Wikipedia talk:Redirect/Archive 2017

Priority?
How is it decided which entry has priority, i.e., has the main, unmodified entry title? For example "Clabber" is the title of a card game, and all other entries for clabber (e.g., for the dairy product) have a modifying parenthetical part, e.g., "Clabber (food)." I would have thought that the more basic term, in this case the food, would be the one with the unmodified title. What is the policy? (I'm not talking about contentious case lik Danzig or the American Civil War, just the general policy for "tame" cases.)Kdammers (talk) 07:40, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
 * See WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. It's not an issue for this page per se; more of a general article-naming issue. --Trovatore (talk) 00:09, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

BRINT additional suggestion
What if we added another item to BRINT? I'd say something like the following: Annoyingly, this is inconstant (both images in this diff use redirects), but sometimes I've seen problems arise: although the redirect exists and works properly, the page displaying the image instead displays the filename as if the link is broken. Moreover, when you move a file at Commons, you're prompted to "Try to replace usage immediately using your user account", and this action is fulfilled with a script. Since this is a normal action, and since it would be unhelpful for us to complain at Commons users for doing this at en:wp, I'd suggest that we specifically permit this kind of action. Nyttend (talk) 00:05, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Links to images after the image has been moved. Moving an image creates a redirect like any other pagemove, but a link to a moved image does not always display the image properly.
 * I don't think that it's a redirection problem. A lot of images are failing to either display correctly or to link correctly at present; I suspect a general problem with Wikimedia servers. Several recent threads at WP:VPT also seem connected to poor server performance. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 09:22, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Actually I've not noticed this recently; it's periodic memories over the years. In the cases I'm remembering, I moved an image that was in use, but I forgot to check the "Try to replace..." button, I later discovered that a page displaying the old filename had the redlinked username in a box, and I found that replacing the old filename with the new caused it to work fine.  Nyttend (talk) 06:06, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Question about creating non-existent pages, only to redirect
Is it proper to keep creating empty pages, only for the sole purpose to redirect them somewhere else, or does that violate a Wikipedia policy somehow? Also keep in mind that nothing is linking there (to the empty 'non-existent' page). A user (Jax 0677) is constantly doing this with no intentions for future edits on those pages. Horizonlove (talk) 19:42, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
 * The method of creating them by moving other redirects is certainly bad practice. Lola Pacini was moved to Grace Cardinal which was then moved to Nikki Gould. This results in all of them being tagged with R from move, which isn't quite right; R from move to me implies that the target was formerly at the title of the redirect, but the target title has been stable. There are other templates that should be going on the redirects being created (e.g. R from fictional character for the ones I've listed). Music albums could be the subject of stand alone articles and should be at least be getting R with possibilities and/or R from subtopic as well as R from album, and really would probably be better as red links to encourage creation of a proper article. Plantdrew (talk) 20:52, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Not to gang up on him or anything, but I'm glad you are talking to him. He seems to be trying to justify those edits as standard Wikipedia policies but the ones he mentions has no baring on the subject. Horizonlove (talk) 21:25, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
 * It seems pointless. Why not just create the page as a redirect in the first place? Gorobay (talk) 20:57, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
 * He is creating them just to redirect them, which in my opinion is pointless in itself. It wasn't like these were constant deadlinks that needed to be filled. They were completely non-exist and nothing was linking there from the beginning. I think the circumstances would be different if someone made a lot of deadlinks in an article and they need to be filled with the next best thing, but that's not the case here. Horizonlove (talk) 21:25, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
 *  Reply - Hetfield and Germanotta were started as redirects, with no intention to create them as an article, which is probably the case for many other terms. I have written several reasons for creating redirects at User_talk:Jax_0677. --Jax 0677 (talk) 22:23, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Note - Please note that User:Jax 0677 was reviewed by User:Plantdrew who stated on Jax 0677's talk page that his edits were still terrible practices. Horizonlove (talk) 22:33, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Should "redirect for common misspelling" ever redirect away from an article that correctly has the "misspelled" name?
Scenario:
 * Article A1 exists.
 * Article A2 also exists, in a completely different, and much more obscure, subject area.
 * The names are very similar. Editor thinks readers will often type A2 when they want A1. I will grant that that's probably correct.

Well-meaning editor:
 * 1) Moves (without discussion) "A2" to "A2 (A2's subject area)"
 * 2) Redirects A2 to point to A1 (n.b.: this is the part I most strenuously object to, and my main question here)
 * 3) Puts a hatnote on A1, referring to "A2 (A2's subject area)".

I do not think this is supported by the "redirect for common misspelling" principle, not when A2 exists under its proper name. If people who want A1 type A2, they will likely quickly notice a) they're in the wrong place and b) the hatnote. I think it is very wrong that people who want article A2, and who correctly type "A2", now have to click on a hatnote to get to the article whose name they correctly typed, no matter how few people commonly want A2. That they can now type the new title, "A2 (A2's subject area)" to get to their article without clicking on a hatnote, does not properly address the issue.

Also, I think article titles like "A2 (A2's subject area)" should not be created unless there are several different A2 (subject area), which in this case there are not; but that's likely a question for Wikipedia talk:Article titles. Jeh (talk) 20:05, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, the "without discussion" is a problem, though we do encourage editors to be bold so it's a very minor problem. Now that you've objected, the next steps are revert and discuss. Since you've asked for feedback here, it sounds to me like the best solution is hatnotes all around but not redirects (except for the soon-to-be-deprecated 'A2 (A2's subject area)' title).  But there may be extenuating circumstances depending on exactly how obscure A2 really is.  Rossami (talk) 23:01, 18 February 2017 (UTC)


 * This is where the theory and the reality don't necessarily mate, because of additional considerations. "Teresa May" is a British career glamour-model soft-porn actress, but the new British Prime Minister's name is Theresa May.  The White House has recently attracted unwanted attention for memoes about the porn actress, while the Theresa May staffers have spread the contrast for political attention.  See Talk:Theresa May.  Unscintillating (talk) 14:32, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

(Redirected from Burkina faso)
If I type "burkina faso" into the search box, I get to Burkina Faso with a little message saying (Redirected from Burkina faso)

The same thing happens with "New york", "barack obama" etc. but not everything, for example "upper volta" goes straight to Upper Volta without telling me it was a redirect.

Question: is there any point in having the little message (redirected from Burkina faso) or should we ask the developers to hide it for all cases so they redirect "silently" Siuenti (씨유엔티) 23:31, 8 April 2017 (UTC)


 * The search ignores the case of the words in the search box unless there were actually articles created with different capitalisation. So, there were articles called, and , but there was never one called "upper volta". I find the links to the redirects useful, because the revision history of the redirect pages can tell you a lot sometimes. Less so with redirects from miscapitalisation, admittedly, but asking developers to make one kind of redirect invisible and leave the rest visible...well I can't see the point.  Scolaire (talk) 11:58, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Categorisation question
Template:r from move performs a useful function, telling us that it "was kept as a redirect to avoid breaking links, both internal and external, that may have been made to the old page name." My question is: what if the target of the redirect is later changed? So, was moved to Giuseppe Siri, and an appropriate "r from move" tag was added. But a week later, the target was changed to. Today I changed it again to Siri thesis. Does it matter that the page it was moved to was not the page it redirects to? If it does matter, is there a way of adding an explanation? Scolaire (talk) 12:11, 26 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I understand what you are asking, but the reason we keep redirects from old titles is that so links (from various places) do not end up broken. In almost all cases where the old title is not now ambiguous or more commonly used for some other topic, the redirect there should point to where the content is now. e.g. if A is moved to B and then B moved to C, A should point to C. In most cases the page histories and move logs are sufficient to recreate the sequence for attribution purposes, but where things are very complicated (for whatever reason) just put an explanation on one of the redirect talk pages. Thryduulf (talk) 23:47, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
 * It's so obvious once you say it! I'll do that now. Thank you. Do you think perhaps it is worth saying that on the project page? I don't think it would be all that unusual for the target of a redirect page to be changed, so that it is no longer pointing to the page where the moved content is. Scolaire (talk) 09:53, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
 * This is the note that I added, in case it is still not clear what I was saying. Scolaire (talk) 10:00, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Consolidation of redirects
When numerous redirects are only variations of the same term, is it possible to consolidate them into one redirect? For example:
 * — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mitchumch (talk • contribs) 16:52, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
 * See Redirects for discussion/Log/2017 May 20. That's the right place to discuss these. We can't "consolidate" these; we can only decide whether to keep or delete them. wbm1058 (talk) 17:36, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
 * There was some talk at RFD about a template that would list redirects that should point at the same target, but I'm not sure if any trials were run. . Patar knight - chat/contributions 22:14, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
 * No, it never got to the trial stage as there was never a consensus to do so, largely due to Si Trew's objections (no ping as he is now topic banned from RfD-related matters). I think he significantly misunderstood the proposal, and I would be happy to revive it if there is interest. Thryduulf (talk) 23:51, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
 * The RFD discussion displayed above is different from my concern. My concern is solely focused upon trivial variations of upper/lower case letters and the absence/presence of hyphens.  Shouldn't wikipedia automatically generate these variations to point to one variation. It would seem that the ideal purpose of redirects is to allow multiple and distinct terms to be used to refer to one article page or a subsection of an article page.  Otherwise, an editor is left with the unpleasant task of generating every permutation for all distinct redirects.  Mitchumch (talk) 01:12, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
 * No they should not be automatically generated because not all a plausible in every case, and sometimes capitalisation and/or hyphenation is the difference between the names of separate articles, e.g. SeaMonkey, Seamonkey, Sea-Monkey all lead to different pages. In some specific cases automatic creation is a good idea, but it has to be done carefully and in well defined sets. For example user:Eubot automatically created redirects from titles without diacritics to titles with, but it also made lots of errors (e.g. applying the Germanic convention ö → oe to Finnish-language titles (which do not use that convention) and metal umlauts. Thryduulf (talk) 10:40, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
 * See Redirects for discussion/Log/2017 May 20. That's the right place to discuss these. We can't "consolidate" these; we can only decide whether to keep or delete them. wbm1058 (talk) 17:36, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
 * There was some talk at RFD about a template that would list redirects that should point at the same target, but I'm not sure if any trials were run. . Patar knight - chat/contributions 22:14, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
 * No, it never got to the trial stage as there was never a consensus to do so, largely due to Si Trew's objections (no ping as he is now topic banned from RfD-related matters). I think he significantly misunderstood the proposal, and I would be happy to revive it if there is interest. Thryduulf (talk) 23:51, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
 * The RFD discussion displayed above is different from my concern. My concern is solely focused upon trivial variations of upper/lower case letters and the absence/presence of hyphens.  Shouldn't wikipedia automatically generate these variations to point to one variation. It would seem that the ideal purpose of redirects is to allow multiple and distinct terms to be used to refer to one article page or a subsection of an article page.  Otherwise, an editor is left with the unpleasant task of generating every permutation for all distinct redirects.  Mitchumch (talk) 01:12, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
 * No they should not be automatically generated because not all a plausible in every case, and sometimes capitalisation and/or hyphenation is the difference between the names of separate articles, e.g. SeaMonkey, Seamonkey, Sea-Monkey all lead to different pages. In some specific cases automatic creation is a good idea, but it has to be done carefully and in well defined sets. For example user:Eubot automatically created redirects from titles without diacritics to titles with, but it also made lots of errors (e.g. applying the Germanic convention ö → oe to Finnish-language titles (which do not use that convention) and metal umlauts. Thryduulf (talk) 10:40, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Redirects from older names of Colleges/Universities
I'd like to bring up the idea of organizing/categorizing redirects from older names of Colleges/Universities. In many cases these are created by moves, but don't get 'rcat'ted beyond there. There have also been many name changes from well before Wikipedia, so they would exist separately from the moves. I think that any former school name should exist as a redirect and it should exist as a subcat of. At this point I think that trying to separate these redirects into whether they are a name change for a college or university would be problematic as many of these name changes occur as *part* of changing from a college to university.Naraht (talk) 15:36, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
 * If an article reliably reports the former name of a college or university, and there is no redirect for that former name, then you can and should create the redirect, and add R from former name. Of course, this template can also co-occur with other templates, such as R from move.The main purpose of a redirect category is to explain the relationship between the redirect and its target. As such, redirect categories tend to be more general than article categories. Occasionally there is a practical use for a more specific redirect category, such as R to scientific name or R from gerund. The former name of a college or university doesn't strike me as a unique case that requires special handling, but maybe I'm missing something? —Ringbang (talk) 17:17, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
 * It would seem very similar to R from predecessor company name (I wish that I had found this before)Naraht (talk) 20:11, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
 * It's not a matter of precedent, but of expediency. Why do we need a redirect category for renamed colleges and universities? What is the problem you're trying to solve? Which cases aren't captured by either R from former name or R from historic name? (These are the templates used now for the colleges/university relationships you mentioned.) —Ringbang (talk) 21:25, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Proposal to have option via user preferences to disable/opt-out cross-wiki search results
Recently, search results from selected sister projects—Wikivoyage (title matches only), Wikibooks, Wiktionary, and Wikiquote—are now active/live. Right now, an option via user preferences to disable/opt-out cross-wiki search results is proposed at Village pump (proposals). --George Ho (talk) 09:57, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Re-proposal to include Wikibooks in cross-wiki search engine
Another proposal to include Wikibooks into the cross-wiki search engine is made (Village pump (policy)). --George Ho (talk) 00:24, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Two articles with nearly same name
Hi all -- when I type "Seekers and Finders" into search in the upper right of my window, I get two suggested results, one that says "Seekers and Finders", and one that says "Seekers and Finders (album)", which redirects to the "Seekers and Finders" article. I think there should only be one search result, the "Seekers and Finders" result. What's the appropriate way to improve this? Should the page that does nothing but redirect be deleted? Thank you, Cloud atlas (talk) 02:39, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't think that this is a problem. But if you feel that a redirect should be deleted, please file a WP:RFD. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 10:59, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Quick note
I was looking up dog related topics for a class and this redirect came up in the general search terms for senior dog. It looks like it's something from one of his TV specials, but I don't know that it really merits a redirect offhand: My Dog Licked My Balls. Just mentioning this here since it's my work account. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:19, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
 * It's been around, untouched, for seven years. Suggest that you send it to WP:RFD. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 18:54, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Discussion related to double redirect-fixing bots
There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Double redirects that users interested in redirects are invited to participate in. Note that the section contains multiple ideas (not just the one in the section title), but not yet any firm proposals. Thryduulf (talk) 16:45, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Redirects from 'The'/'And'
I'm curious about how we should deal with these four cases
 * Main article Journal of Biological Chemistry, redirect The Journal of Biological Chemistry
 * Main article The New York Times, redirect New York Times
 * Main article Astronomy and Astrophysics, redirect Astronomy & Astrophysics
 * Main article Genes & Development, redirect Genes and Development

How should these four redirects be categorized? I've been thinking of Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:02, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
 * R from The
 * R to The
 * R to and
 * R from and
 * Why make new cases? Use the existing templates      as appropriate. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 23:48, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
 * For simplicity, ease of remembering, and accuracy. Some of those could conceivably be redirects ('R to/from and' &rarr; 'R from modification' seem like a good match), but others ('R to/from The' &rarr; 'R from short/long names') seems tenuous. It also ignores that sometimes a publication changes names, adding or removing the 'The' or switching 'And' to '&', and 'R from short name' isn't appropriate anymore. Is that important? I don't know, but since I'm planning on asking a bot to go create a bunch of those redirects for most of our journal/magazines/newspapers, it would be good to have a solid framework for those redirects before unleashing a bot.12:19, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
 * If it's changed name, even in a minor way (e.g. The Railway Magazine was titled Railway Magazine, without the definite article, from November 1963 to December 1996 inclusive), you can use . -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 13:00, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's true, but the point is to automate creation and categorization of those redirects much as possible (like we did for ISO 4 redirects). Then once we have that it's much easier to review those redirects and do a finer categorization (and add extra R from/to as appropriate). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:27, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Going to on this discussion. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:37, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Escort Ship
Your opinion would be welcome at redirect Talk page Talk:Escort ship. Mathglot (talk) 10:10, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Redirect requests for unregistered users
Please add the following in the "How to make a redirect" section:

Unregistered users can request that a redirect be created at Articles for creation/Redirects.

This should help people find the right place to go to make a redirect request. Thank you. --122.108.141.214 (talk) 00:30, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 23:03, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

can't get redirect to work
How do you add a link at the top of an article that links to another article with a similar title that you were really looking for? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.178.57.100 (talk) 08:28, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
 * You might be looking for Distinguish or one of the similar templates listed in Template:Hatnote templates. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:48, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Blacklist
What is the correct process to follow when one wishes to create a redirect that cannot be created without administrator permissions, due to said redirect containing a (rightfully) blacklisted term? Joefromrandb (talk) 05:42, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Should be covered at WP:SALT. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 00:23, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Doesn't seem like it, although I could easily just be missing it. I was trying to create "No Niggers No Jews No Dogs". It seems reasonable to have a redirect, sans punctuation, for the article. Joefromrandb (talk) 15:03, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
 * You could put your case at WP:AFC/R. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 21:38, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Category:WWW leads to Category redirect|World Wide Web
and displays: This category is located at Category:World Wide Web. Note: This category should be empty.

Do you really believe that the category "World Wide Web" should be empty? 67.160.196.6 (talk) 07:20, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
 * It means that the category where that note appears, i.e. Category:WWW, should be empty. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 09:22, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I know what it means ....... even though the text is ambiguous. Someone, not me, should fix the text so that what you read is what it means.67.160.196.6 (talk) 18:43, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
 * "Redirect: This category is located at Category:World Wide Web," is about as clear and unambiguous a statement about a redirect as possible. Saying that some other editor should make a some sort of unspecified change is little better than asking for telepathic communication. Edit requests ask editors to state their requests in the form of "Please change {X} to {Y}," and it seems that would be a good way to phrase any follow up suggestions you might have. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:55, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much for your suggestion, I appreciate the help. While I've made edits to articles for some time, this is my first venture (request) into WP internals.

-

The first line of a redirect, such as    This category is located at Category:World Wide Web Is logically equivalent to     The room you are in is located across the hall.

If that equivalence is not clear, here is the same text with "This category" replaced. The category:WWW is located at Category:World Wide Web

Please change This category is located at ... to           The category you are likely seeking is ...

Thanks, 67.160.196.6 (talk) 20:11, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Please come and help...
Should MoS shortcut redirects be sorted to certain specific maintenance categories? An Rfc has been opened on this talk page to answer that question. Your sentiments would be appreciated!  Paine Ellsworth   put'r there  16:41, 14 December 2017 (UTC)