Forum:Some queries lead to tables with broken links (and I might know how to fix that?)

I don't think EVERY query exhibits these symptoms, but generally speaking, I've come across it often enough to annoy me. On a number of category pages which feature tables of cards, if you click "further results", you're brought to a special page for that query where every single card name is SUPPOSED to be linked, but instead the raw text that would form a link is listed without creating a link. Again, I haven't done exhaustive testing, but I did do enough to figure out a solution for the single case I was annoyed by. In fact, I found a number of things.

First, in category pages, there seem to be two syntaxes that create tables out of queries to the database. The first is the {{#ask}} syntax. It leads to the correct tables, I find. The second is the {{card query}} syntax, and it leads to tables full of names that don't properly link. I don't know exactly why there are two different styles used, because I'm rather new to this wiki, and I would otherwise separate myself from the matter, but it's been a few days and it struck me that it wasn't an issue for every single query, just particular ones. Whatever the explanation, it seems like one solution would be "just use the ask syntax, and fix anything with the card query syntax." As I said, I don't know much about this wiki so I don't know how to properly format these things, and I'm hesitant to "take matters into my own hands" in that respect.

Second, in the special pages for the queries differ by only a few things, if you do create two different pages for the same query but using different styles of syntax. There are two particular differences that are linked to this issue. The first is that "#ask"-created query pages do not contain "?English name (linked)=" in them, while "card query"-created pages do, and the second is that, in the "other options" section, "#ask"-created pages leave the mainlabel field empty, while "card query"-created pages have " -" in that section. I don't know WHY the "card query" syntax leads to query pages with " -" for the main label field, probably antiquated, but whatever the reason may be, it leads to broken tables and it's a bit annoying.

Anyway, those are my findings.

Mainly, my question has to be "is there a solution that would fix this on a wiki-wide level, or can it only be fixed on a case-by-case basis?" DoomZero (talk • contribs) 21:13, April 27, 2017 (UTC)

As far as I know, that's because Special:Ask interprets the text there as plain. That means, literally. So if the entry has Dark Magician, it will be interpreted as [[Dark Magician|Dark Magician]].

That's kind of out of our reach. We could not link stuff and ask for raw, directly, I think.

{{Card query}} is used to facilitate the use of #ask, since, in most cases, you would be entering the same properties; so {{Card query}} makes it simpler, as it avoids repetitive input. Becasita ^Pendulum (talk • contribs) 21:30, April 27, 2017 (UTC)