Talk:Selflang

Contested deletion
This has been nominated, ostensibly on G4 criteria ("Recreation of a page that was deleted per a deletion discussion"). This page, however, is a redirect. The threshold for re-instituting redirects is lower, because they cannot differ substantially from previous versions—redirects have no content and can only redirect. The original discussion is very thin—involving two participants without strong opinions or evident insight—and only speculation that the redirect might not be useful. (The reality is that the redirect is, in fact, useful, which is why it was created in the first place and later put back in place.) Additionally, compare: Golang, Rustlang, Pythonlang, etc.

That's the ostensible reason for deletion, at least. The actual reason here is that the user nominating this article, based on an interaction regarding another redirect that was nominated for deletion, tried to route around the RFD by invoking G4 for its speedy deletion, got rebuffed because G4 was inapplicable there, didn't recover from it well, and is now trawling through other articles that he or she knows will be a nuisance to another editor (me) as a way of trying to make a point. -- C. A. Russell ( talk ) 13:14, 29 March 2023 (UTC)


 * It should be noted that the factual premises stated in the original discussion are also shaky at best. User:PamD states in the nomination that it is "not found in target article".  Although it might provide a good starting point to evaluate whether a redirect is appropriate, it's not and never has been sufficient to justify deleting a redirect.  NB: if, in fact, you Ctrl+F or Cmd+F on the redirect target (Self (programming language)) the string "selflang" does appear (not that it even matters; a WP:COMMONSENSE inspection of the two titles—that of the redirect and the page it is redirecting to—makes it clear enough what's going on with the redirect, since it's self-evident. -- C. A. Russell ( talk ) 13:30, 29 March 2023 (UTC)


 * There is still, as 4 years ago, no evidence in the article to suggest that this is a useful redirect. The string "selflang" does indeed appear as part of a URL "www.selflanguage.org", but that doesn't seem any reason for the redirect. If a reader finds the word "selflang" somewhere, and follows it to get to this article, will they actually be any the wiser? There is no indication what relationship "selflang" has to Self (programming language). I still think it's a useless redirect unless and until someone adds something to the article text to say "commonly known as selflang" or whatever the fact is, with a source. I don't think anything is "self-evident". But I suppose the argument "If an editor says a redirect is useful then it probably is" applies. I don't really care about it either way, and it's apparently here part of an ongoing spat, so I leave you to it.  Pam  D  14:09, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Regarding your question: "If a reader finds the word "selflang" somewhere, and follows it to get to this article, will they actually be any the wiser?" Ignoring for the moment that the word "follow" is underspecified (follow what, exactly?), my response: Uh, yes.  Certainly moreso than if they type that in and don't get redirected to the relevant article. -- C. A. Russell ( talk ) 14:36, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Regarding your remarks on the "reason for the redirect": it's so that, as in the case with every other redirect, people can be more quickly be directed to the article on the relevant topic. -- C. A. Russell ( talk ) 14:36, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Several remarks regarding "I still think it's a useless redirect unless and until someone adds something to the article text to say "commonly known as selflang" or whatever the fact is, with a source": that would be a poor edit, because (again) the factual premises are not true. (Among other things—namely, that you are subjecting redirects to a higher burden than is reasonable or required/necessary.)  Additionally, you seem to have changed your position from the original discussion.  Raise issues about me taking liberties with your words and intent if you want, but I take what you actually said there to be tantamount to something like, "I'm not sure what this is or how it's useful.  Is it?  Let's delete if it's not."  You are now taking a much stronger position: you know what this is all about, and you are saying that it is not useful.  I am disagreeing with that (for the reasons already stated—that it's self-evident that "selflang" redirects to Self (programming language) because the "selflang" in question is, in fact, the Self programming language that is the subject of the article.)  It's so beyond bizarre to encounter this kind of resistance, and doubly so when the same comment contains an acknowledgment of the guideline regarding someone finding a redirect useful. -- C. A. Russell ( talk ) 14:36, 29 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Whilst technically eligible for G4, I've declined it given this discussion. If Golang, Rustlang, Pythonlang all exist, I don't particularly see why this shouldn't also. I suggest renominating to RFD if you still think it doesn't belong and hopefully the discussion can attract more comments than last time. SmartSE (talk) 18:13, 29 March 2023 (UTC)