Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2014 April 19

April 19
This is a list of redirects that have been proposed for deletion or other action on April 19, 2014.

Wikipedia talk:SHC



 * The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more redirects. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the redirect's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.


 * The result of the discussion was keep. (NAC) Armbrust The Homunculus 09:27, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Both of these shortcuts are six years old today. Happy birthday. Unfortunately for them, in that time nobody has found them worth using. If nobody on the project has used a shortcut years after its creation, it demonstrably serves no point in existing. Shortcuts are editors' tools, and the degree to which editors use them is the measure of their utility. Shortcuts to talk pages are also barely ever of value except on high-traffic or important talk pages.
 * Wikipedia talk:SHC → Wikipedia talk:Shortcut (links to redirect • [ history] • )     [ Closure: [ keep]/[ delete] ]
 * Wikipedia talk:SHORT → Wikipedia talk:Shortcut (links · [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:SHORT&action=history history] · stats)     [ Closure: [ keep]/[ delete] ]

Now, I know for a fact that someone is going to say "redirects are cheap" and also "no benefit is offered by deleting these". Well there is a benefit - not cluttering our namespace (and visually cluttering the start of a page) with unnecessary items. My opinion on this matter is that the RfD criteria are choking us under a smothering blanket of bureaucracy that muffles the voice of any contributor who believes in keeping a clean shop. I'm one of those users, and I'm dog-tired of seeing the same hackneyed old comments on nomination after nomination, as if the RfD criteria are the Ten Commandments. They're not, they're based in consensus, just as every rule on this site is. And I know I'm not the only one who feels this way.

It's high time that we collectively accept that people have a tendency to get excited and make shortcuts, and that sometimes time shows it to have been unnecessary; and when that does happen, we smile, clean it up and move on. It's basic housekeeping. That's why I'm nominating these. —  Scott  •  talk  02:05, 19 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep "SHORT" Seems a reasonable shortcut, unless some other use appears to contest that. Further, you haven't nominated WP:SHORT or WP:SHC for deletion, so I fail to see why the talk equivalent shouldn't exist. -- 65.94.77.36 (talk) 05:16, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Firstly, "seems reasonable" has been demonstrated to be pointless. Or you would have preferred that I'd waited until these redirects had lain around unused for a full decade before nominating them? Secondly, that's an other stuff exists argument. We're not in a hurry, we can deal with one thing at a time. And thirdly, WP:SHORT is being used, which is completely the opposite of this nomination. —  Scott  •  talk  10:47, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The subject-side pages are not being deleted, so I don't really see why the talk-side pages can't exist. If you want to delete the subject-side redirect WP:SHC then that will also delete the talk-side redirect WT:SHC. -- 65.94.77.36 (talk) 22:46, 19 April 2014 (UTC) (Moved up to keep the conversation together - S)
 * First point, see above. Second point, no it won't. I don't know what you're trying to say there. —  Scott  •  talk  00:24, 20 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep both. Firstly WT:SHC is actually used, so the nomination is factually incorrect there. Secondly, both WP:SHORT and WP:SHC are very well used, so there is every reason for people to assume that the equivalent talk page shortcuts will also exist. Finally, there really is no benefit to deletion - the visual "clutter" is entirely independent of the redirect's existence, if you want to remove what you perceive at clutter then do so: WP:BRD applies. If you want to change the RfD criteria then you need to propose that at Wikipedia talk:Redirects for discussion and get consensus to change them before you can apply different ones to individual redirects. Thryduulf (talk) 09:53, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
 * No, the nomination is not "factually incorrect". WT:SHC was linked to once in an automatically-generated list of pages with shortcuts. It has never been used. Perhaps you meant WT:SHORT, which was mentioned precisely once, by its author, and then forgotten about forever after. So that's that.
 * Secondly, directly removing redirect clutter is a complete waste of time because it only leads to one-on-one arguments with indiscriminate collectors such as yourself those who persistently call for the retention of redirects on the basis of entirely unproven claims of utility . This is the place to discuss it.
 * Thirdly, policy follows practice, which takes place on the ground in venues such as this one. That's why there are now ongoing discussions about interlingual redirects and WikiProject template redirects. —  Scott  •  talk  10:47, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
 * When I say the redirect is used, I was looking at usage figures not counting links. I am not an "indiscriminate collector" of redirects (and I would prefer it if you could avoid further ad hominems) - I base my recommendations on an assessment of the costs and benefits of keeping and deleting the redirects under discussion, placing high value on those redirects that have demonstrated utility and no value on irrelevant arguments like lack of necessity. Thryduulf (talk) 13:45, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I note you have rephrased your comment, but it still mischaracterises the rationales of those who hold different opinions to yourself - firstly the burden of evidence is on those wanting to change the status quo, so you would need to demonstrate non-utility yet in many cases (such as this one) utility is demonstrated. When there is no evidence either way, then we fall back to the standard required of redirects - namely "plausibly useful" and in every case that a redirect is plausibly useful then it should be kept in the absence of evidence that it is somehow either harmful or that deletion would benefit the encyclopaedia more (e.g. because we want an article at that title). In this case, "SHC" and "SHORT" are both plausible abbreviations for "shortcut", there has been no proposal to retarget them elsewhere, and no evidence presented that they are harmful. This means that there is no reason to delete them, and we should not delete any page from Wikipedia without there being a reason for doing so. Thryduulf (talk) 16:02, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
 * If a thing is useful, it will be used. These aren't used. Not sure why you find that hard to understand. The rest of your comments are the exact same bureaucratic hoarder's responses that I was anticipating from the moment I made this nomination. —  Scott  •  talk  16:30, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
 * If something is used it is useful, but just because something is not used does not automatically mean it is not useful - how do you know that someone will not need it tomorrow or next week for example? I'm not at all sure why you feel the need to use more ad hominem arguments, but as you clearly have nothing else to bring to the table I do not see that explaining again why unnecessary deletions are harmful is a productive use of my time. Thryduulf (talk) 16:53, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
 * "How do you know that someone will not need it tomorrow or next week"? Because that "tomorrow or next week" has spent six years failing to arrive so far. It's called common sense. And as regards "explaining again why unnecessary deletions are harmful", that's because you can't. Not unless you resort to your stock argument of the theoretical needs of imaginary people, in exactly the same fashion that you just did. —  Scott  •  talk  17:16, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
 * If WT:SHORT is being used and Wikipedia talk:Shortcut isn't (I mean, if people always use the abbreviation rather than the longer name to find the article) that's an argument for keeping it. As for WT:SHC that seems to me like a bit of insider knowledge, nobody who is not an editor would search that way, and the purpose of redirects is solely to help people to find what they are looking for. It could go to Washington Technological School of High Columns or Willesden and Teddington Private Socratic/Hippocratic Club for all I know, it seems a particularly obscure abbreviation. Si Trew (talk) 11:21, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
 * "WT:" is a namespace alias for "Wikipedia talk" so all redirects should go to pages in that namespace (Wikipedia talk:SHC redirecting to an article would be very bizarre), and almost all should go to the talk page of the page the corresponding WP: redirect points at. Thryduulf (talk) 13:45, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I realise that. The point I am making is that "SHC" is not a particularly obvious redirect through that namespace alias (and we have a lot of cross-namespace redirects). I was not suggesting to create those articles, as far as I know those places don't actually exist, though it would not surprise me one of those horrible scamming private school people now sets one up and uses Wikipedia as a reference. Si Trew (talk) 05:11, 20 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep both. The right place for a discussion of the RfD criteria would be WT:RFD. I can't help but feel you're going about this backwards: policy may follow practice, but a consensus to delete these redirects wouldn't constitute a consensus to change the criteria. A consensus to change the criteria, on the other hand, could reasonably be expected to constitute a consensus to delete these redirects. Aside from the procedure though, I'm afraid I'm firmly in the WP:CHEAP camp. I tend to take the view that if someone went to the trouble of creating it, it's probably useful to at least enough people for the potential harm caused by deleting to oughtweigh the benefits; in this case I also think it's probably reasonable to expect a "WP:" redirect to be accompanied by a matching "WT:". – Arms &amp; Hearts (talk) 11:46, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Any attempt to change the critera through discussion there will be met with "this does not reflect longstanding consensus" by the people who want to maintain the status quo. On the other hand, if the community shows itself willing to do away with pointless redirects, there will clearly be an evidence-based argument for an update to the criteria.
 * Regarding "potential harm", would you mind setting out what that is for two shortcuts that nobody is using or has been using in the last six years? Even their creator only linked to one of them, once. These were speculative creations, made on a hypothesis of necessity that has been comprehensively disproven by time. —  Scott  •  talk  12:04, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The potential harm would be if, for example, someone who's used these shortcuts before were to use them again but find them no longer functional. Or if someone were to use WP:SHORT and then reasonably assume that an associated "WT:" shortcut exists for the talk page, but find that it doesn't. Or if an incoming link to one of these shortcuts from another site, which we can't track, was broken. That sort of thing. – Arms &amp; Hearts (talk) 01:24, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
 * All of that is pure conjecture. That these redirects have lain unlinked-to for six years is fact, as is their mean daily traffic level of less than one hit, which is the level of random noise caused by bots. By the way, we are also not beholden to other websites to maintain redirects, especially not without evidence that they even exist in the first place. That's a common misapprehension at RfD. —  Scott  •  talk  01:47, 20 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment. Scott, if I may summarise: you are complaining (it seems to me) that we never change policy (or guidelines). But we do. The place to discuss changes of policy is at the discussion page of RfD itself, not at a particular redirect's entry. In any case, WP:BOLD still applies. I am not myself in the WP:CHEAP camp, not because of the appalling waste of terribly expensive bytes but because I think many redirects make it harder not easier for people to find things via the search engine: however, I also often gnomely create redirects myself (especially with and  and things like that): the only question is does it make it easier or harder for people to find the information they are looking for? Now, that requires some second-guessing about what people are looking for, which is why we come here to find consensus. Si Trew (talk) 05:25, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page.