Editing User:Botgo50/Link changer

'''Link changer''' is an advanced tool to assist in changing links following a move using [[User:Botgo50|Botgo50]]. It should be used with extreme care: while current edits with the tool are all checked manually by [[User:Bongolium500|Bongolium500]], this may change in future to changes being performed fully automatically without review. 

== Usage ==
To add a link to be changed the next time the bot is run, edit [[User:Botgo50/Link changer/list]]. Add each instruction on a new line. Note that newlines are not displayed in the page output but they are clearly visible in the source editor. Basic syntax for an instruction is as follows:<pre>Old name|New name</pre>This will change all links for [[Old name]] to [[New name]] without touching any of the display text. 

Slightly more advanced usage would be as follows:<pre>Old name|New name|Old display text|New display text</pre>Not only would this change all links for [[Old name]] to [[New name]] but it would also switch any uses of the display text "Old display text" over to "New display text". 

You can miss out the old display text and only include the new display text as follows:<pre>Old name|New name||New display text</pre>This will change any occurances of <tt><nowiki>[[Old name]]</nowiki></tt> to <tt><nowiki>[[Old name|New display text]]</nowiki></tt>. 

You can also miss out the new display text as follows:<pre>Old name|New name|Old display text</pre>This will remove any occurances of "Old display text" being used as display text, meaning that <tt><nowiki>[[Old name|Old display text]]</nowiki></tt> is changed to <tt><nowiki>[[Old name]]</nowiki></tt>.

In all of these cases, no display text other than "Old display text" or "New display text" is added or removed.

There is a fifth option that can be set to delete redirects if they have 0 links left after the bot is finished (as the bot does not actually currently have admin permissions, these pages are added to [[User:Botgo50/Link changer/delete]]). You can set it to any value, although "1" is recomended. For example:<pre>Old name|New name|||1</pre><pre>Old name|New name|Old display text||1</pre><pre>Old name|New name||New display text|1</pre><pre>Old name|New name|Old display text|New display text|1</pre>

Leave this fifth option blank or leave it out entirely to keep the old name as a redirect for searchiability. 

=== Examples ===
To move links for [[John Simth]] to [[John Smith]], you'd use the following:<pre>John Simth|John Smith||1</pre>

To move links for [[John]] to [[John Smith]] while ensuring that links display as "John" instead of "John Smith" (such as if a character appears in Source A by their first name only but later has their surname revealed in Source B, meaning that pages relating to Source A still only refer to the character by their first name), you'd use the following:<pre>John|John Smith||John|1</pre>

To move links for [[Bob]] to [[Bob (disambiguation)]], you'd use the following (note that no new display text is set as links to [[Bob (disambiguation)]] shouldn't generally exist and this makes them easier to spot):<pre>Bob|Bob (disambiguation)</pre>

To move links for [[Wrong title (short story)]] to [[Correct title (short story)]] while updating the display text, you'd use the following:<pre>Wrong title (short story)|Correct title (short story)|Wrong title|Correct title|1</pre>

To move links for [[Name (story title)]] to [[Name]] while changing any occurances of <tt><nowiki>[[Name (story title)|Name]]</nowiki></tt> to just <tt><nowiki>[[Name]]</nowiki></tt>, you'd use the following:<pre>Name (story title)|Name|Name||1</pre>

=== Human follow-up ===
Some links can't be changed by the bot, such as those appearing in templates. These are listed at [[User:Botgo50/Link changer/human needed]] and should be handled manually.

If the redirect for the old name has been marked as to be deleted and the page has no links left, it will be listed at [[User:Botgo50/Link changer/delete]] and should be deleted by an admin.