Wikipedia talk:Redirects for discussion/Archive 10

Requested move crosspost
I am posting here to notify you of a requested move I made regarding a bunch of deletion discussion templates. The discussion is at Template_talk:Cfd-notify P p p er y  (talk) 23:33, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Formatting and warnings
A lot of people who show up here may not be informed about policies related to this discussion.

I think a warning should be placed at the top of the page requiring people to read Polling is not a substitute for discussion.

I think it would also be a good idea if we forbid the practice of people posting Keep or Delete in posts. This sort of behavior is essentially saying "read this, this is all that matters" when actually it's what matters least. What should be weighed is discussion, not simply a yes/no polling.

I believe this practice caters towards mob rule activity and encourages lazy admin resolution of these discussions. They can come along and just quickly tabulate keep/delete bolds without necessarily reading what comes with them.

"Per nom" or "Per above" type posts should also be banned. This is similar poll/voting material. It is not actually building a discussion and doesn't necessarily mean the person understands the text they are agreeing with, just that they agree with the bolded stance taken.

Another good warning at the top of the page would be instructing people to read Redirect/Deletion reasons as often these policies do not appear to be considered in the stances people take when engaged in discussion here. Ranze (talk) 05:15, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Mandatory log reporting for date and user
Once a page is deleted, the only log that is viewable is the date it was deleted. It is no longer possible to check via the history when the deleted page was initially created.

Knowing this is useful information for deletion reviews. People may make other edits at the time of creating a redirect related to supporting its existence.

I would like to make it mandatory, when nominating a redirect for discussion, to include the date a redirect was created in the initial post of that discussion, in case people push for and receive deletion as a result.

This is basically a simple cost-free thing, and anyone nominating a redirect to discuss would be checking the page history anyway and be easily able to write the date the redirect was created.

Another thing that should be mandatory is WHO created the redirect. Already we contact the people who made it, but we should list them in the discussion itself. That way, if someone makes a redirect and then doesn't get to the discussion in time, it would still be possible for other editors to use the date of redirect creation to monitor edits adjacent to that date to see if other edits (say, to the page a redirect points to) contain evidence that would be worthwhile for the initial discussion and any possible subsequent ones. Ranze (talk) 06:45, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

And another thing... crosslinks at WP:RFD
This just made me think of something that is not entirely unrelated. If I want to cross-ref discussions I have to include the full link to the separate log pages. That makes sense except if someone is viewing it either at the very same log page, or via its tranclusions at WP:RFD itself, where it would be nicer if it was just a section link to the content on that page. Could we have a template that also said "If the FULLPAGENAME is just WP:RFD itself, or the same as specified in the template parameters, make a section link, otherwise make a fully-qualified link"?

So e.g. would produce:
 * just if:
 * "Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/" + the date parameter (after normalisation) matched the FULLPAGENAME of the transcluding page or
 * the transcluding page was the WP:RFD page itself


 * Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2016_October_10 otherwise.

I think this is possible but when I tried it some time ago (if I did) I couldn't get it to work properly; by definition it's hard to test in a sandbox because of the reliance on checking that the FULLPAGENAME is (or is aa subpage of) "Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion". Perhaps the template was getting parsed too early. Note that this is useful even when discussions are initially on the same daily log page, where you would think just a section link would be enough: because that can break if the page is relisted, as the discussion (including the crossref) moves to the new log page. Si Trew (talk) 08:03, 12 October 2016 (UTC)


 * This "rfd ref" template idea doesn't seem to interfere with anything that is currently being done, so I think you should feel free to do it yourself. Deryck C. 09:01, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Collapse of closed discussions: Was this ever discussed before deployment?
I've been struggling to find where we have consensus for collapsing the results of RfD discussions aat WP:RFD, can someone point me at it? It seems to me unhelpful as it makes it harder to search for things within the WP:RFD digest. I can't see any upside to it since that digest only contains closed discussions for a limited time period, it's not as if it's an exhaustive list of every RfD we ever had.

Can someone point me to the discussion where we have WP:CONSENSUS for collapsing these all? For example I procedurally closed Redirects_for_discussion. It looks like the template subst of now does it automatically (I hadn't noticed that so struggled to find which editor collapsed it, but apparently I did automatically, with the subst in the close at ).

It seems to have been merged in by User:Deryck Chan and User:Steel1943 with. I was taking something of a Wikibreak over the summmer and hadn't really noticed this new behaviour, so if someone could point me to the discussion for changing this behaviour, I should be grateful. There's nothing at Template talk:Rfd top nor at Template talk:Rfd top collapse.

I can't see the rationale behind this beyond making it harder to search for things within the page at WP:RFD. It doesn't make loading times any better because the content still has to be loaded, whether it is collapsed or not. (Actually the extra markup for the collapse box will make the loading time a bit slower.) Yes, I get expanded boxes if I navigate to individual day logs, but it's actually not trivial to naviage to an individual day log for reading. Clicking on a link in the ToC just takes you to the section at WP:RFD. e.g. clickin on "October 10" takes me to Redirects_for_discussion where they are shown collapsed, whereas if I go to Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2016_October_10 I get them expanded: all very nice in theory but in practice how do I get to read the page for 2016 October 10 without manually typing it into the search bar? I can't do it by clicking on anywhere in the WP:RFD page itself.

Sometimes, if discussions are related but not strongly enough to combine, I cross-reference each to the other and this makes it very hard to see those kind of crossrefs.

I can think of a few possible improvements for the expand/collapse behaviour, I don't know how feasible any might be:
 * Make the section titles for a given day be hyperlinks to the individual pages
 * Could work but may make a mess of the ToC
 * At the top of each daily log, hyperlink to itself so that "This is a list of redirects that have been proposed for deletion or other action on ..." is linked to itself.
 * e.g. "This is a the list of redirects that have been proposed for deletion or other action on October 10, 2016".
 * Perhaps that particular way of linking (piping "This") is a bit obscure but you get the idea. We could link the date bit, that is also a bit surprising. Anyway that's just detail.
 * Have a bit of script on links or something on WP:RFD itself that allow one to collapse all and expand all the {[tlx|rfd top collapse}} boxes. I guess with a bit of Javascript. This should be fairly easy if the boxes are in a "class=" of their own that the Javascript can iterate over. However I am no expert in Wikimarkup for that kind of thing, I just think in principle this would be quite easy to do in the client's browser.
 * have a bit of script to expand all the collapse boxes, not just specifically the rfd top collapse.
 * I don't like this so much, because sometimes we collapse off-topic discussions (usually mine) and long discussions for reasons other than closing the RfD.

Of these the second would seem to me the easiest to implement and a bit of a no-brainer as the downsides to having such a link seem negligible (a tiny bit more Wikimarkup that can be added to the or whichever it is that is substs the "This is the list of redirects... in each daily log). But even if we do that, also being able easily to expand all the closed discussion boxes for the whole of WP:RFD would be extremely useful to me. Si Trew (talk) 06:58, 12 October 2016 (UTC)


 * The discussion that produced the current collapse box is here: Wikipedia_talk:Redirects_for_discussion/Archive_8 --Deryck C. 09:03, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Redirects with specific disambiguation errors
A proposal to expand the criteria for speedy deletion to include redirects with specific disambiguation errors has been made at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion. Interested editors are welcome. Thank you. — Godsy (TALK CONT ) 18:26, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * what about disinterested editors or uninterested editors? Thanks, I'll have a shuftie. Si Trew (talk) 03:11, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Double soft redirect
Template:Double soft redirect has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. (Participants of RfD may be interested in participating in this discussion due to this template being used possibly like a two-entry disambiguation page but not being a disambiguation page itself.) Steel1943  (talk) 06:52, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

requesting template addition on talks
WP:RFD mentions:
 * "after step 2 is completed, a request to add the RFD template can be put on the redirect's talk page."

Does anyone know if there is a request template we can use to standardize such a request? Perhaps something that would add the talk to a category to have it completed more speedily? Ranze (talk) 17:54, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

New nominations placed at top
Is there any logical reason why new nominations at RfD are placed at the top of the section? TfD seems to put new nominations at bottom, and it's annoying when I try to edit an RfD section to comment on it, only to end up editing another section because the page has been edited since then and the section number (which edit links use) has changed. nyuszika7h (talk) 13:26, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Seems I was wrong about TfD, I don't know why I thought that when I was looking at it yesterday. nyuszika7h (talk) 21:57, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I've opened a discussion about this at as this applies to more than just RfD. nyuszika7h (talk)

Automatically notifying targets
There's a class of editors that are normally in a very good position to comment on a redirect but who aren't normally notified of the discussion – the watchers of the redirect's target. To get them involved, wouldn't it be a good idea to have a bot automatically place RfD notices on the talk page of the redirect's target? There's an earlier discussion about notifying talk pages. Uanfala (talk) 18:37, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
 * As noted in that discussion, such talk pages aren't always very likely to be watched, especially outside of mainspace. I wouldn't object to such a scheme, though. I like to see increased participation at RfD, and especially in cases where there's a content question, this could indeed bring relevant knowledge to discussions. --BDD (talk) 20:04, 3 August 2016 (UTC)


 * With the "new" notification system, doesn't this happen anyway? When someone links to a page on my watchlist I get a notification that it's been linked to. Wouldn't mentioning it in an RfD discussion have that effect anyway, then? Or do those notifications only work e.g. for links from pages in mainspace? Admittedly all the ones in my notification list are in mainspace, and I'm not sure how I could create a test case for this since you don't get notified about links you've made yourself etc. I'd have to collaborate with one of you (or another editor) to create a redirect to an existing target that you're watching, then list it at RfD and see if you get a notification. Providing the name of the test redirect was either obvious enough (e.g. ) or obscure enough I don't think the temporary pollution of the mainspace would be too big a worry, we'd delete it afterwards of course. Or we could just ask... .but I don't really know where to ask. Si Trew (talk) 07:41, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Don't we only get notified for links to pages we've created? – Uanfala (talk) 14:14, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
 * No, pages we've edited, I think. Good point, I am not sure. Certainly I get notified for pages I dragged out of WP:PNT that I didn't create, just translated, I get a lot of notifications for links to Quirine Lemoine for example, I didn't create that, I just translated it. Don't you get the same? Si Trew (talk) 11:56, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Actually I'm a liar, I did create that. It came up at PNT and I translated it, and I know sod all about tennis and even less about Dutch tennis, I just did the fiddly bits cos there was not much text etc to do. The history says I created it. I can't remember why it was at PNT quite, then. I usually mark as, perhaps it was a WP:Requests for translation but I rarely hang out there. But yes, I did create that one. Hmmm... Si Trew (talk) 11:59, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * ERight right, I did indeed tag as . I am not sure why I bothered with doing it really, this was back end of 2014, I don't pick out Quirine Lemoines at random. I think somehow the original comment was at RfD but I am backtracking my fallible memory now. It is not a subject I would happen to chance upon and suddenly say "oh I must translate that". My Dutch is only so=-so anyway, but since it was mostly tables and results etc it was hardly an effort to translate, just to translate the templates etc. Duly noted etc on its talk page. Hmmmm... you may be right, maybe it is just the creator who gets notified then. That's a bit stupid because bots are often the creators then the real editors won't be notified at all. Si Trew (talk) 12:05, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Where can I request a deletion?
I would like to request a deletion of a duplicate redirect I created. How do I go about it? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 10:11, 7 November 2016 (UTC)please ping me
 * If it's a redirect you created and there haven't been any other significant contributions, you can add the db-author tag to the top of the article to request speedy deletion. Otherwise see the instructions at WP:RFD. If you use Twinkle you can access either of these functions from the CSD or XFD menus. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 20:51, 9 November 2016 (UTC) pinged, per your sig Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 20:52, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Collapsing discussions
I think we have had this before.

I see no overall benefit in collapsing discussions. There is one minor benefit:
 * 1) It makes the pages shorter to read.

I see several major hindrances:
 * 1) The page still has to load the hidden text, so it gives a false impression that the page is shorter than it is
 * 2) It hides a discussion into a !vote, that is, it implies unanimity whereas there may be several different views
 * 3) It hides the hard work of editors to chew their teeth over the subtle distinctions on many redirects
 * 4) People coming to RfD to read it probably want to read it not have to go through a labyrinth of collapse boxes

This unfriendly, unhelpful, unthankful addition of collapse boxes was, I think, is an idea that seems to have been done without consensus by User:Tavix. I have no corroboration for that, except that only Tavix seems to do it. Other admins such as WP:BDD and non-admins (last time I looked, a long time ago) such as User:Ivanvector don't do it. If this is a new thing, it should be in the RfD instructions. HINT: Non-admins may close discussions too, so they might benefit on instructions on when to add an unnecessary and, incidentally adding their own opinions as some kind of headline into the cob title so we don't have to read the discussion, just the headline. Because that is what the RfD was about, rather than just listing the section of the RfD. Only one editor does it, without consensus, without discussion. So here is the discussion. Si Trew (talk) 23:52, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

link to redirect's talk page
Currently, when a redirect is nominated at RFD, we have links to "(links · history · stats)". Would it be possible to add "talk" to that list, as a link to the nominated redirect's talk page? I'd only care if it can display red when one doesn't exist and blue when it does, that way it's easier to tell if there's been a previous RFD or other significant discussion, for example. -- Tavix ( talk ) 17:14, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Neat idea, that should be fairly easy but I don't know if I can edit the template. I'll check in a moment. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 20:49, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
 * That seems to have been done. The far neater idea would be not to subst the bloody thing onto every nomination but include it by reference. It's not as if any change to it is likely, in reality, to break anything. (i.e. it would be a non-breaking change.) Si Trew (talk) 09:28, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

WT:CSD discussion for redirects created by Eubot
There's currently a discussiona at Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion for redirects mass-created by User:Eubot back in 2008. These are generally redirects with alternative spellings, particularly, many of which make no sense since substituting the marked letters needs human intervention: it depends on which language they were originally written in. (Eubot seems to have assumed they are all German.) You may wish to contribute to that discussion. One proposal is to create or extend a temporary speedy deletion criterion along the lines of WP:X1. 05:28, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Ad hominem policy
re WP:ADHOM/WP:ATTP could we officially discourage and enact consequences against people who use this? Too often in the discussion of a topic like a redirect people veer off discussing it or the sources and instead discuss people. I've suffered a lot of personal targeting even though it is clearly wrong when people should be focusing on the subject matter.

you are an example that stands out to me recently in special:diff/749682590. Seems like attempts at poisoning the well do not receive enough criticism.

One problem with this behavior is a single case of abuse against an editor in the past resulting in a decision against them would result in further abuses down the line if the past decision is used as grounds to rule against them in future disagreements.

Each case should be judged on its own merits. Longterm behavior should only be judged in regard to weighing patterns when deciding on sanctions. It should not be used to weigh the merit of a case, those are absent or present in their own regard. Ranze (talk) 17:18, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
 * That kinda assumes that other editors are persuaded (of the RfD argument), one way or the other, by name-calling. I'm not. I might find it childish but it rarely changes my opinion about the RfD proper. Si Trew (talk) 05:37, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Consequences for false statements
For example special:diff/749525266 if someone argues WP:MADEUP when the simplest of googling shows usage by reliable sources, or if someone says a term is used only one time in one article about a subject when the simplest fact check shows dozens.

I see this done often to sway both RFD discussion and ANISs. People are not being held to task for it. A chilling effect should be created encouraging basic fact checking before making sweeping claims in these discussions.

What procedure do we have in place for reporting this and easily tallying a record of these abuses? Ranze (talk) 11:32, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, you can do so and then go through the usual process of reporting a user for abuse. However, User:Ivanvector is not usually one for making "sweeping claims" so I would more WP:AGF that either they missed the "basic fact checking" on this occasion or that their search works differently from yours. It has happened several times with me that I have done a Gsearch but not found anything, but someone searching in a slightly different way has done so: gsearches use all kinds of heuristics based on your location, previous search history, let alone that it changes over time and the very fact of searching probably has some kind of quantum effect on the results, and who knows what else it might do when it delivers search results. I doubt two people ever get quite the same set of results.
 * Sure, basic checking should be done, but nobody's perfect. Simply point out at the RfD that in fact there are sources (list them), it is used in the article, etc. RfD can stand as the record itself. If someone does it frequently, it will soon become apparent. I'm no doubt "guilty" of it myself when trogging through a mass of similar RfDs for the same target, if I miss searching for one exact variant. Si Trew (talk) 05:35, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I think you're reading far too much into my comment. You are in fact correct that I did not bother doing much research on this; to a non-American observer who's been purposely avoiding following the U.S. election especially on Google because of the implications to their search heuristics, this looks as made up as the sky looks blue (vandalism of this sort is extremely common). I accept your criticism of my laziness. More in a second, Windows forcing a reboot. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 12:54, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Windows 10: just don't do it, kids. Anyway, if you're saying that my invocation of WP:MADEUP was meant as an allegation of wrongdoing on somebody's part, I think you're way off the mark. My comment is expressly a comment on the subject, not on the editor who created it, although I can see how from invoking MADEUP one might draw that conclusion. In this case I just thought it was a phrase probably invented on social media and unlikely to be used in a reliable sense, and thus not a good title for a redirect to this topic. Had I thought it was a deliberate hoax or intentional vandalism, then I would have tagged it for WP:G3 deletion instead. It's been shown that my rushed analysis was wrong, that happens sometimes.
 * As for the discussion, the way we format RfD log pages makes it difficult to follow any particular one from a watchlist, and I'm not in the habit of coming back to discussions unless I expect them to be controversial, and I didn't expect this one to be. I expect that any competent closer would see from 's comment that my use of WP:MADEUP as my entire deletion rationale makes my comment invalid and would discount it, and so I don't feel the need to carefully follow every single discussion just so that I can restate such an obviously incorrect conclusion (although I have done so now just to be clear).
 * Also, can I ask why you didn't feel the need to notify me about this discussion? If you are going to use an editor as an example of abuse, especially if you think they need to be "held to task for it" and that we should be "tallying a record of these abuses", you should notify that user of the discussion. It's required at WP:ANI but it's just polite otherwise. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:30, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't think that !vote is some kind wiki-perjury. In no way was my !vote meant as a slam to or anything like that. People should just assume that others are acting in good faith and not going out of their way to lie or deceive people, unless there's compelling evidence to indicate otherwise.  Patar knight - chat/contributions 15:16, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Redirects with "The"
Per my comment at Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2016_November_21, I believe that redirects with "The" are not entirely implausible search terms, and we never had a similar precedent for that kind of discussion, that particular one was nevertheless closed as "delete", I pointed out there are many similar redirects (e.g, these or even these. Due to how nobody has commented on this matter as a whole, just thought I'd make a start.

Pinging all RFD regulars:

And those who participated in the aforementioned discussion: . Regards -  C HAMPION  (talk) (contributions) (logs) 21:00, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
 * It's my view that most but not all redirects starting with "The" are unlikely to be useful redirects. However there are sufficient exceptions to the general case (band names and newspaper titles for example) that mean each has to be evaluated on its own merits. I haven't looked at the given example discussion, but looking at the redirect title in isolation I'm not surprised it was deleted. Thryduulf (talk) 08:41, 4 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Well, I don't deal with such redirects, so I don't have much to say on this matter, but from my hazy vantage point in the distance I see two situations where specific kinds of redirects with "the" are definitely necessary: 1. when The Xxz refers to something different from Xxz (like Continent and the Continent); and 2. when "the" is part of the name (official or common) and hence likely to be linked from articles (newspapers, bands etc.). Excluding these cases, there's the huge grey area where such redirects aren't very strongly needed, but at least they help searches (a user typing the English language will be taken straight where they want to go without having to see the search results). Redirects here haven't really been consistently created (there's no the German language for example), and I don't know what's the best way to deal with them. Should such redirects be created? Maybe create them with a bot? But then there's a large number of titles where the definite article makes no sense (like the Indonesia) and a bot won't be able to tell the difference. So we have to create them manually, but I don't think the little gain from them is really worth the effort. I think such redirects should not exist, and the searches should be handled by the search engine. I imagine if a search string doesn't land on a page, the engine could check if the string begins with the definite article, and if so then instead of displaying the search results it will chop off the article and go straight to the page without and article. – Uanfala (talk) 14:31, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
 * There isn't a precedent because there shouldn't be a precedent. These redirects should be handled on a case-by-case basis. If the 'the' makes sense, then there should be a redirect. -- Tavix ( talk ) 21:06, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Some redirects with "the" will obviously be useful (e.g. "The United States"), others not so much, like the RfD above. It's probably best to leave these cases to RfD since each case will have its own specific nuances. Patar knight - chat/contributions 16:27, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure exactly what the goal of this discussion is, are we trying to establish a "default" for redirects beginning with "the"? Like we should always keep them, or always delete them? If so, either way it's a bad idea, as everyone here so far has said. It's such a broad range of possibilities, we couldn't possibly come up with a common outcome. Each case should be discussed individually. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 16:51, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I think its best to leave the "The" redirects as is and be dealt with on a case to case basis. I can't pinpoint a good rule of thumb for them as of now -- Lenticel ( talk ) 01:05, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree that we should deal with these on a case-by-case basis. I think something like the Supreme Court of the United States is both useful and plausible, while the list of people who disappeared mysteriously is neither plausible nor helpful. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 19:54, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Stats for Eubot contributions
I have just finished my second page of 500 redirects created by Eubot in 2008 (i.e., I've looked through about 1000 now of what was reported as being around 130,000): my criteria being articles created by Eubot that have not been modified. Along the way I end to tag the redirects into categories, so it is a bit time-consuming.

Of those 500, only eleven have I had cause to bring to RfD, although often I have added others once I have looked at all the redirects to the target, e.g. ones from User:Pumpie and also certain patterns in a tendency for proliferation of redirects with some subjects, such as the nobility.

In all, I think if the strike rate for needing to list at RfD is so low, there is no particular need to try to have a WP:X1-style criterion for them. Yes, going through them is painful for everyone, but my success rate at RfD was not initially high to begin with and I expect that to improve as we establish consensus more clearly (e.g. I just keep the Swedish ones now rather than listing, and the Hungarian ones seem to be going delete). I can't see that any good would come of a CSD concession: there are a few bot runs I might request such as listing redirects created from other redirects, as that is where many of the problems seem to lie, and Eubot has helped us there by telling us from which redirect it created them in its edit summary. Si Trew (talk) 13:13, 17 December 2016 (UTC)


 * That's great work, thanks Si! Deryck C. 14:49, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for looking into this and your wonderful research, Si. Keep up the good work! -- Tavix ( talk ) 14:59, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Disambiguation pages considered redirects?
Should disambiguation pages be considered redirects for the purposes of RfD, and wp:x1? I've tried speedily deleting some disambiguation pages like SALC (because it is a made up acronym for the first entry, and the second entry is another disambiguation page) per wp:x1, and was told that disambiguation pages don't fall under wp:x1. Gamebuster19901 (Talk | Contributions) 15:13, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Discussions on disambiguation pages should be brought to WP:AFD, per Disambiguation. - Eureka Lott 15:39, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks Gamebuster19901 (Talk | Contributions) 15:41, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Let's update the instructions for relisting discussions

 * The following discussion is closed. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
 * Withdrawing this. I had already considered alternate options like the ones mentioned below, but they would actually require more work than this one. But, either way, the idea I suggested here isn't going to happen. Steel1943  (talk) 13:16, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Hey everyone (including everyone I'm about to ping), quick proposal coming up...

I want to rewrite the relisting closing instructions at Redirects for discussion/Administrator instructions to be more in line with the way discussions are relisted at WP:TFD and WP:CFD. (Well, WP:FFD too, but if I recall, their relisting instructions are not specifically stated anywhere.) What I am about to propose is possibly considered controversial given the discussion at Template talk:Rfd relisted, so in bringing it here. Anyways, the change would be to no longer completely blank a section when it is relisted and replace it with Rfd relisted, but rather close the discussion using Rfd top and Rfd bottom and closing it to "relisted", probably by using Rfd relisted. And, with that being said, I will now present the "PRO" and "CON" as I see it with the "CON" first: Right now, if the redirect's title doesn't match the section header of the section it's placed, when the redirect is relisted, the link on the Rfd template placed on the redirect breaks and directs the reader to the top of the page of the day the discussion started (unless edits such as the diffs I linked in the "PRO" section above are performed.) This can be rather problematic in cases where the redirect looks nothing like the section header, leaving the reader confused on where the discussion is located. If the section isn't blanked when relisting, the anchor automatically generated by Rfd2 (which matches the name of the redirect) will remain in place on the page, making it easier and simpler to locate the discussion since they will be forwarded to the proper section rather than the top of the page. Steel1943 (talk) 22:31, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * CON: Having to use additional templates to relist a discussion.
 * PRO: Not having to perform edits to every redirect in a grouped discussion whose names do not match the section header to ensure that readers get directed to the proper section on the page where the discussion started so they can follow the trail of relist(s). (For example, see the following edits I performed a few hours ago after I relisted a discussion:, , , , , .)
 * (Disclaimer: there are a few other options I considered before I concluded this would be the best idea, but all of the other options require a lot more work from the relister, such as having to add every nominated redirect into the Rfd relisted template upon relist ... which has a high chance of human error, as well as requiring a lot more to do.) Steel1943  (talk) 22:31, 20 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Pinging recent RFD closers: BDD, Tavix, Deryck Chan, Patar knight (Actually, I don't think I've seen them for a while...), SimonTrew, Thryduulf, Champion. Steel1943  (talk) 22:36, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Discussion for "Let's update the instructions for relisting discussions"

 * At first read, I would oppose the change, but I think I can be persuaded. It seems to be more additional work for a problem I don't believe exists. When I relist, I don't update the redirect because I know if someone clicks on the redirect and sees there's an RFD discussion in progress, they're taken to a page that clearly says it's been relisted and gives the link to where the discussion happen. From experience, I don't think many people visit RFD after a relist directly from the redirect, so I think it's more trouble than it's worth. Second, I don't like rfd top and rfd bottom to be used when relisted, because that template clearly says the discussion is closed, when that's not the case...it's merely relisted. Only using rfd relisted doesn't offer that confusion on whether or not the discussion is actually closed. -- Tavix ( talk ) 22:42, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * (Would you believe that I knew you'd initially oppose this, given the linked discussion on the template?) Anyways, I'll respond to a few of the points you brought up..."'...if someone clicks on the redirect and sees there's an RFD discussion in progress, they're taken to a page that clearly says it's been relisted and gives the link to where the discussion happen...'"As I stated above, currently, the reader is directed to the top of the page rather than a section on the page if the redirect's name doesn't my match the name of the section header. On days where there may be several relists (such as recently), the reader may not be able to figure out which relisted discussion represents the redirect they were just viewing unless they are immediately forwarded to the proper section."'...From experience, I don't think many people visit RFD after a relist directly from the redirect...'"I don't have any evidence to invalidate that claim, but instead, here's an example of a grouped nomination I made in the past which may help illustrate this: Redirects for discussion/Log/2016 September 23. Even though the redirects I nominated are related to the section header, they aren't even close to keystroke-to-keystroke matches. This discussion wasn't relisted, but if it was, readers trying to follow this discussion if it was relisted may not have known to go to that section to locate its relist location, considering they would have had no idea it was part of a grouped nomination just by forwarding to the daily RFD subpage from the nominated redirect alone."'...Second, I don't like rfd top and rfd bottom to be used when relisted, because that template clearly says the discussion is closed, when that's not the case...'"If the wording on those templates needs to be tweaked to accommodate any changes, that can be done. (The current wording seems to be in links with most other Archive top & Archive bottom-related templates including those for other WP:XFD forums which use daily subpages.) Also, another option could be to use different "top" and "bottom" templates for relisting to change the wording and maybe even the background color."And..."...Those are all the responses I have for now. The concern regarding "...Only using rfd relisted doesn't offer that confusion on whether or not the discussion is actually closed..." would in one way or another probably be resolved by whatever outcome is presented here if a change from the current situation is agreed upon. Steel1943  (talk) 23:08, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose I just don't see the point here, relisting is already a hard enough job and I do not perform edits to the redirect when relisting, and per Tavix, the Rfd top and Rfd bottom templates can mislead readers. -  C HAMPION  (talk) (contributions) (logs) 02:52, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose. I understand what the point of the suggestion is. It's not something I had thought about before but it is something worth thinking about. I'm opposing this proposal as the aim can be achieved with far less additional work (and without altering the existing relisting format, which I agree is superior to the methods used by other XfDs) by simply using the template to add the names of the other redirects being discussed. For example if redirects "Foo", "Bar" and "Baz" are being discussed in the same nomination, create the new section heading as ===Foo=== . It also wouldn't surprise me if adding these anchors was something a bot could do. Thryduulf (talk) 12:24, 21 December 2016 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Eubot approval and discussion for creating
I've tried to find it, but I can't find any discussion, let alone approval, for the Eubot run of Dec 2008 that has landed us with all these purported. I can't find that there was any such discussion, let alone bot approval for it running. That's really rather academic, now, except that really it's difficult for people to argue to keep redirects that are created by a bot without approval, however long ago that is, when I or another could just sweepingly say it was never approved, so it should be deleted. That would help nobody of course, especially when the vast majority of redirects that Eubot created are actually fine.

It might seem, I suppose, that playing such a card would strengthen my (and Champ's) hands, since we're the two players who are bringing all these Rs to RfD for deletion (and without coordination beyond Wikipedia: we live half a world away from each other), but what's not seen of course is all the ones that are quietly looked at and kept without discussion, which are by a long shot the majority (about 90% I reckon, and I'm the one putting up the scores on the Eubotometer, at least at User:Champion/Eubot_list_17 and User:Champion/Eubot_list_18, the latter of which – which is all done bar the shouting – about 80 went to RfD out of over a thousand, and many of them I imagine will be deleted without discussion).

So, was there ever actually any discussion or approval for this bot run? I can't find any. It's purely academic now, but I should like to know the basis on which it was commissioned, because most of the ones I'm bringing to RfD are redirects created from redirects, and that would seem something obviously not to create (perhaps that's hindsight) that could have been picked up at the discussion stage. I'm not wanting to pin blame, any more than I did at Neelix – most of the Eubot redirects are OK, but we have to go through all of them to find the ones that aren't – we should learn from our mistakes.

I was taught from a very early age that cleaning up is part of the job. You haven't actually finished the job until you've cleaned up after yourself. Unfortunately some people are too proud to get their hands dirty, but it doesn't actually matter if it's fixing a car, or the RAII pattern, or editing Wikipedia, it's OK (not great, but OK) to make a mess, but you must clean up after yourself. That's what Voltaire, or was it Pascal, meant when he apologised "I have only made this longer because I have not had time to make it shorter"; he hadn't time to clean up after the job. But never mind, I don't mind cleaning. Si Trew (talk) 15:53, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't know the answer but since I was pinged I'll point you in the right direction. WP:BAG members would probably be able to help you, with appearing to be the most active. -- Tavix  ( talk ) 20:53, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Eubot had multiple BRFA's pertaining to creting thousands of redirects. I'm not seeing one specifically for diacritics. —  xaosflux  Talk 21:08, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Igen, erem, de a weboldal elso-ro ot-ra nem jo vagy, en ertem a nyolcsodik Eubot-run van, de nem tudom és nem ertem, nincs "discussion", és nincs, semmi, nulla, "approval". Érted? Si Trew (talk) 23:18, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

I ain't seeing one either. I know it is technical now, but my surmise it is was run without any discussion and without any approval. Si Trew (talk) 23:12, 26 December 2016 (UTC)