Wikipedia talk:Redirect

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See also m:Talk:MediaWiki User's Guide: Using redirects
See also WikiProject Redirect's Redirect Guide.
For deletion of redirects see below, and also in Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy/redirects

This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Redirect, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's redirects. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.

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[edit] The purpose of redirects

What is the purpose of redirects? I really don't see the point of having articles that direct to other articles. I am a rebel to this rule, and I don't abide by it at all (see WP:IAR). Then people say that redirects can be used to create articles in the future. What's wrong with deleting redirects if no pages link to them? No one can find them, and they are useless. Creating articles in the future is good, but you don't need to create them with a no-good redirect. All for the sake of stylistic conformity? I am not convinced. In my opinion, redirects are useless, clutter the namespace, and not needed. What is the functional need for redirects? --Imdanumber1 ( Talk | contribs) 02:09, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Someone (i.e. our target audience - a regular user, not a Wikipedia editor) types "Samuel Clemens" into the search box and hits the "GO" button. If Samuel Clemens wasn't a redirect, they would get this. But it is, so the user is taken directly to the appropriate article, Mark Twain. That's the purpose of redirects. Hesperian 02:15, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Redirects aren't always needed, though. There are some cases where they are useless. This requires further discussion, for now. --Imdanumber1 ( Talk | contribs) 02:55, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure my response answered all three of your questions: "What is the purpose of redirects?", "What's wrong with deleting redirects if no pages link to them?" and "What is the functional need for redirects?". If "this requires further discussion", perhaps you'd like to tell us which redirects are useless, and why. Hesperian 05:10, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

For cases where they are clearly useless, there is Redirects for deletion. -- Visviva 05:13, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

It is more efficient to simply delete redirects that have no pages linking to them. They have no other use, and if people want to "create articles in the future", why can't one just start one simply instead of using a redirect?

Redirects are useless if:

No pages link to them.
A misspelling (too common), people refuse to fix them.

Redirects are good if:

A shortcut

There are a lot of contradictions to this. Redirects have their purposes, but they clutter the main namespace. We need to have a consensus to create a category for redirects. If a consensus is reached, we should fix all links to the target name and have redirects deleted by admins. I have no objections to redirects such as WP:IAR, which expands to Wikipedia:Ignore all rules because shortcuts saves time, but using rdrs that are just sitting in the namespace shouldn't be encouraged. Just fix the articles with the rdr names to the target name, and have the rdrs deleted. --Imdanumber1 ( Talk | contribs) 05:32, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

To save you the effort of reading what I wrote above, I'll repeat myself. Redirects serve a specific and important function even when no article links to them. If I type "G. W. Bush" into the search box and press the "GO" button, I should be redirected to George W. Bush irrespective of whether or not any articles link to that redirect. Hesperian 05:41, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

There may also be numerous links from page histories and old versions; there is considerable value in preserving these, and very little to be gained by removing them. -- Visviva 05:46, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Redirects that do not have articles linking to them are often extremely useful as navigational aids used to make searching easier. As an example, if you needed to find a listing of Canada's islands based on size, it could take you several search attempts before you got the phrasing just right and pulled up List of Canadian islands by area. However, via the magic of redirects, search terms like List of Canadian islands by size and Canada's islands by area will also get you to the correct article. --Kralizec! (talk) 05:05, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Imdanumber1 - when you say Redirects are useless if ... No pages link to them, you've actually got the matter completely backwards. The ideal situation is to have NO incoming links. If a wikipedia article links to a redirect page, that wikilink should be changed. John Broughton | Talk 00:07, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

It actually shouldn't - see Wikipedia:Redirect#Don't fix links to redirects that aren't broken. --NE2 00:17, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, had my mind wrapped around disambiguation pages. Thanks for the pointer.

Also, for some reason, I'd thought that when moving a page, one should also (ideally) change all wikilinks to the old page name, but reading more, it looks like only double redirects are problematical. I'll pay more attention next time I move a page, and see exactly what the instructions say. John Broughton | Talk 21:27, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Redirects are useless if no pages link to them??
Nonsense. When I create a new article I often create a dozen or so redirects to it.
Some of these are common misspellings. I anticipate that someone may create a new link in some other article that is misspelled. If there's no redirect, people clicking on that link won't find out about the error, and won't find the article. And someone may then create a new article after clicking on the misspelled red link, and then those editing the two articles will not find out about each others' existence and won't be able to work together. Michael Hardy 00:33, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Redirects to anchors

Now that redirects to subsections and anchors are possible, are there any guidelines as to how aggressively this should be used? For example, take a look at the following, and please tell me, if it is good or bad:

The developers said "use wisely", and I wonder what is wise usage? --Merzul 00:04, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I like the redirect for argument from contingency and am OK with the one for 1 Corinthians 9:22 (though the name of that section header may not be stable). But I have to say I find the redirect for vice versa less than ideal; it isn't easy for me to pick out the target item from the page. As a naive user, or even a Wikipedian unfamiliar with this functionality, I think I would be confused as to why I found myself in the middle of this giant list. Cheers, -- Visviva 01:53, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I think it's important to remember that when redirecting to an anchor, the user no longer sees the helpful "(redirected from..." text which resides at the top of the page. That alone should be sufficient cause for minimizing use of this feature. Powers ^T 15:07, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I will add something of the opinions here to the guideline. I will be conservative, so it should be fairly safe. --Merzul 23:12, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Halleluiah for functionality! That being said, I think the "redirect to the middle of a long list" would be less confusing if the page name actually changed (i.e. in my browser, one of the above renders as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_versa#vice_versa. If it was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_phrases#vice_versa it'd be even less confusing. Still, hooray! -- nae'blis 03:03, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Redirects from stock symbols

Just a heads-up, I've created {{R from stock symbol}} and tagged it on a few redirects. So just keep it in mind; the next time you see another stock symbol redirect, consider tagging it appropriately. Thanks. --Cyde Weys 17:10, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Switching a redirect

Can someone explain to me the standard procedure for moving a page to a page that currently redirects to the first one (sorry if that's confusing...). Currently, Getsumen Toheiki Mina is the page being used, and Getsumen To Heiki Mina redirects to it. But Getsumen To Heiki Mina is the most commonly used spelling, and I would have simply moved the page, but the redirect page already existed. I don't want to just up and move everything, because that doesn't seem proper. Can someone give me some advice? Leebo⁸⁶ 06:24, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

First, do not move the pages by cutting-and-pasting content. That just screws up the attribution history (and maintaining the attribution history is a requirement of GFDL). First, seek consensus on the respective Talk pages that the new name really is the best one for the topic. Once consensus has been achieved, ask an admin to move the pages. That will involve temporarily deleting the current redirect, moving the page and then undeleting. Hope that helps. Rossami (talk) 06:49, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that helps a lot. The show begins airing today, so hopefully that will generate enough traffic to have a meaningful discussion. I knew cutting and pasting would be a bad idea, but I couldn't find the steps for the process. Thanks again. Leebo⁸⁶ 07:34, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requested moves is the correct place for handling these cases & it has the instructions to follow. -- JLaTondre 14:18, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Confused about "Redirects from title with ASCII"

I'm very confused about the "Accents" box in section 3: the title is (of course) accents and the example is Kurt Goedel -> Kurt Gödel, but the template linked to is Template:R from ASCII , which states "This is a redirect from a title in basic ASCII to the formal article title, with differences that are not diacritical marks (accents, umlauts, etc.)" (emphasis original.) Further confusing is that a number of the pages in that category ARE diacritic issues (although Kurt Goedel isn't there.) Does someone know exactly what this template is supposed to be for, and how it differs from Category:Redirects from title without diacritics? Zombiejesus 21:48, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What can I do for making a redirection of codenames?

See examples: Kuma (processor), Rana (processor), Agena (processor) etc...

They are of the same microarchitecture (namely K8L), but somebody did start new articles and put part of the contents from the K8L into the page, and I can see this trend for Intel processors. I do not think that these codenames are "notable" enough to start a new article for that, but I cannot find a suitable redirection template for the redirections, what can I do? --202.71.240.18 11:34, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

You don't have to use a template; just redirect. Although {{r from subtopic}} probably isn't too far off. -- Visviva 15:19, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Categorising sections using anchored redirects

Please contribute to the Village pump discussion started at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Categorising sections of an article. Thanks. Carcharoth 14:23, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Don't fix redirects that aren't broken"

Ok, someone had made an edit, changing a link from a direct link to a redirect (assumedly to match the way the rest of the page was -- it was a change in the language of the name). Me, unknowing of the explanation nicely layed out here, went and added a pipped link so it didn't redirect, as I thought that was the right thing from previous observations. Along comes the same editor, and reverts that, citing the explanation here -- but wouldn't being reverted cause the same issues as me changing it in the first place? I dunno, it just seems like an odd rule. It makes for inherent sense to minimize redirects from other pages in general, unless it's something that could easily have an article in the future, like, say, circus music which could easily have its own article but doesn't. But if you come across Shakespeare in an aritcle, why not change it to Shakesphere -- it just seems a bit neater and cleaner when you click on a page to not have the little blue notice up top. Maybe I'm way off... ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 14:06, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

it's a fine line. As you say, some redirects make sense to fix (especially ones that go to disambiguation pages), others are potential articles and "fixing" them will break opportunities to make new articles later. On a more humorous note, I had to fix Chantilly Lace (song) the other day because it had a piped link to Margaret Keane - via big-eyes! Sometimes the fixers and bots and scripts are too clever for their own good... -- nae'blis 19:13, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Abbreviated redirect tags

Wouldn't it be useful to have abbreviations for the redirect tags, similar to redirects for Wikipedia policies (like WP:R). I must admit I am lazy and don't always look up the proper redirect tag phraseology when making redirects. If we had abbreviations that substituted the correct tag, it would be much simpler. So for example to use {{R from related word}} you could type {{RRW}} or or {{RW}} and have this generate the correct tag. Other examples: {{R from other capitalisation}} would be {{ROC}} or {{RC}}, {{R from alternative spelling}} would be {{RAS}} or {{RS}}, etc. Dhaluza 13:47, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

No. It would be too easy to use the wrong one and miss it This way, if you get it wrong, there is no category at all, which you are more likely to notice. — Randall Bart 17:07, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Misleading preview

I created a redirect from Constint to Constant. The preview started with a 1., but the final page started with a →. Is there a bug? Con stint 19:40, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

The preview interprets the # as a numbered list. When it is saved, the software processes the whole #redirect command and shows it as a redirect. There is an existing bug report covering this. It's priority is trivial so it probably won't be changed anytime soon. -- JLaTondre 20:17, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This policy is idiotic. Why must a Wikipedia policy require misspellings?

This page says:

In particular, there should never be a need to replace [[redirect]] with [[target|redirect]].

This is idiotic! If an article misspells a person's name in a link, so it goes to a page that redirects to the correct spelling, I should just leave the misspelled name in the article??

People who write Wikipedia policies using the words "always" or "never", especially when emphasized like this, are almost (ha!) always being similarly stupid. Michael Hardy 00:25, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

No, no, no... It is not intended for unprintworthy (or whatever they're called) redirects. The idea is that you shouldn't fix let's say [[uncaused cause]] into [[cosmological argument|uncaused cause]], because we might at some point have an article specifically about the usage of the term "uncaused cause". --Merzul 00:34, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

No---you're wrong. It says "there should never be a need to replace [[redirect]] with [[target|redirect]]". It does not say what you suggest. I am inclined to agree with a policy that says what you suggest, but that's simply not what the policy says. If what you suggest really is what was intended, then whoever wrote it should learn how to write what they intend instead of writing something that comes out saying something else. Michael Hardy

Correcting a misspelled redirect is going from [[misspelling redirect]] to [[correct article title]], not [[redirect]] to [[target|redirect]]. Leebo⁸⁶ 00:47, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, I think I see what you're saying. But the fact is, someone criticized me on my talk page for changing [[misspelling (or otherwise inappropriate) redirect]] to [[correct article title]] and cited this policy page to support that. Michael Hardy 00:54, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

It seems like they misunderstood it. There's no need to make a misspelled redirect into a piped link, which is the only thing that sentence you cited covers. Correcting a spelling is still a direct link, you wouldn't use a piped link to correct the spelling. Leebo⁸⁶ 00:58, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and Michael, can you see if the guideline is clear now, and maybe tweak the wording to avoid similar confusion in the future. I tried to specify that "redirect" must be the same in both uses, I think that might have caused the confusion. --Merzul 02:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Probably the misunderstanding resulted more from the comments on my talk page than from the policy as written here. Michael Hardy 02:46, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

What if the misspelling is within a quotation? Michael's point stands - the "never" should be softened. Hesperian 03:02, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

If it's misspelled in a quotation, then it's probably a plausible misspelling and might warrant its own redirect page for that misspelling. Leebo⁸⁶ 03:05, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Still softening the never might not be a bad idea, especially if you are editing the page anyway. As suggested above, fixing [[Shakespeare]] into [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]] might not be a bad idea. Who knows, next year there might be a super smash-hit musical called "Shakespeare", which would then be a disambiguation page... --Merzul 03:29, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

In that scenario, we would fix the redirect next year. There is no need to fix it today and good reason to leave it for the future editors who, after all, will have all the facts and be able to make exactly the right fix. Rossami (talk) 22:44, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Here's an interesting example which might relate to this sort of thing. I was recently tidying up and massively expanding (completing, actually) the list at Royal Medal. The source I used was the names as quoted on the Royal Society's website. It is clear that the list there is of the names as they were stated at the time of the award. Our articles on the scientists are often at different names. The question then becomes whether the correct approach is to use the spelling and form that the Royal Society use (as in options 'a' and 'b'), or 'correct' the name the Royal Society used (option 'c'). ie. Either (a) redirect to our article, or (b) pipe the link to point at our article, or (c) to 'silently' change the name to the one used at Wikipedia. I'll show what I mean by some examples below. Carcharoth 23:45, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Examples

Johann Franz Encke (Wikipedia name) vs Johann Friedrich Encke (Royal Society name)
Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve (Wikipedia name) vs Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve (Royal Society name)
A. P. de Candolle (Wikipedia name) vs Augustin Pyrame de Candolle (Wikipedia redirect) vs Auguste Pyrame De Candolle (Royal Society name)
Eilhard Mitscherlich vs Eilert Mitscherlich (Royal Society name)
Bennett Lewis (Wikipedia article) vs Wilfrid Bennett Lewis (Royal Society name)
Basil John Mason (Wikipedia article) vs John Mason (Royal Society name)

That last one is a particularly good example, as a link to 'John Mason' cannot be redirected to the article. If you want 'John Mason' to appear in the list, you have to pipe it in front of the target of 'Basil John Mason'. This is what I did for the 1991 entry in the Royal Medal table, piping it to appear as 'John Mason' because that is what the source says. A 'silent' change to 'Basil John Mason' would misrepresent the source. Linking to 'Basil John Mason' gives the right person and the right article, but causes momentary confusion for the reader. Possibly a footnote at the Basil John Mason article would make clear that he is sometimes credited with awards and other things by the name of John Mason.

What do people think is best for this and the other examples? Piped links? Redirects? Moving the articles to different names? Carcharoth 00:14, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

The position that we should never pipe past redirects is based on the assumption that the redirect might some day be an article. Your examples are all situations where the redirect will never be an article. No-one is ever going to make an article that says

"Auguste Pyrame De Candolle is an archaic spelling and capitalisation of the full name of A. P. de Candolle."

All these redirects may be legitimately piped past - indeed they should be - and the "never" policy position should be softened. Hesperian 00:19, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

One slight concern is that one day someone may come along and say "why is this a redirect? No-one spells the name this way. Let's delete the redirect." If the redirect is in use (ie. linked from an article or two), that shows that the redirect has a purpose. This concern could be addressed by people actually using the templates that label types of redirects (such as 'mis-spelling' redirects), and the genuine historical and alternative spellings being listed somewhere at the target article. But I agree that a distinction needs to be made for cases where no article is ever likely. This is actually explained already at Template:R from alternative spelling, but unfortunately, Wikipedia:Redirect#Don't fix links to redirects that aren't broken doesn't make this clear. Carcharoth 00:51, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

That Basil John Mason is the same John Mason who received the Royal Medal award needs to be determined via a valid source. If we have a valid source (note: I'm not doubting you, I'm simply building an argument), then the Royal Medal table most certainly can be changed to list Basil John Mason instead of John Mason. It probably needs be listed along the lines of Basil John Mason (under the name John Mason) and most certainly the source should be provided, but we don't have to maintain an exact copy of the Royal Society's list if it's inaccurate (or misleading if you prefer to look at it that way). -- JLaTondre 01:24, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Off-topic stuff copied to Talk:Basil John Mason. Carcharoth 03:47, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Is 83 redirects to one article being disruptive?

[1]. See Special:Whatlinkshere/Aquinas_College,_Perth. Or doesn't it matter? There's no policy against it that I can see. —Moondyne 11:59, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Maybe I'm too naive, but I don't think its disruptive, I think whoever created them has misunderstood the purpose of redirects. In my opinion, 90% of these redirects should be deleted because they are "unlikely search terms". --Merzul 12:12, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Disruptive was not the right word. Perhaps 'unuseful'. —Moondyne 12:31, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

How should it be dealt with? It would probably be easiest if someone could convince him to put {{db-author}} on the ones that aren't needed. He seems to be on a constant pace, and may create even more in the meantime. Leebo⁸⁶ 13:34, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Wow. I thought I'd gone overboard with Special:Whatlinkshere/Thomas-François Dalibard, but that is nothing compared to what's been going on over there. One question. When you have a term in brackets, does the Wikipedia search engine pick it up when people search by the term in the bracket, or is a redirect better? Compare Wizard (fantasy) with Wizard fantasy and Fantasy wizard. Carcharoth 14:09, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

It's at 105 at latest count. I thought 31 redirects to Mahatma Gandhi was a lot. It's not disruptive, since it's not in the way of anyone except when reading whatlinkshere. Still it should be stopped. — Randall Bart 17:16, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

મોહનદાસ કરમચંદ ગાંધી is a good one for Ghandi! :-) Carcharoth 17:45, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Add new redirect category

Hi, I'm involved in WP:UW, and I unilaterally thought that it might be best to have a sub-template of {{r from other template}}, called {{r from warning template}}, to describe templates that are redirect templates to user warning template like {{uw-vandalism1}}, and that sort of thing. See Category:Redirects from other template, under "U", for perhaps a good reason to do this (size), understanding that there will be more templates like this.

In addition, their function is essentially different from {{r from other template}}, since their brevity is a salient feature of their use (when cleaning up vandalism). I propose that this new template have the category "Redirects from warning template", a subcategory of Category:Redirects from other template.

In this category would be {{uw-b1}}, {{uw-b2}}, {{uw-b3}}, {{uw-b4}}, {{uw-d1}}, {{uw-d2}}, {{uw-d3}}, {{uw-d4}}, {{uw-o1}}, {{uw-o2}}, {{uw-o3}}, {{uw-s1}}, {{uw-s2}}, {{uw-s3}}, {{uw-s4}}, {{uw-s4im}}, {{uw-t1}}, {{uw-t2}}, {{uw-t3}}, {{uw-v1}}, {{uw-v2}}, {{uw-v3}}, {{uw-v4}}, {{uw-v4im}}, {{uw-vand1}}, {{uw-vand2}}, {{uw-vand3}}, {{uw-vand4}}, {{uw-vand4im}}, {{uw-vandal1}}, {{uw-vandal2}}, {{uw-vandal3}}, {{uw-vandal4}}, {{uw-vandal4im}}, and latently others.

So what do you think? Gracenotes^T § 15:40, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Done. Gracenotes^T § 06:15, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What to do with redirects to a page that was moved

Coppertwig correctly moved Canada's Food Guide To Healthy Eating to the new government term Canada's Food Guide. Several double redirects recreated. I fixed those, and links to the old page. He implied that the links to the old page should have remained (based on Wikipedia:Redirect#Don't fix links to redirects that aren't broken) as they redirected. Since the term has changed, were my actions correct? --Walter Görlitz 17:57, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

It depends upon the context of the redirect. In general, fixing redirects isn't needed. However, if the redirect is a mistake (misspelling, etc.), then it should be changed. Proper names are in the middle ground, in my opinion. If the usage is meant to be the proper name, then it should be changed from the redirect to the new title. If the proper name is not needed in the context of the article, then it wouldn't need to be changed. -- JLaTondre 19:41, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wordsounds

Should we make redirects on wordsounds, like making nayboar or naybor redirect to neighbor? ffm ^yes? 22:50, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Who would that help? I can't imagine anyone ever typing in those particular spellings. Remember, we tolerate redirects for common misspellings, usually as a clean-up after someone creates a duplicate article at the wrong spelling. We do not normally create redirects for misspellings directly. Rossami (talk) 01:59, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, what if the person couldn't spell the word, but wanted to look it up? ffm ^yes? 02:05, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

There are many better sources for phonetically guessing English words. We can't force the redirect feature to handle the incredible volume of possible misspellings, pronunciations or transliterations for every possible article title. Redirects are cheap but not that cheap. Rossami (talk) 02:12, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Problem with {{Redirect5}} tag

On the Template:Redirect5 page it says that this can be used without a second argument:

{{Redirect5|A||B}}

To achieve:

"A" redirects here. For other uses, see B.

However, it only acheives:

"A" redirects here. For , see B.

This is not a big issue and is probably an easy fix, I just wanted to point out the issue. MadScientistVX 05:43, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Announcing WhatLinksHere.js

Announcing User:Barticus88/WhatLinksHere.js. To use it put this in your Special:Mypage/monobook.js (or <skin>.js) file

importScript('User:Barticus88/WhatLinksHere.js');

It adds a bunch of tabs to the tab bar. (If you're using <skin>.js, for "tab" read "whatever your skin does with the p-cactions portlet".) The rightmost tab loads up to 5000 links and then selects the redirects. That's right, a single click to get all the redirects for a page (unless there's more than 5000 links, like [[2007]] or [[Germany]] or something). Let me know what feature enhancements you want. — Randall Bart 01:28, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Categorizing redirects

Was there consensus for this change? I thought standard practice was not to categorize redirects. If a category is on the redirect rather than the article, you can't get to that category from the article. --NE2 08:25, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

AFAIK, there is no standard save that if you do add a redirect to a category, to use a space (' '), asterisk ('*'), an exclaimation point ('!'), or Right curly bracket ('}') before the {{PAGENAME}} in the pipesort to set it off from the main body of links, and even there many just use the name of the page it redirects to, so they are grouped together.

Categorizing a page to the category makes sense, even if it duplicates the primary page, after all, for none of us can guarantee the context wherein a term is come across, and the way another thinks. The space and exclaimation point are usually also used by some to indicate a template categorizing pages to the category, or a template associated with it. // FrankB 14:55, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] For the curious

52% of Wikipedia mainspace articles are in fact redirects. Source.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 02:44, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

No, 52% of pages in the Wikipedia mainspace are redirects. The count of articles (1.7 million or so) excludes redirects. So there are about 3.4 million pages in Wikipedia mainspace, of which a bit more than 1.7 million are redirects. -- John Broughton (♫♫)

Interesting. --JianLi 23:29, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Categories

Hey, uhm - the fact that redirects are uncategorised means they show up in the pages without categories list, which is annoying. Is there any way they could be stored in a meta-category so it's clear they don't need categories? WilyD 14:32, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fixing unnecessary piped links

Don't fix links to redirects that aren't broken addresses the issue of links to redirects. What about links that are of the format ~~[[direct|redirect]]~~[[redirect|direct]]? Is there a consensus as to whether or not these links should be changed to ~~[[direct]]~~[[redirect]], or does this issue need to be addressed? ShadowHalo 13:38, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I would say that it promotes proper wikilink formatting to change them, so as long as it results in the same link, it's probably okay. It's probably also okay to change things like [[Japanese]] to [[Japan]]ese, and other links like that in the interest of promoting better formatting for people who look at the article later. Leebo ^T/C 14:08, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

conditionally semi-disagree... it's not cut and dried. I'd suggest evaluating these ones case by case based on histories of the two pages, and especially if your 'redirect' base page is marked as either something which has been merged (thus endorsing your proposed 'fix'), or tagged with (R with possibilities) and/or a stub-sorting template--indicating future expansion to the name under that 'redirect' pagename. (Adding a stub-sorting template to such pages is a good way to get an editor with expertise in the area to take a look at growing such a redirect.)

If a plain redirect, whether the topic should be so tagged, and certainly the proper {R from tagging} should be added/checked as well as a possible stub sorting template or two if it does have prospects as a stand alone article topic.

Checking such titles against online competing sites (answer.com, dictionary.com, encarta, etc.) can give a good feel for whether the topic is worthwhile for {R with possibilities} and such stub tagging--but the later is really more important, as will gather more attention sooner than the unsorted/untargeted generic listing in Redirects with possibilities.

Also, the closer in time the creation of the redirect relationship is to your edit, the issue might best be resolved by asking the editor making the oddly pipetricked link--they may not have been aware of adding any {R from ______} templates, or the possibility of stub tagging such. In short, keep an eye on which way things are evolving, and slow down once in a while and ask questions. The later courtesy might remind someone they meant to create the page as a stub, and the link isn't harming something since it does connect, however unusually. // FrankB 15:46, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

My thought? The policy is intended as more of an "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" type. If a link is already automatically redirecting appropriately, don't pipe it. If a piped link is going to the correct article, don't un-pipe it, even if the word would redirect correctly un-piped. --Siradia 18:07, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Fixing an unbroken redirect doesn't change the reader's experience and it doesn't cause us to consume less computer resources. On the contrary, the edit to make the fix consumes server space (since we keep copies of every version in the history) and triggers the watchlist of everyone monitoring the page. You would actually be making work for other people without adding any value to the reader.
Now, if you want to do some link clean-up on a page that you're already editing, go right ahead. But please don't start making mass changes just to fix unbroken redirects. Rossami (talk) 20:12, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Leebo. Taking the time to correct these links would promote good form, and would make the linking more simple, elegant, and straightforward. ShawdowHalo, did you mean [[direct|redirect]] (or [[target|redirect]]) rather than [[redirect|direct]]? --JianLi 22:14, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about that. Yes, I meant to ask about changing [[direct|redirect]] to [[redirect]]. ShadowHalo 00:13, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Table editing

I can't edit the table at Wikipedia:Redirect#What do we use redirects for? because most of the text isn't there when I click "Edit". I just wanted to capitalize the word "wikipedia" twice, and spell "susceptable" as "susceptible". Art LaPella 01:11, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Should be fixed now. "Susceptable" was in a template. The "wikipedia"s were in the table though. --Siradia 15:36, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Done Art LaPella 22:14, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

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