what the "HotTopic?s" are. Also, reading the page incites a person to add content. --ss
Script history
Q: why are the counts sometimes inaccurate? For example, FrontPage is listed as having 3 links (now 4 with this page), yet on doing a backlinks search it turns up 16 pages.
A: maybe because the backlinks search is a text search, not a links seach, and it lists pages like InterMap that only mentions FrontPage in the form Zwiki:FrontPage.
Q: How about (optionally?) restricting the listing to pages referenced in at least 2 places? It seems gratuitous to list every single reference as a "wanted page." Plus you could cut down the listing from 1000+ to about 200 (page load times are killing me, I tend to hit stop before it finishes).
(I can see a use for both most-wanted and least-wanted options, depending on what sort of work you were interested in doing at the time.)
Q: How often is that page updated. I saw GodKings and replaced all three links with GodKings but it still shows up on the list. Obviously, it's not instantaneous, but how often does it run? Daily? Weekly?
A: In theory every day at noon UTC, though the clock is skewed on sunir.org.
Q: Does the script still actually work? (Sept 11, 2007)