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As I hope will be apparent after reading it over, this page was intended to address the lack of documentation about RfD standards. None of this is meant to be a final word, but I hope it's found helpful. Not that you need my permission, but I do encourage you to tweak and expand it. In particular, not all of the examples given are very strong—they're just ones I could readily find, without relying too heavily on cases that I remember because I was personally involved. I tried to avoid jargon and excessive abbreviations, although casual readers aren't going to end up at RfD anyway.

What this won't do is address the fact that, except for Wikipedia:Redirect/Deletion reasons, we don't have anything at guideline-level that speaks to redirect deletion. Even RfD mainstays like WP:CHEAP and WP:FORRED are "only essays" (WP:REDLINK is a guideline, though). Maybe that's a good thing. I'm sure many editors are wary of WP:CREEP, though I suspect some want more guidance on these questions.

Pinging the following RfD regulars:

RfD Avengers, Assemble!

My one plea here is to try very hard to make sure this page accurately describes RfD practice, even when you don't agree with it. We all have our POV, and some of mine has probably leaked onto this page already, though I've tried to keep it in check. I hope we can all agree that edit warring here would be very silly. Now, have at it! --BDD (talk) 22:07, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Interestingly, a couple of days ago I started thinking of creating such page. So, thank you very much for doing most of my job for me here! — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 22:15, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I think "With possibilities" section should probably be expanded. I also believe that non-CNR redirects outside main namespace deserve a section, although not before the end of current wave of template RfDs. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 22:20, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't realise I edited RfD that much. Considering my response.--Launchballer 22:39, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
My selection definitely suffered from recentism. I guess you've just been around enough lately. :) --BDD (talk) 23:31, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Do I get to wear the Iron Man armor? :) Anyways, I'll be putting this page on my Watchlist. --Lenticel (talk) 00:18, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Another dimension is understanding the multifarious nature of redirects. They are for linking to on-wiki, for typing in the box, for linking off-wiki, for helping the search engine, for fixing url limitations, for keeping attribution, for place holding, plus probably other uses. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 02:40, 5 June 2014 (UTC).
Oh that's nice, I get pinged twice for excessive participation! I set my stall as briefly as I can: I had time on my hands and wanted to contribute while I could. Now I shall not have as much time so you shall be free of me. Si Trew (talk) 00:38, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I read that comment as playful teasing, not insulting exasperation. I don’t think BDD is trying to chase you away. Gorobay (talk) 13:43, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Quite right. --BDD (talk) 16:32, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Something I added

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"If the redirect has a title that suggest an article, whether it is kept often depends on if the target is intended for readers or editors. Portals are intended for readers, for example, so article titles redirect to portals are often kept. An article title redirecting to a template or Wikipedia page is usually deleted."

If you think that sucks or is just plain wrong, feel free to edit or delete. Ego White Tray (talk) 04:00, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Redirects to “Main Page” in other languages

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Redirects to Main Page from other languages are commonly not deleted; cf. Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2014 April 1#Паӂина принчипалэ. Such redirects are seldom nominated, though, so perhaps this outcome is not common enough for this page. Gorobay (talk) 13:27, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I considered addressing those, but you're right, it doesn't come up very often. The recent nomination of Hauptseite suggested to me that this might change in the future, but more likely in some sort of combined discussion than item-by-item. Overall, it's somewhat unclear to me whether those redirects exist because they're backed by consensus or because no one has cared enough to seriously question them. --BDD (talk) 16:34, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Misspelled native language redirects

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Moved as noted below Ego White Tray (talk) 06:08, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion belongs at Wikipedia Talk:Redirects for discussion. I'll move it there in a bit. Ego White Tray (talk) 04:24, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki markup section

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I don't know if this is worth adding, or if I'll ever get around to adding it (since writing a whole section is a bit difficult using the desktop version on a mobile device, which is what I do), but given the discussions regarding redirects with wiki markup that get deleted, as well as the fact that the creation of new titles with consecutive apostrophes is now blocked by the title blacklist, it may be worth adding here. Steel1943 (talk) 17:25, 14 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I started a discussion about these at WT:CSD after another one popped up recently. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 15:12, 20 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I proposed adding this to WP:G6 as a technical speedy deletion criterion, but was turned down because this is not as clear-cut as I think it is. So I'll do my proposal-drafting thing here too. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 21:21, 20 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Is this even necessary? I'm making a few assumptions here, so correct me if any of them are wrong. Wiki markup is blacklisted so you can't create any additional redirects unless you're an admin. There aren't any current redirects that use wiki markup because they've already been deleted. Any additional wiki markup redirects can be handled through R3 (assuming we catch it early enough). -- Tavix (talk) 21:29, 24 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You're probably right. I was thinking about it when it seemed that someone was getting around the blacklist, before we knew that it was an admin, and admins are supposed to be able to get around it. My only concern is that these often turn out to be redirects from page moves when pages are created under the wrong title and then moved to the proper one, and page move redirects are exempt from R3. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 21:34, 24 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You might get away with G6, explaining that the title is blacklisted, or just message the admin that created it, explain the situation, and you could get a G7 out of it. If not, RFD would be the solution. I just don't see this happening very often... -- Tavix (talk) 21:41, 24 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Start of draft

Page titles which contain wiki markup are harmful to the encyclopedia, because the presence of markup changes page formatting in unexpected and unpredictable ways, and can break templates. These redirects are commonly left behind when pages erroneously containing markup are moved to proper titles. These redirects are almost always deleted, with the exception of pages where the markup is actually part of the title, and there is no other way to display the title.

Examples
 
 

End of draft.

Emoji

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This is a draft proposal to add a common outcomes section on redirects from emoji, based on a discussion at the idea lab. Please comment below the draft. Thanks. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 21:04, 20 July 2015 (UTC) [reply]

Redirects may be created from emoji characters, however due to technological differences the symbols may not render the same or at all for users on different platforms. Nevertheless, such redirects are often kept if the symbol has a clear and definite meaning matching an existing topic on Wikipedia, including to disambiguation pages. For symbols which are unclear, where the meaning is difficult to determine, where there is no agreement on a logical target or none exists, the outcome is usually deletion.

Examples

End of draft.

Above, I've drafted a section on the common outcomes of emoji redirects, which I believe follows consensus. One big problem I see with this is that the oldest of these discussions is still less than a month old, but emoji redirects are a somewhat recent phenomenon so maybe this is one of those "it is what it is" situations. Comments welcome. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 21:04, 20 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • The examples are good but the introduction needs work. These redirects can be created by users not on mobile platforms; I myself have created some on a laptop. The fact that some users see a .notdef glyph is never a reason to delete a redirect, so “or at all” should be removed as irrelevant. “Extended character” is meaninglessly vague. The argument for deletion (a character has vague semantics due to completely different glyphs on various platforms) is specific to emoji, so just say “emoji”. The 🎱 link targets the wrong discussion, and the 👾 link is out of date. Gorobay (talk) 13:16, 21 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks, fixed both of the wrong links. I thought that the introduction would need work, I'm not very good at writing them. Have implemented your suggestions, except I left in "or at all" because I've seen many users arguing that an emoji redirect should be deleted because they can't see it, and mentioning it here is my attempt to stress that that is not a rationale for deletion. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 14:55, 21 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've added a couple more examples: the earliest discussion I could find on emojis and a fun one from last year. I wouldn't be opposed to adding this to the actual page, emojis come up often enough that it would be useful (and we could find a use for WP:EMOJI). -- Tavix (talk) 21:38, 24 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for those. I'm going to go ahead and add this. If wording needs to be tweaked, it can be done in the essay. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 15:08, 25 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I WP:BOLDly reworded the intro paras significantly, in an attempt at simplification. I did not intent to change the meaning, except for one small point: I have introduced "single" before "emoji", leaving moot what we do with titles that have other (emoji or normal) characters too. Si Trew (talk) 10:07, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

WP:X or Y

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Two discussions-in-progress that may change this are:

and

Both are AFDs, but they are relevant as each has two equally-plausible redirect targets. Both of these could easily have become RFDs if someone BOLDLY redirected the page then someone else nominated the redirect for discussion.

In the case of the school, the nominator (me) favored redirection but wasn't sure which target to use. If the page is NOT deleted, then "X or Y" may have to be rewritten to say that "sometimes 'just pick one' is the way to go."

For the Vaughan article, I suggested picking one of this sons as the target and putting a hatnote at the top saying "Jimmie Lee Vaughan redirects here, more information may be found at [page for the other son]". If that outcome is accepted, then "X or Y" may have to be rewritten to say "sometimes, 'just pick one and put a hatnote at the top pointing to the other one' may be the way to go."

I will put a notice on both AFD pages pointing to this discussion. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 18:48, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Capitalization differences

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One thing that I think was overlooked with RFDO is capitalization differences. I've noticed that it seems like if there is a redirect with ALL CAPS, that redirect is normally deleted unless there's a reason for that capitalization. With that in mind, I drafted a new section. Feel free to edit it or leave your thoughts below. -- Tavix (talk) 00:29, 16 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

begin draft

One of the purposes of a redirect covers "likely alternative capitalizations." While Wikipedia's search function is generally case-insensitive, these redirects aid linking from other articles and external sites. If there is connection between the subject and the alternative capitalization, it is usually kept. However, if the capitalization difference is implausible, unnatural, or novel, it may be considered unhelpful and be deleted.

The major exception is with CamelCase. If the redirect was created back when UseModWiki required CamelCase, it is considered a {{R from old history}} and kept.

end draft

Need to change "if a redirect looks like it is camel case, but doesn't have old history" since it doesn't account for a history-merge-repaired-copy-and-paste move with a freshly-created redirect left behind at the old CamelCase title. Incoming links from outside Wikipedia may rely on the CamelCase spelling. This isn't really a "common outcomes" (as in "these are common outcomes from the past") statement, but rather a statement that "going forward" we should keep historical-and-useful CamelCase situations even if there is nothing historical in the current page which uses CamelCase. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 00:55, 16 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I just removed that sentence. The situation doesn't come up enough to warrant the distinction anyway. -- Tavix (talk) 01:19, 22 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It's not obvious here what the difference is between IndustrY and UbuntU, I would have thought they were both CamelCase. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 20:15, 7 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
From what I gleamed from the discussions, one was created when CamelCase was required and the other was created at a later date. We keep redirects with old history, which meant that IndustrY was kept. UbuntU was created at a later date, and since it wasn't an {{R with old history}}, it could be safely deleted. That's kind of what I was getting at with the older sentence that davidwr had a problem with. Maybe we could find a happy medium ground? -- Tavix (talk) 01:00, 8 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You're probably right, after thinking about it. The links probably tell the story. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 01:16, 8 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I might change "unnatural or novel" to "implausible, unnatural, or novel". The OBAMA! redirect has been the subject of 3 RfD's [1], and sort of goes against the spirit of this addition, but I suppose it's a good example (almost like an exception to the what generally happens). Good work Tavix.—Godsy(TALKCONT) 16:11, 8 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Godsy: Done, that's a great suggestion. I was looking for an ALL CAPS redirect where the result was "keep" and OBAMA! was what immediately popped in my mind. The discussion explains why the capitalization is likely, which was what I was going after. However, the "!" might muddy the waters a bit so I might dip back into the archives and see if I can find a better example. -- Tavix (talk) 16:22, 8 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Since there haven't been any further discussion or criticism, I'm going to go ahead and publish it. Of course, we can always revisit something later if an issue comes up. -- Tavix (talk) 20:55, 19 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Tavix: I meant to get to this sooner, but just got around to it today, after I noticed this was published (been busy as of late). WiKiPeDiA would be a good example of a deletion, that's a dissimilar to the ones listed (falling under implausible for sure). It is quite old however. I'm still looking for a good candidate to replace OBAMA!. —Godsy(TALKCONT) 01:59, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Tavix: SORRY YOU'RE NOT A WINNER, resulted in a "retarget" (unfortunately not a straight keep, the original target was terrible), might be a possible replacement for the aforementioned all capital redirect. I also found XPLANE, though I'm not sure I like that one either, perhaps I'll keep digging.—Godsy(TALKCONT) 02:17, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm ... WP:XY contradicts some policies...

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Simply put, I just realized that applying WP:XY to deleting human-name titled redirects contradicts WP:BLP1E/WP:BIO1E, specifically that human names should redirect to the event which they are best known if there is not enough information for them to be a standalone article. Any thoughts on this? Pinging some RFD regulars. (BDD—Tavix—Ivanvector—SimonTrew) Steel1943 (talk) 16:57, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • Do you have an example? I think if we had a redirect title naming several people who together were involved in a notable event, redirecting to the event would be fine. Say if we had Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, it could be a redirect to Lewinsky scandal. Maybe that's not a good example. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 17:38, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The hockey player draft picks? I question the application of BLP1E there. Being drafted, or playing in a couple of minor leagues, doesn't make someone notable, and BLP1E is headed "Subjects notable only for one event". And even if it did, trying to figure out which team is the thing they're "best" known for is as likely to confuse and waste our time as the readers'. --BDD (talk) 18:08, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I'm with BDD. BLP1E would cover them if they were notable for one event, but these players are not (yet, maybe) notable for anything. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 21:55, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Ivanvector: ...But what if, in the case of the hockey redirects, the one event that the individual was notable for was their draft? Steel1943 (talk) 19:56, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Being drafted doesn't make a player notable, per WP:NHOCKEY, other than first draft picks. They need to play a game in the league, and then there would be a team article to redirect to. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 21:07, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:BLP1E talks about redirecting to an event that someone is best known for, while WP:XY talks about redirects that could equally point to multiple targets. They are mutually exclusive. If there's an event that someone is best known for, redirect it there. If it could equally refer to two different events, either delete the redirect or create the article if the person is notable. -- Tavix (talk) 21:42, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
What might be an interesting test case is if a non-public person became involved in one notable event and we redirected to that event, then in the future they became involved in another unrelated event. Would BLP1E still apply? Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 21:55, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation errors

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Beginning of draft

Redirects with errors that have no specific affinity to the title at hand are not generally retained. This is especially true when it comes to errors in the act of disambiguating, for example disambiguated titles with extra, missing, or misplaced spaces and brackets such as ( disambiguation), ( disambiguation ), disambiguation) ((disambiguation), )disambiguation), and X(disambiguation), even more obscure errors like the wrong type of brackets or a mix such as [disambiguation], {disambiguation}, and [disambiguation), and capitalization and spelling errors such as (Disambiguation), (DISAMBIGUATION), and (dsambiguation) (the capitalization and spelling errors portion only applies if (x) is an error variation of "disambiguation").

Examples

Ending of draft

Above, I've drafted a section on the common outcomes of disambiguation redirects, which I believe follows a current trend in consensus (recent discussions Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2016 December 12#HAZ (disambiguation)) and Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2016 December 19#Jupiter(planet)). It is already covered at WP:RDAB (a redirect to an anchor both of which I created very recently), but I think this is a better place for it. The examples section still needs fleshed out.— Godsy (TALKCONT) 05:07, 20 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

XY

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I think WP:XY needs examples of overly generic terms with no notable topics. Several of these have turned up recently. LaundryPizza03 (talk) 20:19, 19 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. We should collect some examples. We should probably split XY into "X or Y" and "confusing, ambiguous titles" too. Deryck C. 15:02, 28 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Serial identifiers as titles

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Probably building up towards a set of precedents, so let's start collecting examples:

BUT: {{R from file metadata link}}

--Deryck C. 15:02, 28 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: WP:XY needs updating for clarification

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The section which WP:XY points, in its current state, is confusing. The reason being is that the section stated that "Redirects that could equally point to multiple targets are usually deleted", but then the examples it provides are all examples that include the word "and" in a way that joins at least two distinct topics/words. This is misleading since I have recently seen examples where WP:XY has been cited as a reason for deletion when the nominated redirect only contains one word, and the claim is that the redirect could target multiple targets. With this being said, I propose that one of three resolutions occur ... and I honestly do not care which one, as long as the current state of this section does not remain:

  1. Change the wording from "Redirects that could equally point to multiple targets are usually deleted" to something like "Redirects that contain multiple distinct subjects are usually deleted"
  2. Add examples of RfDs where WP:XY has been cited where the redirect's title is only one word and/or does not contain a conjunction
  3. The first option, plus creating a new subsection of Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Common outcomes to reference discussions that are ambiguous but do not contain multiple distinct subjects in its title connected by a conjunction.

...? (This discussion was started earlier than the date this RfC was opened. Please see the next line for the original time stamp.) Steel1943 (talk) 19:58, 18 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(The following is the original time stamp for when this discussion was opened.) Steel1943 (talk) 19:56, 29 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I've so far cited XY for any redirect that is undesirable because of ambiguity, and hadn't been aware of the narrow interpretation until yesterday. I fully agree with Steel1943 that one of the three proposed changes is necessary and I likewise have no preference as to which one. – Uanfala (talk) 21:41, 29 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think I prefer option 2: tweak the examples to be broader, so as to keep the principles as broad as possible. I don't see a need to specifically single out one very specific type of ambiguous redirect (of the form X + conjunction + Y) and have a separate rule for that: the underlying logic applies to all ambiguous redirects. And somewhat off-topic, this reminds me of how WP:RDAB (which is for errors in the disambiguator) only gives examples where the disambiguator used is "disambiguation" and so apparently has been misunderstood by many editors to only apply to this particular kind of disambiguator (see this discussion). – Uanfala (talk) 12:55, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Late here, but I also prefer option 2, per Uanfala's reasoning. 59.149.124.29 (talk) 09:33, 19 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think this discussion has gone stale, but I'd rule out option 1. XY has had an interesting life thus far, and has organically moved past just being about "X and Y" redirects, which was my original intent, to other situations where two or more pages are equally likely. I don't know the best way to express that, though. It should be noted, of course, that XY should only be invoked in these circumstances when disambiguation or similar solutions is not practical. --BDD (talk) 16:16, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Redirects (soft) to other language versions of Wikipedia

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There seems to be a broad consensus that sending readers to non-English content is not a helpful practice. I've been keeping a running menagerie of such discussions: Mohamed Chabani|, Saint Michel Boulevard, Bonne Nuit les Petits, Kumagai Morikazu, Éditions Fides, Daehan, François Mathet, אוצר הספרים היהודי השיתופי, and Vitorino Silva. Thoughts regarding a section here on the topic? — Godsy (TALKCONT) 05:39, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. It wouldn't be bad if someone created a bot process for removing such redirects that would also locate all incoming links and convert them to {{ill}} inter-language links. Largoplazo (talk) 12:58, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This sort of redirects was briefly discussed at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 54#Potential alternative. They do bring some benefits. – Uanfala (talk) 14:27, 25 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There's some more relevant discussion at Template talk:Interlanguage link#Proposed alternative to Template:Ill. – Uanfala (talk) 22:26, 25 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Wikipedia:RFDC" listed at Redirects for discussion

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An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Wikipedia:RFDC and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 April 25#Wikipedia:RFDC until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Mdewman6 (talk) 23:46, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Imperative sentences as redirects

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...Seems there's a very common opinion (that I share) that imperative sentences/statements make bad redirects, and it seems most, if not all, of the recent nominations to get such redirects deleted are going to result in "delete" (if they haven't already been closed). With this being said ... is it time to add a section regarding such redirects? Steel1943 (talk) 20:41, 22 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Not common enough in my opinion – has this come up often before? The sort of imperative redirects that could actually get created frequently by more than one editor could well be helpful. It's more an issue of obscurity here. J947 † edits 21:39, 22 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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