Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2014 January 14

January 14
This is a list of redirects that have been proposed for deletion or other action on January 14, 2014.

Template:Afd-notice/WelcomeGNG



 * 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 16:34, 22 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Template:Afd-notice/WelcomeGNG → Template:WelcomeGNG (links to redirect • [ history] • )     [ Closure: [ keep]/[ delete] ]

I proposed deletion on CSD G7, but it was declined by. His rationale is here. Since the template has been unused, I doubt that it is being saved off-wiki, and I think the new title can be found easily using Category:Welcome templates. Links from other wikis are a larger concern for me. Is it normal to keep a redirect because of links from other sites? James is correct that the redirect is doing no harm, but I don't want to leave a mess behind after cleaning up the title. I'd appreciate some other input, since I'm not sure what is typical in this case. Thanks. &mdash; Jess · &Delta;&hearts; 16:30, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, there could conceivably be links on other sites, or people could have bookmarked the page. &mdash; rybec   16:43, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep. Nothing would be gained by deleting it, and as noted disruption would result from deletion. I've also fixed the nomination, which was missing the Template: namespace in some places Thryduulf (talk) 18:52, 14 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment isn't this a substitution template? So, being unused is the normal state of affairs. -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 06:47, 15 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep per Thryduulf, at least for a while. A redirect like this one isnt contributing to any mess. ;-) John Vandenberg (chat) 07:39, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep and deprecate (do not advertise). Simply a redirect within template space. -DePiep (talk) 17:34, 21 January 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.

Cross-wiki watchlist



 * 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 speedy deleted. cross-namespace redirects from main space are speedily deletable. jni (talk) 17:01, 22 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Cross-wiki watchlist → Global, cross-wiki, integrated watchlists (links to redirect • [ history] • )     [ Closure: [ keep]/[ delete] ]

WP:CNR created June 2013 for a non-newbie related term, for a MediaWiki feature that doesnt exist (but there are apparently user scripts which provide this type of functionality according to the target). John Vandenberg (chat) 12:36, 14 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Feel free to delete it. I made the mistake of creating that redirect in article space. It is not necessary since there are correct redirects in Wikipedia namespace:
 * Cross-wiki watchlists and Cross-wiki watchlist
 * --Timeshifter (talk) 15:39, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
 * WP:G7? &mdash; rybec   16:34, 14 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete for being a redirect from mainspace without (proper) prefix. Creators comment here suggests a speedy closure might be possible. -DePiep (talk) 17:36, 21 January 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.

Api.php



 * 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 retarget to Application programming interface. (NAC) Armbrust The Homunculus 16:39, 22 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Api.php → //en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php (links to redirect • [ history] • )     [ Closure: [ keep]/[ delete] ]

This is a strange case, and there is definitely benefit in having a redirect here. In order to avoid this page being a soft redirect, it could be a normal redirect to somewhere like WP:API, and add documentation on that page to help whoever has landed on '/wiki/api.php' by mistake. Another option would be to redirect it to Application programming interface, and add a hatnote on that page to WP:API or API. John Vandenberg (chat) 12:25, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Also, Japanese Wikipedia appears to be the only other Wikipedia with this redirect (ja:Api.php). The interwiki link keeps getting deleted and migrated to Wikidata, and then deleted on Wikidata because it is a soft redirect (see Q14935993). John Vandenberg (chat) 12:31, 14 January 2014 (UTC)


 * retarget to Application programming interface per nomination. That page should have a self-referential hatnote regardless of this redirect so I'll add one now. Thryduulf (talk) 13:35, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Leave it intact: this existed for 7 years (less 3 days), and 17 different people edited it without changing the target. The target page has a link to https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API prominently displayed. Anyone who wants to know about APIs in general, or about PHP, will look for "API" or "PHP" rather than "api.php". &mdash;  rybec   15:20, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
 * It was a stub article for over a year until user:RockMFR converted it to a subst'ed soft redirect in July 2008. There are hundreds of Google Book results for 'mediawiki api', so it is quite feasible to create an article about that topic, and many mention 'api.php' making it a reasonable redirect to mediawiki or a new mediawiki api article. John Vandenberg (chat) 15:36, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Retarget to Application programming interface. Hatnotes to wiki related pages will preserve the original intended target -- Lenticel ( talk ) 03:11, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Retarget per Lenticel -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 06:48, 15 January 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.

Spezial:Beobachtungsliste



 * 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. Note that once the bug referred to is fixed, no prejudice against a renomination. The Bushranger One ping only 02:18, 11 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Spezial:Beobachtungsliste → Special:Watchlist (links to redirect • [ history] • )     [ Closure: [ keep]/[ delete] ]

WP:CNR with a prefix not listed at WP:Shortcut. This is harmful in and of itself for the reasons on that essay, and it pollutes search results, etc. In addition, soft redirects pollute special:random, as they are in main space and are counted as a page. Therefore, occasionally a soft redirect in mainspace is going to appear when a reader hits special:random.(ordinary redirects dont do this)

This redirect was discussed at Redirects for discussion/Log/2012 September 23 and Redirects for discussion/Log/2011 January 8, but the consensus has moved from strong keep in 2011 to very weak keep in 2012.

Neither of those discussions mentioned that essentially the same redirect (Spezial:Watchlist) had been already deleted several times by user:Duncharris, user:Raul654 (then restored by user:Rossami) and then finally by user:WJBscribe per Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2007 April 20. Other similar redirects have also been deleted at RfD. e.g. Redirects for discussion/Log/2008 September 30 (Spanish) and more recently Redirects for discussion/Log/2009 March 31 and user:Metropolitan90 deleted Especial:Llista de seguiment (Watchlist). And so many more have been speedy deleted. Spécial:Liste de suivi (French Watchlist) has been speedied twice by user:Nyttend and user:Topbanana. User:JLaTondre deleted page Spezial:Beobachtungsliste and Spezial:Beiträge. user:Fastily deleted Spezial:Buch, user:RHaworth deleted page Spezial:Einstellungen. user:Topbanana deleted page Spezial:Export. user:FF2010 deleted page Spezial:Imagelist. Spezial:Userlogin was also deleted before the dawn of the deletion log. For Spanish, we also have Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Especial:Imagelist and user:Fram deleted page Especial:Watchlist/edit. I have only looked at Spanish, German and French. No doubt there are many more if we look at equivalent of 'Special' in other major languages. John Vandenberg (chat) 12:13, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment. When would this be used? IP addresses don't have watchlists and logged in users have links to their watchlist in the top right of their screens (which I think can be in a language of their choice). I have never typed "Special:Watchlist" on any project... WJBscribe (talk) 13:10, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The search box is only one of many ways to search Wikipedia. I have a quicksearch set up for Wikipedia in firefox, so I type "wp " into my address bar to be taken to that page. "wp special:watchlist" and "wp special:mycontributions" I use frequently, even though I wouldn't use either in the search box. Thryduulf (talk) 13:47, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep. I have no memory of deleting the French title, but checking its history shows that I deleted it after it was tagged by a bot, not by a human.  As well, it was broken because it was a hard redirect, which doesn't work properly for a special page; the same is true of the Spanish title, which likewise was bot-tagged.  The essay does not take into account interlanguage issues, and unlike pages such as the image list and the book page, the watchlist is a core page that tons of people are checking; it's quite helpful.  Given the fact that we have almost 4.5 million articles, the chances of reaching this page with Special:Random are far tinier than those of reaching it by typing the wrong language's watchlist by accident.  Right now, the stats show that it's been used 154 times in the last 30 days.  How many of those are special:random visitors or otherwise people who weren't attempting to check a watchlist?  Nyttend (talk) 13:13, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Special:Random was viewed 47,565,581 times in the last 30 days. We have 4,423,829 articles here on English Wikipedia.  That means each soft redirect appears more than 10 times per month.  So to answer your question, roughly 1 in 16 people who hit this page were expecting Special:Random to give them a random article and are going to be scratching their head; the other 15 of 16 arrive by other means.  If the deletion log links to special:watchlist, the people looking for that are one click away, which is the same as having a soft redirect.  There are currently 51 soft redirects in mainspace, and Special:Random is displaying one of these soft redirect ~510 times per month. John Vandenberg (chat) 15:26, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
 * It is a hack in mainspace. The prefix is not accepted as a pseudo/namespace notr as a shortcut. Mainspace pollution. Users should find a different way. WP never promised to support this hack. DePiep (talk) 17:50, 21 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep per Nyttend and previous consensuses to keep. The issue of soft redirects appearing in special:random results is something to be addressed by fixing special:random, not by deleting soft redirects. Thryduulf (talk) 13:47, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

There are currently 4067 pages that use the soft redirect template but there are 4 423 859 articles in all. If the output is truly random, the chance of getting one of these from a single "spin" of Special:Random is 1 in 1087.75, or around 0.092%.

Mordellistena luteolineata, with 147 hits registered in the past 90 days, is an article that came up when I requested a random article. Another that came up was Bantwal Vaikunta Baliga, with 178 hits shown.

Spezial:Beobachtungsliste is shown as receiving 330 requests (both are inaccurate because data is missing from the first few days of 2014). That's substantially more traffic than the articles are getting. Most likely, people are using it. The use appears to be much more than 10 requests per month. Which is more harmful?
 * 1) someone using Special:Random unexpectedly is invited to visit watchlist page
 * 2) someone trying to get to the watchlist page sees a message saying the page has been deleted

Perhaps the former, but the greater numbers make this more of a keep, I think. &mdash; rybec   16:18, 14 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep, a page I often use to jump from my German watchlist to my English one, simply by changing de: to en: in the URL. I assume that I am not the only one to do so, since this page has been viewed more than 150 times per month. --NiTen (talk) 17:20, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi NiTen, you are definitely not the only person using this. At the previous RfDs, there have been a few Germans during the seven days who mention they are using it.  e.g. User:Windharp, User:Berntie and User:Regression Tester last time.  Some of the pageviews are going to be maintenance people, browsing through the lists at Category:Wikipedia soft redirects (viewed 237 times in the last 90 days), Category:Redirects_from_alternative_languages (viewed 1324 times in the last 90 days and Category:Monitored_short_pages (viewed 1480 times in the last 90 days).  I do find it strange that the German contributors hit this page so frequently, but there are only 2 hits in 90 days for the French equivalent Spécial:Liste de suivi on English Wikipedia, and there are only 2 hits in 90 days for the German Watchlist name on French Wikipedia.  Where we see more hits is Dutch Wikipedia, with 11 hits in 90 days for nl:Spezial:Beobachtungsliste.  German Wikipedia does not have redirects for this.  French Wikipedia does not have redirects for this.  Dutch Wikipedia does not have redirects for this.  Why should English Wikipedia have redirects for this?  There are many special pages; how many do we allow to support German Wikipedia editors?  Do we undelete the redirects from other languages also, or is German special?  The more soft redirects that we add, the greater impact this has on the random page generator producing odd results. John Vandenberg (chat) 01:00, 15 January 2014 (UTC) I also travel around the wikis frequently, switching between languages in the way you do by changing the URL, with the same result.  I think we should raise a bug for the software to automatically translate special page names from the local language.

The comfort of English-speaking editors on non-English Wikipedias has been provided for in just the way John Vandenberg suggests, if the behaviour of these URLs is any indication:


 * https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Watchlist
 * https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Notifications
 * https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Watchlist
 * https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Notifications (note the accent in the URL)
 * https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Watchlist
 * https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Notifications
 * https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Watchlist
 * https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Notifications

Visiting these when not logged in brings up an invitation to log in. If the result of https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sp%C3%A9cial:Notifications (note the accent in the URL) may be generalised, the English language is treated as a special case by the Mediawiki software. &mdash; rybec   01:28, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, at least in the way it is installed on WMF projects, MediaWiki accepts English and localised names for special pages by default (whether it can be turned off I don't know). Thryduulf (talk) 10:35, 15 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete WP:Use English&WP:NOTDIC; this is the English Wikipedia, not the non-English Wikipedia. Keeping this just encourages creation of the same exact link in every language that exists as a wikipedia. This isn't an article that is known by that name in its native language, since it is a special function page of Wikipedia for English Wikipedia, therefore the only name it is known by is its English name. What next, add redirects to every page on every namespace with prefixes based on the names in every other language in WikiMedia? Wikipedia is not a translation dictionary. -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 06:51, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep - clearly sends the reader/editor to what they're looking for. Since no rationale has been presented to support deletion, the only reasonable action is to keep it. Wily D  09:19, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * What they are looking for? Getting a hit on German in enwiki is not. -DePiep (talk) 10:34, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * If you actually read what people above have said, that is exactly what they are looking for - accessing their English watchlist on en.wp by using the German name for it. Thryduulf (talk) 10:38, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I was responding to WilyD of course. WilyD's "clearly" appears out of the blue. Or rather, from WilyD´s copypasteboard, since WilyD uses this repetetive !vote cast. And I don´t see why you can know what WilyD meant to say. DePiep (talk) 17:46, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Out of the blue? Are you suggesting that there's an argument some people might use this redirect and end up at something other than what they're looking for?  I don't see that suggested by anyone supporting deletion - they're just happy to say "Fuck those people, I hope their experience using Wikipedia is miserable." Wily D  11:06, 6 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete. XNR from mainspace, improper prefix. English wiki. Any reader endig up here is lost big way, and should be helped by preventing arriving here. -DePiep (talk) 10:34, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep, clearly used (and useful) URL edit redirect. Only argument for deletion seems to be the weak "it is a CNR" argument which also applies to the shortcuts that everybody agrees with. —Kusma (t·c) 11:10, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep, it is really usefull to switch directly to the en.Watchlist coming from de. I basically always log in like this. Creihag (talk) 14:53, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete. Malformed, not in site language. To those relying on it: you're using this site in a hacky way, and we shouldn't be supporting that. Sorry. If you want an easier way to switch between languages in features, head on over to Bugzilla and file a feature request with the MediaWiki developers. —  Scott  •  talk  11:16, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete and include a link to Special:Watchlist in the deletion summary. I agree with Scott that this should be resolved by a technical change at the software level. Also, I find John's evidence regarding the number of times this would show up on special:random compelling. In terms of functionality, as John says above, including a link to Special:Watchlist in the deletion summary would preserve the utility to those deliberately using the soft redirect (they would still be one click away from what they are looking for). WJBscribe (talk) 13:16, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
 * As an addendum, I have manually checked for any Speciaal:, Spezial: and Spécial: CNR on all of the top 30 Wikipedias. The only language to have any was Portuguese; they have a CSD for CNR without any exceptions for hacks like soft redirect, so those were all quickly processed using the usual speedy deletion procedure (pt:Spezial:watchlist & pt:Spezial:Watchlist & pt:Spezial:Beobachtungsliste & pt:Spécial:Liste de suivi). John Vandenberg (chat) 13:44, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep, same reasons as in the previous two discussions. While I agree that these redirects should be solved on the software level, this currently isn't the case. When this is solved in the background, this would become an obvious speed deletion. But I personally don't think that will happen anytime soon. Regarding the appearance in Random: There is a beta extension ExcludeRandom mw:Extension:ExcludeRandom - No idea if that is currently in use, but IMHO something like this could be used to solve this problem. -- Windharp (talk) 09:33, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Weak delete It's clear that some users perceive this as useful, but I really have to question that since this is a soft redirect. If it were "hard," its usefulness would be straightforward. As such, if we're going to make a user click something else to get to their watchlist, it may as well be, say, the "Watchlist" link that appears at the top of every single page on Wikipedia. I'd lean keep on a hard redirect, which I suppose isn't technically feasible. While the harms and benefits are both slight here, I think the former still outweighs the latter. --BDD (talk) 18:54, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep, this really is a useful redirect.--Regression Tester (talk) 10:10, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment while looking at Redirects for discussion/Log/2014 January 28, I noticed that German Wikipedia does not have foreign language redirects to its main page. A little digging uncovers many relevant deletions by dewp admins: de:Especial:Watchlist (Voyager), de:Portada (Gardini & Aka), de:Accueil (Pelz & Maclemo), de:Hoofdpagina (Mnh & LKD), de:Wikipédia:Accueil principal (Itti), de:Accueil principal (user:Itti again, twice, user:Lutheraner & Jivee Blau), de:Main page (Nina & Zollernalb), de:Заглавная страница (Complex), and de:Pagina prima (LKD). John Vandenberg (chat) 12:19, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
 * dewiki has a completely different attitude than enwiki with regards to redirects. They delete quite a lot (even useful other titles after moves), and use (imo insulting) soft redirects for typos, e.g. de:Günter Jauch. So what they do is not relevant to us here. —Kusma (t·c) 12:07, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Update I have filed 60580, which also mentions two other bugs which were requesting similar functionality. John Vandenberg (chat) 13:03, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep temporarily pending the above bugfix. If the worst problem is that "random page" delivers junk 0.1% of the time ... those users can just try again.  It is more trouble for the foreign language users if you delete it. Wnt (talk) 20:15, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep per NiTen. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 07:22, 10 February 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.