Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2009 May 4/template:R from other capitalisation

Template:R from other capitalisation

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

The result of the discussion was a clear swing towards keep. Happy‑melon 13:42, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Previous TfD for this template: 19 August 2005 Result: Keep


 * and


 * per WP:CDP

(copied from Categories for discussion/Log/2009 May 4.)


 * Nominator's rationale: Delete. This category serves no real purpose. Over the past few years, many editors have asked why it exists and unsurprisingly their questions have gone unanswered. This category requires bots to constantly add redirects. And in doing so, the bots block legitimate page moves. The category provides little to no benefit to re-users of our content, to readers, or to editors. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:07, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. Huh... I've known about this category for years and I never really thought about it, but now I do I can't see any possible use. It's obvious when a redirect is from another capitalisation, anyway. Robofish (talk) 06:32, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. I've always wondered what the hell this was for. I guess it's probably as useless as I thought it was. Good Ol’factory (talk) 09:47, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete as useless. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 10:26, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete unless a defence can be made. (R from other Capitalization is a nice touch though.) Occuli (talk) 13:22, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment - I created this a couple of years back, but cannot at this point remember my reasoning. I do have one concern, but just a procedural one.  This is a category populated mostly by template.  In such cases, is it not proper procedure to take the template to WP:TFD first, and then G8 the category?  Or are you leaving the template behind?  It's not been marked for TFD yet.  I'm puzzled as to why the category might be deleted, but the template left.  - TexasAndroid (talk) 13:37, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Or after we've deleted the category, we just delete the template (noting that it no longer has any effect). Does it really matter? — CharlotteWebb 14:15, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * One possibility I just spotted included WikiProject Red Link Recovery/Capitalisation. This page has not been updated in almost a year, so it may be moot, but it appears to be a project that used either the category or template to generate it's contents.
 * I'm also going to drop a note on the talk page of the template about this discussion. Since I cannot add much for or against this deletion, I'm hoping someone from there might remember what the intended purpose of the category/template is. - TexasAndroid (talk) 13:42, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The template and category could not generate a to-do list for this project; it consists of titles for which redirects ought to be created, whereas this template marks redirects which have already been created. The only viable correlation is for the template/category to serve as a measurement of progress made by the wiki-project. Even if the accuracy of this weren't vastly undermined by bots indiscriminately "tagging" such redirects, the disadvantages would still outweigh any possible benefit. — CharlotteWebb 14:15, 4 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete, worse than useless actually. — CharlotteWebb 14:15, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete - redirect categorization is a waste of time, and as the nom explains, can prevent legitimate page moves by editing the redirect. Mr.Z-man 14:24, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break 1
(moved by R'n'B from CFD to TFD at this point.)


 * Delete - too broad a categorization, and per the above concern that the bot-categorized redirects become an administrative headache if someone wants to move the page to the other capitalization. –xeno talk 15:17, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete - Maintenance templates that have real, practical uses should be kept, even when few people know what they do. But in this case, the possible benefit seems undetectable. The bot edits that add this template prevent easy reversal of page moves. EdJohnston (talk) 15:22, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment - should R from CamelCase get the same treatment or does it actually have a purpose? --ThaddeusB (talk) 17:12, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm ambivalent about that as those are less likely to obstruct legitimate moves. When properly used that template serves more as a reminder that "this redirect is a lot older than you are", being an artifact of the way articles were titled back in the day and that deleting the redirect might break a bunch of links in old revisions etc. However the problem in the case at hand applies mostly to pages freshly created at (or moved to) a sub-optimal title. If somebody moves an article and slaps a silly "sorting" tag on the redirect, reverting the page-move will require admin-rights or a lot of paperwork. In short, if somebody moves "JohnSmith" to "John Smith" it will probably be less open to debate than "Least Weasel" vs. "least weasel" or "History of the Internet" vs. "History of the internet", etc. My own theory is that most of this could be avoided if the software at least made it harder to inadvertently create or link to pages which differ only in spacing or capitalization, and that "redirects from other capitalisation" should be automatic provided no real page exists between here and there. More on this later. — CharlotteWebb 17:40, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * There's a Category deletion policy? Seriously? --MZMcBride (talk) 19:26, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Simplify, as good idea but too much overhead. It inspired me to write Template:Wikisearchbox to foster a search-engine interface for title-lookup on numerous pages. I have used the category extensively to speedy-delete so many "improbable" (hello?) redirects, such as someone thinking people actually type in long article names (not using wikilinks?): "18 March 2003 Parliamentary Approval for the invasion of Iraq". That category revealed many thousands of wasted titles on Wikipedia, and provided evidence for the need to lookup any-case titles. Don't get me started on the day (or decade or century) when all software & browsers will allow multi-word, any-case search (call it "hunt"), even to find a phrase on the current page. "I have seen the future" after the college-dropout billionaires retire: there's this radical technology called "text" waiting to be discovered. -Wikid77 (talk) 04:54, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete only will be seen by Wiki editors, and what value does it provide. No one has provided a convincing argument about its usefulness for maintenance or such. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 04:57, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete I always wondered what is was for. It seems the answer is nothing. --Apoc2400 (talk) 10:37, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete - Useless. Garion96 (talk) 00:05, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment Why not just disable the bot flag that tags them and leave what's already categorized categorized. Seems like it a was a huge waste to have the bot go and tag all those thousands of redirects only to go and reverse all that work. As for it's usefulness, read Bots/Requests for approval/BOTijo 6. -- OlEnglish (Talk) 07:38, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
 * IMO, if we're going to have this template/category then there is no particular reason for not allowing a bot to help populate it; it's not like category membership is at all controversial or needs anything more than mechanical judgment. The only argument advanced against the bot itself rather than the category was basically "If I come along 6 months later and want to reverse the redirect, db-move is too hard/annoying for me to use", which I find unconvincing until someone shows me a chronic backlog caused by this issue. Anomie⚔ 12:49, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not saying it's difficult, in fact I've done what I can to make that template easier to use. But the fact of the matter is I shouldn't have to. Not for something as trivial as that (but not trivial enough for some admins to reject it for ignorance of established naming conventions and instead say "take it to WP:RM", which is chronically backlogged). — CharlotteWebb 17:17, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Redirect template to R unprintworthy, since that's the main purpose of this template. Delete category only.  --Philosopher Let us reason together. 11:16, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
 * This should be seriously considered by the closing admin. The template under discussion places the redirect into Category:Unprintworthy redirects as well as the category under discussion here. Simply deleting the template would result in Category:Unprintworthy redirects being partially depopulated, while either redirecting the template, editing the template to remove just the under discussion category, or having the cleanup bots replace this template with R unprintworthy instead of simply removing it would not do so. Anomie⚔ 13:19, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
 * What? A significant part of the problem is that these tags were added by a bot which assumes that the article is at the correct title, and that all the redirects are incorrect or "unprintworthy" titles (to which the article should not be movable by any normal means). However the bot has neither a working knowledge of naming conventions nor enough intelligence to determine whether the article conforms to them before sand-bagging every associated redirect. Merging the categories would only (by contaminating a larger pool) create more work for any brave soul interested in reviewing the appropriateness of articles and redirects (i.e. which title should be which) in this particular group. — CharlotteWebb 17:17, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Um, no. It would not contaminate a larger pool since the template already incorporates R unprintworthy.  The redirect solution would therefore address the problem that has been the subject of discussion so far while leaving this other feature alone.  Additionally, you don't seem to understand the purpose of an unprintworthy redirect.  Per Category:Unprintworthy redirects, the category is only for those which shouldn't be printed in a paper version of the encyclopedia (e.g. Bill clinton, Bill Klinton) as opposed to ones that should be printed (e.g. William Jefferson Clinton).  --Philosopher Let us reason together. 21:02, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Is a bot qualified to make this distinction? — CharlotteWebb 02:30, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Irrelevant. If there's a bot, that's an issue for the Bot Approvals Group, not TfD.  Further, R unprintworthy isn't up for deletion here - if you have a problem with it, you should do a separate TfD of that base template - my point is merely that so long as the system is going, its functionality shouldn't be impaired here.  --Philosopher Let us reason together. 11:38, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete, rather useless. Most redirects from other capitalisations are pointless anyway. Stifle (talk) 14:03, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment: As best I can tell this template and category are working exactly as intended and is very much in active use by editors: Special:RecentChangesLinked/Category:Redirects from other capitalisations
 * This template and category are not for the benefit of readers, they for the benefit of editors –
 * "This is a redirect from a title with another method of capitalisation. It leads to the title in accordance with the Wikipedia naming conventions for capitalisation, and can help writing, searching, and international language issues."
 * "Pages linking to any of these redirects may be updated to link directly to the target page. However, do not replace these redirected links with a piped link unless the page is updated for another reason."
 * "For more information, see Category:Redirects from other capitalisations."
 * This text is shown on both the template page and when the redirect has a CSD or prod template applied.
 * There is already a widespread problem with some editors changing redirects to piped links, ie; WP:R and this template does seem to help prevent that.
 * Is there a particular reason why we are even discussing removing this template which would then need to be replaced with R unprintworthy? There are currently 263,120 pages in this category and that count seems to be pretty stable. This seems like a lot of load for the job queue and a big task for a bot for very little gain.
 * Note that there are also 27 other redirects to this template:
 * --Tothwolf (talk) 01:48, 9 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment/Possible Alternative: While I don't find the template useful, it does occur to me that the problem that motivated its nomination could be fixed by improvements in the core software.  Specifically, moves could be allowed if either 1) there are only 2 edits to a page with the first being a redirect to the moved from page and the second being an edit to add this template.  or 2) there are only 2 edits to a page with the first being a redirect to the moved from page and the second being a bot edit. (And yes this is a relative simple change to implement.) --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:15, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Still too easy to obstruct page-moves for personal gain (or just to be annoying). Earlier I suggested criteria that if all revisions to page A begin with #redirect (case-insensitive), any user may move page B over page A, regardless of the title to which A's redirects point, and regardless of whether they are followed by any "sorting" template. — CharlotteWebb 13:16, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Note for closing admin: Something such as this that affects over a quarter million pages and 1000s of editors needs to be presented in a venue that gets more coverage such as an RFC and something should probably also be brought up on the Village Pump. CfD and TfD both do not get enough involvement for this to be resolved here. Tothwolf (talk) 21:20, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thousands you say? I defy you to name a hundred unique humans who have ever used this template. If you can find them, send them here because the chief response thus far has been "what the heck is this and why are we using it?" — CharlotteWebb 13:16, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete Useless and disruptive. Anything this template theoretically accomplishes can be done in a more efficient manner without having bots that disrupt reversion of page moves.-- Dycedarg  &#x0436;  21:29, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * This is a discussion, not a vote. Do you have any suggestions for a working alternative? ThaddeusB's suggestion above seems to me like a workable solution. Tothwolf (talk) 21:36, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment (e/c) Hmm, difficult. The category probably has little use. Can be easily removed and deleted. I'm not sure we want to delete this template. Wouldn't deleting mean making edits to 260000 pages and thus duplicating those pages in the database ? Talk about a waste of resources... Can see a redirect to R unprintworthy as something useful. I'm not sure anyone is really helped with a full deletion of the template... —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 13:49, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, the benefit would only be realized by deleting the revisions which use this template (or better yet, re-writing the software to make them crumble away upon demand). — CharlotteWebb 15:05, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep -- Deleting this could break features of Wikipedia. Tothwolf is correct that a change of this magnitude may only be done after wide-spread consideration via WP:RFC.
 * The template provides an explanation for the redirect purpose, so that the redirect won't be carelessly removed.
 * There are at least 27 redirects to this template, indicating wide usage by editors.
 * The eponymous category is used by category intersection software (such as Cat Scan), and more generally by program-assisted editing software.
 * There are at this moment 263,281 in this category.
 * The Unprintworthy category is required for CD archive generation.
 * and *** MUST NOT *** be removed!
 * Created in 2004 by the eminent, one of many such long-standing features of Wikipedia.
 * The template and related categories have survived numerous XfD, as far back as Templates for deletion/Log/Not deleted/August 2005.
 * "Useless" is an Argument to avoid in deletion discussions.
 * The original nominator admits not knowing about Deletion Policy.
 * The nomination was placed in the wrong XfD queue.
 * The primary rationale given so far is that some editors are unhappy that non-administrators must use a longer process to move over these redirects (Requested moves). That is considered a "Good Thing", as this inhibits move wars!
 * --William Allen Simpson (talk) 13:43, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Over a similar time frame, arbcom's position has been that this is not a good thing. — CharlotteWebb 15:02, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Context is good: In that particular case, the user was adding extra revisions for the express purpose of preventing non-admins from reversing his many anti-consensus page moves. Which is rather different from adding standard tracking categories, which only makes reversing the redirect more difficult as a side effect. Anomie⚔ 15:21, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * To those on the butt-end of it, there is no difference. Often, the latter is used as an excuse for the former, as in another high-profile case where people developed a habit of dropping silly little templates behind them after moving a page . Even if the relationship between the redirect title and the article title fits all the purported criteria of particular "sorting" template, that doesn't make it any less of an attractive nuisance and a cheap formula for wasting other people's time. — CharlotteWebb 16:29, 10 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment: Bot adds templates to articles with prefix A for day 1 in current month, B day 2... so, usually, an user has 30 days to correct a redirect. Emijrp (talk) 16:43, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That would be the maximum possible grace period, not the average. Do you ever review the appropriateness of any of the article/redirect titles to determine which one is "unprintworthy"? — CharlotteWebb 17:10, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break 2
This section begins the new discussion. Killiondude (talk) 03:36, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

NOTE My prior closure as "delete" has been overturned, and the discussion relisted, per DRV. Erik9 (talk) 23:59, 17 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Note that, regardless whether this template exists, the redirects have to be classified as unprintworthy somehow, which is a second edit that hampers moving. It makes no difference whether this template, the unprintworthy template, or a direct category tag is added. So there is no benefit whatsoever, from the point of view of easing page moves, if this template is deleted. If a bot is running it will simply add a different template or category, with the same effect. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 00:26, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed. So the root question here seems to be: should Category:Unprintworthy redirects, and the templates which populate it, exist? Erik9 (talk) 00:39, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * More broadly, should there be any categorization of redirects, by any means? Erik9 (talk) 00:41, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep I didn't !vote the first time around, but I have been following the entire discussion. The rational for deleting the template is essentially to stop the bot (or other user) from blocking page views by adding this sorting template.  However, that is true of every single  template.  This one was singled out because of the bot mass adding it, not because it is less useful than other R from templates.  (I personally don't find any of the redirects especially useful, but I do see that they serve some purpose.  I also see that if the bugzilla fix goes through, they will be displayed on the actual page when redirect=no is in effect, which would make them more useful.)
 * The problem of not being able to move over a 2 edit page, can be solved in a number of other ways. db-move serves this purpose, as would the software enhancement I suggested above - allowing a page to be moved over a page with 2 revisions that both start with #redirect target where target is page being moved.
 * Since every page that has his template on in should theoretically contain R unprintworthy (or that category), there really is no valid reason to delete this template. The "problem" bot could easily be re-approved to add R unprintworthy to all new alternate capitalization page & thus the problem of not being able to move would still exist.  --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:43, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment: Another possible solution to the page move problem is to move the "offending" bot's functionality into the core software. It is quite easy to determine if a move destination is only to change capitalization, and thus the template could be auto-added to the newly created "#redirect " page, eliminating the need for a second revision. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:55, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep The only way to resolve the issue of pagemove inconvenience due to redirects having multiple revisions would be to delete all templates and categories related to Category:Unprintworthy redirects, an action for which there would probably be little support. Erik9 (talk) 00:48, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Redirect categorisation is a good thing that should not be removed. This action will not fix the pagemove issue because unprintworthiness will still need to be signified. Mark Hurd (talk) 02:44, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Strong keep Please don't tell me I wasted all that time manually adding this and other redirect templates. -- OlEnglish (Talk) 03:14, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep per my comments during the discussion on Administrators' noticeboard, the Deletion review, and my earlier comments above. Note I did not "!vote" in the original TfD as I thought it was obvious this issue could not be resolved in a smaller forum. Tothwolf (talk) 05:02, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Clearly useful and even if not then a change to the template would be better than deleting/replacing the template to save over 200k edits. Agathoclea (talk) 06:35, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep It's an excellent way to not only tag pages with R unprintworthy but also quickly indicates the reason for being so. In this manner it helps keep the wild redirect pages organized. Further removing this template won't address issues of preventing page moves, you'll still need to tag the redirects as unprintworthy. If there is a problem with a bot, deal with the bot, if there is a problem with moving a page, deal with it on that redirect, but this template is not the root cause of the problem, it is simply a useful tool that allows people to categorize the redirects that are created (and as I stated already, provides a more useful and distinguishing reason other than simply unprintworthy). --Falcorian (talk) 17:29, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep - it makes sense to me, and as far as I can see, criticisms above are of bot application of the template and related page move issues, not of the template itself. Rd232 talk 13:36, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment - I'm striking out my earlier !vote because, on further reflection, I don't think deleting the template is a good way to deal with the originally identified problem of bot-generated edits. However, there is one relevant point that I don't think anyone has noted in this lengthy discussion:  redirects "from other capitalizations" are different than all the other "nonprintworthy redirects" because the Search box is case-insensitive -- if I type "barack obama" in the Search box, I will be taken to the Barack Obama article regardless of whether there is a redirect from the lower-case title, or not.  I do recognize, however, that this point really goes to whether the redirects themselves should be deleted, not whether the template should exist.  --R'n'B (call me Russ) 16:12, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * BaRaCk ObAmA, BARACK OBAMA, baraCk obama :) --OlEnglish (Talk) 09:02, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep I'm not convinced of the need to delete this. Issues with bot edits should be taken elsewhere, a merge with "unprintworty" can be brought up as a separate issue, AFTER someone identifies the tools that depend on this template/category and what the effects of redirecting this template to the unprintworthy category would have. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 16:56, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep, clearly used frequently. I do not even see a valid deletion reason.  Why does someone dislike this template so much? meshach (talk) 05:47, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Strong delete, absolutely useless and contributes nothing. With the drop down java thing we have now, having these redirects is silly at best. Just get rid of it. Wizardman  17:22, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * As OlEnglish humorously pointed out above, redirects with different case are for wikilinking, not for searching. The Ajax search functionality really has nothing at all to do with redirects and it can't help at all with linking or directly typed urls/links. Tothwolf (talk) 18:51, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Strong keep. if its not broke, don't fix it.  Humans decide which page name is most appropriate; bots then automatically mark all of the alternate capitalisation redirects as not print-worthy using this template which also indicates why it is not print worthy.  Humans may overrule the bots in the usual fashion.  The result is that we retain meta data that assists publishers convert this mess into a sensible printed work with less effort.  I dont add this template to the many redirects I create, because I expect bots to come along and do it for me.  These alternative capitalisations help the wikifying process where titles using words like Dupont differ wildly in the "proper" captialisation - I wouldn't want to have to search for the right title for each internal link that I wish to add. John Vandenberg (chat) 00:13, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Seems there's usefulness and a plan. Cheers, Jack Merridew
 * Symbol keep vote.svg Keep — I've used it several times. It seems very useful to me, because sometimes you encounter articles with unusual capitalization, thus a redirect is needed. I always try to use R templates when there is an applicable one, and I find them informative when I encounter them. It's certainly not useless. &mdash; Will scrlt ( “Talk” ) 13:44, 25 May 2009 (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 (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.