Wikipedia talk:Redirect/Archive 2009

R2D discussion; I have some questions
I've recently been involved in a rather heated discussion concerning R2D at Talk:New York Islanders. In general, when I see unnecessary R2D changes, I revert them. In this case, the user who made them got very insistent that we should use pipes instead and reverted back, and there were a couple of such exchanges. I think we could all stand to receive some clarifications from uninvolved editors. More than anything, I'd like to know if I am I wasting my time reverting back to the non-piped version. My inclination had been that concerns like knowing what terms are linked, knowing where links point, possible future articles, possible article moves, and the page source were all reasons that I should revert back to the link to the redirect. Is "D2R" also not a worthwhile change? Secondly, there seems to be this mentality that R2D is essentially a "worried about performance" guideline and that it is a good idea to change redirects to pipes if you are "already making another change" to the article. I am fairly certain that this is not so, but it seems to to be a very widely held belief. Could we edit the guideline to make it clearer that this is not what it is saying. (Alternatively, if I'm wrong, we should edit the guideline to say that one SHOULD feel free to pipe links to redirects so long as they're making another change.) Croctotheface (talk) 22:31, 11 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I used to just tell people about R2D (not revert them). But even if they weren't already making another change, I got several very heated reactions, from administrators no less, despite being told it's a guideline. The last straw was . It would appear that there is a bot systematically violating R2D, even on this very page! So if nobody here wants to do anything about R2D on your own page, I have stopped saying anything on the subject at the Main Page. If guideline people want to make guidelines and nobody else wants to listen, then Wikipedia would be a more peaceful place without one more reason to argue. Art LaPella (talk) 23:20, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

ttp://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.myspace.com%2Fvdm_corsefanclub&h=a1c6egpp2rvm0blc8v9RqzirjaQ http://www.myspace.com/principessayasmin http://www.myspace.com/supremomagisteroteutone http://www.myspace.com/cavalieridellaregina http://www.myspace.com/lasindone http://www.myspace.com/sacroregnodiseborga —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.40.159.196 (talk) 22:43, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

A redirect that doesn't redirect
Does anyone know why Shell House Cliffs is a redirect that doesn't redirect? Hesperian 13:15, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm having the same problem with Zeuxis and Parrhasius. As I mentioned on the talk page, Special:WhatLinksHere/Zeuxis does not list Zeuxis and Parrhasius as a redirect page (even though it is one), and the redirect doesn't redirect.  Wareh (talk) 19:18, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Also 2007 Battle of Gaza. Art LaPella (talk) 20:11, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm guessing it is a result of this bug. If I'm reading it correctly, we'd need to wait for a software update to be able to fix it as the current version is still r46424. Perhaps bringing it up at Village pump (technical) would help? -- JLaTondre (talk) 21:38, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, this seems like voodoo to me, but they've all three been fixed by removing the space after REDIRECT. Wareh (talk) 00:18, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

False statement
The convention states: "It is preferable to change redirected links in navigational templates, such as those found at the bottom of many articles. In this case, when the template is placed on an article, and contains a direct link to that article (not a redirect), the direct link will display in bold (and not as a link), making it easier to navigate through a series of articles using the template."

However, this seem not to be the case. For example, when looking at Need for Speed: Most Wanted, the link to Most Wanted 5-1-0 doesn't show up in bold instead of a link, even though it links to the same page. -- Mr Stalker  ( talk ) 18:00, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Works for me. In the Template:Need for Speed series, the link is piped as Most Wanted (2005), so only the words "Most Wanted" appear in bold when seen from Need for Speed: Most Wanted. To find the bold italic words Most Wanted, find the Need for Speed Video Games blue line at the bottom of the Need for Speed: Most Wanted article, and click "show". The top section of the template is labeled "Core", and the links are sorted by year; Most Wanted has the year 2005. Perhaps your system is different. Art LaPella (talk) 20:47, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I think the question regarded the link Most Wanted: 5-1-0 in the row for Handheld. Apparently the piped link to a section on the page somehow causes that link to not be bolded when on that page. older ≠ wiser 21:01, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You're right. Art LaPella (talk) 21:14, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't believe it is the piping, but rather the section linking (anchoring). The anchor says jump to a specific place on the page which makes sense that would not be bolded as those are also designed to be used for internal page navigation. -- JLaTondre (talk) 21:31, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

On (not) fixing
I can think of a few reasons, not listed in the 'Don't fix' section of the guideline, for why users should change redirects. I beg your indulgence if some or all have been expressed before; let me know and I'll likely remove my comment. 1. It prevents that "Redirected from [wherever]" message. 2. The redirected link is incorrect, so that the direct link is more than just, for example, the new title of a renamed article: it's a significant improvement over the previous, now redirected title. An example would be a redirected link that consists of the old but incorrect name for an animal species that has been renamed by scientists. 3. With a direct link, people can just hover the cursor and actually see where it points, obviating a click-through. This is connected to the next reason in that the issue is performance. 4. If we're not to worry about performance, then why is this: we're told not to make tons of small edits in quick succession to an article, because besides clogging up the history, it also is a waste of server resources? My apologies if tiny, serial edits are no longer deprecated. Yet another reason might be that redirects could confuse some readers, especially those new to WP. But I'd prefer to have evidence of that before being more assertive about it. I'll still make an effort to comply with the guideline. But whether or not these views have been expressed before, perhaps needless to say, I think they're good ones and should be in the guideline, for a balanced view. Thanks. SamEV (talk) 00:51, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't think that the presence or lack of "redirected from" in small print really affects anybody's use of the encyclopedia; this seems like an outcropping of the vaguely compulsive and wholly subjective notion that a piped link "feels cleaner." The guideline does not say that you should not change in the case of 2; those are unprintworthy redirects and should be changed to printworthy direct links rather than piped links.  For 3, if the link is misleading, that is enumerated within this guideline as an exception; if it is not misleading, there is no benefit to changing it.  For 4, clogging up the page history is not a performance issue.  Croctotheface (talk) 23:53, 23 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Other than vaguely insulting me, I fail to see what your purpose was. You didn't give any real reasons for your positions. They're no less subjective than mine are, therefore.
 * IOW, merely answering to each of my concerns with a version of "don't worry about it" or "I don't think that's a problem" is not a reasoned response.
 * Thanks for the effort, though. SamEV (talk) 03:30, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
 * P.S. Are you sure that reason you just added to the article is in the right section? SamEV (talk) 03:40, 24 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure why you're so bent out of shape. You may be confused about what R2D recommends, as your points 2 and 3 are not objections to this guideline.  If, as with your #2, there is a misspelled or otherwise unprintworthy link such as Barak Obama, you should change it to Barack Obama, not pipe the link, and that's what the guideline currently recommends.  If there is a misleading hint when you hover over the link, as your point 3 enumerates, that is explicitly mentioned at this guideline as an exception to R2D.  I read your point 4 as essentially, "well, we do worry about performance," and you cited the preference for making several changes in one edit to several edits in several changes.  In response, I pointed out that a clogged page history is not an issue of hardware performance, it's an issue of making changes difficult to follow.  Item 1 is a subjective disagreement.  You also did not provide evidence for why it's bad to see "redirected from," so I just tried to answer that I fail to see why that's so objectionable.  Croctotheface (talk) 03:43, 24 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Bent out of shape? Funny, because I was wondering the same thing about you, on account of your tone. Maybe it was all those parentheses I used? Well, I've just removed them, though I did add one to the title.
 * Anyway, I find it almost unbelievable that you think I was referring to mere typos or misspellings in point 2.
 * I mentioned renamed species, and now I'll give an example. The koala bear is in fact not a bear but a marsupial; its correct short name is simply "koala". But though incorrect, "koala bear" is very widespread, and other Wikirules speak about the importance of using the common names of article subjects. Because it isn't clear to me that per this guideline "koala bear" is misleading, and therefore a recommended fix, I was left with the impression that this guideline recommends that a linked instance of "koala bear" not be fixed. I was hoping for clarification about that sort of thing, and you haven't provided it.
 * In point 3, I'm not talking about misleading hints. All I did was point out that with a direct link, whether it's piped or not, you get to see the article to which it points by merely hovering the cursor over it. But I'll drop that point, because readers can never have the assurance that a given link is not redirected, as long as redirects are allowed; so the necessity of clicking on a link to see where it leads will always remain.
 * Perhaps you're right about point 4, but is there a project page where I could confirm it?
 * I don't argue about point 1's being subjective. Then again, you haven't conducted a poll showing that most readers are indifferent about the "Redirected from ___" message, have you?
 * And if you don't mind, could you explain how a piped link negatively affects the functionality of WhatLinksHere? SamEV (talk) 23:51, 28 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I didn't mean to imply anything by my tone; I tend to be declarative, but I did not at all intend to be dismissive. If I was, I apologize.
 * If you prefer, I'll amend my response to #2 to say "typos, misspellings, and other innacuracies." I am not an authority on animal taxonomy, but for the koala case, the fix seems to be to change koala bear to koala.  "Koala bear," as an incorrect term, strikes me as unprintworthy in the same way that "Barak Obama" is unprintworthy.  There is no reason to make it koala bear, and that's really all that this guideline says: there's almost never a reason to turn a link to a redirect into a piped link.  Off the top of my head, I can't think of a guideline that talks about why it's better to make one change than many, but WP:DWAP does have a strong consensus behind it.  Maybe you could take that issue up there?  As far as the "redirected from" template, no, I didn't conduct a survey, but I have a hard time thinking that most readers notice it at all, let alone would prefer not to see it.  Again, though, that's just my subjective opinion.
 * As far as whatlinkshere, if you pipe the link, it removes information about what term is actually being linked. If there is a link like koala bear, editors can see it in WLH and therefore go change it to koala; if the link were piped, that information would be missing from WLH.  Croctotheface (talk) 00:19, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
 * "If you prefer, I'll amend my response to #2 to say "typos, misspellings, and other innacuracies.""
 * Thank you.
 * Concerning the rest of your post, I think it necessary to point out that I never identified fixing redirects with pipe linking redirects. AFAIK there are three methods for dealing with redirects – leave it alone, replace it, or (rarely, I've learned) pipe link it.
 * By the way, I usually fix redirects only in the course of other editing; I.e. I rarely open the edit window just intending to fix redirects. That's been the case especially in the last year.
 * Thank you for your help. I'll take a pass on DWAP, though. SamEV (talk) 22:47, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, I don't think that the instances calling for piping are so rare. Cases in point are words like "English" and "Spanish", each of which includes among its senses extremely common uses for both a language and a people. Therefore, would you not recommend fixes in the following instance:  "The book was written in Spanish, but there are two excellent English translations. It is among the most popular foreign books among the Japanese and the Dutch." ? I think that link replacement would be a bad idea in these cases; the following just doesn't read right:  "The book was written in the Spanish language, but there are two excellent English language translations. It is among the most popular foreign books among the Japanese people and the Dutch people."  Better to have  Spanish, English, Japanese, and Dutch,  respectively. Do you agree? And do you agree that these people/language terms are not rare at WP?
 * You know what else? There's a circularity to the arguments I've seen as touching performance. On the one hand DWAP says not to worry about performance, so don't fix most redirects. Proof is presented of how it actually affects performance to fix most redirects. In other words, do worry about performance: don't fix most redirects.
 * But it's a good circularity. I get it. SamEV (talk) 04:47, 31 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Links to disambig pages are certainly cases where you should change the links, so I'd definitely go with the pipes in your example, and I think most everyone else would, too. R2D is basically for cases where the entire impetus for making a change is a desire to avoid linking to a redirect.  The examples in the guideline of changing redirect to redirect or Franklin Roosevelt to Franklin D. Roosevelt are the kinds of things the guideline is saying it's a bad idea to do.  Any case where you want to make the change because it affects the way readers view the text ( koala bear to koala, the language examples you cited) aren't what the guideline is talking about.  Put another way, the guideline isn't telling users to feel reluctant to edit text just because it's linked to a redirect; it's saying that turning a redirect into a direct link is not useful in itself, and it can even be detrimental.  As far as DWAP, I think R2D is basically saying, "don't worry about performance in the first place, but even if you do insist on worrying about it, this kind of change hurts more than it helps."  Croctotheface (talk) 05:26, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, a link to a disambiguation page like Spanish violates WP:Disambiguation. WP:R2D is about links to redirects, not to disambiguations. Art LaPella (talk) 05:40, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah... I got confused there. A link that redirects to a dab page is similar to a double redirect in that it doesn't automatically go to the intended article, but to a page that displays a link to the intended article. In my last post I forgot the single redirect vs. dab page distinction. In case there are others who make a similar mistake, how about adding a sentence stating that this guideline is not about ambiguous links, which should usually be fixed, but strictly about links that automatically take readers to actual articles?
 * I'd like to know both your opinions on the following, too. If, as I alluded to already, I open the edit window for some purpose such as to add content or a source, or to remove complicated vandalism, is it still wrong for me to subjectively change Franklin Roosevelt to Franklin D. Roosevelt while I'm at it? SamEV (talk) 15:32, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
 * IMO, no, that wouldn't be wrong. That would be a minor bold edit, and as long as it weren't contrary to discussion or other guideline, I don't think the "don't fix" guideline would apply since you're making a change that actually changes the appearance of the text. Of course, if someone else reverts it because they prefer the other appearance, then you're on to discussion per WP:BRD. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:55, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Bold? I'd have never thought that. Thanks, J. SamEV (talk) 16:29, 31 March 2009 (UTC)


 * If "subjectively" means you like Roosevelt's middle initial and you want readers to see it, then you could make that change even if you weren't changing anything else. But if "subjectively" means your purpose is just to avoid the redirect, then R2D discourages making that edit by itself. R2D has no explicit guidance if you were changing something else at the same time, but it does say "Introducing unnecessary invisible text makes the article more difficult to read in page source form", so I would say leave it alone.


 * My previous paragraph is based only on the text of R2D. In the real world, some editors insist that making another edit makes it OK to avoid a redirect at the same time. Even more editors ignore R2D altogether, even with bot-assisted edits and even on Redirect itself. And they often get quite huffy about it. Art LaPella (talk) 16:33, 31 March 2009 (UTC)


 * No, not because of the middle initial, but in order to make it a direct, unpiped link; so there would be no invisible text, either.
 * About the second paragraph, I'll just say that because of this discussion I've come to understand the 'Do not fix' section and the need for it. I guess it's just a matter of explaining certain things better so that more people accept it, too. Thanks, Art. SamEV (talk) 17:11, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

cross-wiki
I've never come across a cross-wiki redirect in articlespace before, do we have any guidelines for these, I can't find anything? see Filip Van Neyghem. Cheers-- Jac 16888 Talk 23:49, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * My opinion: This is the English Wikipedia, redirects from Eng. Wikipedia should be to Eng. Wikipedia articles and the same is true for other language wikis. -- The Red Pen of Doom  14:14, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
 * If I understand the original question correctly, it can't happen regardless of whether the redirect is in the articlespace, userspace, talkspace, etc. The MediaWiki software is set to disallow any hard redirects from one project to another.  You can not, for example, create a functional page with  #redirect foo.  This control was put in place to prevent the possibility of an endless loop where foo is itself a redirect back to Wikipedia.  Such problems can't happen within the project because of the double-redirect check but the software can't check for doubles when crossing a project boundary. That said, you can create a soft redirect to another project.  Pages using the wi template are the most common example.  Rossami (talk) 03:28, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Schedule 1
Should we have redirects like Schedule 1? As a disambig page its content would be about as endless as that of a disambig page headed Paragraph 1 or Section 1 There are various other Schedule redirects, which seem to be used, mostly, on the assumption that they will link to an article about US drug laws Laurel Bush (talk) 18:38, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Template:WPRedir
WPRedir has been nominated for deletion. 76.66.193.90 (talk) 06:57, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

How to redirect
JEEZ, YOU ARTICLE ABOUT REDIRECTION IS PRETTY COMPLICATED. You give beginners a nosebleed. So how do you redirect a name to a sub article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.55.135.219 (talk) 14:18, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I also think Wikipedia is too complicated; see User:Art LaPella/Devil's Dictionary of Wikipedia Policy, especially the "Encyclopedic" section. Redirecting to a Subarticle or a Subpage is the same as a normal redirect: #redirect page name . Redirecting to a page section is described at Redirect. Is that what you meant by a "sub article"? A better place for such questions is Help desk. Art LaPella (talk) 18:09, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

The instructions on the main page are easy to follow. President of Chicago (talk) 03:31, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Shortcut under discussion
See Redirects for discussion/Log/2009 March 23 -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:12, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Scope of R2D?
I'm interested, based on this diff, about what exactly the scope of this guideline is. I had always thought that it was about unnecessarily piping links. Is there actually some objection to changing the linked text so that it turns into a direct link? I feel like I must be misunderstanding something. Croctotheface (talk) 02:45, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, if you remove the redirect, then the link no longer uses a redirect and you have effectively "fixed" a link that wasn't broken. older ≠ wiser 09:10, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


 * It covers "fixing" any redirect - whether via piping or by replacement. There is no need to replace occurrences of Franklin Roosevelt with Franklin D. Roosevelt simply because the former is a redirect and the later is a direct link. -- JLaTondre (talk) 12:05, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


 * OK, that makes sense, but I'm going to specify within the guideline that it recommends against making the change for the sake of avoiding a redirect, and doesn't somehow mean that a link to redirect should never be changed to a direct link for ANY reason. Based on my conversation above, I think some editors mistakenly get that impression.  Croctotheface (talk) 15:58, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


 * That's fine. I like your latest revision. It does make it clearer. -- JLaTondre (talk) 21:54, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Featured redirects
I have put forward a proposal for Featured redirects. Any comments at the proposal's talk page would be welcome. —  Tivedshambo   (t/c) 05:45, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Edit warring
Why are two experienced editors reverting each other repeatedly without using the talk page? Are we trying to model worst practices? How disappointing. -GTBacchus(talk) 20:22, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * What confuses me, is why a user who is not an administrator, is trying to prevent a section helping administrators understand when to suppress redirects, and when not to. I was specifically asked to clear this up. – xeno  ( talk ) 20:26, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Anyone, whether an administrator or not, may edit these policy pages. In this case, I absolutely agree with the editor that the language was unclear. I wouldn't have responded by deleting it, but would have asked on the talk page, but I agree that the criticism was valid. I move thousands of pages, as an RM regular, and I couldn't tell what on Earth you were talking about. Re-adding identical material multiple times is a good way to demonstrate how not to conduct a dispute on Wikipedia. Are you an administrator? If so, it is part of your responsibility to do things the right way, as an example for others. In this case, editing the text for clarity would have been the best response, and posting to the talk page would have been second best. Re-making the identical edit is worst. -GTBacchus(talk) 20:36, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I was in the process of copy editing it, but you beat me to it. Anyhow, it seems sufficiently clear now. – xeno  ( talk ) 20:37, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree. -GTBacchus(talk) 20:44, 16 April 2009 (UTC)


 * sigh. "Delete" is not the right word, because it was never created in the first place. One prevents it being created, so one doesn't delete it. Honestly Francis, you aren't an administrator, so you can't have any knowledge on how this feature works (unless you are on other projects), why do you insist on being difficult? See also Village pump (technical)/Archive 57. This isn't something new I've just came up with today. – xeno  ( talk ) 20:48, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

...but I do have some experience in guideline-writing, thanks for the compliment. Re. GTBacchus' "... editing the text for clarity would have been the best response, and posting to the talk page would have been second best.", in fact no, in inverse order: talk page first, only after consensus altering the guideline text. See guideline template on top of the guideline page "...Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page." Didn't you read that? Some other people write guidance too you know, and expect it to be read... even if not directed at admins but at would be guideline editors. --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:01, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * (ec) Before the page move the page exists at that name, if it no longer exists with that name after the move, then it is "deleted". Understandable, and correct.
 * Re "This isn't something new I've just came up with today" - Why didn't you link to Village pump (technical)/Archive 57 when starting your edits on this page (and its talk page)? --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:54, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I suppose I didn't anticipate getting into an edit war with someone with no knowledge of the feature I'm trying to explain. As for your belief that "delete" is the right word, then that would be the actual page that is being deleted, not the redirect. Since the redirect never came into existence, it can't be deleted. – xeno  ( talk ) 20:56, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I had no doubt that the developers threw this feature at us and we had no guideline to assist us, other than what is written into the mediawiki interface. (Note to admins: The "leave a redirect behind" option should only be unchecked when reverting pagemove vandalism or if there is a very good reason to do so, as this will break any links to the current title, and may make the page harder to find. .) Please re-write this into the guideline as you see fit, since I am apparently as clear as mud. At the very least, please correct the spelling of "Supressing" (two p's). – xeno  ( talk ) 21:04, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Is "Note to admins: The 'leave a redirect behind' option should only be unchecked when reverting pagemove vandalism or if there is a very good reason to do so, as this will break any links to the current title, and may make the page harder to find."what admins actually get to see when they initiate a pagemove? If that is so: why would we need a clumsy rewrite of that in some guideline, the recommendation is clear enough as is, it seems to me... --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:12, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, see MediaWiki:Movepagetext. Are you saying you want to just drop this wording in verbatim, or are you saying we don't need it because it's already in the move-page interface header? Having it written into a guideline is better than having it tucked away on some interface instruction which is easily overlooked (this is why I am here trying to implement this addition, see this question on my talk page from another admin "Is there a help page detailing exactly what the 'supress redirect' option does?"). Makes it easier to refer to, especially with the WP:SUPPRESS shortcut. – xeno  ( talk ) 21:17, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, found it. In fact any user gets to see that text when initiating a pagemove. I'd be inclined NOT to repeat that in other guidance. Certainly not in a text variation that makes it barely recognisable. --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:22, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I've already asked you to pen it, with your limitless expertise in writing guidelines. As demonstrated above, the line is easily overlooked and an admin was looking for something more. – xeno  ( talk ) 21:23, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

RTFM problems are not solved by producing more text, that only predictably will be even less read. Sorry no, prefer to take it out, as I did with my first edit to the guideline page. --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:26, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * ...text on a mediawiki page does not a guideline make. I have to admit, i'm sensing a troubling WP:OWNership issue here... help improve it, or go find something better to do. – xeno  ( talk ) 21:56, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree that it's appropriate in this guideline. The purpose of a guideline page is to describe best practices, and that's what we're doing. Redundancy is not harmful; repetition doesn't hurt. Someone should be able to read this page and get from it a good idea of Wikipedia's best practices regarding redirects. -GTBacchus(talk) 22:12, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

URL redirection
Should there be a link to URL redirection on this page? I think it would be useful (just like the Sockpuppet (Internet) link on Sock puppetry). A couple of users reverted my edits (see ) because they think it is not correct. A more detailed explanation of why the link would or would not be useful would be very much appreciated. Thanks. -- IRP ☎ 21:15, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I think such a link would be misleading because it is technically incorrect. You can confirm at WP:VP(T), but I recall some discussion there not long ago that redirects on Wikipedia do not use the same mechanism as URL redirection. older ≠ wiser 21:22, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes. While the basic goal of wikipedia redirects and url redirects are similar, the technique is very different.  URL redirects take an alternative URL and tell the browser to go to the canonical URL; wikipedia redirects take an alternative URL and displays the content from the canonical URL without telling the browser anything about the canonical URL (indeed it only mentions the alternative URL with a query string to disable redirecting, which might be a little confusing).  The URL redirection article's content focuses a bit on technical matters, all of which are not used by wikipedia redirects, so could be misleading and/or confusing.
 * I don't think URL redirection is an appropriate link, but linking to some sort of mainspace article on alternative names, shortcuts, etc. might be appropriate.
 * On wikitech-l a month or two ago there was a discussion about why wikipedia/mediawiki chooses not to use URL redirection in this case. I'm not sure much of it was relevant here, but it definitely indicates how the two are different, and intentionally different (on important, but technical points). JackSchmidt (talk) 21:29, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Changing an existing redirect
Problem: I wish to change the redirect of descarga from Music of Cuba to Latin Jazz. I see the example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_University?redirect=no on the project page, but don't know what to do with it (personal computing quite rudimentary...). You might help me. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:32, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Click through Descarga.
 * Click on the link in "(Redirected from Descarga)" when you arrive at Music of Cuba.
 * Click on "edit this page".
 * Boldly replace Music of Cuba with Latin Jazz.
 * If reverted, discuss on Talk:Descarga to reach consensus.
 * --JHunterJ (talk) 11:36, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Why not "Cuban jazz"? -- OlEnglish (Talk) 21:47, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Category:Redirects from other capitalisations and Template:R from other capitalisation
FYI,

R from other capitalisation and have been nominated for deletion on 4 May 2009. See WP:TFD and WP:CFD.

76.66.202.139 (talk) 09:38, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Clarification needed
I'm having constant problems with editors misinterpreting WP:REDIRECT to mean 'I can blank any page I feel like, provided I post a re-direct to a loosely-related topic.' Please can the article be amended to clarify that such behaviour is completely unacceptable. Andrewjlockley (talk) 08:45, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * You mean they don't bother merging any previous content? They just blank and redirect? No that's not good.. anything worth saving on the page should be merged first into the target of the redirect. I should check if there's a clearer link to WP:MERGE from WP:REDIRECT. -- OlEnglish (Talk) 09:12, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The key is the "anything worth saving" portion of your statement. Many times there isn't anything. -- JLaTondre (talk) 12:31, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Typically they don't merge any content, they just blank redirect. They might call it a merge, but actually it's a sneaky deletion. This ambiguity should be removed - no-one who reads this page properly should be under any illusion that such behaviour is acceptable. Andrewjlockley (talk) 09:30, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Many times, it is quite acceptable. If you have a particular case to discuss, you will need to provide more information though that should really be debated on the redirect or target talk page as it's a content issue. -- JLaTondre (talk) 12:31, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not trying to re-open particular discussions, I'm trying to make sure this page clarifies when an AfD is and is not needed. For example, if someone blanked cow and redirected instead to animal that wouldn't be acceptable, and that's the type of change I'm talking about. Andrewjlockley (talk) 13:01, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Except of course that such a redirect/merge (cow=>animal) would never get consensus, whereas in the cases that you are talking about, there is a consensus.. The trouble here is that you misinterpret rules. Funny enough, so far 3 admins (+1 retired admin) have tried to point this out to you, they could be wrong of course, but my guess is that its another case of WP:IDHT. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 16:15, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Please don't re-open old debates. I'm asking for policy clarification, not giving you a WP:SOAP. This question specifically concerns what happens BEFORE there has been any attempt to seek or arrive at a consensus.  Previous examples are used only to illustrate a point, not seek a WP:3O Andrewjlockley (talk) 00:07, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I think your particular examples could be helpful, as they are the reason that you are here. Awickert (talk) 08:22, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * My purpose is to clarify whether such delete/redirects are acceptable BEFORE there has been any attempt at reaching consensus. In both cases above, the articles were blanked before consensus was sought/reached.  If there is already a clear consensus there is no need for an AfD, but arbitrary deletions/redirects are not consensus-based, and are not acceptable.  WP:REDIRECT should make this clear. P.S. kitten/cat is a better example than cow/animal.  I bet you wouldn't get far deleting kitten, so why is comparable behaviour occurring on more 'niche' topics.  Andrewjlockley (talk) 10:25, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * (outdent) See Be bold, BOLD, revert, discuss cycle, & Dispute resolution. What you are describing is a content dispute and that is already covered by other policies & guidelines. -- JLaTondre (talk) 12:07, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry I'm late to the discussion but let me throw in my two cents. Turning a page into a redirect is not and never has been a deletion in the narrow way that we use that term here. The content from the page is still available through the history and the decision to revert the redirect can be made by any editor and executed without need for any special privileges. Deletion, on the other hand, removes the history from view and requires administrator privileges to overturn. Turning a page into a redirect is merely an extreme example of an ordinary editorial decision to remove a block of text from the page. It may be controversial, it may or may not be inappropriate, but it is not deletion. As JLaTondre says, we already have extensive pages on how to sort out ordinary content disputes and we encourage boldness in ordinary edits. So to that extent, yes, it is acceptable to turn a page into a redirect before explicitly seeking consensus. It is equally acceptable for a subsequent editor to revert the edit and then for the two of them to seek consensus on the article's Talk page. That's how editing works at Wikipedia, whether the edit changes one word or the whole page. Rossami (talk) 03:44, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Question
Should one created redirects for disambiguous pages? By this I mean, creating something like Raya (Smallville) and then redirecting that to another page? In this case, the fictional character is minor, doesn't have a section at Characters of Smallville (because, again, she's minor - i.e. 2 brief episode appearances). To me, it doesn't seem like a likely search term for an average user.  BIGNOLE     (Contact me)  23:36, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * every named character in a important show should have a redirect, if not to a section on the person, then at least a sentence on a list. I think it perfectly reasonable that someone would  search under "Raya", and then see in the search box the suggestion "Raya (Smallville)" to indicate which Raya it is; or if not using the search box, to go to the disam p. and select the right individual.  The key characters get articles, the less major ones sections, the minor ones a paragraph in a list, the lesser ones yet entries on a list. Proportional coverage, like an encyclopedia should do. DGG (talk) 02:52, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * If it was not disambiguated, then I would say created a redirect for it. For an unambiguated disambiguous page (like Raya) I would link directly to the season for the character. But someone is not typically going to search for "Raya (Smallville)" and using it seems like it's inviting the article to be created (which it once was). I think a note on Raya is all this is necessary.   BIGNOLE     (Contact me)  03:15, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Should there be a link to Example of a self-redirect
I made a link to Example of a self-redirect in the "See also" section, but that was reverted by JHunterJ with the edit summary "unnecessary cleverness", so I put it in the "Self-redirect"section. But that was also reverted by JHunterJ with the edit summary "rv again; what benefit does it provide? (Also see WP:BRD)". In my oppion the benefit is seeing an example would help some people understand self-redirects.--Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 17:03, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure who would be helped by the existence of a non-explanatory self-redirect that exists in spite of guidelines to avoid their existence. It is cleverly self-referential, but should probably be deleted and definitely avoided on other non-humor guidelines. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:48, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * What do you mean by "cleverly self-referential"? Example of a self-redirect is not intended to be humorous. It shows you what a self-redirect looks like, better then any explanation could. It is an example, not an explanation, it is intended to be used in conjution with an explanation. The guideline you mentioned is about Self-redirects in general, not about an example of a self-redirect, specifically.--Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 19:27, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Example of a self-redirect is to Self-redirect as User:Example is to User page--Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 19:41, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * IMO, the supposed example is not actually a very good illustration of what is described in the section on Self-redirect|s. The problem is that the supposed example is itself a redirect. More typically, self-redirects are encountered in articles (or sometimes on lists or disambiguation pages). That is, the redirect is distinct from the page containing the link to the redirect. older ≠ wiser 20:15, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * What does "IMO" mean?--Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 20:21, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * In my opinion. older ≠ wiser 20:28, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I think I understand, if I understand correctly, I agree that Example of a self-redirect is a bad example--Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 20:24, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * You understand correctly. older ≠ wiser 20:28, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I should not have to say this, but in case I do, feel free to turn Example of a self-redirect into a good example.--Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 20:36, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * That means anybody who is not blocked.--Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 20:37, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Not every edit/redirect/page needs to be boldly enhanced or expanded. Sometimes the improvement can come from its reduction or removal, as in this case. Not expanding or tweaking the bad example (if it is bad) doesn't mean that other editors aren't being bold; if self redirects are guidelined against (and they are), then there are no improvements to be made to Example of a self-redirect except deleting it. I suppose we could delete it and then link to the deletion entry in the logs. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:07, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * It seems unlikely that the guideline against self-redirect was intened to apply to an example of a self-redirect, and guidelines are by definition not hard and fast rules.--Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 21:57, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * In that the guideline failed to take into account an unnecessary self-referential example illustrating a bad idea with an implementation of the bad idea, yes, there was no intention (one way or the other) for this case. Any self-redirect can however be speedily deleted at any time (WP:CSD G8) -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:14, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Much of this discussion applies to the similarly guidelined against Example of a double redirect as well. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:14, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

But not the part about being a bad example, Example of a double redirect is a good example.--Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 21:46, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * How so? It violates the guidelines -- Self-redirects are to be avoided. Double redirects are to be avoided. Your redirects are like a posted bill that says "post no bills" -- they exist where they shouldn't. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:09, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Userpages for non-extent users are to be avoided, they violate guidelines if not policies, but we have User:Example.--Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 22:19, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * JHunterJ, you seem to be arguing that violating the guidelines is reason enough to delete Example of a double redirect and Example of a self-redirect, but as I have said guidelines are by definition not hard and fast rules. Most double redirect are not supposed to be double redirects, this one is, look at the reasons on Double redirects, they do not apply to Example of a double redirect. remember Ignore all rules, an example of a double redirect improves Wikipedia.--Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 22:42, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Examples help up to a certain point remember. We don't want to be stuffing any beans up our noses. -- OlEnglish (Talk) 00:39, 23 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I understand both your argument and mine. I disagree that it is an improvement to Wikipedia, and you have done nothing to demonstrate that it is, only that WP:IAR and the definition of "guideline" would allow that it might be. If it turns out that there is consensus for its inclusion here (which can certainly happen without my agreement), then you can re-add it. -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:22, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I have listed some reasons it improves Wikipedia, I will repeat them, and make new ones, In my opinion the benefit is seeing an example would help some people understand self-redirects, I implied the same thing goes for double redirects. Example of a double redirect may not do any good, but it does no harm, and it might help, so it should be kept to be on the safe side. --Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 23:39, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * We have gone off topic, about the original topic, correct me if I am wrong, and confirm if I am right, but I think consensus is there should not be a link to Example of a self-redirect, if for no other reason, because it is a bad example--Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 00:17, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Listed at Redirects for discussion/Log/2009 May 23. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:21, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Redirects from other capitalizations
The section "Spellings, misspellings, tenses and capitalisations" notes that: "Articles, including redirects, whose titles are either all initial caps or only first word capitalised are found via 'Go' using a case-insensitive match." Since that is the case, what need is there to have redirects like Natural Selection? The term itself should never be capitalized, except when it forms part of a proper noun, and the article Natural selection can be "found via "Go" using a case-insensitive match". –B LACK F ALCON  (T ALK ) 20:12, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Not everyone navigates via the search box. It helps for two cases: 1) accidental linking; and 2) navigation via typing of a URL into the browser's location bar. For #1, while you're correct about the proper capitalization, it's common for people to enter link terms in capitalized case. Redirects like this avoid a red link that might cause duplicate article creation. For #2, many people, including myself, don't use the Go box at all. If I want to get to a new page, I just replace the current page name in the URL. I think those two reasons are why they often get created. As for my personal opinion, I don't think it's not worth creating redirects like this in the first place, but once created, it's not worth deleting them. -- JLaTondre (talk) 20:48, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your response. Those are excellent points. –B LACK F ALCON  (T ALK ) 23:51, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

JLaTondre's explanation for why redirects such as Natural Selection are sometimes created is very good, but this redirect is a poor example to provide without comment in WP:MIXEDCAPS. It appears to have originally been an example for the "Other capitalisations, for use in links" section which was removed in a 2006 edit which moved the example down to the "Other capitalisations, to ensure that "Go" to a mixed-capitalisation article title is case-insensitive" section. I've moved this example to the bottom of the list and added a short comment. -- Thinking of England (talk) 01:50, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Redirecting all permutations
This is similar to the previous thread on in that I'm wondering if there should be advice given on adding redirects to all possible permutations. It came to my attention as Sapir–Whorf hypothesis was moved and at present there's a rather long list of redirects to the new redirect. As there's a cleanup of the double-redirects underway you can view this section in edit mode to see a list the redirected permutations. It appears at times people have looked at the redirect article and used it as inspiration to add yet more possible permutations on the name. Many of these redirects are either not used at all by articles or are pointed to by a single article.

I don't know if this covering of all possible permutations is a common practice and if it is, or is not, a desirable practice. Related to this is when should aliasing be used vs. adding a redirect? For example, suppose I want to call this the "Sapir–Whorf theory" in an article. I can either alias it using Sapir–Whorf theory or I can add a redirect at Sapir–Whorf theory and link to that using Sapir–Whorf theory. My personal practice has been to use the alias. --Marc Kupper&#124;talk 03:01, 25 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Preemptive creation of redirects is generally undesirable. We certainly never want to encourage the attempt to create "all possible permutations".  Preemptive redirects should generally only be created when there is a clear likelihood of confusion - common capitalization variants, for example. When looking at large lists like that, though, remember that the redirects might have been the result of a confused but well-meaning series of pagemoves.  In that case, they have value (since they help future editors sort out the various moves) even though the maintenance is difficult.  Rossami (talk) 03:51, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Honest policies
An apparent policy on this page is this:
 * If the redirect is broken, meaning it redirects to an article that does not exist or itself, it can be deleted immediately, though you should check that there is not an alternative place it could be appropriately redirected to first.

I say "apparent" because this apparent policy was created four years (and two months) ago without proper public discussion and consensus, by people who denied the existence of those who disagreed.

In the interests of morality we should remember from time to time that this "policy" was not created honestly.

I've recently written to Brion Vibber about bug #378 and re-opened it. That bug makes links to redirects with non-existent targets appear as blue links rather than as red links.

If that bug does get fixed (some day?) I will propose abolition of the destructive (apparent) policy against pre-emptive redirects. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:50, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Wrong place. This page doesn't establish that policy. It merely repeats what WP:CSD says. -- JLaTondre (talk) 20:05, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

OK, if I bring it up there, I'll link to it from here. Michael Hardy (talk) 00:01, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Bot creating redirects from other capitalizations en masse
Please comment at Wikipedia talk:Bots/Requests for approval. –xenotalk 21:40, 24 June 2009 (UTC)


 * And here please: Bots/Requests for approval/BOTijo 2 (again). emijrp (talk) 15:45, 25 June 2009 (UTC)


 * 19882 filed to hopefully fix the mixed case issue in the software. –xenotalk 20:00, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

confusing paragraph in Self-redirect section
I don't understand what this paragraph is trying to explain in WP:Redirect.


 * An exception is a redirect to a section within the article, especially in a long article that cannot be viewed all at once on an average-sized computer screen. Essentially comparable to a "see above" or "see below", this is accomplished by wikilinking (no article name, just the heading name prefixed by #). 

Is this saying that redirects to a section within an article are acceptable to use instead of simply using a section link? And should this also be mentioned in WP:Redirect? This paragraph seems to muddle the concepts of self-redirects, section redirects and section links (which involve no redirect). older ≠ wiser 17:20, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Confusing sentences in Redirects to page sections
To go along with the previous section, here are some more potentially confusing sentences in WP:Redirect: Pslide (talk) 18:05, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
 * "Documenting terms expected in the subsection without confusing the readers is encouraged." – Are we still talking about anchors?
 * "or this real example, which does have a convenient nearby section title" – Doesn't the previous example also have a convenient nearby title?

"Formal name" category needed
Under the "Alternative names and languages" sub-heading, I was looking for a "formal name" category to add to a new redirect which I created (Defunct process), but there isn't one. In this case, the term "zombie process" is very well known, but the more correct term "defunct process" would be preferred for formal texts. I can tag this R from scientific name and quit whining, given that it's a computer science term. (Note that it's not simply an "Other name", so that category won't work.) But there's a wider problem: formal terms that should link to the informal, but far more widespread, term. United States Permanent Resident Card as a redirect to Green card is a perfect example of this type of formal/informal usage not related to science. (Edit: or it would be if Green Card were not an ambiguous term.)--Rfsmit (talk) 19:12, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Aaaaaaand then when I add that template (R from scientific name), I learn that there is an appropriate category which is not listed in this article: R printworthy. Ironically, "formal terminology" is itself more printworthy than "printworthy"!--Rfsmit (talk) 19:27, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

A dispute
I am butting heads with another editor at Talk:Poison the well, and the situation will not be resolved unless a third-party steps in. Basically I just had an issue with how difficult it was to navigate to Poison the Well from Poison the well and felt that it didn't really make much sense for the latter to redirect to Poisoning the well per WP:MIXEDCAPS. I didn't feel this was quite a large enough issue for WP:DRR, and thought someone from this project could help. Thanks! Fezmar9 (talk) 17:54, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll answer in detail on the Talk page but the short version is that a "what links here" analysis is generally a very good way to decide which usage is most helpful to our readers. In a spot-check of this case, all but one usage referred to the logical fallacy, not the band.  Disambiguation hatnotes are successful at guiding the minority readers to their desired page.  Rossami (talk) 18:26, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Eliminate provision?
In the middle of this, inside a box, there is a provision to redirect for people known for one event. Recently, an article was deleted. I cited this page. It was ignored. Since it was ignored, should we eliminate the box about people known for one event.

I think it's best for the encyclopedia to keep redirects because it helps navigation. However, some may want it eliminated User F203 (talk) 23:38, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Redirects are OK, per WP:ONEEVENT. Separate articles are not. Are you saying there was a discussion about deleting an article or a redirect? -- &oelig; &trade; 00:16, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * There was a discussion about redirect versus delete. Delete won.  I am not so interested in the exact article.  I am more interested in the process.  The article was about someone that got quite a bit of news attention for about 2 days.  If they are known for 1 event, then I thought the correct action is redirect.  If I am mistaken, then we need to eliminate that section from the redirect page (that box).  I think I am correct, this redirect page is correct, and the AFD decision was incorrect (redirect should have been done).  But then, I am not going to deletion review, I am just trying to clarify things here. User F203 (talk) 15:10, 10 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok... you still haven't provided a link to the discussion. -- &oelig; &trade; 20:41, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

There was no discussion. Essentially it was an AFD about a person of questionable notability but lots of news coverage. I pointed out RCAT which is about redirect. Nobody responded support or opposition to RCAT. User F203 (talk) 21:28, 11 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Right, I meant the link to the AFD you mention. -- &oelig; &trade; 21:32, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to allow vanity user redirects in subpages of one-letter redirects
See Village pump (proposals) –xenotalk 17:19, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

What's with template
It appears to be orphaned, and confused me when I mistook the above documentation for implementing a "reason" as being "freeform" as opposed to being drawn from a list of reason templates.  WurmWoode  T   22:10, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Redirect from websites to subjects of websites
Please see Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(web) - It is a debate asking when one should redirect a web URL domain to its subject, i.e. CNN.com -> CNN. WhisperToMe (talk) 04:20, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Visualizing redirects
(copied this section to WP:Visualizing redirects as it's linked from Help:Redirect)

Hi,

Is there an automatic way to find redirects from a large list of wikilinks by visualizing them? -- Kim van der Linde at venus 13:12, 29 August 2009 (UTC) Found a solution using customized CSS. Go to "My preferences", click on the tab "Appearance", and click the "Custom CSS" link behind the skin you use. It opens a page, and you can add there the following code:
 * .mw-redirect {
 * color: #006633;
 * }
 * .mw-redirect:visited {
 * color: #009900;
 * }
 * .mw-redirect:hover {
 * color: #990000;
 * }
 * .mw-redirect:active {
 * color: #990000;
 * }

Change the color codes if you want. Save the page, and reload with the instructions at the page so to force the new CSS to be included. It will show redirects as green links.-- Kim van der Linde at venus 14:07, 29 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Here's a neat script to put in your monobook.js:


 * It adds a 'redirects" tab which turns all green whenever you want. This way it's not all the time (unless that's what you want). Rocket000 (talk) 15:16, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Can I Hide the Redirect Message?
Is there a way to hide the little message that appears directly under the title? For clarification, it says "(Redirected from ARTICLE)" Redsoxcool (talk) 22:45, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * You might want to pose this question at WP:HELPDESK or WP:VPT if you don't get an answer here. –xenotalk 23:25, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Random redirects
Just a notice: I recently added a table to Random that allows viewing random redirects in all the namespaces and their accompanying talk pages (even MediaWiki namespace redirects! which is rather odd). -- &oelig; &trade; 02:51, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

The Shells Question
Hi. Quick question. There are two bands "The Shells", which have their own disambig page. Is it appropriate to redirect searches for the word "Shells" to that disambig pg? (It currently goes to the plural of "shell" pg.) Tx.--Epeefleche (talk) 02:33, 4 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't say it's inappropriate but the current target of the redirect is more appropriate as it more closely matches the title to which it redirects to, besides "The Shells" is already mentioned in the see also section. -- &oelig; &trade; 04:51, 4 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Shells should continue to target Shell as an R from plural. Unless there's some reason to believe that people are searching for the bands more than for shells? -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:20, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
 * That's a good question I'm not sure I can answer. We can see that "shell" is searched more than "The Shells" -- but not whether in searches for "Shells" people are more likely to be searching for the band or not.  I thought there might be some convention or common sense that would provide the answer (my guess would have been that any search for "Shell" is more likely to be the sea stuff--though it could (rarely) be a band member, and any request for "Shells" would more likely be the band -- but I may not be correct.  Also (since this has the attention now of some more experts), is it proper here to have a disambig pg for the bands rather than a hat for the one searched mroe?  Tx.--Epeefleche (talk) 21:25, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
 * If there's no primary topic, then a dab page is needed even for two entries. If there's no primary topic, the dab page isn't needed and a hatnote will do. But whether it should be changed from no primary topic to primary topic would be for Talk:The Shells. There's no convention for determining when plurals should or shouldn't redirect to the singular -- it's based on what the editors consensually determine best meets the readers' needs on any particular phrase. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:58, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
 * There is some information at Naming conventions (pluralization). -- &oelig; &trade; 04:19, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Section regarding neutrality of redirects
Make no mistake, I think it's a good rule. But it's not being upheld at RFD (see Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2009_November_9), in addition to causing a quite extraordinary amount of drama (see WP:ANI). I think if our guidelines are to be compliant with practice, it should read something like "Redirects are subject to the NPOV and BLP policies, and should be deleted, irrespective of their navigational value, if the label they attach to the redirect target is a violation of that policy." Thoughts? Ray Talk 06:00, 20 November 2009 (UTC)


 * A redirect is simply for navigation. If a term is in common usage and that common usage is reflected in reliable sources, it should be a redirect. --William S. Saturn (talk) 06:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Indeed, though I would extend that to significant coverage in reliable sources (in exactly the same way as our other notability guidelines - one, or a very few, references are not enough). Since, as you can see from this Google search, the term "Fort Hood Terrorist Attack" (without the scare quotes) almost exclusively occurs at non-reliable sources such as blogs, then there shouldn't be a redirect. Black Kite 17:26, 20 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Really hard call on BLP-related redirects. "That skank" probably shouldn't be a redirect to anyone even if RSes use the term on occasion.  I think the bar I'd set is that really common terms should be a redirect even in the face of BLP issues.  To do otherwise is to make wikipedia harder to use for the sake of not repeating something that is already widely "out there". Hobit (talk) 11:24, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * If something is notable enough to be searched for, it should already be in the article -- as, indeed, it already is. However, having the title show up as "Fort Hood terrorist attack" when it has not yet been determined to be one outside of the court of public opinion is a BLP violation. Therefore, I think that redirects should be as subject to the BLP policy as the article title itself would be. NPOV would seem to be an equal concern -- for example, I just filed an RFD on The Evil Empire, which currently points at the Yankees. (I was going to use the example of pointing it to Microsoft, before discovering it already existed).--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:40, 20 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Hoo boy, I'm going to regret this. I think both sides in the RfD got it wrong. I would have voted to keep the redirect, but I also would have insisted that it redirect to a section that dealt with the use of the term by the media, not to the top of the article.  Many readers wouldn't have gotten farther than the lead, and the word "terrorist" didn't appear until several sections down in the article.  Consider this analogy: in the index of a book, I see "silly twat, p. 50".  I turn to page 50, and it's about Barack Obama.  My guess is that the index means that someone famously said "silly twat", so I look for the quote, but it's not there.  In this situation, I would assume that it was a mistake, or vandalism at the printer's.  If the author assured me that it wasn't a mistake or vandalism, that the "redirect" to Barack Obama without explaining who said "silly twat" was intentional, then I wouldn't bother reading anything else that author wrote.  If the explanation came 30 pages later, that wouldn't improve my opinion of the author. - Dank (push to talk) 17:57, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Redirects are navigational purposes. If a title is less used and imperfect then directing the reader to the appropriate or more commonly used title is logical. A redirect of fat man to and individual's page, or jerk to a person's page is a BLP violation. But under the guise of defending NPOV, some editors are now trying to censor redirects by enforcing their own personal POV on our article content. ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:08, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

A reasonable average person looking at the URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Hood_terrorist_attack will conclude "Wikipedia has an article on the Fort Hood terrorist attack." Only a Wikipedia insider, who's spent dozens of hours reading style guidelines or Kafka, could come up with something like "even though it might look like we're calling this a terrorist attack, we're not actually calling this a terrorist attack, because the WP:R guideline dictates that POV redirects do not actually imply anything about their target articles." Usability is not always a straightforward issue. There are trade-offs. In this case we are balancing the users who might find this link convenient against the users who would reach the reasonable conclusion that it's our editorial opinion that the Fort Hood shooting was in fact a terrorist attack. Whose usability shall we favor? There's a case to be made that POV redirects are generally useful, but that when POV attacks upon living persons are at issue, WP:BLP should come first. So, my suggestion: this guideline should be slightly changed to reflect the BLP policy, and it should say "redirects are not generally covered by Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, but the possibility of harm to living subjects must be considered when discussing the value of a redirect for deletion." This would not automatically prescribe a one-size-fits-all solution for every case, but would facilitate RFD discussions. ~YellowFives 19:25, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Support the section as currently written. I've gotten a ton of grief for doing things consistent with policy, so I'm somewhat invested in the topic. Why should it be this way?  Because POV redirects help POV readers find NPOV topics, period. Jclemens (talk) 19:40, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think the current wording strikes a good implicit balance. Redirects are there because they're useful, not because the name of the redirect itself is an encyclopedic term for the subject.  Quite the opposite, it's usually a redirect because it's not the best term.  If the term is harmless (as in neutral) nobody is likely to question it.  If the term is non-neutral someone is more likely to notice it, and then the discussion rightly focuses on whether the redirect serves a purpose.  On the margins, a redirect could be so bad that it violates BLP, WP:POINT, WP:OUTING, WP:HARASS, or some other policy but that's a different matter.  Not uncoincidentally, those redirects and extremely POV ones are unlikely to be useful because they're probably not very common terms for things, e.g. human dog whistle is likely not a useful redirect for Mariah Carey.  - Wikidemon (talk) 19:56, 20 November 2009 (UTC)


 * The current policy is fine; redirects do not have to adhere to WP:NPOV. The problem is with users who interpret that as a blank check for anything goes when redirecting a term to an article, completely mindless of WP:BLP policy.  NPOV redirects are fine, but sooner or later there is a line that can be crossed.  Those that express this opinion should also not be subject to punitive warnings/blocks (as Jclemens suggested at WP:AN) and calls for their RfD input to be ignored (as Jclemens did within 2 RfDs). Tarc (talk) 19:58, 20 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Many have argued that there's a BLP issue here, and I agree. But there's nothing precisely on point, either at WP:BLP or the BLP talk archives from all this year, so I'll start a discussion at WT:BLP. - Dank (push to talk) 20:19, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Aye, probably the best venue. <b style="color:black;">Black Kite</b> 21:16, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Um. I can see this conversation is going to split, which was probably not the best thing. How do you guys want to handle this? Parallel conversations can be a problem in discussions of this sort. Ray  Talk 22:46, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Regarding splitting the conversation, BLP policy changes have to happen on (or at the very least, be reflected on) the BLP policy page. They don't absolutely have to be discussed at WT:BLP, but those are the archives people look in when they want to see the history of BLP discussions.  Many voters claimed that there are BLP issues here, so I felt that it's something we have to look at. - Dank (push to talk) 01:22, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Position of Ray
Okay, I'm going to expand on my opinion. I'm going to spill a lot of electrons to try to make myself clear, since it's pretty obvious a lot of us are talking past, growing very frustrated with, and in some cases, even assuming bad faith with each other, and I consider this a regrettable state of affairs. If you think I mischaracterize you, or there's something I'm not getting, please say so, and let's all do our best to keep the name-calling and sharp rhetoric to a minimum. I've not seen anything in this discussion which could lead me to believe that anybody here has anything other than the good of Wikipedia at heart.

First, a reply to YellowFive: I think redirects are a navigational convenience, period. How does that square with your very considered example? I can link to a Google search on your outrageously insensitive epithet of choice, and it's more or less guaranteed to link prominently to something which describes the target of the epithet. Almost everybody understands this, and nobody thinks Google is deliberately pushing an ugly viewpoint because of it, because Google is a navigational tool. Similarly, I think Wikipedia's prominent enough that if we make my proposed position (indeed, the current position of the guideline, in spite of recent RFDs and other heated discussions) clear, people will understand it in a similar way - not "we think this is what it is" but "we think this is the real thing you were searching for information on." It only takes clicking on that link to reverse any such impression. I consider this danger absolutely trifling and minimal.

Now, why do I think we should let redirects point anywhere, so long as it's unambiguous? Because we are an encyclopedia - we should make it easy for everybody to get to our information. We want to be accessible, we want to share knowledge. This is our core purpose. Furthermore, I think any other approach in the context of redirects is likely to be very problematic on technical and other grounds. Here are some of the more specific objections

First off, I think if we blatantly require NPOV, we're going to throw out a lot of really useful, indeed, even classical links (this almost straw-man position is the natural extreme of the "must be neutral" side of the argument). Aethelred the Unready, Frederick the Great, John Lackland, Ivan the Terrible, War of Northern Aggression, you get the idea. I think that's an unsupportable position - with lots of respect to SarekofVulcan, I think "Evil Empire" is not a case in point, as it's terribly ambiguous (Mordor? the Soviet Union? Microsoft? to which we can add the Yankees, I suppose, have all been called that).

There's an added complication, which is what arises in the case of BLPs. I don't see that my logic is fundamentally altered. We are enjoined (quite rightly) to be extra careful in the case of BLPs. But if there's no support, implied or explicit, for a particular opinion in a redirect, then there's no support, and no issue. Again, we would lose a nontrivial number of relevant and useful links (for instance, consider, before his execution, Chemical Ali - I could give out lots of other examples, but I won't, out of deference to BLP concerns of other editors on this page - however, if anybody believes they don't exist, say so, and I'll list current ones that I found in a few cursory minutes of searching).

Having addressed the almost strawman opposite of my position, let me address the more common idea, put forward by Black Kite, Hobit, and others, that we should only have such redirects if there is significant or common usage, by which I presume they mean usage quite a bit above the standard "usefulness" threshold, since we all agree that highly implausible redirects of little utility can be deleted (a suspicion that "Hiroshima terrorist attack" fit into this category was why I kept my silence at the relevant RFD). I am naturally opposed to this on a matter of principle (since I don't think we endorse any opinions with redirects), as I enumerated above - indeed, that's really why I set up a strawman position to attack. This proposed approach does have the benefit that it gets over some of the more obvious problems with the "must be NPOV/BLP' position (most of the examples I put up above would no longer apply). If we must go with a more restrictive policy, this is my choice. However, it also has a few very specific problems as well.

We would be creating, out of whole cloth, an entirely new standard, greater than "it's used," greater even than notability, and one that's currently somewhat arbitrary. Consider the Fort Hood example; Black Kite correctly notes that if you Gnews search for "Fort Hood terrorist attack" you get only 17 hits. However, if you google, you get over 100k hits, and if you gnews to "Fort Hood" "terrorist attack" you get over two thousand, with commentary by former Attorneys general, federal judges, sitting US senators, etc. Is that prominent enough? You begin to see hte problem. Arbitrary standards with lots of give on topics like NPOV and BLP are not a good thing - too much room for opinion creep.

There is also the issue of documentation. If we're going to require something like WP:V for redirects, we need a place to document it, for viewing by readers. Footnotes would need to be added, etc. That would change the current redirect structure considerably, possibly replacing all concerned redirects with something like a soft redirect, losing a lot of the transparency and ease of use provided by the current system. I consider that a highly undesirable setup.

To conclude, we humans use a lot of associational thinking in our heads, and not as much one-way cause-and-effect thinking. If some of your repugnance at the idea comes from the mere idea that we're "associating" the redirect title with its target, rather than the more specific (and, as I have argued, utterly opinion-neutral) "navigationally redirecting" to the target, I urge you to try to examine the harms and benefits to Wikipedia logically from possible consequences.

Having made the board run red with electrons, I'll sign off for now, and let the discussion develop some more. Best, Ray  Talk 22:46, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Endorse this summary, although given Allegations_of_state_terrorism_by_the_United_States, I disagree with the notion that "Hiroshima terrorist attack" is inappropriate. Jclemens (talk) 23:15, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Yep. I set out to write pretty much this same mini-essay earlier today, and then gave up because I couldn't make it any shorter; since Ray has contributed the long-form version, I'll just endorse that - with the additional point that WP:RfD exists precisely to deal with the more nuanced cases. In a case where nobody is arguing for a moderate position, of course there will be some people disagreeing with the outcome; that doesn't make the process broken. — Gavia immer (talk) 02:54, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Endorse well put. --William S. Saturn (talk) 04:24, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
 * We've been talking lately at WT:POLICY about the ways in which policy gets better over time. One way is that policy pages are preemptive, authoritative, meaning that conversations can happen all over the place, but any statement that contradicts WP:NPOV is very unlikely to be regarded as our NPOV policy, and the same goes for WP:BLP.  I'm agreed with everyone that there are important NPOV and BLP issues here that haven't gotten sufficient discussion, I'm gratified to see the level of the discussion, and I believe it would be best to hash it all out and then record whatever comes out at the end (even if it's sausage) at BLP and NPOV.  We've got a lively discussion at WT:BLP; join us. If it's true that there are policy questions here (we haven't had nearly enough discussion to know yet), then writing something down at WP:REDIR won't help us any; it's not policy. - Dank (push to talk) 03:00, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Discussion is now at WT:NPOV, and my guess is we'll see some kind of edit to WP:NPOV at the end of the process, so please join us. - Dank (push to talk) 04:04, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Autocategorization of redirects
There is a proposal for an autocategorization of redirects (by the software itself). Cenarium (talk) 23:08, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Streamline this page
Since we have both this page and Help:Redirect, I propose that we use this page only for the things we would expect to find in a guideline (good practices) and the Help page for the technical stuff on how to achieve desired effects. To this end, I will be removing information which is duplicated at the help page - please let me know of any objections.--Kotniski (talk) 11:36, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Good idea. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 15:12, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Clarification of foreign language redirects
Is there a consensus on whether, say, a French name of a Japanese subject ought to be redirected to the subject's English name on EN? I was notified of Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2009_December_26 and I realized that there were many cases of alternate language redirects like the example I gave being deleted. However there seems to have not been a unified discussion about this or a fulfilled movement to have a consensus about this noted in the guidelines. If there is a consensus that the above example would be an inappropriate redirect, then I would like to see this reflected in the guideline pages. WhisperToMe (talk) 22:06, 26 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I have already expressed my position—again, it's worth repeating that it's not just my position and that I picked this up from others a long time ago—at the RfD, but I will repeat it here again: non-English redirects should not be created when there is no connection between the topic of the target article and the language of the redirect. For example, while München is a valid, useful, and necessary redirect to Munich, Hukum pertama termodinamika is not a needed redirect to First law of thermodynamics. Previous discussions involving alternative-language redirects have almost always been decided on this basis: see e.g., 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
 * I consider this position to be an extension of the principles expressed in Wikipedia is not a dictionary, specifically: "The goal of [Wikipedia] is to create an encyclopedia. Our sibling project Wiktionary has the goal of creating a [multi-lingual] dictionary. It is the "lexical companion to Wikipedia", and the two often link to each other." Let us not forget that Wikipedia is a multi-lingual project, but the English Wikipedia is not and should not attempt to function as a multi-lingual translation database; instead, we should leave that function to Wiktionary and to the other language Wikipedias (which we link to via interwiki links). –B LACK F ALCON  (T ALK ) 22:54, 26 December 2009 (UTC)


 * There are an estimated 5,000–7,000 languages spoken around the world today (not to mention dead languages and variant transcriptions of languages). Although of course redirects will not be made in each of these languages, that means that, apart from a few scenarios (such as creative works, which have limited translation), every Wikipedia article has 5,000 or more potential redirects from foreign languages, which is an absurd and formidable prospect. Redirects should only be in a foreign language if that language is relevant to the topic (e.g. München → Munich as above), or if that foreign word is well known to English speakers in the subject's field (e.g., Angli → Angles or Petit Dejeuner → Breakfast). — The Man in Question (in question)  06:20, 29 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I pretty much agree with the points laid out by Black Falcon and TMiQ, I think that such information should not be in the form of redirects, but either at Wiktionary, or in a section on the article itself, that explains the origin of various terms in various languages (which would be encyclopedic content). The only non-English redirects should be of the native language of the topic itself, or terms for the topic from a foreign language found with some frequency in English, or a redirect from a related language to the topic of the redirect (ie. French redirects to Vietnam for topics covered in the period of French rule that are standard or commonly used terms in French for the concept and not just translation of a descriptive English title into French just to have a French redirect). 76.66.197.17 (talk) 08:05, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Deletion criteria 1 and 9
Can someone explain these (perhaps by means of an example)? I don't get how 1 is different from 2, and I don't get 9 at all.--Kotniski (talk) 12:20, 28 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't know about 1 or 2, but I think 9 is suggesting that instead of creating a redirect to a page that contains only minimal information about a topic where there is good reason to think there is potential for an article about the topic, it may be preferable to leave the topic as a redlink to more clearly indicate to casual editors the need for an article. E.g., instead of redirecting Foo (of some notability) to List of Foos, where the list only contains a bare mention, it might be better to leave Foo (of some notability) as a redlink. There are implications in this for the guidance about using redinks on disambiguation pages. Some editors will prefer to create redirects for terms on disambiguation pages rather than leave them as redlinks. older ≠ wiser 13:33, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I sort of see - you're talking about a situation where Foo is already a dab page? Do we have any examples where such redirects have actually been deleted? (I would have thought that once created, they would tend to be left in place, but I may be wrong - I don't follow redirect deletion discussions much.)--Kotniski (talk) 13:57, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I also don't follow redirect discussion very closely and I can't think of any offhand. I tend to agree that in terms of probability, once such redirects are created, they tend to stick -- if someone were motivated enough to start a redirect deletion discussion because they think a topic is notable, they could probably just as easily create a stub or add details to a section of the target article about the subject. older ≠ wiser 14:08, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Disagree. Sometimes an editor knows that there is an error, but doesn't know enough to create a stub. While a stub would be better, redlinks are not bad and are much better than confusing a reader. At least then they know we don't have any information on a subject. A redirect implies there is information on that topic at the target. Why make a reader search in vain? -- JLaTondre (talk) 14:38, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree that redlinks are better than a redirect to incomplete information. I was commenting on the relative probability of such redirects being detected and brought to the deletion discussion page. older ≠ wiser 14:49, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
 * (e/c) Yes, there are examples if you look through RFD. It isn't only from a dab page either. It applies to any case where A to redirected to B, but the coverage in B is minor and A has a larger scope than just B. For example, I've seen cases where an author's name has been redirected to an article because a source they wrote was cited in that article. -- JLaTondre (talk) 14:32, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I didn't mean to imply it was limited to dab pages -- only that there is some relation with how redirects are used on dab pages. older ≠ wiser 14:36, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Understood. I was addressing Kotniski's response as it focused only on dabs. -- JLaTondre (talk) 14:42, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
 * No problem. Kotniski's response only mentioned dabs because I had brought the topic up. older ≠ wiser 14:49, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
 * (e/c) 1 and 2 are related and could probably be combined. They are focusing on slightly different aspects, but I don't know that they need to broken out. 1 can summed up by "sometimes relying on the search function is a better solution." To me, 2 is a combination of that and 4 (even though there may have been some validity to why the redirect was created, it still leaves a reader going "huh?"). -- JLaTondre (talk) 14:32, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I think I understand better now - but in that case, perhaps 9 is closely connected with 1 as well? We're saying that if A is mentioned in, but not really "addressed by", article B, then it's better to allow readers to find the mention of A in B using the search function than via a redirect - right?--Kotniski (talk) 14:45, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
 * There is a relation, but there is also a distinction. In 9, the presumption is that an article should exist at the term (the term is notable and suitable for its own article). In 1, the presumption is that an article should not exist at the term (the term is either not notable or not suitable for its own article). I think that is a significant enough distinction that they should be separate. There is enough angst over inclusion issues that it is worthwhile making it clear 9 is not about inclusion criteria. That's not to say the whole list couldn't be organized/stated better, though. -- JLaTondre (talk) 16:58, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
 * So is there any difference between the two cases? If "1" is meant to say if an article should not exist at the term, then X and "9" is meant to say if an article should exist at the term, then X, can we not combine them into a single criterion, X? That way we don't mention inclusion criteria at all. Or is it not as simple as that?--Kotniski (talk) 17:17, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
 * In any other case (across all XfDs) I can think off, we delete because we say "we don't want this". In 9, we're deleting because we say "this is worth having as an article." I think that is an important thing to call out as it is different from the norm & hopefully reduces the potential for drama. -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:43, 28 December 2009 (UTC)