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I read these guidelines and find them a bit chaotic. Due to the inclusion of the list of redirection categories, it's a long page and some things are very confusing (for example here: Use of one of these redirects does not mean two or more can be added, if appropriate.). There's also duplicate information. -- StevenDH ( talk) 02:15, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
At the moment, WP:Directory and WP:DIRECTORY redirect to different articles: Wikipedia:Quick directory and Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_directory, respectively. This situation may cause more confusion than it dispels.
The all-caps WP:DIRECTORY is used a bit more; it is linked to by around 85 pages. WP:Directory is linked to by about 30 pages.
So, I'm thinking it might be good to change WP:Directory to redirect to the same thing that WP:DIRECTORY does. Does that make sense? If so, is there a bot that can go in and fix the pages that currently link to WP:Directory (e.g. just chage those instances to WP:QUICK), and leave a note on the user talk pages of those editors who have cited it, so they'll know in the future?
Or, we could just do nothing, since this isn't exactly a pressing problem... cheers, Jim Butler( talk) 20:54, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
I added a "Navigating redirects" section because I thought the information was somewhat nonobvious. Let me know if you think it shouldn't be there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Heqwm ( talk • contribs) 09:11, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Clarification on part of the policy on redirects has been requested at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Redirects from foreign languages. Please join the discussion at your convenience. Rossami (talk) 23:56, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Are redirects counted in the 2,191,713 articles in English? I ask this because whenever I make a new redirect, it says created page #REIDIRECT... in the exact same way it does articles. Tavix ( talk) 23:51, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Can you redirect to other urls?--Demyx--ogo13 21:44, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
I have started a discussion on soft redirects, and their future on the project, here. Any input from people knowledable about redirects in general is welcome and encouraged. - TexasAndroid ( talk) 19:00, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Article naming is a special interest of mine (I authored the Wikipedia:Naming conflict guideline and have expanded Wikipedia:Words to avoid to refine the article naming guidelines there). I noticed that there was a significant omission in this section about the NPOV requirements for redirects. As already mentioned above, redirects are not articles, and furthermore they are not subject to NPOV; WP:NPOV addresses itself specifically only to article naming. Like many other admins doing cleanup duties, I've frequently moved POV titled articles to NPOV titles, but this of course leaves behind the original POV article title as a redirect. There are circumstances in which POV-titled redirects are entirely legitimate aids to searching, where a POV term is widely used outside Wikipedia to describe the subject of a neutrally-titled Wikipedia article (e.g. Attorneygate redirects to Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy). I've therefore added a section to the transcluded section on Wikipedia:Redirect/Deletion Reasons to explain the relationship of NPOV to redirects, and to explain our current standard practice in creating or leaving in place POV-titled redirects. Comments would be welcomed. -- ChrisO ( talk) 03:39, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
If interested, please see Wikipedia:Bot requests#Creating a bunch of redirects that are shortcuts regarding setting up a bunch of redirects using a new pseudo-namespace, "EIW". These will be shortcuts that will link to topics in the Editor's index to Wikipedia. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:51, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Section is contradictory.
ThisMunkey (
talk) 10:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
I need some expert help here. I'm attempting to merge 2 similar templates, lets call them template A and template B. I've modified template A such that it performs the function of template B with an optional parameter: bstyle=yes. I would like to redirect template B to the new template A with the parameter bstyle=yes. Is it possible? or is the the right place to ask? Let me know if I'm at the wrong place. - oahiyeel talk 15:18, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
This is supposed to be empty but clearly isn't. Wouldn't it be best just to get a bot to get rid of everything placed here (and perhaps systematically notify everyone who adds something here, so they don't keep doing it?).
Also, a new category for redirects may be in order, something like Category:Redirects to broader topics or Category:Redirects from more specific topics. Something for those subjects that don't require their own article. Richard001 ( talk) 08:03, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
According to WikiProject Redirect, one of the Project's tasks is to "[a]dd redirects about countries - eg. old names…" I don't see anything about this in Wikipedia:Redirect, and I think it should be added.
Currently, "the preferred title of an article is the most common name" would support keeping an old place name if it's better known than a new one. This gets touchy in cases where "old" is "colonial" and "new" is "back-to-native." The Project seems to support redirecting from old to new (it doesn't say 'redirects about countries - e.g. new names'), and indeed we have Godthåb redirecting to Nuuk, Søndre Strømfjord redirecting to Kangerlussuaq, Salisbury, Zimbabwe redirecting to Harare, etc. (They're just the ones that came to mind (I couldn't say why — they just did), and I'm sure there are many others.)
Can we make a decision about this and add it to the guidelines? There's some debate about Nuuk vs. Godthåb (it's currently Nuuk), it just came up in Kiriwina vs. Trobriand (it's currently Trobriand), and I suspect similar esoteric arguments will be had over and over until we do. — eitc h 16:25, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
(This thread has been moved from WP:ERRORS.)
Victory links to Bernard Hopkins-Joe Calzaghe boxing match which is a redirect to Bernard Hopkins vs. Joe Calzaghe. Cenarium Talk 00:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I've seen such edits too, but reverting them sounds unproductive. If you think WP:R2D is wrong, then shouldn't you be questioning the policy itself? Art LaPella ( talk) 01:26, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Maybe an amendment is not necessary at this point, it's a very specific case where R2D is not followed and, again, is not in total contradiction with the main purpose of the guideline. Cenarium (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 16:29, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Am I right that disambig pages linking to a specific article should use the proper title and ignore WP:R2D, like this [6]? Nil Einne ( talk) 23:29, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Right now, lmao redirects to Internet slang, which doesn't say what the acronym stands for. It would be more useful to redirect to wikt:Appendix:Internet_slang#L, but this takes you away from Wikipedia and into Wiktionary. Do we have any policies against this? -- JaGa ( talk) 02:42, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm wondering how Wikipedia's Redirect Pages work, as the URI in my address bar doesn't change to the indended article. Is a Wikipedia redirect simply showing the contents of a page in that redirect page. For example, (assuming that "USA" is a redirect page if it isn't), when we go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA, does it actually use a meta redirect, or does it put all the contents of "United States" in the USA page? Thanks, 99.254.204.28 ( talk) 21:38, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Could someone have a look at this discussion? Talk:Thylacoleonidae#Vote_below_.28See_above_two_topics.29 There is are two redirects Marsupial lion and Marsupial lions pointing to Thylacoleonidae instead of Marsupial Lion. The reasoning behind this is rather technical. However, this seems like it would violate some rule about having two articles with the same title or something like that. Thanks, Bob the Wikipedian ( talk • contribs) 16:04, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
this entire section seems a bit stupid - most links to disamb pages are ones that have been lazily done or by people who dont know how to do them properly. only a few will intenionally point to a disamb , and those arre all on talk pages eg "look how many [[John Smith (disambiguation)|John Smith]]s there are - why do you think your one deserves the primary redirect ?".
the point on not "fixing" intentional redlinks is the only valid one in the section but it is badly sidelined. Machete97 ( talk) 22:18, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Your last sentence is completely out of touch with the reality here. The express concept in this guideline is that there is something ill-advised (or worse) about eliminating redirects in general, and no valid case whatsoever is made for that position. The need to defend is on administration's shoulders, not mine. Let me add that the vast majority of redirects that I've eliminated in my time as a Wiki-editor were cases of the article title as given in the posted link being a bit off the title as it actually appears on the article. Example: Dick Tracy vs Crime Inc should have been Dick Tracy vs. Crime, Inc.; note the second version's added punctuations. Redirects of this sort—and there are many—unnecessarily take up server space that could and should be put to better use and should not exist at all. Furthermore, I find that a refusal to so much as acknowledge my statement of the indefensibility of the underlying assumption here—that direct links are more likely to be piped than redirects—to be highly suspicious; in my experience, the link usually is piped either way or neither way, and there is just no probability-oriented relationship between the two things. It looks to me as if the real reason administration is opposed to eliminating redirects is something that they just don't want to publicly admit to, so instead they posted what we have here which completely fails to support the contention. Sorry, but that is exactly how the situation appears to me. -- Ted Watson ( talk) 19:59, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
"...can be detrimental" still remains completely unsupported, and I've got a good mind to take it out of the guideline, if that doesn't require higher status than I possess.
Let me make clear something in your favor that I failed to earlier, but should have. I referred to it, but on re-reading now, I think I didn't get there. Several redirects we had in the Dynamite article were each set up to be a specific topic within an overall one {e.g., "Lone Ranger (comics)"} that didn't actually have a separate article, and consequently redirected to the overall article in general, i.e., to the top of the page; I then changed these to go to the specific section or sub-section (as the case may be) on that topic ("Lone Ranger#Comics"), either way being piped so that just the general name ("Lone Ranger") showed in the displayed text. However, when I went to restore my versions after Emperor's reverts, I found that most of these now redirected to the sub-section! I will not say that this is better than my way {other than admitting that some day somebody just might create an article "Lone Ranger (comics)"}, but it certainly is no worse. And I stand by my statement that more often than not (at least those that I've encountered, especially others I probably should have cited as my example here instead of the one I used) there is little likelihood of such an article being written.
As for your example of "barak obama," this suggests that you don't even know how the search engine works. Try it. One letter entered, and a drop box of things beginning with it appears; with each additional letter, the list becomes more fine-tuned. Anybody for whom that doesn't offset your suggested misspelling of Barack Obama is too moronic to be using Wikipedia (or even the internet) anyway.
The "Dick Tracy" redirect. That's the title of a motion picture serial, and in trying to eliminate that redirect, I showed red in Preview twice, because while there is a redirect for no punctuation at all, when partially punctuated there is not, and that's riciculous.
Do you mean to tell me that removing something from the database—making it truly cease to exist—leaves a record of the act that takes up at least as much space as the removed item did? That's a ridiculous way to have set up the system, for just this reason.
I deny your claim about the piping statement. There is no lead-in to suggest that this is just one possibility being dealt with at the moment, but a very strong implication that the eliminating of a redirect will almost always introduce a pipe to the link. Also, as I've said, there is no truth to this in any event, which invalidates the passage even if the intent was as limited as you claim. Eliminating a redirect from a link has zero probability of creating a pipe where one did not already exist. Period (although this is not to say that it can never happen that way, merely that there is no inherent probability, as assumed in the quote). My Lone Ranger example is, as I pointed out then, piped either way.
You: This guideline does not say that you should never change something if there is a link to a redirect, just that "avoiding a redirect" is not a good reason to make a change in and of itself.
The intro of the passage: There is nothing inherently wrong with linking to redirects. Some editors are tempted, upon finding a link to a redirect page, to remove the redirect page and point the link directly at the target page. While there are a limited number of cases where this is beneficial, it is generally an unhelpful exercise, and can actually be detrimental. Aside from the fact there is no support for "detrimental" and I cannot see any potential in that direction, this very first paragraph of the section is saying in no uncertain terms that eliminating redirects should be actively avoided, and admits to only "a limited number of cases" where it is a good idea. The reality is exactly the opposite: There are only a few instances where it is actively a bad idea to eliminate a redirect and link directly to the relevant material. Quit saying it doesn't say what it says. There may be a good point to be made in the guidelines here (although I doubt it), but this completely and utterly fails to do so, primarily by fundamentally misrepresenting the situations it discusses. This needs to be heavily rewritten—from scratch, really—or, more likely, completely removed. -- Ted Watson ( talk) 21:22, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
"Spell suggester"? You mean the drop box from the search engine? Why isn't it? I cetainly didn't do anything to enable it and general users need it much more than we do, obviously. The next time my cookie expires, I'll try a search before I log back in. I admitted that my "Lone Ranger" example was a bad choice in terms of probability of a future article (although it seems that I didn't make that clear), but far too many are not at all likely. I still stand by my stated experience that the reasons given in this guideline for not eliminating redirects are in the minority (few and far between, the exceptions), while it claims the opposite, and that the specific claim that doing so "can actually be detrimental" remains completely unsupported and appears to me to be unsupportable (especially given the fact that after I've said that so many times it remains a fact that no one has made the slightest attempt to do so). I maintain that as it currently is, this guideline is very misleading at best and needs a major rewrite. -- Ted Watson ( talk) 22:15, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
If you guys refuse to discuss the guideline on its own, actually existing terms and come up with some way to make it more relevant to reality (which is what I wish to accomplish here), don't expect what you call civility out of me; you don't deserve it, not with the lack of it in the last three postings here other than my brief one in response to the first of them. Additionally, all those accusations against me by Croctotheface were in violation of the "no personal attack" regs, and the incorrect correction of my use of "crock" was certainly lacking in either civility or mental competence one (seriously: it was uncalled-for sarcasm if it wasn't meant literally, and mentally defective if it was; no third way). JHunterJ's claim that what I referred to as bilge is consensus is indefensible, as there is no room for doubt that I was referring to Croc's lengthy posting, the bulk of which was those previously mentioned accusations against me. How he can see that posting as otherwise is beyond me and calls his credibility into question. Besides, something being current consensus does not put it above challenge or dispute. Not one little bit. And that is all I'm going to say about those accusations. No, I will deal with this from Croc: I still have no idea how you are left with such a strange interpretation of the "no good reason to pipe" language.... Here's the beginning of NapoliRoma's response to my initial post here: Hi Ted -- I looked at what you posted on the above page [Emperor's talk page] and I guess I still don't understand why you feel changing links to piped links...is a worthwhile exercise. Obviously, he read the same thing in the guideline that I did, and was so committed to upholding it that he assumed that I was merely arguing to do the opposite. So go to hell, Croc.
One more time into the breech. Quoting the wrap-up of Croc's last lengthy posting (I repeat, the long one): Do you agree that...is fine the way it is and should not be replaced...for no purpose other than to avoid linking to the redirect? That's all this guideline is saying. No that is not what it is saying, and I have explained that in no uncertain terms more than once. That you (plural) are so opposed to admitting that a guideline that is up and you are committed to is anything less than perfect no matter how clear the evidence is that it is far short of what it should be is gross dereliction of duty as administrators (I haven't checked, but I assume that you all are; that and nobody else is who should be responding to a complaint that a guideline is rubbish).
xeno's (no capitalization is his way) "explanation" of how this activity can be detrimental utterly fails to convince me (remember, what brought me here were redirects that went to the top of a general article, when the link getting redirected bore the title of a more specific—but of course non-existant—article, and said link should go to the specific section or sub-section indicated by the link's title and context to be helpful to the general reader). My point is that this sort of simple thing is not what eliminating redirects usually amounts to. It is more often about either correcting errors in the article title (my Dick Tracy serial example) or about the fact that the context in which the link appears means it needs to go to a specific section or subsection of the article while the redirect goes simply to the top of the article (again, I concede that in the case of those on the Dynamite Entertainment page which inspired this discussion in the first place, that has been rectified and the redirects have been fine-tuned to go to the relevant (sub)section). This guideline and what you incorrectly claim to be its assumption, that redirects are generally about such situations as the Franklin Roosevelt/Franklin D. Roosevelt example in Croc's posting, is faulty because those are a small minority. However, xeno to the contrary notwithstanding, it is administration's job to turn it into something relevant to reality and generally helpful with a rewrite, not that of a rank-and-file editor such as myself. To summarize, this guideline as currently constructed is based on a false assumption of what the central aspect of a redirect elimination most often is, and implies further that it even generally adds piping to a link. I do not care that this was not the intent, it is damned well what is there. It should not remain in that form.
BTW: If we don't have a guideline vigorously recommending that editors be very careful in making links and, more to the point, check them to be sure they are correct (quite a few go to an article on a related but different topic, some one with the same or similar name, or a DAB page) we should. If there is such a guideline, please point me to it, as I would like to link it in to edit summaries, just as Emperor did this one. These things happen a lot, and maybe if that guideline could be spread around, they wouldn't happen so much. You think? -- Ted Watson ( talk) 22:19, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
I have posted a proposal to change the way category redirects are handled at Template_talk:Category_redirect#Proposed_change. Please review and comment on that page if you are interested. -- Russ (talk) 18:52, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
{{ Rhere}} has me confused. It seems to tag self-redirects within articles, and always seems to appear in the "See also" section (from the few I've checked). See Fleet vehicle#See also or Light fixture#See also for examples. Less than 50 transclusions in current use.
What should be done with it? (I would assume: the self-redirecting links should be removed from the articles themselves, and the redirect pages tagged with {{ R with possibilities}} instead. Then the {{ Rhere}} template should be deleted. Is that right?) -- Quiddity ( talk) 17:48, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Should we give advice about redirecting a normal article to a category? Such as:
#REDIRECT [[Category:Streets in The Bronx]]
I recently fixed a situation where an editor using an automated tool had changed a wikilink,
[[White Plains Road]]
to its redirect:
[[Category:Streets in The Bronx|White Plains Road]]
This caused the text "White Plains Road" to disappear from the article.
The Wikipedia:Redirect project page gives no advice on making such redirects. It also does not document the option of using the prepededed colon:
#REDIRECT [[:Category:Streets in The Bronx]]
but I guess it is not a manual of the Wiki software.
What is the advice? And should it be in the project page? - Colfer2 ( talk) 04:55, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
'Proposal. OK, i did not realize the colon fixes this problem entirely. How about adding this text to the project page:
Well, maybe it needs work.
Comments? Is any bot looking for these problems? - Colfer2 ( talk) 14:41, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
Sorry if this is a FAQ, but I thought it might be good to have on the R2D section of the page: If "redir" is a redirect to "target", and there is a piped link [[redir|other text]], does it seem good, bad, or neutral to change this to [[target|other text]]?
What if "redir" and "target" are basically synonyms, like Hahn-Banach redirecting to Hahn–Banach (hyphen versus ndash), or Baby redirecting to Infant?
It seems clear not to change the link if the redir is {{ R with possibilities}}, that is, if the redir might become an article itself one day, but for things like "Clive Staples Lewis" to "C. S. Lewis", it seems better to skip the redirect. JackSchmidt ( talk) 03:47, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree that a redirect may become a future article (it has happened many times) and that may be a reason not to "fix" a redirect. However, I just tried clicking on "related changes" on a page that links to Brahmagupta-Fibonacci identity, which redirects to Brahmagupta–Fibonacci identity. It failed to show the most recent edit to the target page. This is not a case in which it is reasonable to think the redirect may become a future article; it's simply an alternative to the punctuation that is considered correct.
Should we give no weight at all to the functioning of the "related changes" button? Michael Hardy ( talk) 23:09, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
I think what it means is, never "fix" such a redirect by using a pipe. Changing the actual link in the source article, to use the spelling of the article, is fine, and encouraged, when it doesn't change the meaning or violate (the spirit of) WP:ENGVAR. (By "the spirit of", I mean, better not change any links to wellordering to well-ordering; I would be quite perturbed.) -- Trovatore ( talk) 23:27, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
The Main Page can only be changed by administrators, so every couple months someone wants us to bypass a redirect. When told about WP:R2D, they often argue for one reason or another (perhaps to avoid admitting they were unaware of WP:R2D) that the guideline doesn't apply to the Main Page. For instance, they argue that the Main Page should be our "best work" (but in my opinion that's why the page should set an example of following WP:R2D) or that you have already made an exception for templates and the Main Page is like a template. This is complicated by the fact that even administrators bypass redirects on the Main Page and elsewhere, just because they have seen others doing the same thing, and this is cited as a precedent. So to avoid this recurring unpleasant debate, I propose:
1. That this be explicitly clarified in the guideline. For instance, at the end among "Exceptions", add "The Main Page is not an exception." Or:
2. If I'm wrong, then state the opposite: "The Main Page is an exception." What counts is settling this recurring debate which can get a bit hostile sometimes. Or:
3. If 1 and 2 are both deemed too much instruction creep for too small of a problem, perhaps we can at least arrive at a consensus here that I can link, the next time this issue recurs. Art LaPella ( talk) 02:43, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
(Historians take note: this is the first instance ever in which I have cited WP:IAR.) — Athaenara ✉ 21:44, 11 July 2008 (UTC)"Policies and guidelines express standards that have community consensus. Policies are considered a standard that all users should follow, whereas guidelines are more advisory in nature. Both need to be approached with common sense: adhere to the spirit rather than the letter of the rules, and be prepared to ignore the rules on the rare occasions when they conflict with the goal of improving the encyclopedia. Those who edit in good faith, are civil, seek consensus, and work towards the goal of creating a great encyclopedia should find a welcoming environment." ( Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines, introduction)
I'm obviously missing a lot of context here. (And I suspect others trying to follow this conversation are as well.) Why are pipes bad? Who thinks these are somehow inappropriate and where can the rest of us get a short summary of the issues in question here? Concrete examples would help. Rossami (talk) 22:55, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
To summarize, the consensus is that the Main Page is not "too important" for WP:R2D.
Objections? Art LaPella ( talk) 21:24, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
This page needs updating. It recommends using a redirect to here template which no longer exists. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Redirect#How_to_make_a_redirect_.28redirect_command.29 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lbecque ( talk • contribs) 18:31, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
What I'm about to ask has probably been discussed before...I just haven't seen it.
It's quite common to find that the "usual misspellings" of a name are redirects to an article with the correctly spelled name. For instance, Brittany Spears redirects to Britney Spears. This is considered a good thing, because it doesn't penalize the reader for being a poor speller. Instead of getting an ugly "No match" page, the reader is taken to the page he or she almost certainly was looking for.
But one of the drawbacks of this strategy is that it encourages misspelling in articles. If an editor with poor spelling links to Brittany Spears in an article that mentions her, there's no visual signal of the error. You see a blue link, and you think it's OK. In contrast, if it comes up red, it's a clear indication that "I might not have spelled it right."
So it strikes me that what we really want is for the encyclopedia to tolerant of misspellings when users are searching, but to be less tolerant when they are editing.
Thinking out-of-the-box for a moment... There could be a feature that would allow us to designate redirects as "For Search Only." Those redirects would function in the usual way for search purposes, but if you linked to them in an article, there would be some kind of visual signal that "You're not supposed to use this." I do realize that this would require a software change.
Since we seldom delete a redirect, the number of redirects is much higher than the number of articles. I haven't done a serious study, but I suspect a very high percentage of redirects are misspelled names that facilitate search, but should not be used in articles. With that background: I am wondering if anyone has ever suggested a software solution that would facilitate this distinction — that is, the distinction between legitimate names that belong in articles, and those that exist only to faciliate searching, and do not belong in articles.
I ask this without having any idea what form a "solution" would take. Marc Shepherd ( talk) 17:35, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
We do have the template {{ R from misspelling}}, which places redirects tagged with it in Category:Redirects from misspellings, which serve as documentation at least. Of course, that depends on people using the template, which is not always done. As far as avoiding links to misspellings, I fix these when I see them, but that doesn't mean it couldn't use more hands. Unfortunately, it looks like the sort of thing a bot could do, but there are subtle little problems with this - for instance, sometimes it's disputed just what exactly the correct spelling is. If there's a general solution, I'd love to see it myself. — Gavia immer ( talk) 18:35, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
A discussion pertaining to redirects was begun here and restarted here before moving over to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Bolding. older ≠ wiser 19:29, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I've been attacked for my practice of creating redirects after AfDs. The text goes My concern here is that it will create a precedent for "if I can't prove it's notable per policy, but that it exists, I can make a redirect for it," though that does not appear to be a purpose of redirects as noted at redirect puposes or the reasoning employed on redirecting for non-existent pages (they both imply the point is to allow for later creation, not to prevent it),
Are redirects legitimate after AfDs?
JASpencer ( talk) 21:04, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
There is an issue which could use help resolving found at Talk:Sine Qua Non, and it would be appreciated if Redir experience could weigh in. MURGH disc. 20:28, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Was the introduction of this section discussed elsewhere that I've missed? I'm not entirely sure I buy into what it says; it appears to be using the term "shortcut" in a way I haven't seen before, presumably as a parallel to shortcuts in WP: space. I hadn't been aware this was a problem.-- NapoliRoma ( talk) 22:16, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
The point of this is, it is not the custom to create shortcuts to articles in the same way you would to project pages. For example, you would not have "BAOB" redirecting to "Barack Obama" or "JOMC" redirecting to "John McCain" just for the sake of making a shortcut. Meanwhile, commonly used abbreviations, such as "USA," can still be used in redirects. Also, shortcuts can be created out of need when an article with a long title is named in many other articles.
Hi
is there any way of getting the list of hard category redirects using mediawiki API?
Padalkar.kshitij (
talk) 18:03, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
Padalkar.kshitij ( talk) 20:58, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
This edit appears to "fix" redirects in this very article that aren't broken, assisted by WP:CLEANER software. Art LaPella ( talk) 00:11, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
There is an article which redirects to another article and I'm wanting to remove the redirect so that I can create the article that has been redirected. I tried searching for help regarding this but I was directed back and forth between WP and Wikimedia and am unsure about the effects of redirect removal which is apparently harmful. The article is Ruffey Creek. If anyone could help me out that'd be much appreciated, let me know on my talk page. Nick carson ( talk) 04:19, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
I have added an "Abusive redirects" section to this editing guideline page. -- IRP ☎ 21:41, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
On my talk page, an editor made a comment that left me confused. I had, on several articles changed Concordia, KS (redirect) to Concordia, Kansas (actual article). The editor cited WP:R2D as the reason, but I don't think it applies. In the interest of learning, can someone explain this one to me?-- Paul McDonald ( talk) 03:56, 30 December 2008 (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 2006 | Archive 2007 | Archive 2008 |
![]() | 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 2006 | Archive 2007 | Archive 2008 |
I read these guidelines and find them a bit chaotic. Due to the inclusion of the list of redirection categories, it's a long page and some things are very confusing (for example here: Use of one of these redirects does not mean two or more can be added, if appropriate.). There's also duplicate information. -- StevenDH ( talk) 02:15, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
At the moment, WP:Directory and WP:DIRECTORY redirect to different articles: Wikipedia:Quick directory and Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_directory, respectively. This situation may cause more confusion than it dispels.
The all-caps WP:DIRECTORY is used a bit more; it is linked to by around 85 pages. WP:Directory is linked to by about 30 pages.
So, I'm thinking it might be good to change WP:Directory to redirect to the same thing that WP:DIRECTORY does. Does that make sense? If so, is there a bot that can go in and fix the pages that currently link to WP:Directory (e.g. just chage those instances to WP:QUICK), and leave a note on the user talk pages of those editors who have cited it, so they'll know in the future?
Or, we could just do nothing, since this isn't exactly a pressing problem... cheers, Jim Butler( talk) 20:54, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
I added a "Navigating redirects" section because I thought the information was somewhat nonobvious. Let me know if you think it shouldn't be there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Heqwm ( talk • contribs) 09:11, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Clarification on part of the policy on redirects has been requested at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Redirects from foreign languages. Please join the discussion at your convenience. Rossami (talk) 23:56, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Are redirects counted in the 2,191,713 articles in English? I ask this because whenever I make a new redirect, it says created page #REIDIRECT... in the exact same way it does articles. Tavix ( talk) 23:51, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Can you redirect to other urls?--Demyx--ogo13 21:44, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
I have started a discussion on soft redirects, and their future on the project, here. Any input from people knowledable about redirects in general is welcome and encouraged. - TexasAndroid ( talk) 19:00, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Article naming is a special interest of mine (I authored the Wikipedia:Naming conflict guideline and have expanded Wikipedia:Words to avoid to refine the article naming guidelines there). I noticed that there was a significant omission in this section about the NPOV requirements for redirects. As already mentioned above, redirects are not articles, and furthermore they are not subject to NPOV; WP:NPOV addresses itself specifically only to article naming. Like many other admins doing cleanup duties, I've frequently moved POV titled articles to NPOV titles, but this of course leaves behind the original POV article title as a redirect. There are circumstances in which POV-titled redirects are entirely legitimate aids to searching, where a POV term is widely used outside Wikipedia to describe the subject of a neutrally-titled Wikipedia article (e.g. Attorneygate redirects to Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy). I've therefore added a section to the transcluded section on Wikipedia:Redirect/Deletion Reasons to explain the relationship of NPOV to redirects, and to explain our current standard practice in creating or leaving in place POV-titled redirects. Comments would be welcomed. -- ChrisO ( talk) 03:39, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
If interested, please see Wikipedia:Bot requests#Creating a bunch of redirects that are shortcuts regarding setting up a bunch of redirects using a new pseudo-namespace, "EIW". These will be shortcuts that will link to topics in the Editor's index to Wikipedia. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:51, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Section is contradictory.
ThisMunkey (
talk) 10:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
I need some expert help here. I'm attempting to merge 2 similar templates, lets call them template A and template B. I've modified template A such that it performs the function of template B with an optional parameter: bstyle=yes. I would like to redirect template B to the new template A with the parameter bstyle=yes. Is it possible? or is the the right place to ask? Let me know if I'm at the wrong place. - oahiyeel talk 15:18, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
This is supposed to be empty but clearly isn't. Wouldn't it be best just to get a bot to get rid of everything placed here (and perhaps systematically notify everyone who adds something here, so they don't keep doing it?).
Also, a new category for redirects may be in order, something like Category:Redirects to broader topics or Category:Redirects from more specific topics. Something for those subjects that don't require their own article. Richard001 ( talk) 08:03, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
According to WikiProject Redirect, one of the Project's tasks is to "[a]dd redirects about countries - eg. old names…" I don't see anything about this in Wikipedia:Redirect, and I think it should be added.
Currently, "the preferred title of an article is the most common name" would support keeping an old place name if it's better known than a new one. This gets touchy in cases where "old" is "colonial" and "new" is "back-to-native." The Project seems to support redirecting from old to new (it doesn't say 'redirects about countries - e.g. new names'), and indeed we have Godthåb redirecting to Nuuk, Søndre Strømfjord redirecting to Kangerlussuaq, Salisbury, Zimbabwe redirecting to Harare, etc. (They're just the ones that came to mind (I couldn't say why — they just did), and I'm sure there are many others.)
Can we make a decision about this and add it to the guidelines? There's some debate about Nuuk vs. Godthåb (it's currently Nuuk), it just came up in Kiriwina vs. Trobriand (it's currently Trobriand), and I suspect similar esoteric arguments will be had over and over until we do. — eitc h 16:25, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
(This thread has been moved from WP:ERRORS.)
Victory links to Bernard Hopkins-Joe Calzaghe boxing match which is a redirect to Bernard Hopkins vs. Joe Calzaghe. Cenarium Talk 00:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I've seen such edits too, but reverting them sounds unproductive. If you think WP:R2D is wrong, then shouldn't you be questioning the policy itself? Art LaPella ( talk) 01:26, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Maybe an amendment is not necessary at this point, it's a very specific case where R2D is not followed and, again, is not in total contradiction with the main purpose of the guideline. Cenarium (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 16:29, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Am I right that disambig pages linking to a specific article should use the proper title and ignore WP:R2D, like this [6]? Nil Einne ( talk) 23:29, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Right now, lmao redirects to Internet slang, which doesn't say what the acronym stands for. It would be more useful to redirect to wikt:Appendix:Internet_slang#L, but this takes you away from Wikipedia and into Wiktionary. Do we have any policies against this? -- JaGa ( talk) 02:42, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm wondering how Wikipedia's Redirect Pages work, as the URI in my address bar doesn't change to the indended article. Is a Wikipedia redirect simply showing the contents of a page in that redirect page. For example, (assuming that "USA" is a redirect page if it isn't), when we go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA, does it actually use a meta redirect, or does it put all the contents of "United States" in the USA page? Thanks, 99.254.204.28 ( talk) 21:38, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Could someone have a look at this discussion? Talk:Thylacoleonidae#Vote_below_.28See_above_two_topics.29 There is are two redirects Marsupial lion and Marsupial lions pointing to Thylacoleonidae instead of Marsupial Lion. The reasoning behind this is rather technical. However, this seems like it would violate some rule about having two articles with the same title or something like that. Thanks, Bob the Wikipedian ( talk • contribs) 16:04, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
this entire section seems a bit stupid - most links to disamb pages are ones that have been lazily done or by people who dont know how to do them properly. only a few will intenionally point to a disamb , and those arre all on talk pages eg "look how many [[John Smith (disambiguation)|John Smith]]s there are - why do you think your one deserves the primary redirect ?".
the point on not "fixing" intentional redlinks is the only valid one in the section but it is badly sidelined. Machete97 ( talk) 22:18, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Your last sentence is completely out of touch with the reality here. The express concept in this guideline is that there is something ill-advised (or worse) about eliminating redirects in general, and no valid case whatsoever is made for that position. The need to defend is on administration's shoulders, not mine. Let me add that the vast majority of redirects that I've eliminated in my time as a Wiki-editor were cases of the article title as given in the posted link being a bit off the title as it actually appears on the article. Example: Dick Tracy vs Crime Inc should have been Dick Tracy vs. Crime, Inc.; note the second version's added punctuations. Redirects of this sort—and there are many—unnecessarily take up server space that could and should be put to better use and should not exist at all. Furthermore, I find that a refusal to so much as acknowledge my statement of the indefensibility of the underlying assumption here—that direct links are more likely to be piped than redirects—to be highly suspicious; in my experience, the link usually is piped either way or neither way, and there is just no probability-oriented relationship between the two things. It looks to me as if the real reason administration is opposed to eliminating redirects is something that they just don't want to publicly admit to, so instead they posted what we have here which completely fails to support the contention. Sorry, but that is exactly how the situation appears to me. -- Ted Watson ( talk) 19:59, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
"...can be detrimental" still remains completely unsupported, and I've got a good mind to take it out of the guideline, if that doesn't require higher status than I possess.
Let me make clear something in your favor that I failed to earlier, but should have. I referred to it, but on re-reading now, I think I didn't get there. Several redirects we had in the Dynamite article were each set up to be a specific topic within an overall one {e.g., "Lone Ranger (comics)"} that didn't actually have a separate article, and consequently redirected to the overall article in general, i.e., to the top of the page; I then changed these to go to the specific section or sub-section (as the case may be) on that topic ("Lone Ranger#Comics"), either way being piped so that just the general name ("Lone Ranger") showed in the displayed text. However, when I went to restore my versions after Emperor's reverts, I found that most of these now redirected to the sub-section! I will not say that this is better than my way {other than admitting that some day somebody just might create an article "Lone Ranger (comics)"}, but it certainly is no worse. And I stand by my statement that more often than not (at least those that I've encountered, especially others I probably should have cited as my example here instead of the one I used) there is little likelihood of such an article being written.
As for your example of "barak obama," this suggests that you don't even know how the search engine works. Try it. One letter entered, and a drop box of things beginning with it appears; with each additional letter, the list becomes more fine-tuned. Anybody for whom that doesn't offset your suggested misspelling of Barack Obama is too moronic to be using Wikipedia (or even the internet) anyway.
The "Dick Tracy" redirect. That's the title of a motion picture serial, and in trying to eliminate that redirect, I showed red in Preview twice, because while there is a redirect for no punctuation at all, when partially punctuated there is not, and that's riciculous.
Do you mean to tell me that removing something from the database—making it truly cease to exist—leaves a record of the act that takes up at least as much space as the removed item did? That's a ridiculous way to have set up the system, for just this reason.
I deny your claim about the piping statement. There is no lead-in to suggest that this is just one possibility being dealt with at the moment, but a very strong implication that the eliminating of a redirect will almost always introduce a pipe to the link. Also, as I've said, there is no truth to this in any event, which invalidates the passage even if the intent was as limited as you claim. Eliminating a redirect from a link has zero probability of creating a pipe where one did not already exist. Period (although this is not to say that it can never happen that way, merely that there is no inherent probability, as assumed in the quote). My Lone Ranger example is, as I pointed out then, piped either way.
You: This guideline does not say that you should never change something if there is a link to a redirect, just that "avoiding a redirect" is not a good reason to make a change in and of itself.
The intro of the passage: There is nothing inherently wrong with linking to redirects. Some editors are tempted, upon finding a link to a redirect page, to remove the redirect page and point the link directly at the target page. While there are a limited number of cases where this is beneficial, it is generally an unhelpful exercise, and can actually be detrimental. Aside from the fact there is no support for "detrimental" and I cannot see any potential in that direction, this very first paragraph of the section is saying in no uncertain terms that eliminating redirects should be actively avoided, and admits to only "a limited number of cases" where it is a good idea. The reality is exactly the opposite: There are only a few instances where it is actively a bad idea to eliminate a redirect and link directly to the relevant material. Quit saying it doesn't say what it says. There may be a good point to be made in the guidelines here (although I doubt it), but this completely and utterly fails to do so, primarily by fundamentally misrepresenting the situations it discusses. This needs to be heavily rewritten—from scratch, really—or, more likely, completely removed. -- Ted Watson ( talk) 21:22, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
"Spell suggester"? You mean the drop box from the search engine? Why isn't it? I cetainly didn't do anything to enable it and general users need it much more than we do, obviously. The next time my cookie expires, I'll try a search before I log back in. I admitted that my "Lone Ranger" example was a bad choice in terms of probability of a future article (although it seems that I didn't make that clear), but far too many are not at all likely. I still stand by my stated experience that the reasons given in this guideline for not eliminating redirects are in the minority (few and far between, the exceptions), while it claims the opposite, and that the specific claim that doing so "can actually be detrimental" remains completely unsupported and appears to me to be unsupportable (especially given the fact that after I've said that so many times it remains a fact that no one has made the slightest attempt to do so). I maintain that as it currently is, this guideline is very misleading at best and needs a major rewrite. -- Ted Watson ( talk) 22:15, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
If you guys refuse to discuss the guideline on its own, actually existing terms and come up with some way to make it more relevant to reality (which is what I wish to accomplish here), don't expect what you call civility out of me; you don't deserve it, not with the lack of it in the last three postings here other than my brief one in response to the first of them. Additionally, all those accusations against me by Croctotheface were in violation of the "no personal attack" regs, and the incorrect correction of my use of "crock" was certainly lacking in either civility or mental competence one (seriously: it was uncalled-for sarcasm if it wasn't meant literally, and mentally defective if it was; no third way). JHunterJ's claim that what I referred to as bilge is consensus is indefensible, as there is no room for doubt that I was referring to Croc's lengthy posting, the bulk of which was those previously mentioned accusations against me. How he can see that posting as otherwise is beyond me and calls his credibility into question. Besides, something being current consensus does not put it above challenge or dispute. Not one little bit. And that is all I'm going to say about those accusations. No, I will deal with this from Croc: I still have no idea how you are left with such a strange interpretation of the "no good reason to pipe" language.... Here's the beginning of NapoliRoma's response to my initial post here: Hi Ted -- I looked at what you posted on the above page [Emperor's talk page] and I guess I still don't understand why you feel changing links to piped links...is a worthwhile exercise. Obviously, he read the same thing in the guideline that I did, and was so committed to upholding it that he assumed that I was merely arguing to do the opposite. So go to hell, Croc.
One more time into the breech. Quoting the wrap-up of Croc's last lengthy posting (I repeat, the long one): Do you agree that...is fine the way it is and should not be replaced...for no purpose other than to avoid linking to the redirect? That's all this guideline is saying. No that is not what it is saying, and I have explained that in no uncertain terms more than once. That you (plural) are so opposed to admitting that a guideline that is up and you are committed to is anything less than perfect no matter how clear the evidence is that it is far short of what it should be is gross dereliction of duty as administrators (I haven't checked, but I assume that you all are; that and nobody else is who should be responding to a complaint that a guideline is rubbish).
xeno's (no capitalization is his way) "explanation" of how this activity can be detrimental utterly fails to convince me (remember, what brought me here were redirects that went to the top of a general article, when the link getting redirected bore the title of a more specific—but of course non-existant—article, and said link should go to the specific section or sub-section indicated by the link's title and context to be helpful to the general reader). My point is that this sort of simple thing is not what eliminating redirects usually amounts to. It is more often about either correcting errors in the article title (my Dick Tracy serial example) or about the fact that the context in which the link appears means it needs to go to a specific section or subsection of the article while the redirect goes simply to the top of the article (again, I concede that in the case of those on the Dynamite Entertainment page which inspired this discussion in the first place, that has been rectified and the redirects have been fine-tuned to go to the relevant (sub)section). This guideline and what you incorrectly claim to be its assumption, that redirects are generally about such situations as the Franklin Roosevelt/Franklin D. Roosevelt example in Croc's posting, is faulty because those are a small minority. However, xeno to the contrary notwithstanding, it is administration's job to turn it into something relevant to reality and generally helpful with a rewrite, not that of a rank-and-file editor such as myself. To summarize, this guideline as currently constructed is based on a false assumption of what the central aspect of a redirect elimination most often is, and implies further that it even generally adds piping to a link. I do not care that this was not the intent, it is damned well what is there. It should not remain in that form.
BTW: If we don't have a guideline vigorously recommending that editors be very careful in making links and, more to the point, check them to be sure they are correct (quite a few go to an article on a related but different topic, some one with the same or similar name, or a DAB page) we should. If there is such a guideline, please point me to it, as I would like to link it in to edit summaries, just as Emperor did this one. These things happen a lot, and maybe if that guideline could be spread around, they wouldn't happen so much. You think? -- Ted Watson ( talk) 22:19, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
I have posted a proposal to change the way category redirects are handled at Template_talk:Category_redirect#Proposed_change. Please review and comment on that page if you are interested. -- Russ (talk) 18:52, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
{{ Rhere}} has me confused. It seems to tag self-redirects within articles, and always seems to appear in the "See also" section (from the few I've checked). See Fleet vehicle#See also or Light fixture#See also for examples. Less than 50 transclusions in current use.
What should be done with it? (I would assume: the self-redirecting links should be removed from the articles themselves, and the redirect pages tagged with {{ R with possibilities}} instead. Then the {{ Rhere}} template should be deleted. Is that right?) -- Quiddity ( talk) 17:48, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Should we give advice about redirecting a normal article to a category? Such as:
#REDIRECT [[Category:Streets in The Bronx]]
I recently fixed a situation where an editor using an automated tool had changed a wikilink,
[[White Plains Road]]
to its redirect:
[[Category:Streets in The Bronx|White Plains Road]]
This caused the text "White Plains Road" to disappear from the article.
The Wikipedia:Redirect project page gives no advice on making such redirects. It also does not document the option of using the prepededed colon:
#REDIRECT [[:Category:Streets in The Bronx]]
but I guess it is not a manual of the Wiki software.
What is the advice? And should it be in the project page? - Colfer2 ( talk) 04:55, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
'Proposal. OK, i did not realize the colon fixes this problem entirely. How about adding this text to the project page:
Well, maybe it needs work.
Comments? Is any bot looking for these problems? - Colfer2 ( talk) 14:41, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
Sorry if this is a FAQ, but I thought it might be good to have on the R2D section of the page: If "redir" is a redirect to "target", and there is a piped link [[redir|other text]], does it seem good, bad, or neutral to change this to [[target|other text]]?
What if "redir" and "target" are basically synonyms, like Hahn-Banach redirecting to Hahn–Banach (hyphen versus ndash), or Baby redirecting to Infant?
It seems clear not to change the link if the redir is {{ R with possibilities}}, that is, if the redir might become an article itself one day, but for things like "Clive Staples Lewis" to "C. S. Lewis", it seems better to skip the redirect. JackSchmidt ( talk) 03:47, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree that a redirect may become a future article (it has happened many times) and that may be a reason not to "fix" a redirect. However, I just tried clicking on "related changes" on a page that links to Brahmagupta-Fibonacci identity, which redirects to Brahmagupta–Fibonacci identity. It failed to show the most recent edit to the target page. This is not a case in which it is reasonable to think the redirect may become a future article; it's simply an alternative to the punctuation that is considered correct.
Should we give no weight at all to the functioning of the "related changes" button? Michael Hardy ( talk) 23:09, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
I think what it means is, never "fix" such a redirect by using a pipe. Changing the actual link in the source article, to use the spelling of the article, is fine, and encouraged, when it doesn't change the meaning or violate (the spirit of) WP:ENGVAR. (By "the spirit of", I mean, better not change any links to wellordering to well-ordering; I would be quite perturbed.) -- Trovatore ( talk) 23:27, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
The Main Page can only be changed by administrators, so every couple months someone wants us to bypass a redirect. When told about WP:R2D, they often argue for one reason or another (perhaps to avoid admitting they were unaware of WP:R2D) that the guideline doesn't apply to the Main Page. For instance, they argue that the Main Page should be our "best work" (but in my opinion that's why the page should set an example of following WP:R2D) or that you have already made an exception for templates and the Main Page is like a template. This is complicated by the fact that even administrators bypass redirects on the Main Page and elsewhere, just because they have seen others doing the same thing, and this is cited as a precedent. So to avoid this recurring unpleasant debate, I propose:
1. That this be explicitly clarified in the guideline. For instance, at the end among "Exceptions", add "The Main Page is not an exception." Or:
2. If I'm wrong, then state the opposite: "The Main Page is an exception." What counts is settling this recurring debate which can get a bit hostile sometimes. Or:
3. If 1 and 2 are both deemed too much instruction creep for too small of a problem, perhaps we can at least arrive at a consensus here that I can link, the next time this issue recurs. Art LaPella ( talk) 02:43, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
(Historians take note: this is the first instance ever in which I have cited WP:IAR.) — Athaenara ✉ 21:44, 11 July 2008 (UTC)"Policies and guidelines express standards that have community consensus. Policies are considered a standard that all users should follow, whereas guidelines are more advisory in nature. Both need to be approached with common sense: adhere to the spirit rather than the letter of the rules, and be prepared to ignore the rules on the rare occasions when they conflict with the goal of improving the encyclopedia. Those who edit in good faith, are civil, seek consensus, and work towards the goal of creating a great encyclopedia should find a welcoming environment." ( Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines, introduction)
I'm obviously missing a lot of context here. (And I suspect others trying to follow this conversation are as well.) Why are pipes bad? Who thinks these are somehow inappropriate and where can the rest of us get a short summary of the issues in question here? Concrete examples would help. Rossami (talk) 22:55, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
To summarize, the consensus is that the Main Page is not "too important" for WP:R2D.
Objections? Art LaPella ( talk) 21:24, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
This page needs updating. It recommends using a redirect to here template which no longer exists. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Redirect#How_to_make_a_redirect_.28redirect_command.29 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lbecque ( talk • contribs) 18:31, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
What I'm about to ask has probably been discussed before...I just haven't seen it.
It's quite common to find that the "usual misspellings" of a name are redirects to an article with the correctly spelled name. For instance, Brittany Spears redirects to Britney Spears. This is considered a good thing, because it doesn't penalize the reader for being a poor speller. Instead of getting an ugly "No match" page, the reader is taken to the page he or she almost certainly was looking for.
But one of the drawbacks of this strategy is that it encourages misspelling in articles. If an editor with poor spelling links to Brittany Spears in an article that mentions her, there's no visual signal of the error. You see a blue link, and you think it's OK. In contrast, if it comes up red, it's a clear indication that "I might not have spelled it right."
So it strikes me that what we really want is for the encyclopedia to tolerant of misspellings when users are searching, but to be less tolerant when they are editing.
Thinking out-of-the-box for a moment... There could be a feature that would allow us to designate redirects as "For Search Only." Those redirects would function in the usual way for search purposes, but if you linked to them in an article, there would be some kind of visual signal that "You're not supposed to use this." I do realize that this would require a software change.
Since we seldom delete a redirect, the number of redirects is much higher than the number of articles. I haven't done a serious study, but I suspect a very high percentage of redirects are misspelled names that facilitate search, but should not be used in articles. With that background: I am wondering if anyone has ever suggested a software solution that would facilitate this distinction — that is, the distinction between legitimate names that belong in articles, and those that exist only to faciliate searching, and do not belong in articles.
I ask this without having any idea what form a "solution" would take. Marc Shepherd ( talk) 17:35, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
We do have the template {{ R from misspelling}}, which places redirects tagged with it in Category:Redirects from misspellings, which serve as documentation at least. Of course, that depends on people using the template, which is not always done. As far as avoiding links to misspellings, I fix these when I see them, but that doesn't mean it couldn't use more hands. Unfortunately, it looks like the sort of thing a bot could do, but there are subtle little problems with this - for instance, sometimes it's disputed just what exactly the correct spelling is. If there's a general solution, I'd love to see it myself. — Gavia immer ( talk) 18:35, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
A discussion pertaining to redirects was begun here and restarted here before moving over to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Bolding. older ≠ wiser 19:29, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I've been attacked for my practice of creating redirects after AfDs. The text goes My concern here is that it will create a precedent for "if I can't prove it's notable per policy, but that it exists, I can make a redirect for it," though that does not appear to be a purpose of redirects as noted at redirect puposes or the reasoning employed on redirecting for non-existent pages (they both imply the point is to allow for later creation, not to prevent it),
Are redirects legitimate after AfDs?
JASpencer ( talk) 21:04, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
There is an issue which could use help resolving found at Talk:Sine Qua Non, and it would be appreciated if Redir experience could weigh in. MURGH disc. 20:28, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Was the introduction of this section discussed elsewhere that I've missed? I'm not entirely sure I buy into what it says; it appears to be using the term "shortcut" in a way I haven't seen before, presumably as a parallel to shortcuts in WP: space. I hadn't been aware this was a problem.-- NapoliRoma ( talk) 22:16, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
The point of this is, it is not the custom to create shortcuts to articles in the same way you would to project pages. For example, you would not have "BAOB" redirecting to "Barack Obama" or "JOMC" redirecting to "John McCain" just for the sake of making a shortcut. Meanwhile, commonly used abbreviations, such as "USA," can still be used in redirects. Also, shortcuts can be created out of need when an article with a long title is named in many other articles.
Hi
is there any way of getting the list of hard category redirects using mediawiki API?
Padalkar.kshitij (
talk) 18:03, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
Padalkar.kshitij ( talk) 20:58, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
This edit appears to "fix" redirects in this very article that aren't broken, assisted by WP:CLEANER software. Art LaPella ( talk) 00:11, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
There is an article which redirects to another article and I'm wanting to remove the redirect so that I can create the article that has been redirected. I tried searching for help regarding this but I was directed back and forth between WP and Wikimedia and am unsure about the effects of redirect removal which is apparently harmful. The article is Ruffey Creek. If anyone could help me out that'd be much appreciated, let me know on my talk page. Nick carson ( talk) 04:19, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
I have added an "Abusive redirects" section to this editing guideline page. -- IRP ☎ 21:41, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
On my talk page, an editor made a comment that left me confused. I had, on several articles changed Concordia, KS (redirect) to Concordia, Kansas (actual article). The editor cited WP:R2D as the reason, but I don't think it applies. In the interest of learning, can someone explain this one to me?-- Paul McDonald ( talk) 03:56, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
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