• See also m:Talk:MediaWiki User's Guide: Using redirects
• For deletion of redirects see below, and also in Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy/redirects

This redirect page is within the scope of the WikiProject Redirect; If you would like to join us, please visit the project page; if you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

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Cleanup needed?

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)

WP:Directory and WP:DIRECTORY

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)

Navigating redirects

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)

Redirects from foreign languages

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 as articles?

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)

No. Read Special:Statistics It says: The English-language Wikipedia currently contains 2,191,758 articles. This number excludes redirects, discussion pages, image description pages, user profile pages, templates, help pages, portals, articles without links to other articles, and pages for Wikipedia administration. Including these, we have 11,645,800 pages. - Mtmelendez ^(Talk) 00:10, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

other sites

Can you redirect to other urls?--Demyx--ogo13 21:44, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Not as a hard-redirect. You can soft-redirect to a URL (basically, by adding a template like {{wi}} which says "we don't have an encyclopedia article but here's someplace else that might answer your question") but that's limited by precedent and tradition (and often by policy) to only the other WikiMedia sister projects. You should not, for example, redirect a page about a garage band to the band's own website even as a soft-redirect. Rossami (talk) 22:07, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Soft redirect discussion

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)

Neutrality of redirects

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)

Proposed pseudo-namespace "EIW"

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)

Scientific Names

Section is contradictory.
ThisMunkey (talk) 10:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

In what way? Are you referring to having two redirects, instead of just one standard redirect? - Mtmelendez ^(Talk) 12:57, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree with ThisMunkey - the naming conventions are inconsistent here. Either the specialized (jargon-type) or common (vernacular-type) name should be used for a given science article. I would tend toward having the redirects be the common name, and the article itself be the specialized name (with, of course, the common name being clearly visible at the beginning of the article). The redirect guidelines for scientific article names are indeed contradictory - they're ambiguous, and basically say, "use whatever name you want". This has been a problem for the WikiProject:Pharmacology, as non-specialists tend to create articles with titles being brandnames, instead of specific chemical names. Anyone else care to comment on this? Fuzzform (talk) 21:51, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

That's really an issue for Wikipedia:Naming conventions. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) would seem to indicate that the common name should be favored, but it also says there will be exceptions. Given that, it's clear there are cases that go both ways and so we should have both versions of template. -- JLaTondre (talk) 00:40, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah. Criteria is not established on this page. Only a list of {{ boxes and their names. Wikipedia:Naming conventions is about that, which clears something up for me a bit.
ThisMunkey (talk) 21:37, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Template Redirect

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)

I'm certainly not an expert but like you thought this doesn't seem the right place to get a solution for your particular problem. That being said, maybe what you need to do is replace template A with {{template B|bstyle=yes|...}} or something like that, and indicate that template A is deprecated if wanted. (Maybe I'm switching A and B, if that's the case you have to do too.) If that doesn't work out, try asking at WP:VPT for instance. -- StevenDH (talk) 13:27, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Template:B would contain {{A|bstyle=yes|other={{{other|}}}}} If there were any other parameters possible, you could pass them as suggested. Gimmetrow 23:54, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Category:Redirects

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)

old/new place names vs. well known/not well known

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. — eitch 16:25, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Creating redirects for alternate names is already covered by this guideline (there is a section on it). It sounds like you are more concerned about which name should be the actual article title & which should be the redirect. That's not really the purview of this guideline. The naming conventions would cover that. I'd suggest Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places) or Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names). -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:37, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll try the people over there, but I fear they'll say "that's a redirection issue — ask them." — eitch 17:57, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

The discussion under naming conventions is now here. — eitch 18:32, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

R2D on the Main Page

(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)

Please see WP:R2D. Thanks. --199.71.174.100 (talk) 00:55, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I know it, but it's on the main page here, I saw a lot of edits on the main page bypassing redirects, e.g.: [1], [2], [3] ... Cenarium^Talk 01:16, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

It's high visibility, I do think that it's justified here. If you want precedents in ITN: [4], [5]. Have a great day, Cenarium^Talk 01:22, 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)

I'm not sure why we should repeat past mistakes. --199.71.174.100 (talk) 01:36, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

R2D applies most of the time, I don't question this policy. It's just that here is a case where it doesn't apply, because this is a featured link, a lot of people use it, and are redirected. None of the other reasons to avoid bypassing the redirect applies here (and 10,000 clicks are quickly exhausted on the main page). Also, the remark " it is preferable to change redirected links in navigational templates" suggests the same reasoning. Cenarium^Talk 01:40, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I have never seen an argument before how high visibility relates to Wikipedia:Don't worry about performance like you are doing here. Has there been a discussion on it previously? Zzyzx11 (Talk) 06:08, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Not really, as far as I'm aware ITN is never included in articles therefore the rest of the sentence you are quoting "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." does not apply therefore your reason given does not apply. Moot point now that the item is almost definetely not coming back (and personally I don't see anything wrong with someone changing it when adding it back anyway) Nil Einne (talk) 07:37, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

My reasoning applies also to navigational templates, it's also for a question of comfort in reading, I didn't mean the other way, nor referred to the following sentence, it's just that there are common points. The main page is really special, and being redirected when clicking on a link is kind of annoying. About performance, Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups/About fixing redirects says "10,000 times before it would be worthwhile to replace that link with a direct link.". I tought it was common to bypass redirects on the main page so I posted here, if it's getting to long, it's possible to move the thread to the talk. Maybe we should engage a discussion on R2D on the main page at Wikipedia talk:Redirect. Cenarium^Talk 12:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

My understanding is the reason to fix redirects in navigational templates is predominantly because of the issue that is mentioned. No other reason is given for fixing redirects in navigational templates in the guideline and I'm not sure if any other reason was intended. I'm not necessary opposed to changing the guideline simply pointing out the guideline as it stands doesn't seem to support your suggestion that we should fix redirects on the main page beyond those that cause other issues (like misleading 'hints'). Personally I prefer things to be neater, and like to avoid redirects except when the redirect is a valid and logical alternative (e.g. petrol) or the redirect might be a future page. But since this isn't the consesus I leave things as is. Also, it's my understanding that Wikipedia:Don't worry about performance as mentioned above, generally trumps all. The only time we should consider performance is when we are doing something which is likely going to temporarily drastically affect performance we should perhaps contact the devs and tell them about our plans. For example if we decide to do a mass rename of all articles, or if we change losts of very common templates (as happened late last year). I don't think the intention of Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups/About fixing redirects is to encourage people to fix redirects if it's going to be visited more then 10,000 times. It was initially made before 'Don't worry about performance' and now serves to help convince doubters that they're not actually doing anything useful performance wise by fixing redirects, in most cases. N.B. Of course, we've probably use several million already perhaps redirects discussing this especially since I unfortunately am not very good at previewing (even when I do, I usually think of something else). Edit: See! Nil Einne (talk) 23:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this is actually germane or not, but to the idea that things are "cleaner" without redirects, I don't think that's so at all. I think the most convincing reason to not replace [[redirect]] with [[target|redirect]] is that the page source is much less clean. I don't think it affects readers at all to "be redirected" as some have talked about here. Croctotheface (talk) 02:29, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

• I have a weak experience with Main Page issues, but it's the first time I found a redirect linked from the main page and I saw a lot of edits bypassing redirects there, it seems to be already a common practice. The main page has navigational purposes (like navigational templates and portals) and is a presentation of Wikipedia's best content. It's also viewed by a lot of people and being redirected is not universally appreciated. In most cases, when the link is a redirect, it's already of the form [[target|redirect]], an edit is no big deal, and we don't have to worry about performance after all (and it's even a benefit from this standpoint considering the high visibility) ; these pages are very specific and it's not in contradiction with the spirit of the guideline WP:R2D (also, it's explicitly stated that it may be beneficial in some cases) (this guideline was created essentially to avoid mass fixing of redirects in articles). Hence, I propose to modify the guideline so that the main page be explicitly excluded from WP:R2D for bold links, i.e.: these redirects should be "fixed". I propose the same for portals, and for non-bold links also, but with more tolerance, i.e.: the redirect should be fixed "passing by" or is left to the appreciation of the user. Cenarium^Talk 13:55, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I disagree here. I think there are two tenets underlying your position. First, and correct me if I'm wrong, in saying that the main page is "Wikipedia's best content," you seem to assert that redirects are somehow bad or not our best practice. Second, you assert that readers don't appreciate "being redirected." Both of these arguments apply not just to redirects on the front page, but on every page. If we accept them, we would necessarily have to rewrite the guideline to say that, yes, we should have bots go through and "fix" every redirect so that they are never used. More specifically, to your first point, I don't see why, if redirects are something we "should" avoid, what's good for the main page wouldn't be good for every other page. Theoretically, each page should aspire to be our best possible work. To your second point, I haven't seen any evidence that merely "being redirected" does a disservice to the readers. (Except, of course, when a redirect is misleading or sends someone to a disambig page, but that's not what R2D says people shouldn't do.) If readers are indeed done a disservice, then we should serve them the best way we can and avoid all redirects. Croctotheface (talk) 18:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Redirects are almost always correct when they are on the Main Page. When there's a page move, the redirect is almost systematically bypassed. So this is a regular violation of R2D in its present form. The reasons are not so important, the fact is that it's already a common practice and it's unlikely to change. A mention in a note that it's acceptable to fix redirects there would accord the guideline and practice. Cenarium^Talk 09:36, 25 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)

Disambiguation pages?

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)

The Manual of Style on disambiguation pages has precedent. Please follow those rules for disambig pages. In particular, I think you want the section on Piping. Rossami (talk) 02:46, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Although in the example edit cited, I think you were correct to edit the link to use the target article's name -- the redirect wasn't broken (it went to the right place), but it wasn't needed here since both use the same base name, and since the dab phrase is visible, we may as well get it right. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:59, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Redirect to wictionary

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)

Nope. We do it often. Use the {{wi}} template. Rossami (talk) 03:07, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

How do they redirect?

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)

Help needed

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)

I don't know of any "two article" rule. But certainly, Marsupial lion is a topic that requires some disambiguation. Based on what I read of the discussion, no primary meaning of Marsupial lion exists. However, because only two meanings seem to exist, it's not clear a full disambiguation page is warranted (although, that may be the only way consensus can be reached in this case). That said, relying on subtle differences in capitalization to facilitate disambiguation just sounds silly to me. Certainly using hatnotes is a better solution. BTW, per WP:CAPS#Case_sensitivity_and_searching, if Marsupial lion is deleted, searches for "Marsupial lion" will automatically redirect to Marsupial Lion. Another issue worth examining is whether the double capitalization in Marsupial Lion is truly warranted (see WP:CAPS). -Noca2plus (talk) 18:21, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

"Do not "fix" links to redirects that are not broken" ?

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)

I'm not sure I understand what your first point is -- this section has nothing to do with links to disambiguation pages. Most links to dab pages are broken and should be fixed. I also don't see anything about redlinks in this particular section.

What this section discusses is editors who think that a link to a redirect page is a bad thing and go out of their way to change them to direct article links, and why they should not do this.

Perhaps an example would be useful here: an article might talk about "the DeskSet productivity tools". The natural approach, as I just did, is to wikilink the word "DeskSet". There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, even though "DeskSet" happens to be a redirect.

A later editor may see this and decide it should be changed to a pipe: [[SunView#DeskSet|DeskSet]]. This is wrong -- it's "fixing" a redirect that does not need to be fixed, based on the idea that redirects are in some way bad. This section outlines why this is a waste of time, and how it can actually impede future changes to Wikipedia: if at a later time DeskSet is converted from a redirect to a full article, the original link will go to the right place; the "fixed" link will not. Regards, NapoliRoma (talk) 23:02, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposed change to category redirect process

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)

Template:Rhere

{{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)

Linking to self-redirects is not always a bad thing because of redirects to sections and the possibility that the section can be split out. It doesn't seem useful in "see also" though, since if the section is split out a link should be added then. --NE2 12:12, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

You can create the article (or you can create a section and later split it in a new article). When you have created the article, you have to delete the template in the redirected article (in your example, delete the template in fleet vehicle, see also section). --Mac (talk) 10:36, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Redirects from Articles to Categories: warn that it leads to bugs?

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)

Note, in the above example I later changed White Plains Road so it no longer a redirect, but is now a stub article. -Colfer2 (talk) 05:36, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

We probably shouldn't make such redirects in mainspace except maybe in cases such as "list of streets in the Bronx" to the category. By the way, point that editor to WP:R2D. --NE2 06:19, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Did so. The software WikiCleaner apparently has a "Disambiguation" tool that may encourage WP:R2D. I wrote to the author of the software, though not on his French Wikipedia Talk page, which might get a quicker response, he says at the top. -Colfer2 (talk) 07:08, 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)

I'd support adding this proposed text to the article (preferably the second version, as it's shorter and simpler). Redirects to categories aren't that common, but quite a few of them nonetheless exist, and so we should mention how to create them here. I have no idea if a bot exists to search for problems like the one described above, but if not, perhaps it should... Terraxos (talk) 01:37, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

R2D question

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?

(to be clear I intended [[Hahn-Banach|HB]] versus [[Hahn–Banach|HB]], so that not only are the terms synonymous, they don't even appear JackSchmidt (talk) 13:42, 10 July 2008 (UTC))

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 don't think there's much to gain from changing any of those. For the first case, there's no reason to "avoid" the redirect in the piped link; it doesn't change anyone's experience of viewing the page. If, for some reason, it would improve the viewing experience, that would be a different story, but I can't see why that would happen. For the other cases, I think the "mucking up the page source" argument is pretty solid; even for a redirect that will never become its own article, there's no reason to spend your time editing to add unnecessary invisible text. There's nothing inherently "bad" about redirects that needs to be "fixed" by using direct links instead. Croctotheface (talk) 03:52, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, there is a reason to avoid updating those redirects. See Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups/About fixing redirects. You should certainly fix any double-redirects and there's nothing wrong with updating a redirect as long as you're making some other edit to the page but you shouldn't waste either your time or the database entries making edits which only update a piped redirect target. Rossami (talk) 05:37, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't think I agree that "updating a redirect when you make another change" is within the spirit of the guideline. You seem to be asserting that the only reason we don't do it anyway is a performance issue, and we shouldn't worry about performance. Croctotheface (talk) 06:02, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

The developers have told us not to worry about performance trade-offs when we are making edits that improve the encyclopedia or the reader's experience. But this page was specifically written (with a lot of developer input) to address the issue of edits which only change the redirect target, something that as you said above does nothing to change the reader's experience either good or bad. The page was written in response to the common fallacy that "cleaning up" a redirect is somehow good for the project or helpful for the database. Not only does it not improve the project, it actually costs us something (a very small something, but still something). That is, of course, in addition to the cost of your wasted time making an edit that won't change the reader's experience. Rossami (talk) 06:41, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

The section seems awfully clear to me: its title is "Do not 'fix' redirects that are not broken", and the first paragraph says "it is generally an unhelpful exercise."

I suppose the problem is that it also says "There are a limited number of cases where this is beneficial" but really, why work hard to find such cases?

So I don't see why you should "update a redirect as long as you're there". It's either worth changing, or not worth doing at all. If it's a working link with no typos (and I wouldn't consider hyphen vs. em-dash to be a typo), it's not worth doing.

"It's better to skip the redirect" is never a good reason in and of itself.--NapoliRoma (talk) 06:48, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. The "popups" page was a very clear answer because of its choice of example. The only change for the user experience is not seeing the "redirected from" at the top of the page, but this is quite minor. It might be worth making this clear. All I got from R2D was don't change [[redir]] to [[target|redir]], but:

Summary: Furthermore, [[redir|text]] and [[target|text]] are just as good as each other, unnecessary changes are bad, so one should usually avoid fixing even *piped* redirects. JackSchmidt (talk) 13:42, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, except that [[real target|redir]] should ordinarily be changed to just [[redir]]. That is, the other principle to be kept in mind is "unnecessary pipes are bad". --Trovatore (talk) 00:33, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Do not "fix" links to redirects that are not broken?

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)

Interesting. I confirm it is a problem for Degen's eight-square identity, last edit, after the redirect, not listed. -Colfer2 (talk) 23:26, 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)

But the question is "should non-broken links be changed so that the 'related changes' function works properly?" I would think the answer is that the "related changes" function should be changed so that it works properly. I've used it myself like maybe twice ever, so I don't think I'm otherwise qualified to comment.--NapoliRoma (talk) 23:33, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

To be sure, that would be the best solution. The question is, how hard is it to implement, and are the developers willing to do it? --Trovatore (talk) 23:39, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, shall I report that as a bug? Last time I reported a similar bug was more than three years ago, and it hasn't been fixed. Michael Hardy (talk) 02:29, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm fairly familiar with the relatedchanges code, and I've (sort of) had a few bugs for it fixed. If we all think this is a good idea (I do!), then I can take a look at making a patch for it tomorrow. Bugzilla requests with patches often get committed the same day! Of course, they often get reverted before going live on wikipedia. At any rate, I *think* it could be a fairly small change to the sql query. If so, then the devs will answer quickly whether it is a scary change or a "fixed in rWhatever" change. JackSchmidt (talk) 03:55, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

R2D on the Main Page again

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)

Comment 1: It is reasonable to protest presumptions such as "perhaps to avoid admitting" and "just because they have seen others doing the same thing." — Athaenara ✉ 04:38, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Comment 2: When I encounter a redirect while navigating other websites, I think, "Hmm, someone isn't keeping up with things on this site, not very professional." This is precisely what I think when I encounter redirects on important pages (it hardly needs to be said that the Main Page is one) on Wikipedia. — Athaenara ✉ 04:46, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

When I create a new article, I try to create as many redirects as I can, from commonplace alternative names, commonplace misnomers, commonplace misspellings, etc. And I encourage others to do the same. Does that mean I'm "not keeping up with things"? Michael Hardy (talk) 23:29, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

This comment implies that a redirect is something broken. Am I interpreting this correctly?--NapoliRoma (talk) 14:51, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

• Related discussions on user talk pages including User talk:Art LaPella#WP:R2D, User talk:BorgQueen#WP:R2D, User talk:Athaenara#WP:R2D, and User talk:Ryulong#WP:R2D. — Athaenara ✉ 04:33, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

"Perhaps" is indeed a presumption; that's why I said "perhaps", although I have much more experience at WP:ERRORS. "seen others doing the same thing" is a reasonable conclusion about those who were previously unaware of WP:R2D. And if the logic of WP:R2D is "unprofessional", well, this is your chance to change it. Art LaPella (talk) 07:04, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, disagreeing with the guideline is fine, trying to change the guideline is fine, but ignoring the guideline because you disagree with it is not. Croctotheface (talk) 07:37, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

If that is the case, why is Wikipedia:Ignore all rules policy? Further to the policy and guideline distinction:

"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)

(Historians take note: this is the first instance ever in which I have cited WP:IAR.) — Athaenara ✉ 21:44, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

So I agree with you this far: There's no point in getting into legalisms here. That's "rarely a helpful exercise". But I don't agree that there's anything unprofessional about a redirect. Certainly it's better than a pipe. Redirects are to symlinks as pipes are to hard links. Pipes are bad, m'kay? --Trovatore (talk) 21:52, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Suppose that someone thinks that each word in section names should be capitalized instead of just the first word. Should he ignore all rules and go through and change them all because he thinks that his viewpoint is better than the consensus? IAR is not a license to ignore guidelines that you don't like. Croctotheface (talk) 22:48, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

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)

I don't know; I'm just trying to settle this one way or the other. Therefore, I hope to link any future debate at the Main Page to the following:

Link here

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)

Redirecttohere template deleted

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)

Deleted references to deleted template. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:36, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Redirects that shouldn't be used in articles

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)

Request for comments

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)

Redirects after AfDs

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)

The only good answer is "maybe". I think I want to answer this by considering sample cases. I hope this makes sense.

• If the subject was deleted solely for a current notability failure, redirects can be a useful way to inhibit the recreation of the same deleted content. (Remember that many new users don't yet know or understand our inclusion criteria and often mistakenly assume that any redlink means that we want an article on the subject. Angelina Jolie is notable. Her children are not. Establishing redirects for her children (like this one prevents new users from getting bitten so much for reposting deleted content.)
  On the other hand, if the subject is so utterly non-notable that no one will ever make the same mistake again or if, for example, we're unable to verify that the subject even exists, the redirect is inappropriate. We deliberately set a pretty low bar for redirects, though.
• If deleted for copyright infringement, a redirect would be an ordinary-editor decision. The redirect can not infringe on the copyright.
• If deleted as a WP:BLP violation, the redirect is almost certainly inappropriate since it would expose the private information that the deletion was intended to protect.
• If deleted because the subject was prohibited original research, a redirect would be inappropriate. On the other hand, if deleted because all the current content was original research but the subject is independently discussed, a redirect could be reasonable (as long as you could find a good target).
• If deleted as a future event, I would generally argue against the creation of the redirect because even the title is generally still unknown. (I suspect that I'm in the minority on this point, though. Redirects to solve WP:CRYSTAL problems are not uncommon.)
• If the AfD resulted in a transwiki decision to move the content to one of our sister projects, a soft redirect is often considered routine as a way to inhibit the recreation. This is especially true of dictionary definitions which are often replaced with {{wi}}.

I'm sure there are many more scenarios we could discuss. I hope this illustrates the general principle, though. If you have a specific case you'd like to see considered, please give us the details. Rossami (talk) 22:47, 28 August 2008 (UTC)