Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2007 November 20

HFIL → List of Dragon Ball planets
The result of the debate was delete. John Reaves 07:32, 27 November 2007 (UTC) This isn't listed in the target article. It's also actually not a planet in the DB universe. JuJube (talk) 18:27, 20 November 2007 (UTC) 'The above is preserved as the archive of an RfD nomination. Please do not modify it.'
 * Keep because the redirect documents the pagemove to a different title before it was subsequently merged into the current target article. Pagemoves are generally considered useful history.  The page was apparently created created at the HFIL title because that was the "censored dubbed title" used by FUNimation.  Rossami (talk) 21:53, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete There are three pages that link to it, all of which can be redirected by hand. I understand the history aspect, but a four letter capitalized word seems so unlikely to be entered as a reasonable redirect.  Mbisanz (talk) 02:28, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete per Mbisanz. Also, the pagemove is documented in the revision history of Hell (Dragon Ball). – Black Falcon (Talk) 17:53, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Groovened Death Metal → Death metal
The result of the debate was delete. John Reaves 07:30, 27 November 2007 (UTC) This is a neologism which apparently has never been used outside of Wikipedia (0 results on Google). It is also an unlikely search term, for it has capitals and has no article linking to it.  Zouavman   Le   Zouave   18:00, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

'The above is preserved as the archive of an RfD nomination. Please do not modify it.'
 * Delete: WP:NFT --Pak21 (talk) 09:04, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete: It's clearly made up. I've never heard the term used before.Bloodredchaos (talk) 11:55, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

The Deserted Village → Oliver Goldsmith
The result of the debate was Kept. The target article has significant content regarding the poem. In the absence of an article, the best thing is to direct readers to where information on the poem exists. The redirect can always be converted to an article. -- JLaTondre 02:29, 29 November 2007 (UTC) The Deserted Village is a major eighteenth-century pastoral poem which influenced poets such as William Wordsworth and John Clare (see the Literary Encyclopedia entry on the poem). The poem deserves an article in its own right. I was going to create a redlink to urge someone to create the article, but I was hampered by this redirect. I asked for a speedy delete, since the poem's page redirects to the author (which could be considered an easter-egg link), but my request was denied. Please delete this redirect and page so that it appears as a redlink. Editors should be able to choose if they want the redlink or the link to the author's page. Thanks. Awadewit | talk  09:15, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * If something relevant and encyclopedic can be said about the poem, you can be bold and do so. If nothing relevant and encyclopedic can be said about the poem, a redirect to the article about the poet is just fine. But either option is beyond the scope of this RfD. There's no reason to delete the redirect. Keep A  ecis Brievenbus 11:40, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I was directed to this process after I requested a speedy delete for the redirect. I do not currently have time to create the article, but I assure you an excellent one could be created. This poem is taught in undergraduate survey courses of the period - it is a major piece of literature. Should we redirect Hamlet to Shakespeare? Should redirect Star Wars to George Lucas? Like these works, this poem was a major work during its time and, as I explained above, influenced other major writers. It deserves its own page. Just because I cannot write it currently does not mean it should be incorrectly redirected which discourages other editors from creating the page. Awadewit | talk  12:04, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The question is: does it discourage other editors from creating the page? There's no way of measuring that it does, and there's no way of measuring that it doesn't. If you know enough about the poem to write an excellent article, I hope you will soon find the time to do so. I'll be looking forward to reading it. But I think having this redirect to the poet is a very sensible solution in the meantime. A  ecis Brievenbus 12:35, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I am in the middle of drafting a new Jane Austen article, so I don't have time at the moment. I think that having a blue link does indeed signal to readers that nothing needs to be done. It encourages complacency. Please note that this redirect has existed since 2004. For three years no one has written this article - perhaps someone would have if the poem's title had been redlinked. Someone might have come along and said "What? there's no article on one of the most important poems of the eighteenth century?" The redirect scares off users, particularly newer ones, from creating the article. They might just give up. It is better to have the more familiar redlink. Awadewit | talk  13:17, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * While that is a consideration, remember that we have roughly 10 times as many readers as editors. The core question is what best serves our readers while we are waiting for the ideal article to be written?  Are you better off seeing a redlink or at least being taken to a page about the author?  Given how easy it is to overwrite the redirect for anyone who wants to write the article, I see little downside to the redirect in this case.  We are in no hurry to finish the project.  We can afford to wait until you (or someone else) have time.  Rossami (talk) 16:32, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I am unconvinced that Oliver Goldsmith's The Deserted Village, two links which go to the same page, are helpful to readers. I used to be, actually, when I first started editing here and I made these sorts of links. Then I realized it was also contributing to the idea that "everything had a page". I keep hearing this on wikipedia - only obscure articles can be created. However, in the field in which I work, eighteenth-century British literature and history, this is manifestly untrue. Here is an excellent example of a non-obscure article that can be created, but it is masked by the blue-link. How many others are like that? Awadewit | talk  21:38, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

'The above is preserved as the archive of an RfD nomination. Please do not modify it.'
 * Strong speedy keep. Under Redirect, for instance. If you wish to create an article about the poem, you may copy the (rather large) section Oliver Goldsmith and create an article. Remember, deleting an article also deletes its history. This should be done only if there is nothing valuable in the article, including nothing valuable in its history.--Edcolins (talk) 19:36, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * What is valuable in this history? Awadewit | talk  23:42, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Everything: the date of creation, who created the article at the first place, the content of the article when started, the fact that it was changed to a redirect, the fact that there was a request for speedy deletion, the fact that the request was declined, etc. --Edcolins (talk) 14:16, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Following that logic, you should vote to keep all of these redirects. This is the most unexciting history I have seen. If you want to save all histories of creation, they you must save all pages that have been created. I fail to see the benefits as of yet, but I'm waiting to hear them. Awadewit | talk  11:21, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

List of people known by one name → Stage name
The result of the debate was keep Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 22:17, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Hard to see someone typing this exact phrase anytime soon. It also has only a passing connection to the article it redirects to. &mdash;ScouterSig 04:00, 20 November 2007 (UTC) 'The above is preserved as the archive of an RfD nomination. Please do not modify it.'
 * Keep because it documents the (first?) in a long series of pagemoves that the list went through before finally reaching its current destination. The pagehistory indicates that the pagemove was the recommended result of an AFD discussion, though I have not yet been able to trace down that discussion.  Pagemoves are generally considered to be useful history.  Please remember that redirects do far more than merely supporting the search engine.  16:29, 20 November 2007 (UTC) Comment added by User:Rossami
 * Keep. Redirects are cheap, page history is valuable. --Edcolins (talk) 19:43, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * "Keep' Until there is a article about the famous names in history that will cause this to become a disamb. Mbisanz (talk) 02:29, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Question' I have read the 'when to delete' section, but I'm still unclear; how does page history help? &mdash;ScouterSig 15:14, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It is part of the project's documentation of the attribution of our content which is a requirement of GFDL. Yes, the wording of the page titles themselves are often considered "content" for the purposes of GFDL.
 * The redirect itself points any of the original reader/editors to the current location for the content and consolidates their contributions to the correct page. Deletions, on the other hand, often confuse new readers who assume that either they did something wrong or the database was a bit unstable and lost their contribution.  They recreate the content in good-faith only to see it deleted again, this time usually with a hostile note.  Redirects documenting the pagemove tend to preempt those misunderstandings.
 * Redirects also preempt future editors from making the same mistake and creating a page/list that the community has already decided is inappropriate.
 * The history of the redirect often holds clues as to the reason for the move to the current title. This allows others of find and review that decision and to see if the original reasoning still holds.  Or, more often, to agree with the decision and save everybody the trouble of re-running the whole debate.
 * Even if you update every inbound link to the redirect title, the old inbound links can still exist in the history of other pages. Any of those other pages may have to be reverted (for example, to clean up vandalism), restoring the old link.  In a perfect world, the reverting editor would find the intermediate edits and again repair the link.  In the real world, that step is often overlooked.
 * Even if you updated every inbound link within Wikipedia, you have no way of finding or fixing the external links to the page. (That may not be relevant in this particular case but I'm trying for the more general answer to your question.  It is relevant for other redirects.)
 * Those are a few of the more common reasons why redirects can be an important part of the project's history. For more, you could read this essay.  I hope that helps.  Rossami (talk) 16:00, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep I often type things like this into the address bar to quickly find pages.

List of national languages of India → Official languages of India
The result of the debate was keep Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 22:17, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

There isn't any national language for India.. Then why does this redirect exist? It gives a meaning that National and Official language mean the same... Mugunth ( ping me!!!, contribs ) 10:37, 20 November 2007 (UTC) 'The above is preserved as the archive of an RfD nomination. Please do not modify it.'
 * Comment - My only connection with this redirect is that I completed a move from List of national languages of India to Official languages of India about a year ago. I don't think that the redirect is attesting to the existence or non-existence of anything, or that "national" and "official" have the same meaning. Its only real function now is to prevent these 40+ links from becoming broken. Also, on the off-chance that someone types "List of national languages of India" into the search box, even if they're using a misleading term, isn't it better for that person to be redirected to Official languages of India than to simply come up at a search results page? Then they can learn the proper terminology. Anyway, the only reason the redirect exists is that it is a relic of a previous, inaccurate page title, and it's keeping a few links blue. Thanks for the notification, by the way. -GTBacchus(talk) 10:49, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Isn't there a bot to fix these? I mean changing all the links to redirect pages to the destination page?  Mugunth ( ping me!!!, contribs ) 14:20, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * That can be done, although with fewer than 50 links, it wouldn't be that hard to do it manually. I agree that keeping those links blue isn't a strong defense of the redirect's existence. I don't think it does any harm, but if those links are fixed first, then deleting it probably would do no harm either. -GTBacchus(talk) 16:22, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) Even if you did fix all the current links (and with only 40 or so, you could do it by hand faster than programming a bot), those links would still exist in history and might be restored in the future. Remember that in the ideal world, all redirects would be orphans. We keep them anyway. Pagemoves are generally considered useful history and the redirects created by pagemoves are routinely kept unless they either a) were the result of deliberate pagemove vandalism or b) are actively harmful. They are explicitly not an endorsement of the original title. Rossami (talk) 16:24, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep. Useful exactly because, if somebody does not know that there isn't any national language in India and if he/she searches for List of national languages of India, we will then understand that he should better talk about "official languages", rather than "national languages". Redirects are cheap. --Edcolins (talk) 19:41, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep per Edcolins above. We shouldn't assume in advance that readers know the exact interaction of the Indian political system and recognized languages; rather, we should make it easy for someone with incorrect or incomplete knowledge to find correct knowledge. — Gavia immer (talk) 14:43, 21 November 2007 (UTC)