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I've recently been involved in a rather heated discussion concerning R2D at Talk:New York Islanders. In general, when I see unnecessary R2D changes, I revert them. In this case, the user who made them got very insistent that we should use pipes instead and reverted back, and there were a couple of such exchanges. I think we could all stand to receive some clarifications from uninvolved editors. More than anything, I'd like to know if I am I wasting my time reverting back to the non-piped version. My inclination had been that concerns like knowing what terms are linked, knowing where links point, possible future articles, possible article moves, and the page source were all reasons that I should revert back to the link to the redirect. Is "D2R" also not a worthwhile change? Secondly, there seems to be this mentality that R2D is essentially a "worried about performance" guideline and that it is a good idea to change redirects to pipes if you are "already making another change" to the article. I am fairly certain that this is not so, but it seems to to be a very widely held belief. Could we edit the guideline to make it clearer that this is not what it is saying. (Alternatively, if I'm wrong, we should edit the guideline to say that one SHOULD feel free to pipe links to redirects so long as they're making another change.) Croctotheface ( talk) 22:31, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
ttp://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.myspace.com%2Fvdm_corsefanclub&h=a1c6egpp2rvm0blc8v9RqzirjaQ http://www.myspace.com/principessayasmin http://www.myspace.com/supremomagisteroteutone http://www.myspace.com/cavalieridellaregina http://www.myspace.com/lasindone http://www.myspace.com/sacroregnodiseborga —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.40.159.196 ( talk) 22:43, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Does anyone know why Shell House Cliffs is a redirect that doesn't redirect? Hesperian 13:15, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
The convention states: "It is preferable to change redirected links in navigational templates, such as those found at the bottom of many articles. In this case, when the template is placed on an article, and contains a direct link to that article (not a redirect), the direct link will display in bold (and not as a link), making it easier to navigate through a series of articles using the template."
However, this seem not to be the case. For example, when looking at Need for Speed: Most Wanted, the link to Most Wanted 5-1-0 doesn't show up in bold instead of a link, even though it links to the same page. -- MrStalker ( talk) 18:00, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
I can think of a few reasons, not listed in the 'Don't fix' section of the guideline, for why users should change redirects. I beg your indulgence if some or all have been expressed before; let me know and I'll likely remove my comment.
1. It prevents that "Redirected from [wherever]" message.
2. The redirected link is incorrect, so that the direct link is more than just, for example, the new title of a renamed article: it's a significant improvement over the previous, now redirected title. An example would be a redirected link that consists of the old but incorrect name for an animal species that has been renamed by scientists.
3. With a direct link, people can just hover the cursor and actually see where it points, obviating a click-through. This is connected to the next reason in that the issue is performance.
4. If we're not to worry about performance, then why is this: we're told not to make tons of small edits in quick succession to an article, because besides clogging up the history, it also is a waste of server resources? My apologies if tiny, serial edits are no longer deprecated.
Yet another reason might be that redirects could confuse some readers, especially those new to WP. But I'd prefer to have evidence of that before being more assertive about it.
I'll still make an effort to comply with the guideline. But whether or not these views have been expressed before, perhaps needless to say, I think they're good ones and should be in the guideline, for a balanced view. Thanks.
SamEV (
talk)
00:51, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
I've never come across a cross-wiki redirect in articlespace before, do we have any guidelines for these, I can't find anything? see Filip Van Neyghem. Cheers-- Jac16888 Talk 23:49, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Should we have redirects like
Schedule 1?
As a disambig page its content would be about as endless as that of a disambig page headed Paragraph 1 or Section 1
There are various other Schedule redirects, which seem to be used, mostly, on the assumption that they will link to an article about US drug laws
Laurel Bush (
talk)
18:38, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
{{ WPRedir}} has been nominated for deletion. 76.66.193.90 ( talk) 06:57, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
JEEZ, YOU ARTICLE ABOUT REDIRECTION IS PRETTY COMPLICATED. You give beginners a nosebleed. So how do you redirect a name to a sub article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.55.135.219 ( talk) 14:18, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
The instructions on the main page are easy to follow. President of Chicago ( talk) 03:31, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2009 March 23#WP:RDR → Wikipedia:Redirect -- JHunterJ ( talk) 23:12, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm interested, based on this diff, about what exactly the scope of this guideline is. I had always thought that it was about unnecessarily piping links. Is there actually some objection to changing the linked text so that it turns into a direct link? I feel like I must be misunderstanding something. Croctotheface ( talk) 02:45, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
I have put forward a proposal for Featured redirects. Any comments at the proposal's talk page would be welcome. — Tivedshambo ( t/ c) 05:45, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
Why are two experienced editors reverting each other repeatedly without using the talk page? Are we trying to model worst practices? How disappointing. - GTBacchus( talk) 20:22, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Re-adding identical material multiple times is a good way to demonstrate how not to conduct a dispute on Wikipedia. Are you an administrator? If so, it is part of your responsibility to do things the right way, as an example for others. In this case, editing the text for clarity would have been the best response, and posting to the talk page would have been second best. Re-making the identical edit is worst. - GTBacchus( talk) 20:36, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
...but I do have some experience in guideline-writing, thanks for the compliment. Re. GTBacchus' "... editing the text for clarity would have been the best response, and posting to the talk page would have been second best.", in fact no, in inverse order: talk page first, only after consensus altering the guideline text. See guideline template on top of the guideline page "...Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page." Didn't you read that? Some other people write guidance too you know, and expect it to be read... even if not directed at admins but at would be guideline editors. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 21:01, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Is
Note to admins: The "leave a redirect behind" option should only be unchecked when reverting pagemove vandalism or if there is a very good reason to do so, as this will break any links to the current title, and may make the page harder to find.
what admins actually get to see when they initiate a pagemove? If that is so: why would we need a clumsy rewrite of that in some guideline, the recommendation is clear enough as is, it seems to me... -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 21:12, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Yes, found it. In fact any user gets to see that text when initiating a pagemove. I'd be inclined NOT to repeat that in other guidance. Certainly not in a text variation that makes it barely recognisable. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 21:22, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
RTFM problems are not solved by producing more text, that only predictably will be even less read. Sorry no, prefer to take it out, as I did with my first edit to the guideline page. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 21:26, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Should there be a link to URL redirection on this page? I think it would be useful (just like the Sockpuppet (Internet) link on Wikipedia:Sock puppetry). A couple of users reverted my edits (see Revision history of Wikipedia:Redirect) because they think it is not correct. A more detailed explanation of why the link would or would not be useful would be very much appreciated. Thanks. -- IRP ☎ 21:15, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
Problem: I wish to change the redirect of descarga from Music of Cuba to Latin Jazz. I see the example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_University?redirect=no on the project page, but don't know what to do with it (personal computing quite rudimentary...). You might help me. Macdonald-ross ( talk) 09:32, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
Why not " Cuban jazz"? -- OlEnglish ( Talk) 21:47, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
FYI,
{{ R from other capitalisation}} and Category:Redirects from other capitalisations have been nominated for deletion on 4 May 2009. See WP:TFD and WP:CFD.
76.66.202.139 ( talk) 09:38, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
I'm having constant problems with editors misinterpreting WP:REDIRECT to mean 'I can blank any page I feel like, provided I post a re-direct to a loosely-related topic.' Please can the article be amended to clarify that such behaviour is completely unacceptable. Andrewjlockley ( talk) 08:45, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Sorry I'm late to the discussion but let me throw in my two cents. Turning a page into a redirect is not and never has been a
deletion in the narrow way that we use that term here. The content from the page is still available through the history and the decision to revert the redirect can be made by any editor and executed without need for any special privileges. Deletion, on the other hand, removes the history from view and requires administrator privileges to overturn.
Turning a page into a redirect is merely an extreme example of an ordinary editorial decision to remove a block of text from the page. It may be controversial, it may or may not be inappropriate, but it is not deletion. As JLaTondre says, we already have extensive pages on how to sort out ordinary content disputes and we encourage
boldness in ordinary edits. So to that extent, yes, it is acceptable to turn a page into a redirect before explicitly seeking consensus. It is equally acceptable for a subsequent editor to revert the edit and then for the two of them to seek consensus on the article's Talk page. That's how editing works at Wikipedia, whether the edit changes one word or the whole page.
Rossami
(talk)
03:44, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
Should one created redirects for disambiguous pages? By this I mean, creating something like Raya (Smallville) and then redirecting that to another page? In this case, the fictional character is minor, doesn't have a section at Characters of Smallville (because, again, she's minor - i.e. 2 brief episode appearances). To me, it doesn't seem like a likely search term for an average user. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 23:36, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
I made a link to Wikipedia:Example of a self-redirect in the "See also" section, but that was reverted by JHunterJ with the edit summary "unnecessary cleverness", so I put it in the "Self-redirect"section. But that was also reverted by JHunterJ with the edit summary "rv again; what benefit does it provide? (Also see WP:BRD)". In my oppion the benefit is seeing an example would help some people understand self-redirects.-- Emmette Hernandez Coleman ( talk) 17:03, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
Much of this discussion applies to the similarly guidelined against Wikipedia:Example of a double redirect as well. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 21:14, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
But not the part about being a bad example, Wikipedia:Example of a double redirect is a good example.-- Emmette Hernandez Coleman ( talk) 21:46, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
Listed at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2009 May 23#Wikipedia:Example of a self-redirect. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 12:21, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
The section " Spellings, misspellings, tenses and capitalisations" notes that:
Articles, including redirects, whose titles are either all initial caps or only first word capitalised are found via "Go" using a case-insensitive match.
Since that is the case, what need is there to have redirects like Natural Selection? The term itself should never be capitalized, except when it forms part of a proper noun, and the article Natural selection can be "found via "Go" using a case-insensitive match". – BLACK FALCON ( TALK) 20:12, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
JLaTondre's explanation for why redirects such as Natural Selection are sometimes created is very good, but this redirect is a poor example to provide without comment in WP:MIXEDCAPS. It appears to have originally been an example for the "Other capitalisations, for use in links" section which was removed in a 2006 edit which moved the example down to the "Other capitalisations, to ensure that "Go" to a mixed-capitalisation article title is case-insensitive" section. I've moved this example to the bottom of the list and added a short comment. -- Thinking of England ( talk) 01:50, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
This is similar to the previous thread on #Redirects from other capitalizations in that I'm wondering if there should be advice given on adding redirects to all possible permutations. It came to my attention as Sapir–Whorf hypothesis was moved and at present there's a rather long list of redirects to the new redirect. As there's a cleanup of the double-redirects underway you can view this section in edit mode to see a list the redirected permutations. It appears at times people have looked at the redirect article and used it as inspiration to add yet more possible permutations on the name. Many of these redirects are either not used at all by articles or are pointed to by a single article.
I don't know if this covering of all possible permutations is a common practice and if it is, or is not, a desirable practice. Related to this is when should aliasing be used vs. adding a redirect? For example, suppose I want to call this the "Sapir–Whorf theory" in an article. I can either alias it using [[Linguistic relativity|Sapir–Whorf theory]] or I can add a redirect at Sapir–Whorf theory and link to that using [[Sapir–Whorf theory]]. My personal practice has been to use the alias. -- Marc Kupper| talk 03:01, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
An apparent policy on this page is this:
I say "apparent" because this apparent policy was created four years (and two months) ago without proper public discussion and consensus, by people who denied the existence of those who disagreed.
In the interests of morality we should remember from time to time that this "policy" was not created honestly.
I've recently written to Brion Vibber about bug #378 and re-opened it. That bug makes links to redirects with non-existent targets appear as blue links rather than as red links.
If that bug does get fixed (some day?) I will propose abolition of the destructive (apparent) policy against pre-emptive redirects. Michael Hardy ( talk) 18:50, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
OK, if I bring it up there, I'll link to it from here. Michael Hardy ( talk) 00:01, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
Please comment at Wikipedia talk:Bots/Requests for approval#Why do we have a bot creating redirects that are handled by case insensitivity in the search box?. – xeno talk 21:40, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
I don't understand what this paragraph is trying to explain in WP:Redirect#Self-redirect.
Is this saying that redirects to a section within an article are acceptable to use instead of simply using a section link? And should this also be mentioned in WP:Redirect#Redirects to page sections? This paragraph seems to muddle the concepts of self-redirects, section redirects and section links (which involve no redirect). older ≠ wiser 17:20, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
To go along with the previous section, here are some more potentially confusing sentences in WP:Redirect#Redirects to page sections:
Pslide ( talk) 18:05, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
Under the "Alternative names and languages" sub-heading, I was looking for a "formal name" category to add to a new redirect which I created ( Defunct process), but there isn't one. In this case, the term " zombie process" is very well known, but the more correct term "defunct process" would be preferred for formal texts. I can tag this {{ R from scientific name}} and quit whining, given that it's a computer science term. (Note that it's not simply an "Other name", so that category won't work.) But there's a wider problem: formal terms that should link to the informal, but far more widespread, term. United States Permanent Resident Card as a redirect to Green card is a perfect example of this type of formal/informal usage not related to science. (Edit: or it would be if Green Card were not an ambiguous term.)-- Rfsmit ( talk) 19:12, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
I am butting heads with another editor at Talk:Poison the well, and the situation will not be resolved unless a third-party steps in. Basically I just had an issue with how difficult it was to navigate to Poison the Well from Poison the well and felt that it didn't really make much sense for the latter to redirect to Poisoning the well per WP:MIXEDCAPS. I didn't feel this was quite a large enough issue for WP:DRR, and thought someone from this project could help. Thanks! Fezmar9 ( talk) 17:54, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
In the middle of this, inside a box, there is a provision to redirect for people known for one event. Recently, an article was deleted. I cited this page. It was ignored. Since it was ignored, should we eliminate the box about people known for one event.
I think it's best for the encyclopedia to keep redirects because it helps navigation. However, some may want it eliminated User F203 ( talk) 23:38, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
There was no discussion. Essentially it was an AFD about a person of questionable notability but lots of news coverage. I pointed out RCAT which is about redirect. Nobody responded support or opposition to RCAT. User F203 ( talk) 21:28, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Allow users to redirect subpages of WP:K or WP:U to their user or user talk space – xeno talk 17:19, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
It appears to be orphaned, and confused me when I mistook the above documentation for implementing a "reason" as being "freeform" as opposed to being drawn from a list of reason templates. WurmWoode T 22:10, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(web)#Redirects_from_websites_to_subjects - It is a debate asking when one should redirect a web URL domain to its subject, i.e. CNN.com -> CNN. WhisperToMe ( talk) 04:20, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
(copied this section to WP:Visualizing redirects as it's linked from Help:Redirect)
Hi,
Is there an automatic way to find redirects from a large list of wikilinks by visualizing them? -- Kim van der Linde at venus 13:12, 29 August 2009 (UTC) Found a solution using customized CSS. Go to "My preferences", click on the tab "Appearance", and click the "Custom CSS" link behind the skin you use. It opens a page, and you can add there the following code:
Change the color codes if you want. Save the page, and reload with the instructions at the page so to force the new CSS to be included. It will show redirects as green links.-- Kim van der Linde at venus 14:07, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
if(wgAction != 'edit' && wgCanonicalNamespace != 'Special'){
var highlightRedirects = {
tab_redirects : null,
addStylesheetRule : function(tag, style){
var ss = document.styleSheets0];
if(ss.insertRule){
ss.insertRule(tag + '{' + style + '}', ss.cssRules.length);
} else if(ss.addRule){
ss.addRule(tag, style);
}
},
run : function(){
highlightRedirects.addStylesheetRule('a.mw-redirect', 'color:green');
},
install : function(){
with(highlightRedirects)
{
tab_redirects = addPortletLink ('p-cactions', 'javascript:highlightRedirects.run();', 'redirects');
if(document.getElementById('ca-history'))
document.getElementById('ca-history').parentNode.appendChild(tab_redirects);
}
}
};
addOnloadHook(highlightRedirects.install);
}
Is there a way to hide the little message that appears directly under the title? For clarification, it says "(Redirected from ARTICLE)" Redsoxcool ( talk) 22:45, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
Just a notice: I recently added a table to Wikipedia:Random that allows viewing random redirects in all the namespaces and their accompanying talk pages (even MediaWiki namespace redirects! which is rather odd). -- œ ™ 02:51, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
Hi. Quick question. There are two bands " The Shells", which have their own disambig page. Is it appropriate to redirect searches for the word " Shells" to that disambig pg? (It currently goes to the plural of " shell" pg.) Tx.-- Epeefleche ( talk) 02:33, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Make no mistake, I think it's a good rule. But it's not being upheld at RFD (see Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2009_November_9#Fort_Hood_terrorist_attack), in addition to causing a quite extraordinary amount of drama (see WP:ANI). I think if our guidelines are to be compliant with practice, it should read something like "Redirects are subject to the NPOV and BLP policies, and should be deleted, irrespective of their navigational value, if the label they attach to the redirect target is a violation of that policy." Thoughts? Ray Talk 06:00, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
A reasonable average person looking at the URL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Hood_terrorist_attack will conclude "Wikipedia has an article on the Fort Hood terrorist attack." Only a Wikipedia insider, who's spent dozens of hours reading style guidelines or
Kafka, could come up with something like "even though it might look like we're calling this a terrorist attack, we're not actually calling this a terrorist attack, because the
WP:R guideline dictates that POV redirects do not actually imply anything about their target articles."
Usability is not always a straightforward issue. There are trade-offs. In this case we are balancing the users who might find
this link convenient against the users who would reach the reasonable conclusion that it's our editorial opinion that the Fort Hood shooting was in fact a terrorist attack. Whose usability shall we favor?
There's a case to be made that POV redirects are generally useful, but that when POV attacks upon living persons are at issue,
WP:BLP should come first. So, my
suggestion: this guideline should be slightly changed to reflect the BLP policy, and it should say "redirects are not generally covered by Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, but the possibility of harm to living subjects must be considered when discussing the value of a redirect for deletion." This would not automatically prescribe a one-size-fits-all solution for every case, but would facilitate RFD discussions. ~
YellowFives
19:25, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Okay, I'm going to expand on my opinion. I'm going to spill a lot of electrons to try to make myself clear, since it's pretty obvious a lot of us are talking past, growing very frustrated with, and in some cases, even assuming bad faith with each other, and I consider this a regrettable state of affairs. If you think I mischaracterize you, or there's something I'm not getting, please say so, and let's all do our best to keep the name-calling and sharp rhetoric to a minimum. I've not seen anything in this discussion which could lead me to believe that anybody here has anything other than the good of Wikipedia at heart.
First, a reply to YellowFive: I think redirects are a navigational convenience, period. How does that square with your very considered example? I can link to a Google search on your outrageously insensitive epithet of choice, and it's more or less guaranteed to link prominently to something which describes the target of the epithet. Almost everybody understands this, and nobody thinks Google is deliberately pushing an ugly viewpoint because of it, because Google is a navigational tool. Similarly, I think Wikipedia's prominent enough that if we make my proposed position (indeed, the current position of the guideline, in spite of recent RFDs and other heated discussions) clear, people will understand it in a similar way - not "we think this is what it is" but "we think this is the real thing you were searching for information on." It only takes clicking on that link to reverse any such impression. I consider this danger absolutely trifling and minimal.
Now, why do I think we should let redirects point anywhere, so long as it's unambiguous? Because we are an encyclopedia - we should make it easy for everybody to get to our information. We want to be accessible, we want to share knowledge. This is our core purpose. Furthermore, I think any other approach in the context of redirects is likely to be very problematic on technical and other grounds. Here are some of the more specific objections
First off, I think if we blatantly require NPOV, we're going to throw out a lot of really useful, indeed, even classical links (this almost straw-man position is the natural extreme of the "must be neutral" side of the argument). Aethelred the Unready, Frederick the Great, John Lackland, Ivan the Terrible, War of Northern Aggression, you get the idea. I think that's an unsupportable position - with lots of respect to SarekofVulcan, I think "Evil Empire" is not a case in point, as it's terribly ambiguous (Mordor? the Soviet Union? Microsoft? to which we can add the Yankees, I suppose, have all been called that).
There's an added complication, which is what arises in the case of BLPs. I don't see that my logic is fundamentally altered. We are enjoined (quite rightly) to be extra careful in the case of BLPs. But if there's no support, implied or explicit, for a particular opinion in a redirect, then there's no support, and no issue. Again, we would lose a nontrivial number of relevant and useful links (for instance, consider, before his execution, Chemical Ali - I could give out lots of other examples, but I won't, out of deference to BLP concerns of other editors on this page - however, if anybody believes they don't exist, say so, and I'll list current ones that I found in a few cursory minutes of searching).
Having addressed the almost strawman opposite of my position, let me address the more common idea, put forward by Black Kite, Hobit, and others, that we should only have such redirects if there is significant or common usage, by which I presume they mean usage quite a bit above the standard "usefulness" threshold, since we all agree that highly implausible redirects of little utility can be deleted (a suspicion that "Hiroshima terrorist attack" fit into this category was why I kept my silence at the relevant RFD). I am naturally opposed to this on a matter of principle (since I don't think we endorse any opinions with redirects), as I enumerated above - indeed, that's really why I set up a strawman position to attack. This proposed approach does have the benefit that it gets over some of the more obvious problems with the "must be NPOV/BLP' position (most of the examples I put up above would no longer apply). If we must go with a more restrictive policy, this is my choice. However, it also has a few very specific problems as well.
We would be creating, out of whole cloth, an entirely new standard, greater than "it's used," greater even than notability, and one that's currently somewhat arbitrary. Consider the Fort Hood example; Black Kite correctly notes that if you Gnews search for "Fort Hood terrorist attack" you get only 17 hits. However, if you google, you get over 100k hits, and if you gnews to "Fort Hood" "terrorist attack" you get over two thousand, with commentary by former Attorneys general, federal judges, sitting US senators, etc. Is that prominent enough? You begin to see hte problem. Arbitrary standards with lots of give on topics like NPOV and BLP are not a good thing - too much room for opinion creep.
There is also the issue of documentation. If we're going to require something like WP:V for redirects, we need a place to document it, for viewing by readers. Footnotes would need to be added, etc. That would change the current redirect structure considerably, possibly replacing all concerned redirects with something like a soft redirect, losing a lot of the transparency and ease of use provided by the current system. I consider that a highly undesirable setup.
To conclude, we humans use a lot of associational thinking in our heads, and not as much one-way cause-and-effect thinking. If some of your repugnance at the idea comes from the mere idea that we're "associating" the redirect title with its target, rather than the more specific (and, as I have argued, utterly opinion-neutral) "navigationally redirecting" to the target, I urge you to try to examine the harms and benefits to Wikipedia logically from possible consequences.
Having made the board run red with electrons, I'll sign off for now, and let the discussion develop some more. Best, Ray Talk 22:46, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
There is a proposal for an autocategorization of redirects (by the software itself). Cenarium ( talk) 23:08, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Since we have both this page and Help:Redirect, I propose that we use this page only for the things we would expect to find in a guideline (good practices) and the Help page for the technical stuff on how to achieve desired effects. To this end, I will be removing information which is duplicated at the help page - please let me know of any objections.-- Kotniski ( talk) 11:36, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Is there a consensus on whether, say, a French name of a Japanese subject ought to be redirected to the subject's English name on EN? I was notified of Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2009_December_26#Cor.C3.A9e_du_Sud and I realized that there were many cases of alternate language redirects like the example I gave being deleted. However there seems to have not been a unified discussion about this or a fulfilled movement to have a consensus about this noted in the guidelines. If there is a consensus that the above example would be an inappropriate redirect, then I would like to see this reflected in the guideline pages. WhisperToMe ( talk) 22:06, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Can someone explain these (perhaps by means of an example)? I don't get how 1 is different from 2, and I don't get 9 at all.-- Kotniski ( talk) 12:20, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 2005 | ← | Archive 2007 | Archive 2008 | Archive 2009 |
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
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I've recently been involved in a rather heated discussion concerning R2D at Talk:New York Islanders. In general, when I see unnecessary R2D changes, I revert them. In this case, the user who made them got very insistent that we should use pipes instead and reverted back, and there were a couple of such exchanges. I think we could all stand to receive some clarifications from uninvolved editors. More than anything, I'd like to know if I am I wasting my time reverting back to the non-piped version. My inclination had been that concerns like knowing what terms are linked, knowing where links point, possible future articles, possible article moves, and the page source were all reasons that I should revert back to the link to the redirect. Is "D2R" also not a worthwhile change? Secondly, there seems to be this mentality that R2D is essentially a "worried about performance" guideline and that it is a good idea to change redirects to pipes if you are "already making another change" to the article. I am fairly certain that this is not so, but it seems to to be a very widely held belief. Could we edit the guideline to make it clearer that this is not what it is saying. (Alternatively, if I'm wrong, we should edit the guideline to say that one SHOULD feel free to pipe links to redirects so long as they're making another change.) Croctotheface ( talk) 22:31, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
ttp://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.myspace.com%2Fvdm_corsefanclub&h=a1c6egpp2rvm0blc8v9RqzirjaQ http://www.myspace.com/principessayasmin http://www.myspace.com/supremomagisteroteutone http://www.myspace.com/cavalieridellaregina http://www.myspace.com/lasindone http://www.myspace.com/sacroregnodiseborga —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.40.159.196 ( talk) 22:43, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Does anyone know why Shell House Cliffs is a redirect that doesn't redirect? Hesperian 13:15, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
The convention states: "It is preferable to change redirected links in navigational templates, such as those found at the bottom of many articles. In this case, when the template is placed on an article, and contains a direct link to that article (not a redirect), the direct link will display in bold (and not as a link), making it easier to navigate through a series of articles using the template."
However, this seem not to be the case. For example, when looking at Need for Speed: Most Wanted, the link to Most Wanted 5-1-0 doesn't show up in bold instead of a link, even though it links to the same page. -- MrStalker ( talk) 18:00, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
I can think of a few reasons, not listed in the 'Don't fix' section of the guideline, for why users should change redirects. I beg your indulgence if some or all have been expressed before; let me know and I'll likely remove my comment.
1. It prevents that "Redirected from [wherever]" message.
2. The redirected link is incorrect, so that the direct link is more than just, for example, the new title of a renamed article: it's a significant improvement over the previous, now redirected title. An example would be a redirected link that consists of the old but incorrect name for an animal species that has been renamed by scientists.
3. With a direct link, people can just hover the cursor and actually see where it points, obviating a click-through. This is connected to the next reason in that the issue is performance.
4. If we're not to worry about performance, then why is this: we're told not to make tons of small edits in quick succession to an article, because besides clogging up the history, it also is a waste of server resources? My apologies if tiny, serial edits are no longer deprecated.
Yet another reason might be that redirects could confuse some readers, especially those new to WP. But I'd prefer to have evidence of that before being more assertive about it.
I'll still make an effort to comply with the guideline. But whether or not these views have been expressed before, perhaps needless to say, I think they're good ones and should be in the guideline, for a balanced view. Thanks.
SamEV (
talk)
00:51, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
I've never come across a cross-wiki redirect in articlespace before, do we have any guidelines for these, I can't find anything? see Filip Van Neyghem. Cheers-- Jac16888 Talk 23:49, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Should we have redirects like
Schedule 1?
As a disambig page its content would be about as endless as that of a disambig page headed Paragraph 1 or Section 1
There are various other Schedule redirects, which seem to be used, mostly, on the assumption that they will link to an article about US drug laws
Laurel Bush (
talk)
18:38, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
{{ WPRedir}} has been nominated for deletion. 76.66.193.90 ( talk) 06:57, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
JEEZ, YOU ARTICLE ABOUT REDIRECTION IS PRETTY COMPLICATED. You give beginners a nosebleed. So how do you redirect a name to a sub article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.55.135.219 ( talk) 14:18, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
The instructions on the main page are easy to follow. President of Chicago ( talk) 03:31, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2009 March 23#WP:RDR → Wikipedia:Redirect -- JHunterJ ( talk) 23:12, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm interested, based on this diff, about what exactly the scope of this guideline is. I had always thought that it was about unnecessarily piping links. Is there actually some objection to changing the linked text so that it turns into a direct link? I feel like I must be misunderstanding something. Croctotheface ( talk) 02:45, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
I have put forward a proposal for Featured redirects. Any comments at the proposal's talk page would be welcome. — Tivedshambo ( t/ c) 05:45, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
Why are two experienced editors reverting each other repeatedly without using the talk page? Are we trying to model worst practices? How disappointing. - GTBacchus( talk) 20:22, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Re-adding identical material multiple times is a good way to demonstrate how not to conduct a dispute on Wikipedia. Are you an administrator? If so, it is part of your responsibility to do things the right way, as an example for others. In this case, editing the text for clarity would have been the best response, and posting to the talk page would have been second best. Re-making the identical edit is worst. - GTBacchus( talk) 20:36, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
...but I do have some experience in guideline-writing, thanks for the compliment. Re. GTBacchus' "... editing the text for clarity would have been the best response, and posting to the talk page would have been second best.", in fact no, in inverse order: talk page first, only after consensus altering the guideline text. See guideline template on top of the guideline page "...Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page." Didn't you read that? Some other people write guidance too you know, and expect it to be read... even if not directed at admins but at would be guideline editors. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 21:01, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Is
Note to admins: The "leave a redirect behind" option should only be unchecked when reverting pagemove vandalism or if there is a very good reason to do so, as this will break any links to the current title, and may make the page harder to find.
what admins actually get to see when they initiate a pagemove? If that is so: why would we need a clumsy rewrite of that in some guideline, the recommendation is clear enough as is, it seems to me... -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 21:12, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Yes, found it. In fact any user gets to see that text when initiating a pagemove. I'd be inclined NOT to repeat that in other guidance. Certainly not in a text variation that makes it barely recognisable. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 21:22, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
RTFM problems are not solved by producing more text, that only predictably will be even less read. Sorry no, prefer to take it out, as I did with my first edit to the guideline page. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 21:26, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Should there be a link to URL redirection on this page? I think it would be useful (just like the Sockpuppet (Internet) link on Wikipedia:Sock puppetry). A couple of users reverted my edits (see Revision history of Wikipedia:Redirect) because they think it is not correct. A more detailed explanation of why the link would or would not be useful would be very much appreciated. Thanks. -- IRP ☎ 21:15, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
Problem: I wish to change the redirect of descarga from Music of Cuba to Latin Jazz. I see the example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_University?redirect=no on the project page, but don't know what to do with it (personal computing quite rudimentary...). You might help me. Macdonald-ross ( talk) 09:32, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
Why not " Cuban jazz"? -- OlEnglish ( Talk) 21:47, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
FYI,
{{ R from other capitalisation}} and Category:Redirects from other capitalisations have been nominated for deletion on 4 May 2009. See WP:TFD and WP:CFD.
76.66.202.139 ( talk) 09:38, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
I'm having constant problems with editors misinterpreting WP:REDIRECT to mean 'I can blank any page I feel like, provided I post a re-direct to a loosely-related topic.' Please can the article be amended to clarify that such behaviour is completely unacceptable. Andrewjlockley ( talk) 08:45, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Sorry I'm late to the discussion but let me throw in my two cents. Turning a page into a redirect is not and never has been a
deletion in the narrow way that we use that term here. The content from the page is still available through the history and the decision to revert the redirect can be made by any editor and executed without need for any special privileges. Deletion, on the other hand, removes the history from view and requires administrator privileges to overturn.
Turning a page into a redirect is merely an extreme example of an ordinary editorial decision to remove a block of text from the page. It may be controversial, it may or may not be inappropriate, but it is not deletion. As JLaTondre says, we already have extensive pages on how to sort out ordinary content disputes and we encourage
boldness in ordinary edits. So to that extent, yes, it is acceptable to turn a page into a redirect before explicitly seeking consensus. It is equally acceptable for a subsequent editor to revert the edit and then for the two of them to seek consensus on the article's Talk page. That's how editing works at Wikipedia, whether the edit changes one word or the whole page.
Rossami
(talk)
03:44, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
Should one created redirects for disambiguous pages? By this I mean, creating something like Raya (Smallville) and then redirecting that to another page? In this case, the fictional character is minor, doesn't have a section at Characters of Smallville (because, again, she's minor - i.e. 2 brief episode appearances). To me, it doesn't seem like a likely search term for an average user. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 23:36, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
I made a link to Wikipedia:Example of a self-redirect in the "See also" section, but that was reverted by JHunterJ with the edit summary "unnecessary cleverness", so I put it in the "Self-redirect"section. But that was also reverted by JHunterJ with the edit summary "rv again; what benefit does it provide? (Also see WP:BRD)". In my oppion the benefit is seeing an example would help some people understand self-redirects.-- Emmette Hernandez Coleman ( talk) 17:03, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
Much of this discussion applies to the similarly guidelined against Wikipedia:Example of a double redirect as well. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 21:14, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
But not the part about being a bad example, Wikipedia:Example of a double redirect is a good example.-- Emmette Hernandez Coleman ( talk) 21:46, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
Listed at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2009 May 23#Wikipedia:Example of a self-redirect. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 12:21, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
The section " Spellings, misspellings, tenses and capitalisations" notes that:
Articles, including redirects, whose titles are either all initial caps or only first word capitalised are found via "Go" using a case-insensitive match.
Since that is the case, what need is there to have redirects like Natural Selection? The term itself should never be capitalized, except when it forms part of a proper noun, and the article Natural selection can be "found via "Go" using a case-insensitive match". – BLACK FALCON ( TALK) 20:12, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
JLaTondre's explanation for why redirects such as Natural Selection are sometimes created is very good, but this redirect is a poor example to provide without comment in WP:MIXEDCAPS. It appears to have originally been an example for the "Other capitalisations, for use in links" section which was removed in a 2006 edit which moved the example down to the "Other capitalisations, to ensure that "Go" to a mixed-capitalisation article title is case-insensitive" section. I've moved this example to the bottom of the list and added a short comment. -- Thinking of England ( talk) 01:50, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
This is similar to the previous thread on #Redirects from other capitalizations in that I'm wondering if there should be advice given on adding redirects to all possible permutations. It came to my attention as Sapir–Whorf hypothesis was moved and at present there's a rather long list of redirects to the new redirect. As there's a cleanup of the double-redirects underway you can view this section in edit mode to see a list the redirected permutations. It appears at times people have looked at the redirect article and used it as inspiration to add yet more possible permutations on the name. Many of these redirects are either not used at all by articles or are pointed to by a single article.
I don't know if this covering of all possible permutations is a common practice and if it is, or is not, a desirable practice. Related to this is when should aliasing be used vs. adding a redirect? For example, suppose I want to call this the "Sapir–Whorf theory" in an article. I can either alias it using [[Linguistic relativity|Sapir–Whorf theory]] or I can add a redirect at Sapir–Whorf theory and link to that using [[Sapir–Whorf theory]]. My personal practice has been to use the alias. -- Marc Kupper| talk 03:01, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
An apparent policy on this page is this:
I say "apparent" because this apparent policy was created four years (and two months) ago without proper public discussion and consensus, by people who denied the existence of those who disagreed.
In the interests of morality we should remember from time to time that this "policy" was not created honestly.
I've recently written to Brion Vibber about bug #378 and re-opened it. That bug makes links to redirects with non-existent targets appear as blue links rather than as red links.
If that bug does get fixed (some day?) I will propose abolition of the destructive (apparent) policy against pre-emptive redirects. Michael Hardy ( talk) 18:50, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
OK, if I bring it up there, I'll link to it from here. Michael Hardy ( talk) 00:01, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
Please comment at Wikipedia talk:Bots/Requests for approval#Why do we have a bot creating redirects that are handled by case insensitivity in the search box?. – xeno talk 21:40, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
I don't understand what this paragraph is trying to explain in WP:Redirect#Self-redirect.
Is this saying that redirects to a section within an article are acceptable to use instead of simply using a section link? And should this also be mentioned in WP:Redirect#Redirects to page sections? This paragraph seems to muddle the concepts of self-redirects, section redirects and section links (which involve no redirect). older ≠ wiser 17:20, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
To go along with the previous section, here are some more potentially confusing sentences in WP:Redirect#Redirects to page sections:
Pslide ( talk) 18:05, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
Under the "Alternative names and languages" sub-heading, I was looking for a "formal name" category to add to a new redirect which I created ( Defunct process), but there isn't one. In this case, the term " zombie process" is very well known, but the more correct term "defunct process" would be preferred for formal texts. I can tag this {{ R from scientific name}} and quit whining, given that it's a computer science term. (Note that it's not simply an "Other name", so that category won't work.) But there's a wider problem: formal terms that should link to the informal, but far more widespread, term. United States Permanent Resident Card as a redirect to Green card is a perfect example of this type of formal/informal usage not related to science. (Edit: or it would be if Green Card were not an ambiguous term.)-- Rfsmit ( talk) 19:12, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
I am butting heads with another editor at Talk:Poison the well, and the situation will not be resolved unless a third-party steps in. Basically I just had an issue with how difficult it was to navigate to Poison the Well from Poison the well and felt that it didn't really make much sense for the latter to redirect to Poisoning the well per WP:MIXEDCAPS. I didn't feel this was quite a large enough issue for WP:DRR, and thought someone from this project could help. Thanks! Fezmar9 ( talk) 17:54, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
In the middle of this, inside a box, there is a provision to redirect for people known for one event. Recently, an article was deleted. I cited this page. It was ignored. Since it was ignored, should we eliminate the box about people known for one event.
I think it's best for the encyclopedia to keep redirects because it helps navigation. However, some may want it eliminated User F203 ( talk) 23:38, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
There was no discussion. Essentially it was an AFD about a person of questionable notability but lots of news coverage. I pointed out RCAT which is about redirect. Nobody responded support or opposition to RCAT. User F203 ( talk) 21:28, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Allow users to redirect subpages of WP:K or WP:U to their user or user talk space – xeno talk 17:19, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
It appears to be orphaned, and confused me when I mistook the above documentation for implementing a "reason" as being "freeform" as opposed to being drawn from a list of reason templates. WurmWoode T 22:10, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(web)#Redirects_from_websites_to_subjects - It is a debate asking when one should redirect a web URL domain to its subject, i.e. CNN.com -> CNN. WhisperToMe ( talk) 04:20, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
(copied this section to WP:Visualizing redirects as it's linked from Help:Redirect)
Hi,
Is there an automatic way to find redirects from a large list of wikilinks by visualizing them? -- Kim van der Linde at venus 13:12, 29 August 2009 (UTC) Found a solution using customized CSS. Go to "My preferences", click on the tab "Appearance", and click the "Custom CSS" link behind the skin you use. It opens a page, and you can add there the following code:
Change the color codes if you want. Save the page, and reload with the instructions at the page so to force the new CSS to be included. It will show redirects as green links.-- Kim van der Linde at venus 14:07, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
if(wgAction != 'edit' && wgCanonicalNamespace != 'Special'){
var highlightRedirects = {
tab_redirects : null,
addStylesheetRule : function(tag, style){
var ss = document.styleSheets0];
if(ss.insertRule){
ss.insertRule(tag + '{' + style + '}', ss.cssRules.length);
} else if(ss.addRule){
ss.addRule(tag, style);
}
},
run : function(){
highlightRedirects.addStylesheetRule('a.mw-redirect', 'color:green');
},
install : function(){
with(highlightRedirects)
{
tab_redirects = addPortletLink ('p-cactions', 'javascript:highlightRedirects.run();', 'redirects');
if(document.getElementById('ca-history'))
document.getElementById('ca-history').parentNode.appendChild(tab_redirects);
}
}
};
addOnloadHook(highlightRedirects.install);
}
Is there a way to hide the little message that appears directly under the title? For clarification, it says "(Redirected from ARTICLE)" Redsoxcool ( talk) 22:45, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
Just a notice: I recently added a table to Wikipedia:Random that allows viewing random redirects in all the namespaces and their accompanying talk pages (even MediaWiki namespace redirects! which is rather odd). -- œ ™ 02:51, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
Hi. Quick question. There are two bands " The Shells", which have their own disambig page. Is it appropriate to redirect searches for the word " Shells" to that disambig pg? (It currently goes to the plural of " shell" pg.) Tx.-- Epeefleche ( talk) 02:33, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Make no mistake, I think it's a good rule. But it's not being upheld at RFD (see Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2009_November_9#Fort_Hood_terrorist_attack), in addition to causing a quite extraordinary amount of drama (see WP:ANI). I think if our guidelines are to be compliant with practice, it should read something like "Redirects are subject to the NPOV and BLP policies, and should be deleted, irrespective of their navigational value, if the label they attach to the redirect target is a violation of that policy." Thoughts? Ray Talk 06:00, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
A reasonable average person looking at the URL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Hood_terrorist_attack will conclude "Wikipedia has an article on the Fort Hood terrorist attack." Only a Wikipedia insider, who's spent dozens of hours reading style guidelines or
Kafka, could come up with something like "even though it might look like we're calling this a terrorist attack, we're not actually calling this a terrorist attack, because the
WP:R guideline dictates that POV redirects do not actually imply anything about their target articles."
Usability is not always a straightforward issue. There are trade-offs. In this case we are balancing the users who might find
this link convenient against the users who would reach the reasonable conclusion that it's our editorial opinion that the Fort Hood shooting was in fact a terrorist attack. Whose usability shall we favor?
There's a case to be made that POV redirects are generally useful, but that when POV attacks upon living persons are at issue,
WP:BLP should come first. So, my
suggestion: this guideline should be slightly changed to reflect the BLP policy, and it should say "redirects are not generally covered by Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, but the possibility of harm to living subjects must be considered when discussing the value of a redirect for deletion." This would not automatically prescribe a one-size-fits-all solution for every case, but would facilitate RFD discussions. ~
YellowFives
19:25, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Okay, I'm going to expand on my opinion. I'm going to spill a lot of electrons to try to make myself clear, since it's pretty obvious a lot of us are talking past, growing very frustrated with, and in some cases, even assuming bad faith with each other, and I consider this a regrettable state of affairs. If you think I mischaracterize you, or there's something I'm not getting, please say so, and let's all do our best to keep the name-calling and sharp rhetoric to a minimum. I've not seen anything in this discussion which could lead me to believe that anybody here has anything other than the good of Wikipedia at heart.
First, a reply to YellowFive: I think redirects are a navigational convenience, period. How does that square with your very considered example? I can link to a Google search on your outrageously insensitive epithet of choice, and it's more or less guaranteed to link prominently to something which describes the target of the epithet. Almost everybody understands this, and nobody thinks Google is deliberately pushing an ugly viewpoint because of it, because Google is a navigational tool. Similarly, I think Wikipedia's prominent enough that if we make my proposed position (indeed, the current position of the guideline, in spite of recent RFDs and other heated discussions) clear, people will understand it in a similar way - not "we think this is what it is" but "we think this is the real thing you were searching for information on." It only takes clicking on that link to reverse any such impression. I consider this danger absolutely trifling and minimal.
Now, why do I think we should let redirects point anywhere, so long as it's unambiguous? Because we are an encyclopedia - we should make it easy for everybody to get to our information. We want to be accessible, we want to share knowledge. This is our core purpose. Furthermore, I think any other approach in the context of redirects is likely to be very problematic on technical and other grounds. Here are some of the more specific objections
First off, I think if we blatantly require NPOV, we're going to throw out a lot of really useful, indeed, even classical links (this almost straw-man position is the natural extreme of the "must be neutral" side of the argument). Aethelred the Unready, Frederick the Great, John Lackland, Ivan the Terrible, War of Northern Aggression, you get the idea. I think that's an unsupportable position - with lots of respect to SarekofVulcan, I think "Evil Empire" is not a case in point, as it's terribly ambiguous (Mordor? the Soviet Union? Microsoft? to which we can add the Yankees, I suppose, have all been called that).
There's an added complication, which is what arises in the case of BLPs. I don't see that my logic is fundamentally altered. We are enjoined (quite rightly) to be extra careful in the case of BLPs. But if there's no support, implied or explicit, for a particular opinion in a redirect, then there's no support, and no issue. Again, we would lose a nontrivial number of relevant and useful links (for instance, consider, before his execution, Chemical Ali - I could give out lots of other examples, but I won't, out of deference to BLP concerns of other editors on this page - however, if anybody believes they don't exist, say so, and I'll list current ones that I found in a few cursory minutes of searching).
Having addressed the almost strawman opposite of my position, let me address the more common idea, put forward by Black Kite, Hobit, and others, that we should only have such redirects if there is significant or common usage, by which I presume they mean usage quite a bit above the standard "usefulness" threshold, since we all agree that highly implausible redirects of little utility can be deleted (a suspicion that "Hiroshima terrorist attack" fit into this category was why I kept my silence at the relevant RFD). I am naturally opposed to this on a matter of principle (since I don't think we endorse any opinions with redirects), as I enumerated above - indeed, that's really why I set up a strawman position to attack. This proposed approach does have the benefit that it gets over some of the more obvious problems with the "must be NPOV/BLP' position (most of the examples I put up above would no longer apply). If we must go with a more restrictive policy, this is my choice. However, it also has a few very specific problems as well.
We would be creating, out of whole cloth, an entirely new standard, greater than "it's used," greater even than notability, and one that's currently somewhat arbitrary. Consider the Fort Hood example; Black Kite correctly notes that if you Gnews search for "Fort Hood terrorist attack" you get only 17 hits. However, if you google, you get over 100k hits, and if you gnews to "Fort Hood" "terrorist attack" you get over two thousand, with commentary by former Attorneys general, federal judges, sitting US senators, etc. Is that prominent enough? You begin to see hte problem. Arbitrary standards with lots of give on topics like NPOV and BLP are not a good thing - too much room for opinion creep.
There is also the issue of documentation. If we're going to require something like WP:V for redirects, we need a place to document it, for viewing by readers. Footnotes would need to be added, etc. That would change the current redirect structure considerably, possibly replacing all concerned redirects with something like a soft redirect, losing a lot of the transparency and ease of use provided by the current system. I consider that a highly undesirable setup.
To conclude, we humans use a lot of associational thinking in our heads, and not as much one-way cause-and-effect thinking. If some of your repugnance at the idea comes from the mere idea that we're "associating" the redirect title with its target, rather than the more specific (and, as I have argued, utterly opinion-neutral) "navigationally redirecting" to the target, I urge you to try to examine the harms and benefits to Wikipedia logically from possible consequences.
Having made the board run red with electrons, I'll sign off for now, and let the discussion develop some more. Best, Ray Talk 22:46, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
There is a proposal for an autocategorization of redirects (by the software itself). Cenarium ( talk) 23:08, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Since we have both this page and Help:Redirect, I propose that we use this page only for the things we would expect to find in a guideline (good practices) and the Help page for the technical stuff on how to achieve desired effects. To this end, I will be removing information which is duplicated at the help page - please let me know of any objections.-- Kotniski ( talk) 11:36, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Is there a consensus on whether, say, a French name of a Japanese subject ought to be redirected to the subject's English name on EN? I was notified of Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2009_December_26#Cor.C3.A9e_du_Sud and I realized that there were many cases of alternate language redirects like the example I gave being deleted. However there seems to have not been a unified discussion about this or a fulfilled movement to have a consensus about this noted in the guidelines. If there is a consensus that the above example would be an inappropriate redirect, then I would like to see this reflected in the guideline pages. WhisperToMe ( talk) 22:06, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Can someone explain these (perhaps by means of an example)? I don't get how 1 is different from 2, and I don't get 9 at all.-- Kotniski ( talk) 12:20, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
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