Wikipedia talk:Redirects for discussion/Archive 5

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Is there...

...any consensus, precedent, policy, or guideline on foreign language redirects? I know foreign terms which have came into common use in the English language are generally acceptable, but what about things like Mizu, the Japanese term for water, which it redirects to? I can't find any guidelines etc. on it (though this may be due to my poor searching abilities), maybe there should be one? Lord Spongefrog, (I am Czar of all Russias!) 15:10, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Best I can find for you is from the guideline WP:ENGLISH, specifically the part which reads: Redirects from non-English names are encouraged.

Hope this helps, --Taelus (talk) 15:35, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Right. Thanks, Lord Spongefrog, (I am Czar of all Russias!) 17:06, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

However, that needs to be quoted in context. That page is talking about using English titles for originally non-English subjects. It is not talking about redirecting the Japanese word for water to water as Spongefrog is asking about. -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:38, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

There is no single discussion. However, there is definitely precedent at WP:RFD. This was recently discussed here. The positions outlined in that discussion are consistent with RFD precedent. In general (but not allows), redirects such Mizu to Water will end up getting deleted at RFD if nominated. -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:38, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Create missing Pagename (disambiguation) redirects

From Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation#Pagename (disambiguation), it's been suggested that redirects be created based on members of category:All disambiguation pages that don't have (disambiguation) in their title; specifically to create Pagename (disambiguation) redirects. Is there any reason this wouldn't be a good idea? Josh Parris 02:39, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

There actually used to be a bot that did that. I didn't realize it had stopped. -- JLaTondre (talk) 20:21, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Move?

Please see WT:Deletion today. Simply south (talk) 14:29, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Proposed new speedy deletion criterion for redundant and implausible punctuation

I've proposed a new "R4" criterion for a class of implausible redirects that would include such things as the needlessly quoted redirects recently deleted en masse here. Anyone wishing to comment on this proposal can find it at Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#Proposed_R4:_redundant_and_implausible_punctuation, and all comments are welcome there - but please comment there, and not here. — Gavia immer (talk) 06:16, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Have all XfD be substituted and link to the actual page of discussion

Please participate in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Deletion discussions#Have all XfD be substituted and link to the actual page of discussion. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 07:21, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Downtempo/downbeat

The term "downbeat" redirects to a section of the same name in the beat (music) article, but it may also refer to the downtempo article. How can it be noted at the top of the "beat (music)" article so those looking for the "downbeat/downtempo" article arent confused? Dan56 (talk) 08:14, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

See Template:Redirect#Redirect. Though I recommend the template be placed after the section heading and not at the top of the page. As the redirect links to the section heading, that's what people will see; not the top of the page. -- JLaTondre (talk) 13:43, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Tagged redirects should work?

I recently noticed that redirects tagged with RfD are crippled. Why should readers know that a particular redirect is being discussed (unless they actually click the "Redirected from ..." link)? Has this issue been discussed before? Karunyan (talk) 09:34, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

The purpose of tagging pages nominated for XfD is to make people aware of the discussions and give them an opportunity to participate. RFD is no different. We want readers' input; not just the input of people who watch the RFD page. If the redirects continued to function when tagged, the users who know most about the validity and usefulness of the redirect would probably never know about the debate unless it was closed as deleted. -- JLaTondre (talk) 12:47, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, it is important that the actual users of the redirects are notified so that they may give their input, otherwise you risk having a small group of the "RfD crew" representing the entirity of the userbase, which isn't accurate. This has been discussed in the past, and the result was to add a line to the bottom of the template saying "Click the below link to continue to your destination" or something to that effect, thus it is a good improvement over the old way where users would run into the template and go "Oh it's broken." --Taelus (talk) 13:20, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Something terrible

Every log starts like this:

This is a list of redirects that have been proposed for deletion or other action on November 15, 2024.

However, obviously action should be plural not singular. Kayau Voting IS evil 14:53, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

It's fine. Object phrases don't have to agree with the subject, only with the verb they are linked to, which in this case is "have been proposed". Moreover, in practice, list phrases like "deletion or other action" agree with either a singular or plural verb most of the time. — Gavia immer (talk) 21:50, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Corollary of WP:RFD#DELETE point 9

Reason 9 for deletion of a redirect reads "If the redirect could plausibly be expanded into an article, and the target article contains little information on the subject. In these cases, it is better that the target article contain a redlink pointing back to the redirect.".

There is a corollary to this though - there are times when consensus (typically at AfD) is that there should not be an article about a particular subject or at a particular title. In these cases, having a redirect instead will discourage the creation of an unwanted article. Would anyone object to my adding this as the sixth reason to keep a redirect? Thryduulf (talk) 18:10, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Masters of the Universe mass merger discussion

Can someone do a WP:RFD I dunno how to do it for these two articles and I don't have the confidence to do it I tried and it went wrong. I wish to initiate a discussion to get a merger of List of She-Ra: Princess of Power characters and List of Masters of the Universe characters Dwanyewest (talk) 07:03, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion is not the place to discuss possible mergers of articles, this should be done on the talk page of one of the articles concerned. See Help:Merging#Proposing a merger for the correct way to start such a discussion and make others aware of it. Thryduulf (talk) 18:13, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

"Fidget house"

"Fidget house" is not, repeat, NOT a genre of music. I'm sick of people going on and on about how they love fidget house. The term was coined by DJ Switch "as a joke, but now it's gone way too far". If it was up to me, I'd redirect all non-existent house/rave music to Techno, but that's just me being irritant. User:72.199.64.64 15:08, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Extend the time for Rfd

it is as if nobody visits the redirect within a week then it is presumed that nobody will (ever) visit it in the future...I suggest that this time frame be extended to a month - the way I see it is that people only come here to vote when they see the template on the redirect (when they wind up on a redirect page) --Fresh Start (talk) 09:26, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I think 7 days is more than enough. An entire month is far far too long. (Although, some RfDs end up running for 2-3 weeks to gain consensus anyway.) I don't think additional time is needed, as we have a small but active group of editors here at RfD who review listed redirects, along with those who get pointed here by the RfD tags on redirects. The current 7 day system is fine, admins can relist redirects if they get no input during their time being listed, and there could be objections to deletion. --Taelus (talk) 08:58, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Taelus; 7 days is quite enough. Very occasional incorrect deletions more than make up for a reduction in bureaucracy - it's not a very good idea to have an obvious-decision redirect tagged for a month. ~ mazca ^talk 12:18, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

bluelinking

There should be a way to make it so that we can go to the (sub)page with out actually pressing on [edit].

For example, in order for me to go to Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2010 April 11, I actually have to click on the [edit] of either ===April 11=== of 2010 or its subsections.174.3.123.220 (talk) 23:03, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

{{Rfd2}}

I made a formatting change today, and I was wondering about the code ====<span id="{{{redirect}}}">{{{redirect}}}</span>====. Is there a point for the id? If it's supposed to be an anchor, we can just remove it because the software automatically produces an anchor for the heading. --The Evil IP address (talk) 20:02, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

See Template talk:Rfd2#span id for an explanation. -- JLaTondre (talk) 22:10, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Sinebot

Would it be helpful to add Category:Non-talk pages with subpages that are automatically signed to have Sinebot add {{unsigned}} templates to discussions? It's present on WP:AFD so I think it would work here. There's been a ton of anons here recently not signing their posts. Evil saltine (talk) 02:30, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

We used to have that category on Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log, which is the appropriate place (there's no need to have SineBot watching the main RfD page or the log page, only the discussions underneath it). It appears to have gone missing at some point, but I definitely support bringing it back. The Malamanteau discussion is full of unsigned comments. — Gavia immer (talk) 02:39, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

In fact, I'm just going to readd it, and we'll see if anyone objects - which I doubt they will. — Gavia immer (talk) 02:40, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Evil saltine (talk) 02:44, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Magnifique! ~ Amory (u • t • c) 12:28, 14 May 2010 (UT

Delete redundant (but not harmful) redirects?

I came across the redundant redirect "Isaac hayes" -> "Isaac Hayes". This is redundant because the software automatically tries alternate capitalizations for titles like this. I then took a quick look at "Category:Redirects from other capitalisations" and saw many similar redirects such as Aaron burr, Aaron copland, Aaron gillespie, Aba river. All of these - and there must be thousands - are totally unnecessary. Is there any performance advantage/disadvantage to these redundant redirects. Should they be deleted or not bother? Sbowers3 (talk) 17:44, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the software automatically does that unless you enter the term in the search box. If an article is called Blah Blah, and you link to Blah blah from antoher article, no automatic redirect happens. The first letter is case-insensitive but the others are not. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:31, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

OK, let's try it: Harold M. edwards. Harold M. Edwards. The first of these is (currently) a red link. When I click on it, I'm invited to edit a new article with that title. No automatic trying of alternative capitalizations. There goes your "totally unnecessary" theory. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:34, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I believe Sbowers3 is referring to the automatic case-insensitivity of the search box. I don't think we should encourage creation of these redirects, but the ones that still exist should probably be left alone. WP:PERF says us not to worry about performance, and by extension, disk space taken up by these redirects (which would not be recovered if we deleted them anyway). –xeno^talk 18:36, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

As an aside, actually creating Harold M. edwards is a bad idea because it means if someone erroneously links it as such they might not notice they've created a redlink and amend it to the grammatically correct Harold M. Edwards. –xeno^talk 18:37, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I do think we should encourage them in cases where it's plausible that someone would link to a phrase that's capitalized differently but that means the same thing. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:37, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Sure. I was playing off your real name example. –xeno^talk 18:41, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

....OK, let me qualify that: We don't need them for obvious cases like Harold M. Edwards, and it might be better to have a red link to alert the creator that there's a typo. But this theory that redirects to alternative capitalizations happen automatically without a redirect page is false. That works ONLY for things entered in the search box. And a good thing too, because then it would be impossible to have two separate articles called zebras in low latitudes and Zebras in Low Latitudes (where the second is the title of a book and the first is a description of the title—this happens frequently). Michael Hardy (talk) 18:44, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

(outdenting) Xeno gives a good reason for deleting redirects such as Aaron burr - they allow bad wikilinks. Compare Aaron burr and Aaron Burr with Samuel chase and Samuel Chase. There is a redirect for Aaron burr so it shows up as a blue link; Samuel chase does not have a redirect so it shows up as a red link. Wikilinks to these names should always be properly capitalized. Omitting the redirect produces a redlink which will encourage editors to correct the capitalization. In the search box, either capitalization will work so the redirect is not needed. Bottom line, the redirect is useless in the Search box and slightly harmful for a wikilink. My original question about performance is not a good reason for deleting redirects such as "First last", but I think the redlink reason is a good reason for deleting these redirects. Sbowers3 (talk) 20:04, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

In this case, the redirect should be tagged with {{R from incorrect name}} and a bot will fix them. Josh Parris 00:46, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

In addition to the uses mentioned, such capitalization variants serve another purpose - they can help with methods of accessing our articles that aren't under our control. It's not only external links that I mean, but also people who just type things into the address bar without knowing the correct capitalization (or without thinking about it). I often access our articles this way, if I don't have Wikipedia open in a tab already - though I do try to get the capitalization correct. Ideally, this should Just Work, because there's no reason for it not to - so capitalization variants help out in that regard. — Gavia immer (talk) 01:32, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I've done a little database digging around this topic. We have 50972 redirects to titles that vary only in their capitalisation. Of these, 12770 are not linked to from any other page, 9665 from only one page and the remaining 28527 from two or more pages. I'm sure a reasonable portion of the 12770 unlinked redirects are pointless, but in the bigger scale of things they represent there merest gnat's bite on the elephant-hide that is wikipedia's server capacity. I'll happily post them up if anyone wants to go through them and sort out the genuinely undesirable ones. - TB (talk) 17:11, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

WP:RFD#KEEP #1

If A is moved to B, then the deletion of A no longer disturbs the history of the creation of A or of the move, as it's in B's edit history. The edit history was required to be copied before a software change a number of years ago. I propose that the clarification:

If the redirect was created by renaming a page with that name, and the page history just mentions the renaming, and for one of the reasons above you want to delete the page, copy the page history to the Talk page of the article it redirects to. The act of renaming is useful page history, and even more so if there has been discussion on the page name.

be removed from WP:RFD#KEEP #1. If all the moves were by use move the MOVE button, then the history is preserved even if the articles are deleted. (If there were some copy/paste moves, or merges, then the history needs to be keep somehow.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:32, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

• I accept the point that MOVE moves retain their history. However, there are broader reasons for keeping redirects after page moves. Since an article was created as A then that title can be considered to be a foreseeable search term. Further, keeping such redirects are very useful for preventing the creation of duplicate pages. I am not sure that I see the need for a change. However, I am happy to offer a compromise that will achieve the objective of keeping such redirects whilst removing the 'page history' rationale to which you object.

Replace the highlighted text with a new bullet point:

Redirects created after a move made using the move button should not be deleted, except where they are clearly misleading and there is no other reasonable target. This is because the act of creation indicates that they are a foreseeable search term and because it helps to avoid the creation of duplicate pages.

Bridgeplayer (talk) 18:27, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that phrasing covers the issue. In addition to misleading and derrogatory redirects, redirects created by reversing page-move vandalism, and cases in which the original author suggested the move (aka {{db-author}}, as modified to note that the history is no longer where you can find it readily), there is the case where the original author clearly made a mistake, and didn't come back to fix it. That the original author made a mistake suggests that a reasonable person might make it, but it's not conclusive. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:29, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Arthur Rubin. That language is too strong. -- JLaTondre (talk) 23:21, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree with both of these guys. I do a fair amount of work cleaning up predictable problems in the titles of new pages, and most of the leftover redirects are of no use at all. The proposed text implies that if I should have to come here with such a redirect, I would have to prove that the bad title is "misleading". Not so good. — Gavia immer (talk) 23:45, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually, you have to come here with any redirect that you want to delete anyway so nothing changes in that regard. I do agree with the views, though, that the porposed wording was too restrictive and I've redrafted as follows:

Redirects created after a move made using the move button should not be deleted, except where they clearly meet one of the deletion criteria above. This is because the act of creation indicates that they are a foreseeable search term and because it helps to avoid the creation of duplicate pages.

Bridgeplayer (talk) 10:58, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Still too strong. The act of creation suggests that they are a foreseeable search term, but it doesn't really indicate it. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 04:40, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Please leave the current wording as is. That criterion does not require that any given redirect be kept just like meeting a criterion in the #Delete section does not mandate deletion. They are merely criteria to be balanced during the RfD discussions.
In this case, there are some historical notes that must be considered. First, the move feature did not always move history. And while "years ago" seems like a long time on Wikipedia, there were a lot of pagemoves made during that time. Old redirects often have relevant history behind them. Second, even after the page-history was incorporated into the move feature, it was quite a bit longer until the history also included a record of the change in title.
Outside of bad-faith moves and author-identified accidents, changing the title must generally be assumed to be a substantive edit - at least as substantive as the typo corrections that we keep in every article's history. Rossami (talk) 05:14, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Changing the title may be a "substantive edit", but should be considered as such only in the log it appears in, namely the target article. It's not substantive in the redirect's history, so should not be considered in RFD#KEEP 1. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:01, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm always happy to draft towards a compromise. I've replaced 'indicates' by 'suggests' as you ermm suggested :-):

Redirects created after a move made using the move button should not be deleted, except where they clearly meet one of the deletion criteria above. This is because the act of creation suggests that they are a foreseeable search term and because it helps to avoid the creation of duplicate pages.

Bridgeplayer (talk) 00:42, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Nomination of redirects created at other *fD fora

I recently speedily closed an RfD nomination primarily on the basis that the redirect had just been created as the result of consensus at WP:TFD (so the listing here was essentially forum shopping—a second attempt to achieve the deletion that was decided against at TfD).
I propose that we add an instruction to not nominate a redirect created recently (perhaps within the past month?) as the result of consensus at another *fD forum. —David Levy 18:31, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

What a good idea... did this happen? Andrewa (talk) 19:33, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Deletion of redirs created by moves

Further to the above discussion, there are often specific requests at WP:RM to keep the redirects. These requests should IMO be redundant although it doesn't hurt.

When I looked at WP:RFD#When should we delete a redirect?, I thought it should be strengthened a little. It talks only of old redirects, but logically, new redirects created by moves have much the same standing as old redirects, and should be kept for exactly the same reasons. The redirect may be new, but neither the URL it represents new the wikilink target it creates are new, and both other websites and old versions of Wikipedia pages can be expected to link to it, undetectably.

Thoughts? And, are these requests just the result of newbies not knowing that the redirects are kept by default, or have some (overzealous IMO) admins been deleting these newly created redirects? Andrewa (talk) 19:47, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

How's this then? –xeno^talk 19:53, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Looks good! Thank you! Andrewa (talk) 21:41, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

When should we delete a redirect?

This section makes no logical sense to me. The first sentence reads "The major reasons why deletion of redirects is harmful are:" Only after two paragraphs of strong reasoning for not deleting do we get the almost apologetic "Therefore consider the deletion only of either really harmful redirects or of very recent ones." This is designed to confuse a reader looking for an answer to the question in the header

I think that we should start with the guiding principle for deletion which I would phrase: "Redirects are generally a good thing. They should only be considered for deletion either where they are harmful or where they are both recently created and an implausible search term."

We then replace the two lead paragraphs, and point 1 under "Reasons for not deleting" with a new point 1 and 2: "

• the redirect contains non-trivial edit history.
• the redirect is established (or a redirect that was created as a result of moving a page that had been there for some time). This is because it is possible that its deletion will break links in old, historical versions of of articles on external sites — such events are very difficult to predict or even detect."

This rewriting is intended to clarify our existing approach and does not, intentionally, introduce any new policy. Any thoughts, please? Bridgeplayer (talk) 16:20, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree that whole section could use a re-write. I don't think I agree with your revised introduction, though. A redirect is neither a good or a bad thing in itself. It is a tool that can be used well or poorly. Starting with the title, this section could use more neutrality. -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:21, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

How about this:

• "Properly targeted, redirects are a useful aid to navigation. They should only be considered for deletion either where they are harmful or where they are both recently created and an implausible search term." Bridgeplayer (talk) 19:28, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Especial:Llista de seguiment, etc

Hello, I just wondered if someone could fill me in on the ins and outs of redirects like these. "Llista de seguiment" is the Catalan word for "watchlist". I would say it's useful for "Especial:Llista de seguiment" to redirect to Special:Watchlist for people editing multiple language Wikipedias. It happens in reverse (for example, ca:Special:Watchlist redirects to "Especial:Llista de seguiment" on the Catalan Wikipedia) so why not this way around? Obviously, this applies to all foreign words for "watchlist". I presume this has been discussed before, and, if so, would someone mind either linking the discussion for me or summarising it here? Thanks, —Celestianpower ^háblame 01:31, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Explanation of term NAC

The term NAC (non-admin closure) is often used here at RfD. I feel that it needs to be explained somewhere in the (very long) notes at the top of the page, though. It took me a very long time to work out when I was a newbie a few years ago.

Perhaps use of the abbreviation should be discouraged, for this reason. However, this might be a step too far. A brief definition could be helpful to newcomers. (I would WP:BEBOLD and do this myself, except there is no clear place to put it on the page as it stands.) — This, that, and the other (talk) 09:42, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

The term is not specific to RFD. It's used with all deletion types so is better handled at a global page. The RFD banner links to Wikipedia:Deletion process which has a section that discuss the topic, but does not use the abbreviation. I agree it's not clear. It would help if people linked to WP:NAC when using the abbreviation. -- JLaTondre (talk) 12:31, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Template:Rfd2

Posting this here because I figured it might have a few more watchers, there's an issue over at Template:Rfd2 which meant that at the beginning of January, the stats link provided showed up as December 2011 (because the template used the previous month but the current year). I've not really got a clue what I'm doing and I did a particularly bad fix for the time being just to make it work (but doing it that way would mean this will need to be changed back on 1 February again and then on 1 January and 1 February ever year... - not ideal). If someone could fix it properly, that would be great! Thanks. Mhiji 15:32, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

template:Rfd-t

{{Rfd-t}} was nominated for deletion. 184.144.169.126 (talk) 05:46, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Wow. RfD makes me feel stupid. but am not

Hi, I am not stupid. Now I tried to do a RfD, and I got lost every possible way (hey, coming from TfD). -DePiep (talk) 23:49, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

(later on:) I really do not get a single word of the second step. Not a single word. I'd say: please, why has not a single person improved that? By the way, the TOC is very interesting. If you have to go through (twice++) -- very interesting. I am not sttupid. -DePiep (talk) 23:58, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Er... I have no problem with the instructions as they are. It looks understandable to me. I don't particularly like the multi-redirect nomination format though. I think you should be able to choose a name for that section instead of defaulting to the first redirect selected. 65.93.12.249 (talk) 13:25, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I always pick a useful group title for mass nominations rather than do as the instructions suggest. I've never had a bit of trouble over doing so, either, so I'd guess that it is not prohibited to do so. — Gavia immer (talk) 18:49, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Bilateral relation articles redirecting to one of the relations

There is a number of redirects here from bilateral relation articles like Germany–Romania relations to Foreign relations of Germany. This is misleading, as 1) such article should be created, not a redirect, and per WP:RED an incorrect redirect lowers the chance of the article being created and 2) such a redirect could as well point to Foreign relations of Romania; why is the reader directed to foreign relation of Germany article instead? This problem is not limited to Germany or Romania, it seems to involve many other countries. There are likely hundreds of redirects like that that should be deleted, turned into disambiguation pages or restored ([1]). I do recall that we might have had a deletion discussion about them, so if restoration is controversial, at least, delete the misleading redirects or convert them into disambigs. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:46, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I would strongly argue against encouraging the creation of endless binary foreign-relations articles. There are very few cases where the specific combination is sufficiently broad as to merit an independent encyclopedia article. Your two examples above are very good examples of the case - the first sentence is a tautology (French-Ukrainian relations are bilateral foreign relations between France and Ukraine.) and the rest is trivia (the embassy is in such-and-such city). These redirects are created when someone finally realizes that the page can never be greater than a stub and merges the content into a larger article (which is what happened here).
You raise a good point that in theory the redirect could be equally appropriate in the other direction. In practice, however, I believe we should defer to the judgment of the editors executing the merger. In cases like this, the primary purpose of the redirect is not as a navigational aid but as the repository for the attribution history of any content merged into another article (a requirement of GFDL). The redirect points to whichever page got slightly more of the content.
You could add at tag like {{unprintworthy}} if you're concerned about the redirect's inclusion in the search engine autofill but I think that's optional. Rossami (talk) 20:24, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Using WP:RM for redirect retargetting?

At Talk:Provincial highway, it is argued that WP:RM is an appropriate venue to retarget redirects because WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY. You may wish to comment. 184.144.164.14 (talk) 11:56, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

• While allowed to be listed at RfD, retargetting decisions are ordinary-editor actions which do not have to be discussed here and are usually best sorted out on the respective Talk pages. (RM would be a highly unusual forum to get the same advertising.) Rossami (talk) 14:51, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Broken redirects

Number 7 of WP:RfD#Delete states "If the redirect is broken, [...], it can be deleted immediately, ..."

However, there is no CSD criteria for speedy deleting broken redirects. Is this something that needs to be brought up over at CSD? – Ajl^talk 03:56, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

• Actually, there is. The wording is a hold-over from CSD criterion R1 which has since been merged into G8. A redirect that's only ever pointed to a non-existent or to a now-deleted page can been speedy'd under G8. A redirect that points back to itself is either a test, vandalism or a clear mistake and, again, immediately deletable under their respective clauses. Rossami (talk) 04:26, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Ah, there it is. Thanks. Might I suggest refactoring to: "If the redirect is broken, meaning it redirects to itself or to an article that does not exist, it can be deleted immediately under section G8 of the speedy deletion criteria, though you should check that there is not an alternative place it could be appropriately redirected to first." (bold part indicates change)? – Ajl^talk 04:38, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
    • I'd change the word "section" to "criterion", but otherwise I support that change. Thryduulf (talk) 11:04, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Trouble tagging redirects again

Had this problem earlier in March. Some trouble in the last couple days, but I would manually add the category "candidates for speedy deletion" and it seemed to fix things. But now File:8f293914-6af0-497a-9318-688340985ad9.jpg isn't being tagged properly. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 03:12, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

record of RfDs

Recently I've noticed that almost every RfD closer is not applying the instruction to add the {{oldrfd}} template to the talk page of kept or retargetted redirects. Given that it isn't just one person not doing it but seemingly almost everyone who isn't me, it's not likely to be one individual at fault.

Do we actually want to keep this (I say we definitely do)? If so, how do we bring the instruction to the attention of more people? Thryduulf (talk) 20:22, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

What to do about Wunderland

Wunderland is currently a looped redir back into the article it pointed out of. However, this was a former article that was AfDed. What do to in these cases? The loop is clearly sub-optimal. Maury Markowitz (talk) 12:56, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

The looped redirects have been fixed. Wunderland now simply serves as a straight redirect to Known Space and that's fine since it is covered there. The AfD determined that Wunderland wasn't notable enough for a stand-alone article but that doesn't prevent a redirect being created. Bridgeplayer (talk) 13:14, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Retargetting

I saw this it has been touched upon here but not that extensively, but is this the proper place to discuss what articles should redirects target? I considered listing one here but I'd ask here first. –HTD 04:37, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes it is. If the retarget is non-controversial then it is often in order to just boldly do it. However, if the retarget is likely to be subject to differing views then please feel free to bring it here. Bridgeplayer (talk) 18:23, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

DumbBOT down

user:DumbBOT, the bot that creates the daily subpages and transcludes them on the main RfD page has been down for a few days and so these tasks will need to be done manually for the time being. Thryduulf (talk) 19:07, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

The proper primary topic page for FE, Fe and fe

Does really Fe have to redirect to Iron? Ca, Hg, or Pb do not redirect to Calcium, Mercury (element) or Lead, for example. —  Ark25  (talk) 01:12, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree. You have a point. Since there are two of us, I'll try to fix this unless we get massive objections from others. SBHarris 02:16, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Please discuss change in Fe at Talk:Fe. "Fe" might have a primary topic when "Hg" doesn't, for example. If the new consensus is that "Fe" no longer has a primary topic, Fe (disambiguation) will need to be moved to the base name, otherwise it's WP:MALPLACED. Cheers! -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:31, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Vote (everybody, please go to TALK:Fe) for this.

My redirect of the redirect has been revertd by JHunter. Okay, everybody: iron (element) is now the primary topic for iron. But (question) should iron (element) be the primary topic for Fe? Personally, I say:

• No. For that automatically makes iron (element) the primary topic for FE and fe also. I think Fe should be handled as are all the other two-letter symbols which may happen to stand for chemical elements, but (in other forms and other capitalizations) may stand for many other things also. Examples given above. The capitalization problem is the root of this discussion. If you make the element the primary topic for the symbol, you make it the primary topic for any two-letter combination. Fe must direct to the same page as FE, so that (as it is) FE and fe must primarily direct to iron (element) also, even though FE and fe are never used as a symbol for iron. I suggest that that is not a good thing. As a policy, for this reason, I think that two-letter wiki pages should NEVER direct primarily to the chemical element, but instead, always to a dab page. SBHarris 20:59, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

G10 and redirects

There is a discussion here about how WP:CSD#G10 interacts with redirects. Your input would be welcome. Hobit (talk) 18:50, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2011 December 7

This is a redlink. It was deleted because there were no nominations that day. But Wikipedia is not Paper, surely we should just keep this around for administrative purposes, so as to indicate that no noms were made, and so that just traversing archives doesn't break anything on sequential traversal because it is an exception to the rule. 70.24.248.23 (talk) 05:37, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

If you look at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log you'll see that this has historically been the way we've treated days with nominations. I see your point, but is there anything that uses sequential traversal like that? The links from adjacent days are updated to skip the missing day to help those who go through that way. I see it basically as the equivalent of deleting the dated maintenance categories when they're empty, which is explicitly mentioned at WP:CSD#G6. I don't object to keeping them around if there is a need (probably best to mark them with a template or something if we do), but I don't see there is a need. Thryduulf (talk) 13:01, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Suggestion for new entry

I was not quite sure how to list a redirect for discussion, but I would like the fact that if you type "St. Paul's Day" into the box on the left, you get redirected to a the Feast of St Peter and St Paul in June up for discussion. I have always taken "St. Paul's Day" to be January 25 - as is listed in Patricia Morrell's book "Festivals and Customs". Any one like to discuss this? ACEOREVIVED (talk) 09:34, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Substituting the RfD notice

Please see Template talk:Rfd#Substitution for a proposal to change {{Rfd}} from transclude-only to subst-only. Thank you, -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 00:55, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. We have built the new versions of the template, and are likely to move them into place within the next few days if we get no opposition. If you have any concerns about this, now is the time to speak up. - TexasAndroid (talk) 15:05, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Allow prod for redirects

Seriously, what is the idea here? Prod is a good way to give fair warning for a deletion that seems unproblematic. It would be useful for redirects. But prod notices on redirect pages routinely get reverted by the bureaucratically-minded. There is no rhyme or reason to this. A redirect page can be made into an article and vice versa, at any time, without asking permission from the bureaucracy. So it is ok to turn a redirect into a stub and then prod it but it isn't ok to just prod it directly? If there is any sense to this I would like to hear it. --dab (𒁳) 17:57, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Redirects were excluded from the PROD process originally on the reasoning that they don't get the same level of traffic and active monitoring as articles. Redirects would get deleted and then restored (doubling the unnecessary transactions) merely because the flag wouldn't get noticed within the 7 day window.
Redirects are also harder to evaluate in my experience. A junk article is pretty easy to identify. But judging from the number of redirects that get nominated and then routinely kept after discussion, we individual editors are not at all good at consistently identifying junk redirects.
Lastly, there's the question of volume. PROD was instituted because AfD was overloaded. RfD was not then similarly overloaded. (And is not still, in my opinion.) Rossami (talk) 03:05, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Help requested

Hi: I don't feel totally comfortable with the syntax of redirects, so thought I would ask here.

Please look at the following two articles: Jilian and Jilian Town then look at their talk pages.

Jilian redirects to Jilian Town. But Jilian is a person and should have his own talk page with a biography tag, etc.

Can anyone help disentangle this? Thanks!--FeanorStar7 (talk) 23:40, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

This was a simple oversight on the part of the user who moved the original page about the town to make room for the article about the person. He/she overwrote the article page with new content but forgot to overwrite the Talk page so it would stand alone. Fixed now. Rossami (talk) 00:49, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks so much for your help, Rossami. I appreciate it.--FeanorStar7 (talk) 01:18, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

DumbBOT down - daily pages need transcluding manually

user:DumbBOT has been down for several days now, which means that the creation of daily subpages and the transcluding of these pages on the main Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion page must be done manually. I (and others) have left messages for the bot's operator, so hopefully this will be temporary, but in the meanwhile we need to keep an eye on it (my internet connection is currently unreliable so I can't get on every day). Thryduulf (talk) 11:43, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Capitalization/punctuation-based redirects

I note one (now blocked) user has been creating a large number of redirects for proper names, where the redirect title simply strips all punctuation and capitalization from the name. So for example, Whitehorse yukon gets redirected to Whitehorse, Yukon, and Neve campbell to Neve Campbell. I would question whether these redirects are of any use. Such links are unlikely to occur in an article; if they do they will become obvious redlinks which someone (most likely whoever inserted them in the first place) will notice and fix immediately. Such redirects don't help searching either, since the Wikipedia search automatically tries variant punctuation and capitalization. (To take some examples where a redirect is not already in place, try searching for "adam buick" or "Adam buick" and you will be correctly taken to Adam Buick. Similarly, searching for "Regina saskatchewan" takes you to Regina, Saskatchewan.) Should these redirects be deleted? When other editors are observed creating similar redirects, should they be dissuaded from creating further ones? —Psychonaut (talk) 08:28, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

On the contrary, many of those redirects are useful. Remember that while the Wikipedia search engine is capitalization-insensitive, many other means that Wikipedia readers use to navigate the wiki are case-sensitive. In the situation you observe (mass creation), I would drop a polite note on the user's page explaining why they are mostly unnecessary but it is not disruptive or harmful if they ignore you and keep creating them. Be sure to teach the user about adding the {{R from capitalization}} tag, though. Rossami (talk) 11:51, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Using what particular method of site navigation, apart from typing the URL manually, would those redirects conceivably come into use? —Psychonaut (talk) 12:10, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Third-party search engines, for one. Manual URL entry for another. (And, yes, I am personally aware of a half-dozen experienced Wikipedians who have stated for the record that they commonly use manual URL entry to find pages they want. I don't know why they choose to navigate that way but I have no reason to believe they were lying.) I'm told that some of the Wikipedia support tools (browser add-ins, etc) also have case-sensitive functions.
Again, I am not advocating that we should preemptively advocate for those redirects, but redirects really are cheap and if a user creates one in good-faith, there's no benefit to deleting it unless it is creating active confusion or harm to the encyclopedia. Rossami (talk) 21:52, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm one who uses URL entry as a method of navigating. I have "wp" set up as a shortcut in Firefox, so that when I type wp foo into the url bar I am taken to the Wikipedia page foo. When I'm on computers without this set up I enter the URL completely manually. I navigate this way because I find it much faster than waiting for the Wikipedia main page to load and then waiting for my desired page to load (especially when using GPRS on my phone, where it also saves me money). I am able to do this because of the predictability of Wikipedia article naming - either the article or a redirect is at the logical title. This is also why I often navigate direct to "(disambiguation)" titles if I don't know what the disambiguator is but I don't think the use I'm looking for will be the primary topic. Thryduulf (talk) 22:51, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Note - stats.grok.se broken for May 2012

Currently, stats.grok.se is showing no hits for any page during May 2012 (see for example the Main Page stats for May 2012 and the last 90 days). This must be taken into account when looking at the usage levels of redirects. Thryduulf (talk) 22:55, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Check

Why don't you check my edit history on making redirects to Coprolite, and see if it's appropriate? I think it's useful, but I didn't try to find previous discussions or anything. B^e——C_ritical 23:10, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Crude but proper. BTW, for courtesy, you should post the redirects you created instead of making us hunt through four pages of contribution history. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 00:38, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Current list

What happened to Current list? It's not refreshing! JSH-alive/^{talk/cont/mail} 06:28, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Apparently User:DumbBOT isn't working. I added the recent discussion days manually. —Kusma (t·c) 10:03, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Relisted discussions

As we are frequently mindful of preventing link rot with article redirects, it seems odd that we are not similarly concerned when it comes to relisting discussions.

Accordingly, I've recently started leaving a copy of the header and a line like below:

•  Relisted. See Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2011 July 21#Degrassi Now or Never.

I did try and set-up a template that would do it all with just a parameter for the redirt name, using that for the header and link and defaulting to today's date for the new log page. Unfortunately my template skills are nowhere near sufficient for the task and a request at Wikipedia:Requested templates has gone unanswered (it seems it's an abandoned page).

This isn't a big thing, and the template would make it easier still, but I think it's worth it as discussions sometimes get linked to on their log page and we don't know about bookmarks, etc. It also keeps the page with content for anyone browsing by date. Thryduulf (talk) 10:15, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

{{rfd relisted}} is now ready for use. BigNate37_(T) 06:01, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Easy watch all RfD discussions

For anyone who wants to keep an eye one all RfD discussions, including long closed debates and talk pages, I've created User:Thryduulf/RfD watchlist. Just view the related changes of that page - Special:RecentChangesLinked/User:Thryduulf/RfD_watchlist and you'll see all the changes to every RfD log page since December 2005). Thryduulf (talk) 01:02, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Pagelinks

Just a heads up: {{pagelinks}} and the {{ln}} family of templates now include &redirect=no in their primary page links, which means they are now effective for linking redirects (in any namespace). BigNate37_(T) 04:46, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Redirect deletion reasons section

WP:RFD#When should we delete a redirect? transcludes Wikipedia:Redirect/Deletion Reasons. A discussion about changes to this subpage is going on at Wikipedia talk:Redirect#Merger proposal. BigNate37_(T) 16:32, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Ridiculous redirects

Could somebody take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Article_editor? As an IP user, I can't create RFD pages, but User:Article editor's redirects are really silly. What makes Far West Republic redirect to one certain country? Why should we have ridiculous redirects like Oclahoma and South Dacota? 69.62.243.48 (talk) 21:26, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

• The misspellings are fine in my opinion, they are plausible phonetically. I don't understand the geographic ones, and I don't think Middle East (region) should redirect anywhere but Middle East. Siuenti (talk) 22:58, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Yeah, the geographic ones (i.e., those created on 1 September) are downright bizarre. I'd propose a blanket db-r3. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 02:59, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
  • db-r3 for all 1 Sept ones except Far East (region) (properly redirected), Middle East (region) (properly redirected), and Near East (region), which seem marginally plausible. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 03:32, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

New essay about deleting redirects

I made a new essay about deleting redirects called wp:Re-target to search page. It basally says to think of think of deleting a redirect as re-targeting it to search page. Anyone want to improve it, it definitely needs some work. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 10:30, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I've left a long comment about the essay at its talk page User talk:Emmette Hernandez Coleman/Re-target to search page#Not always true. Thryduulf (talk) 19:57, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Re-targeting a redirect during it's RFD.

Is it appropriate to Re-target a redirect during it's RFD. This is a continuation of the discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2012 September 20#Inexperienced user. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 21:13, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I have been bold and added "see also [other suggested target]" to various redirect pages under discussion, if I felt confident that the other suggestion will at least end up as an option in a disambiguation. It may help some people find what they are looking for. Siuenti (talk) 19:14, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

The Knack (Dilbert episode) Revisited

Resolved

A while back, the page The Knack (Dilbert episode) was merged into List of Dilbert animated series episodes.

(Last version before merge (701 words))

(Redirect after merge)

(What was retained after the merge (29 words))

(Merge discussion (3 participants))

However, the discussion did not notify any of the 77 users who have the {{User:Fourthords/User The knack}}[2] template on their user pages, which displays this:

This user has the knack.

I doubt that any of those 77 users thought to periodically check the link in the userbox to make sure it had not been redirected. I certainly didn't notice it for a long time.

In my opinion, the page should be restored on that basis alone, but if someone still wants it merged, I think it would only be fair to reconsider this particular merge with notification to the 77 affected users listed above. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:39, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Well it's important to remember that the community is here to build the encyclopedia, not the other way around. Userspace should never dictate what we do in articlespace. Having said that, this sort of thing happens a lot without warning. It would be polite to let everyone know, but it is not necessary. You may be able to request a bot operator to run a batch job of notifying those users, though. Also, I collapsed the list of users for easier section reading. I hope you don't mind. If you do, please feel free to remove the cot/cob tags. BigNate37_(T) 07:38, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Quite helpful, actually. I should have thought of it. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:48, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Fixed. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 09:18, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Why is it taking so long to close RFDs

Some of these RFDs have been open for over a month. Why is it taking so long to close them? Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 19:31, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

RFDed template redirects and ugly articles

Is there a better way to avoid having RFDed template redirects leave something like 1. REDIRECT Template:Space (or worse before I noincluded) all over articles than by moving the RFD after the redirect (e.g. Template:S)? TimBentley (talk) 14:57, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

💓

Hello, I was wondering if you could fix the incomplete closure of the RFD on 💓 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)? Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2012_November_4#💓 indicates the discussion was closed as retarget to Heart_symbol#Computer_code, but the redirect still has an RFD template on it. -- 70.24.247.127 (talk) 05:51, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

 Done. Thanks for spotting that. Thryduulf (talk) 07:42, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Can we have instruction that are easy to follow?

I've followed the instruction to the letter, on how to make an entry, yet the DAM thing won't work. We need (graphic) examples, folks. GoodDay (talk) 19:40, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Kyle Crist and Carlos Sencion

It would appear that Kyle Crist and Carlos Sencion were supposed to be included in this RFD [3] but weren't. They've sort of been lost in the ensuing time. They should be deleted. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:07, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

January 24 revised

Early today my session spanning midnight was interrupted, after I had undertaken manually to advance the date (section) from January 24 to January 25.

Now I have revised yesterday's log Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2013 January 24 to complete the entry, give a phony timestamp 23:59, and undo the duplicate January 25 heading. --P64 (talk) 16:18, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia_Talk:Naming_conventions_(use_English)#Redirects_from_non-English_titles

WP:ENGLISH currently states "Redirects from non-English names are encouraged", however redirects from unrelated languages are discouraged according to Wikipedia:RFD#DELETE number 8. I have started a discussion at Wikipedia_Talk:Naming_conventions_(use_English)#Redirects_from_non-English_titles hoping to revising the wording of that page. Siuenti (talk) 13:52, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

New speedy deletion criterion for redirects

It has been proposed that redirects and soft-redirects to non-English wikis be eligible for speedy deletion under a proposed new criterion R4. Please contribute to the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#R4 proposal. Thryduulf (talk) 17:09, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

John Németh

Sorry if I have brought this to the wrong place, but here goes. I have recently created the above named article, and initially wondered if there should be a redirect created for John Nemeth. This was originally pertinent, because I almost created the article under this latter title, by following Allmusic's styling here. Having looked at various other sources, including Németh's own webiste here, I quickly switched to the correct spelling. I am assuming others may use the easier spelling style, hence my idea of a redirect. Although there is no article under John Nemeth - there are usages of that styling, relating to other individuals under other articles (specifically, Philadelphia Sketch Club and United States House of Representatives elections, 2002).

So, my question is, what to do for the best ?

Derek R Bullamore (talk) 15:30, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Following the advice given by an administrator, I have created a redirect page at John Nemeth.

Derek R Bullamore (talk) 20:55, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Redirects with no incoming links

I changed the wording in the header about redirects with no incoming links (diff). I was concerned that the former wording suggested such a status shouldn't be mentioned at all, that it was somehow irrelevant. "Please don't list this as a reason" probably just meant that all such redirects shouldn't be nominated; I think my wording better reflects actual practice. The number of incoming links can be an important consideration. One with hundreds probably won't be deleted (though it can be), and one without any probably could safely be deleted (though it needn't be). --BDD (talk) 19:57, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree that's an improvement. Presence or absence of internal links is not usually relevant but it can be. Thryduulf (talk) 00:09, 7 May 2013 (UTC)