Wikipedia talk:Redirect/Archive 2006

message: At the moment I run into a lot of redirects because pages with incorrect names (typos, incorrect capitalization, etc.) were renamed to something accurate, or pages on something tiny were merged with and redirected to a more general article. I only realise the link isn't up-to-date after I open the new page and read the little notice at the top. Because I tend to open multiple new pages in new tabs and close old tabs rightaway sometimes, even if I do remember where I came from, it's a bit of work to go back and fix things, if necesary.
So, would it be possible to program the Wikipedia software to show links to redirects in a different colour. Maybe purple, between blue (existing link) and red (not). I realise this might complicate things for casual/unregistered Wikipedia users, but it could be added as a new skin (another style sheet), or preferably an option in a user's Preferences. (That way users without accounts can't even accidently set it.) I suspect more people would be willing to correct unnecesay redirects if they can spot them rightaway.
The only "problem" is that of course some redirects are useful, but will still show in the different colour. However it seems like it's best to update those links anyway, in order not to get too many unnecessary redirects. Retodon8 18:15, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Purple conflicts with the conventional color for links that have been viewed. --Smack (talk) 03:57, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Oops! You're right; I wasn't paying attention. Minor detail. :) Another colour then, orange for instance. Random pick, but similar-ish to red which indicates broken links. Redirects are of course technically not broken, but still usually unwanted and in need of fixing. Retodon8 23:38, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Problem is that the color would likely be different on every skin (which is not a problem) but must also be visible. Orange on eggshell would be rather hard to read, as it's such a warm, light color. Green, maybe? We're contemplating using that on A Wheel of Time Wiki, for links that go to Wikipedia. nae'blis (talk) 17:12, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Green is the opposite of a warning colour, which I think would be better suited. Again, it doesn't matter a whole lot, especially if it's only available to logged in Wikipedians. Picking a different skin can just as easily (or at least it should be really easy) change link colours, to fit every skin. Retodon8 00:57, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

text: This sounds like a really good idea, what does one do to get something like this implemented? --Qirex 03:09, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. I just read the entire talk page and found this at the bottom (I was going to add it if I did not find it, and it is important to keep up to date on all the issues on the talk page before proposing something, espcially since it might have been discussed untitled in another discussion)... I am surprised it has not been proposed before! This needs to be implemented. Many users link to redirects unknowingly - you see the blue link and not the red and think it's okay. Hazelorb 16:10, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Feature requests are made using the bug tracking tool, see Wikipedia:MediaZilla. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:11, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks for the link. I registered at BugZilla and submitted the request, hopefully correctly. It is Bug 4709. Retodon8 00:57, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  And it's been resolved, because links to redirects are not a problem.  It might be nice to have a different color for "R..." templates that are there for misspellings or other cases where they're just present for the "Go" box, but other uses of redirect links are perfectly valid and do not need to get fixed.  See Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups/About fixing redirects.  A different color for those types of links will just lead to unnecessary editing and churn on the database. --TreyHarris 01:14, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I found that page linked in the section below here right after I submitted the request. I understand the logic, but if Wikipedians would notice rightaway (using "Show preview") they were linking to redirects from now on, more pages would link straight to the intended target, although I understand that doesn't help reduce server load much. I suppose I simply fail to see how linking to an actual article isn't preferable to linking to a redirect. Perhaps I'm a misguided perfectionist in this case. :) (I also responded at Bug 4709.) Anyway, thanks for the help everyone. Retodon8 16:27, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Have to agree that properly linked articles would be prefered over redirects.  See my comments under #34 above, Can/Should Links to Redirects be cleaned up?. --Kralizec! | talk 16:50, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Links to redirects in a different colour? 

message: When i try to edit a redirect by going back to the page with &redirect=no tagged onto the end of the URL, I get presented with this:
: Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name.
: *Start the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989&redirect=no article or put up a request for it.
...etc etc. Obviously that's not what i wanted to happen. Run! 17:14, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 is the article, not a redirect.  If you get there from one of the redirects, say, Tiananmen Square protest of 1989, there's some text below the title that says "(Redirected from ..,)" with a redirect=no link to the redirect.  If you click this link you'll be at the redirect page and should be able to edit it. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:31, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

text: There are two styles of URLs used to get to wikipedia pages. The thing to remember is that  if there's not already a question mark in the url, you have to use a question mark instead of an ampersand, so I suspect that you should be appending ?redirect=no instead of &redirect=no. Lupin|talk|popups 23:55, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed it with an example in the article.  In a URL ? is used as a delimiter for the first variable=value pair, then & is used for all subsequent delimiters, e.g. http://wikipedia.org/ice_cream?temperature=cold&flavour=vanilla&colour=white --Bob 22:11, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Trouble with &redirect=no

message: A comment to my recetnt edit. I observed a new development: some websites started adding links to wikipedia, see e.g., here. This is a good thing. the bad thing is that classification schemes use plurals for topics: "Banks", "Doctors", etc., and without a redirect from plural, this link from outside may land into an empty wikipedia page, as it was in the example above (I fixed it 15 minutes ago). mikka (t) 01:41, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirect from plurals 

message: when i click on links now - they're taking me to the redirect page as opposed to redirecting.  what's up with that?
*I've noticed the same thing, so it's not just you. Dave6 00:58, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: They're working for me now, if anyone was wondering.-Platypus Man | Talk 15:17, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  redirects broken? 

message: I was noticing with some dismay that folks are starting to use Popups to "fix" redirects with one click, so I wrote a short little piece at Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups/About fixing redirects explaining why it's unnecessary to go on cleanup expeditions.  (I did some benchmarking on a private MediaWiki instance to get the 10K factor number.)
I wonder if some of this rationale might not belong on this page instead?  What would folks think about adding a section on "Why redirect cleanup is unnecessary"? --TreyHarris 23:28, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added a section explaining this. --TreyHarris 09:21, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  On "fixing" redirects 

message: I just created the redirect Argumentum ad ignorantiam, to redirect to Argument from ignorance.  I marked it , but I can just as well see marking it , since it is referred to as argumentum ad ignorantiam in English rhetoric texts. (In fact, we seem rather scattershot on Wikipedia as to when we use the Latin name for rhetorical terms as the title, cf. Argumentum ad populum, and when we use the English name like here.)  What do folks think?  How about marking it as both?  Should this be clarified on the project page? --TreyHarris 22:23, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Latin for rhetorical terms an alternate language, or alternate name? 

message: I notice that there are two lists of redirect templates — The one on Wikipedia:Redirect#What do we use redirects for? and the one at Wikipedia:Template messages/Redirect pages. The first one has more detailed explanations of the redirects, an the second one is more complete. Is there a reason why there are two, as this leads to the two lists becoming out of synch? The following redirects are missing from the first one (the second one appears to be complete).
, , , , , , .
Ae-a 16:23, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why have two lists of redirect templates. 

message: I think that every article with more than one word in the title should have redirects from all possible capitalizations of the title.  For instance, for Hetch Hetchy Valley, we should have "Hetch Hetchy valley", "Hetch hetchy Valley", and "Hetch hetchy valley".  This may just be my own peculiarity, but I often look for articles by typing a likely title into my address bar, and I tend to get the capitalization wrong. --Smack (talk) 05:48, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shortage of capitalization redirects 

message: I think that anyone should be allowed to make redirects and make the "Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name"-message appear something like this:
Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name.
* Start the HumbugArticle1234 article or add a request for it
* Search for HumbugArticle1234 in other articles.
* Create a redirect to another page
-- drange 14:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: They can.  All it takes to make a redirect is to type "#REDIRECT Article4321."  (How else do you make a redirect?)  Granted, casual users usually won't know the syntax, but there are many things that casual users don't know. --Smack (talk) 01:16, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, they can't because it is considered a 'new' article, and IP editors can't currently create new articles. 24.18.215.132 01:03, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should creation of redirects be allowed for unregistered? 

message: I can't find anywhere that explains why
 #REDIRECT to ...
works. Is the to, as well as anything else on the first line that is not a wikilink, just ignored, or is it a backward compatibility, and/or some historical artifact? I noticed it because Popups don't understand it. -- Mark Hurd 01:19, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems that Mediawiki just looks for #redirect at the start of an article, and uses the first link as the redirect target. This means it accepts some strange things... for example, see the source of . I'll change my script - thanks for pointing this out, Mark. Lupin|talk|popups 01:50, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  REDIRECT to ... 

message: I have reverted the addition:
:The exception to this rule is if the article name is needed for something else. If Author redirects to Main Published Work of Author and you want to write an article for Author, change the pages to redirect to Main Published Work of Author and then edit the Author article as necessary. Explain this in your edit summary to aid Recent Changes patrollers.
I don't know what point this edit was trying to get across.  Maybe we can reword it so that it's clearer.  What I think it's saying is that, if you're about to change a redirect into a separate article, that you should first change all links to that redirect to go to the redirect target before editing the redirect itself.  Is that right?
If so, I don't think the advice above is correct.  If, for example, Homer redirected to The Illiad (it doesn't, but since we're of necessity talking about a transient situation, I can't refer to an actual case existing right now), it would surely be incorrect to make every current link to Homer instead go to The Illiad.  In fact, doing so would be quite odd—one would assume links to Homer would be referring to the poet and not to the poem.
This is an example of why blindly fixing redirects is a bad idea, and why linking "directly" to a redirect target should not necessarily always be preferred. My example above of the 1979 Iranian revolution is another example—if there's another revolution in the future, Iranian revolution will become a redirect disambiguation page, but any links to 1979 Iranian revolution will continue to work. --TreyHarris 06:48, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Exception 

message: How can you redirect a page to a category without making the page itself become part of the category? --Jumpeplowski 01:02, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirecting with categories? 

message: I noticed an error with redirects. 
Example: the correct name for an article is TrueType. An redirect page exists by the name True type. When making a link by the name True Type (which does not exist yet), you will get an red link, yet when searching for True Type, you will be redirected to TrueType, as MediaWiki automatically lower-cases the "Type" in "True Type". 
I hope you understand what I mean - in my eyes this is an error. --Abdull 00:47, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: hm, let's see: bugzilla:5094. --Abdull 01:02, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirect error 

message: I recently saw some redirects in other languages, such as an arabic-character redirect to the page's english title. This isn't covered on the page. Shouldn't it be? --InShaneee 21:38, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is covered (look for "Other languages" in the table); the template to use is . Kusma (討論) 21:48, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That I do understand, but I was wondering if that covered things such as जैन धर्म. --InShaneee 22:11, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other languages 

message: Another user and I disagree on a redirect.  I tried to set the redirect to go to a disambiguation(as it is a common acronym and name with multiple definitions), and he reverted it back to the specific article, stating it was the most common usage.  I've tried talking to him on his talk page and the redirect's talk page, but he seems to be ignoring me.--Vercalos 00:02, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am that other user and discussion is taking place at Talk:ISO. Kusma (討論) 07:28, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirect dispute 

message: I am of two minds about using redirects for spelling errors; I think a software change to MediaWiki might be the solution. On the one hand, as one not blessed with the gift of good spelling, I love that redirects can correct me when I am confused about a spelling. On the other hand, the “(redirected from x)” is subtle, and so it is easy to not notice that you misspelled something when you wind up getting the page you expected. While the usual redirect seems appropriate for multiple valid spellings of the same word, I propose MediaWiki get a #SPELLING_REDIRECT directive which redirects to the the correct page but also corrects the URL and adds something like this to the top of the page:
Note: smrt is actually spelled smart.
Alternately, the spelling redirect could just be done as a template and not automatically redirect the user, instead making them click to ensure they are aware of the correct spelling.
Comments? —BenFrantzDale 00:44, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  #SPELLING_REDIRECT? 

message: JA: Re:
Some editors are under the mistaken impression that fixing such links improves the capacity of the Wikipedia servers.  But because editing a page is thousands of times more expensive for the servers than following a redirect, the opposite is actually true.
JA: I am a little bit puzzled about the relationship between this advice and the policy of fixing double redirects when a page is moved.  Why bother then in the case of double redirects?  I also understand that it is common practice to create temporary redirect pages for nodes that might eventually be developed into a full article, so I do not bother bypasing anything but trivial redirects and those that seem like they would be too disconcerting to the link-follower.  As to the matter of server load, the question is not whether editing a page is 10^3 times more load than following a single redirect, the question is whether editing a page is 10^3 more load than following a persistent redirect 10^k times, where k approaches infinity steadily with time.  Jon Awbrey 02:14, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Double redirects don't strain the server much.  The problem is that they just don't work.  Try this: User:Smack/double-redirect. --Smack (talk) 03:48, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The above statement may be true in most cases, but it is not true for some high use templates, etc. For example, thousands of people may click on the disambiguation link on the  template, so fixing the redirect may actually save server load. Polonium 20:23, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Query: "Don't fix links to redirects that aren't broken" 

message: I want to redirect the page of Foochow dialect to the page of Fuzhou dialect. I followed the steps but I don't know why it still doesn't work. Can someone help me?GnuDoyng 00:49, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why doesn't it work? 

message: Is there anyway to tag or associate various alternate name redirects with an "R with possibilities"?
Here is my issue, using a hypothetical example:  Let's say I am interested in "West Dakota Pears", and a very popular variety is the "Nowhere County Pear".  That variety is also sometimes called the "Middle of Nowhere Pear" and the "Almost Somewhere Pear".  Now, I don't have enough infomation on the "Nowhere County Pear" for a separate article, and don't think a stub is appropriate, so I make a section in my "West Dakota Pear" page about that variety.  Because I think that someone will probably want to expand my short section into a proper article later, I create an "R with possibilities" named "Nowhere County Pear" that redirects to "West Dakota Pears".  Now the big question is, What do I do with the terms "Middle of Nowhere Pear" and the "Almost Somewhere Pear"?  If I have them redirect to "West Dakota Pear", and someone later develops a "Nowhere County Pear" article, the editor may not realize that these redirects are going to the master article, rather than to the variety to which they really should refer.  I know I should not "double redirect" them, as that does not work. — Eoghanacht talk 17:51, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would deal with this situation by pointing all redirects to "West Dakota pears", putting the articles on my watchlist, and updating the "Middle of Nowhere Pear" and "Almost Somewhere Pear" redirects if someone creates a "Nowhere County Pear" article. You could also add a  template to the "Nowhere County Pear" section of the "West Dakota pears" article with a note explaining the situation on relevant talk page, and an invisible comment after the template, e.g., . --Muchness 18:39, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Another idea, and I'm not sure if it's really acceptable but it does seem to work, is to put a note in the  tag as an unused parameter e.g. . Of course, if this template is ever changed to use that parameter it could cause problems. Ewlyahoocom 15:56, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How to associate alterate name redirects to an R with Possibilites? 

message: I'm helping out a bit on Dead End pages and came across Sabbath Truth which is a redirect to a user page.  I was wondering what the policy was for this.  Should the Sabbath truth just be deleted as I can't immediately think where else to redirect it to.  RicDod 14:42, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, redirects from the article space to user space can be speedily deleted (see item number 2 under "Redirects"). I have tagged that particular redirect with . — TKD::Talk 22:00, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  redirects to user space 

message: Is it possible to do Transwiki Redirects? If so, I'm going to spend the next week or so cleaning out the "Move to Wiktionary" entries. GofG |||  Contribs 00:16, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Transwiki Redirects?

message: As I understand it, if one is editing a page already, than the server load is minimal to also "fix" the redirects. Therefore such fixing of functional redirects should not be discouraged if one already has a reason to edit a page, as long as one does them both in one edits. Two questions: 1) Is my impression correct? 2) If so, should we note it in that section? JoshuaZ 16:52, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm trying to figure this out.  The whole section seems to have been added as a warning against cases where the redirect is desirable to keep (such as in the case where the redirect name might one day be expanded into a real article or need to become a disambiguation page).  However, while it includes a caveat for spelling mistakes, I think there are other instances where a redirect is undesirable; I can see no reason not to correct those, especially if one is already editing the article.  One must be careful, though, to make sure the redirect isn't otherwise desirable (either now or in the future) for whatever reason (something I haven't done in the past).  Powers 14:31, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have removed the section as it makes absolutely no sense and runs contrary to logic.  It also jumps to unsupported conclusions. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 00:31, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

text: You see that, I see that but the readers don't see that and I know for a fact that for the readers hitting a redirect is confusing is hell since they more often than not do not realize they have been redirected.  It is also overly broad since it should be noted that even though name redirects are never needed that if your changing the display name anyway you should change the redirect in the process to be the more direct link.  I also see the impact on the server the same way images and certain template calls impact the server which is negligible at best, sure if they add up they could cause problems but fixing a couple of redirects that you run across isn't going to ruin anything so if nothing else this is just policy-cruft. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 00:10, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, I apologize for acting unilaterally but the fact that people are quoting this incorrectly as policy are what spurred me to act since it appears that people are being misled by this passage.  Since you insist that it stays despite my reasoning and objections then I won't get into an edit war over it since it would be unwiki but I think it should definitely be rewritten to be clearer, more concise and less of an essay on the evils of fixing redirects that aren't broken which is how it reads now. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 00:14, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section "Don't fix links to redirects that aren't broken" suggested change 

message: After installing MediaWiki, I notice users have to enable the "include redirects" checkbox in the search result page in order to include redirect pages to the searching. But in Wikipedia, it seems by default, the search function will include all redirect pages. In fact, I could not find the "include redirects" checkbox under "Search in namespaces" options. 
Can anyone tell me how to make the searching works like Wikipedia? Or, how I can default the "include redirects" option to "checked" for all users and every search. (I posted the same question on MediaWiki but got no reply.) Thanks!
--Elo0000 00:56, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: search redirect pages by default

message: Previous quote:
Some editors are tempted, upon finding links using a legitimate redirect target, to edit the page to "fix" the link so that it points "straight" at the "correct" page. Unless the link displays incorrectly—for instance, if the link is to a misspelling or other unprintworthy redirect, or if the hint that appears when you hover over the link is misleading—there is no need to edit the link. Most especially, there should never be a need to replace redirect with redirect.
Some editors are under the mistaken impression that fixing such links improves the capacity of the Wikipedia servers. But because editing a page is thousands of times more expensive for the servers than following a redirect, the opposite is actually true.
Suggested quote:
Unless a redirect displays incorrectly—for instance, if it link is to a misspelling or other unprintworthy redirect, or if the hint that appears when you hover over the link is misleading—there is no need to fix the redirect.  There also may be a need if the hint that apppears over the links is incorrect or misleading. Replacing redirect with redirect. Should never be needed and as with other uneeded edits should be avoided unless it would already be part of your current changes.  "Fixing" non broken redirects can also be even detrimental to the servers as saving the page change to fix a redirect uses up more server resources than people going to the redirect through the page link.
=== comments/suggestions/etc... ===
* I think this is a good change since it shortens it and it makes it less of an attack on anyone who doesn't follow it to the letter, also even though policy isn't quite held to the same NPOV standards as article it is quite frankly more neutral sounding and sounds more official for a guideline. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 00:22, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I added a note to it about the server impact, if you have a page with the stats on the studies about that please add a link to it to the suggested version since that would be of great help in convincing people that unecessary redirect fixing does have an effect on the server (albeit a negligible one) and having stats to link to will definitely help convince people of it's merits. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 01:04, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree with Trey. If anything, I think the language should be strengthened! It is the caveats about double-redirects, misspelled words, etc. that should be toned down -- they only confuse the matter for editors who haven't quite grasped the concept. (I've recently run across a editor who appears to enjoy disambiguating links but eschews both piping and redirects!) The "fixing" of non-broken redirects is, in my opinion, at the same level as the "fixing" of single spaces/double spaces after a period/full-stop -- a complete waste of time and effort. (Note for those who might be unaware of this:     Wikipedia displays   any    number     of      spaces       as a         single           space). Ewlyahoocom 16:12, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  suggested change to don't fix redirects that aren't broken section 

message: * I think this is a good change since it shortens it and it makes it less of an attack on anyone who doesn't follow it to the letter, also even though policy isn't quite held to the same NPOV standards as article it is quite frankly more neutral sounding and sounds more official for a guideline. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 00:22, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I added a note to it about the server impact, if you have a page with the stats on the studies about that please add a link to it to the suggested version since that would be of great help in convincing people that unecessary redirect fixing does have an effect on the server (albeit a negligible one) and having stats to link to will definitely help convince people of it's merits. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 01:04, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree with Trey. If anything, I think the language should be strengthened! It is the caveats about double-redirects, misspelled words, etc. that should be toned down -- they only confuse the matter for editors who haven't quite grasped the concept. (I've recently run across a editor who appears to enjoy disambiguating links but eschews both piping and redirects!) The "fixing" of non-broken redirects is, in my opinion, at the same level as the "fixing" of single spaces/double spaces after a period/full-stop -- a complete waste of time and effort. (Note for those who might be unaware of this:     Wikipedia displays   any    number     of      spaces       as a         single           space). Ewlyahoocom 16:12, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  comments/suggestions/etc... 

message: Recently I've been having problems with redirects showing up as actual pages with a tiny numbered list on them.  For instance, the redirect I've created to go from "State Route 302 Spur (Washington)" to "Washington State Route 302 Spur" occasionally works, but will frequently take me to a page that reads...
 1. REDIRECT Washington State Route 302 Spur
Any help? -- Northenglish 20:34, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello! They can be a pain, can't they! You gotta stick to this format really closely: #REDIRECT Insert text with no extra spaces or blank lines. This redirect worked briefly when another editor fixed it. Ewlyahoocom 21:27, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

text: On second look, maybe it's more complicated. According to this edit it looks like you inserted a blank line before the redirect. But when I try to edit that version of the page I don't see the blank line. I'm stumped -- someone else please take a look at it. Ewlyahoocom 21:38, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Understood... The version that worked briefly was posted by another editor while I was trying to make mine work (my original forgot the link brackets).  When I tried to edit my original version (unaware that the other version was up), anything the other editor had done to fix it had disappeared.  Anyone else who can fix it would be greatly appreciated.  I swear I won't touch it this time! -- Northenglish 22:54, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problems with redirects 

message: In the table, there's a row for "Plurals, tenses, etc" which has as its tag .  Since the template only mentions plurals, it's obviously confusing to use it for a redirect because of tense differences.  Is the intent that other templates will be added here, or that the template will be changed, or should we just remove ", tenses, etc" from the first column? Steve Pucci | talk 15:25, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed ", tenses, etc" for now.  Feel free to revert if someone has something else in mind. -Steve Pucci | talk 04:56, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plurals vs tenses 

message: This page, and also Help:Redirect still states that text on the lines following the redirect are deleted, but this is no longer true (see for example, Paul "Mad Dog" McGuinness). I had a discussion with another editor about this, and it seems logical that, when turning an article into a redirect, most of the text is better to be deleted, because:
* if the text below the redirect contains a link to page A, the redirect will be listed in the "whatlinkshere" of page A (while in fact the redirect does not visibly link to A)
* disk usage
* text is invisible anyway
* text is still in the db, which means that every tool that uses the export feature or the database dump (which include all scripts on the toolserver) will behave as if the text were visible; for example, a tool for searching the db for spelling mistakes detects mistakes in the invisible text
On the other hand, it seems to me that there are at least two reason for having some text after the redirect line:
* categories; especially :Category:Living people seems relevant
* an item to be used if the redirect is then turned into a disambiguation page, if this seems to be an actual possibility
Is this reasonable? - Liberatore(T) 11:16, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Text after redirect 

message: I'm trying to redirect sexyback to SexyBack , but it doesn't work.  if I search for sexyback or Sexyback it takes me to the redirect page instead of the targeted SexyBack. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Myrockstar (talk • contribs) .
:Looks OK to me.  While I was there I changed it back to a "from other capitalisation" redirect.  "From CamelCase" means the redirect itself (not the target article) is a CamelCase name.  In the fairly distant past, Wikipedia was run using different wiki software which required links to be CamelCase (see Wikipedia:CamelCase and Wikipedia). -- Rick Block (talk) 13:47, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: help

message: My bot, in implementing category changes per WP:CFD, sometimes encounters categories containing redirects (for instance it did so here).  I think I am justified in getting it to remove the categories from the redirect when it comes across one; article categories should be for articles!   - does anyone have a different view?  I am not talking about any redirects properly categorised using the  templates.  --RobertG ♬ talk 17:03, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes.  Please don't do this.  Categorizing redirects is a very useful technique when an article either includes multiple topics that don't each warrant their own article or is about a topic (or person) known in different contexts by different names.  The specific example you ran into is perhaps dubious, but as a general technique I think it's perfectly valid. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:59, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Please don't eliminate these. Since categories are used for navigation at times, not having anything in the expected spot harms users trying to find things. Categorized redirects don't do any harm and do a lot of good (as long as the categories are on the same line). -- nae'blis (talk) 19:41, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The categories don't even have to be on the same line anymore. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:02, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Excellent, I'd seen it a couple of times but wasn't sure it was true or just poor formatting. -- nae'blis (talk) 04:05, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirects with categories 

message: I was involved in a case recently where another user had created a very large number of redirect pages (71 to be exact) all of which redirected to either of two new articles which he/she had created, apparently in "competition" with a page which I am involved in maintaining and possibly others. These redirects were clearly designed to direct casual searches about the subject in general to his/her articles rather than any others. The redirects have now been deleted by an admin, and the articles merged, but I have been wondering if there is an actual policy covering cases like this; I can't find anything referring to what I would call "internal link spam" or "redirection spam". Rwxrwxrwx 19:44, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actions not explicitly covered by existing policies are covered by the catch-all wording at the beginning of Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines.   Reasons for deleting redirects are listed at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion#When should we delete a redirect?.  In this case it sounds like perhaps the first and/or second reason listed might have been applicable. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:42, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Excessive numbers of redirects

message: Wikipedia has added a 'redirect' quick button in the edits. Anyone know how to add this same functionality to another wiki? thanks TheHYPO 18:59, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How to add 'redirect' icon to the 'edit' page on wikis? 

message: WP:R, WP:RED, and WP:REDIRECT all go to this page.  But WP:REDIR goes to Help:Redirect.  Anyone know the reason for this? --Galaxiaad 20:05, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Shortcuts happen when people make them, so they're bound to be inconsistent. That shortcut you mention is listed on Wikipedia:Shortcuts, and was pointed there back in April, so it's probably doing no harm. A way to help the reader might be to put hatnotes on both pages that link to the other one, in case somebody types in the wrong redirect for...well, redirects.  -- nae'blis 20:34, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Speaking of redirects...

message: I consider such redirects harmful, as they hide the hierarchy of the concepts. Are there any rules or guidelines that are considering the issue? Can such redirects be made? I think that it is better to have a red link than pointing human to male just because there is no good information in the "human" article. Hyperbolic example, of course, but it illustrates the point quite well. Actually, the issue started here: Talk:Coelenterata. I think this guideline needs to be updated with statement "Never create a redirect from a more general concept to the one which is clearly a subset of that concept". Really need someone's advice, please comment. --Maxxicum 00:53, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think there can be a hard and fast rule. Sometimes, limited information is better than no information (especially in cases where the more specific article touches upon the general concept). Perhaps a guideline statement talking about the downsides (right after the one on "Sub-topic redirects" after the table) would be a good idea, but not a "Never create" one. -- JLaTondre 01:02, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  When the specific article has information of the more general concept, you can simply move that information there and create a stub. A stub is always better than redirect, am I wrong? --Maxxicum 01:09, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Depends. Moving the information is usually probably not correct as it provides context. Copying the information to a  stub might make sense, it might not. It general it probably does, but it would depend upon the specific situation. As I said, a recommendation would be better that a rule. -- JLaTondre 01:29, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

text: No, that doesn't sound like a recommendation. That still sounds like a rule. Please refer to the current paragraph starting "Sub-topic redirects are often temporary,..." for an example of how to write it as a guideline. I'd also recommend you leave this sit here for a couple days before making the change. Not everybody checks every day. -- JLaTondre 12:53, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Please help me make it sound like recommendation, could you? I'm not very good in writing guidelines, I guess. And of course I wasn't going to add this after 1 hour. Let it be here at least a week to make sure everyone has the opportunity to discuss. --Maxxicum 13:08, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the key to guidelines is that they should avoid absolutes. "Avoid", "Never", "Don't", "Do", "must" are all rule-words. What about something like, "The reverse of this situation (where a general topic redirects to an article about a more specific subtopic) is often less desirable. Consider creating a stub at the general topic by moving some of the general information upstream." I can't think of a specific example where we have this situation currently, and the word "upstream" is much less than ideal, but it might be a start. See the difference? -- nae'blis 15:02, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks for the suggestion and explanation. Regarding an example of current situation - see Talk:Coelenterata, this is what raised the issue. --Maxxicum 15:38, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirects from more general term to more specific 

message: Hello. I think, that Karel Blažej Kopriva is useless redirect page. Correct name is Karel Blažej Kopřiva and usefull redirect page is Karel Blazej Kopriva. I put speedy delete template on Karel Blažej Kopriva, but admin things "it's fine as-is". Where I can find any Wikipedia policy about this type of redirect?
We can allow all combinations of diacritics for Karel Blažej Kopřiva. But what about e.g. Tomáš Dvořák (sš, aàá ) ... 26 combination? 
* Tomas Dvorak, Tomás Dvorak, Tomás Dvorak,
* Tomaš Dvorak, Tomáš Dvorak,
* Tomas Dvořak, Tomás Dvořak,
* Tomas Dvorák, Tomás Dvorák, Tomás Dvorák,
* Tomas Dvoràk, Tomás Dvoràk, Tomás Dvoràk,
* Tomaš Dvořak, Tomáš Dvorák, Tomáš Dvoràk,
* ...
I prefer Tomáš Dvořák (correct name), Tomás Dvorák (ISO-8859-1) and Tomas Dvorak (without accents) redirect only.
Another problem is Wikipedia search engine and "No page with that title exists - create this article". Probably, engine can acts better (when searching for word with some no ISO-8859-1 characters and when no article found) and suggests searching for ISO-8859-1 equivalent article name (or search for ISO-8859-1 equivalent immediately). --mj41 13:10, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Precedent at WP:RFD is that redirects of this type are cheap. They are usually unnecessary, but don't do any harm, so we don't delete them although we don't go out of our way to create them. Your example should be kept as a typical . Kusma (討論) 13:17, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

text: In this particular case, it seems that the article was created at Karel Blažej Kopriva before being moved to the correct title. If somebody mistyped the name once, then somebody could mistype it again, in which case this redirect is useful. You do have a valid point about the search though — this already checks for uppercase and lowercase variants of the requested title, so it could possibly check for accented and unaccented variants as well. Check Bugzilla to see if this has been filed as a feature request already. — sjorford++ 15:14, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Usefull combinations of accents in redirect 

message: I recently came across several images that redirect to other images, which seems kinda useless to me, since it's only the description page that's redirected... Is there some standard way for dealing with these? --Fritz S. (Talk) 10:36, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image redirects 

message: The redirect from Current events to Portal:Current events was up for deletion. Now, I think that redirect is bloody useful, as I'm still used to the old address, so I added changed part of Wikipedia:Redirect/DeletionReasons (changed in italic):
# Someone finds them useful. Hint: If someone says they find a redirect useful, they probably do. You might not find it useful — this is not because the other person is a liar, but because you browse Wikipedia in different ways. (For example, Portal:Current events used to be in the article space, at Current events, and many people still have bookmarks pointing there.)
Comments? That could probably be written more tersely. flammifertalk 07:14, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have reverted that edit. It is inappropriate to list an open RFD as an example. You may use that rationale to argue for keeping the redirect at WP:RFD, but you should not change the reasons page until after the debate is closed and there is consensus for adding the example. I personally don't see the point of listing any one example for this particular criteria. By the way, I also reverted your removal of the RFD tag from Current events. Do not remove deletion tags from open deletion debates. -- JLaTondre 12:07, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirecting current events to the portal 

message: * Categories in redirects are officially OK
* Multi-line redirects are officially OK
* BUT templates in redirects, such as the "R templates", are not OK for performance reasons, and may be broken in the future.
(It would be better if Brion and/or Tim Starling could just come and officially confirm I didn't make this up, though.)
-- 62.147.38.54 17:13, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Summary of those informations 

message: Are IATA and ICAO airport codes that don't have other meanings supposed to redirect to the page for that airport? It seems that sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. If they are supposed to then I would be interested in adding some of the ones that don't, but I want to know what the wikipedia policy is first before I do anything. Thanks. Abc30 18:16, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Quite awkwardly, an answer may be found at redirects for deletion. As far as I can tell, a redirect may be created as long as it is useful for some reason, and these ones seem useful to me. At the same time, I do not see any drawback for them (Liberatore, 2006). 10:09, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree with Liberatore. I'd only add that it would be good to make sure the codes that have other meanings are included on disambiguation pages. –RHolton≡– 14:10, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  IATA and ICAO airport codes 

message: motivation:
*one central place to control the layout of the messages and to control the categories. See UN/LOCODE:USNYC and the corresponding R from. See also ISO 3166-1:US (maybe this has no template), ISO 15924:Cyrl, ISO 639:eng and the templates and cats. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 13:59, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Keep the R from templates 

message: The Caucasoid, Negroid, Mongoloid, Australoid, Capoid was originally copied by User:Anthroexpert with the new title Caucasoid, Negroid, Mongoloid, Australoid because s/he claimed Capoid was not a real race.  The article was never moved it was just copied.  User:Yom reverted the redirect on Caucasoid, Negroid, Mongoloid, Australoid, Capoid, claiming Capoid was a real race.  Now there are two articles with the same content.  I tried to redirect Caucasoid, Negroid, Mongoloid, Australoid back to Caucasoid, Negroid, Mongoloid, Australoid, Capoid in order to remove its redundancy.  It didn't work.  The "edit page" function and "compare selected versions" function both show that the page was redirected but the "article" does not reflect this redirect.  Does anyone know how to correctly redirect this page?--Dark Tichondrias 03:14, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: My Redirect did not work

message: I can't seem to find any policy information about the inclusion of redirects on talk pages.  I could test it easily to see if it works from a technical standpoint, but I wanted to ask about policy here first.  Right now I'm in the process of splitting a large article (Drexel University) up into a number of smaller articles: one for each college, one for each branch campus, etc.  I expect the smaller ones on the colleges to be about two or three paragraphs plus an infobox when fully fleshed out; large enough to merit a separate article but not large enough (or controversial enough) to generate much discussion.  Is it a bad idea to have talk pages for subpages redirect to the main article's talk page?  It seems like a good way to keep discussion together, but I suppose it could confuse editors if it's not a standard practice.  Thoughts?  --TexasDex 01:01, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirects on talk pages? 

message: Hello. Is it OK when I make a redirect like this from the page E412 (an E number):
#REDIRECT Guar gum 
Or would it make any sense to make a new template especially for E numbers, like Template:R from E number? --Tobias Schmidbauer 11:03, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirect from an E  

message: I've kinda started a discussion over at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(disambiguation_pages)#Dab pages and redirects about how redirects should point to dab pages. Feel free to pipe in there. McKay 04:31, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  redirects to dab pages 

message: Are redirects like lift bridge supposed to be in categories? --NE2 21:44, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It depends. We have templates to categorize redirects based upon misspellings, alternative titles, etc (see :Category:Redirects for the whole list). It is also useful to place a redirect into a non-redirect category if the redirect title would be expected to be found in that category and the target name would not (probably would happen if the redirect is a subsection of the target) or if the target name doesn't convey it covers both topics. People navigate by categories so including both would help people find information. However, including redirects based upon every alternative spelling would not be appropriate if the target one covers it (ex. John Doe; John Doe, Jr.; John S. Doe; etc.). -- JLaTondre 13:43, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Redirects in categories?

message: How do I make redirects to pages with the following symbol in them? —
For example:
#REDIRECT Barrie—Simcoe—Bradford
Is the — there to represent something else, just like a _ represents a space?   Wikada - Talk Contributions 01:31, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The easiest way is to copy & paste the article title from the top the target page. You cannot copy & paste from the browser's rendition of the URL if it shows the characters as encoded (ex. Firefox shows Barrie%E2%80%94Simcoe%E2%80%94Bradford) as redirects don't work with HTML encoding. The "—" is probably an em dash. I'm not sure why people like to use fancy dashes in article titles as they are a pain to type. If that didn't make sense, let me know. -- JLaTondre 13:28, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  redirects to pages with these: —

message: I've just created Greg Sams (my first attempt at a new article, sorry there are no sections yet).
However, Greg Sams is also known as Gregory Sams. People are just as likely to type in Greg as they are Gregory. What do I do? Do I create a Gregory Sams dummy page and then redirect it? Or is there an easier way to do this?
Tris2000 19:31, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To create a redirect, you would edit Gregory Sams and enter #REDIRECT Greg Sams as the content. -- JLaTondre 02:33, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks - done it. Tris2000 02:29, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirect from full name? 

message: I have created an article called Bonus rule.  I then redirected Bonus baby to the page.  However, when i type "bonus baby", "Bonus baby" or "Bonus Baby", they seem to appear with the full text of the article.  When i go to edit, i see the redirect command that i placed.  What did i do wrong and can someone help me fix the problem? // Tecmobowl 09:53, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks fine to me; that's what redirects should do.  -- Visviva 12:04, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks OK to me too. You mean you still see the full text of the bonus baby article as it was before your redirect? Try refresh your browser cache. Femto 12:56, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, it was spooky, i had refreshed my cahce and it didn't seem to fix the problem.  However, several hours later, it seems to have resolved itself. // Tecmobowl 18:22, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Did i make a booboo??? 

message: IMO, Wikipedia should have someone capable of improving its software so that redirect can target a section of an article. There is a lengthy debate at [] because of the low capability of Wikipedia's software. Miaers 19:43, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is an existing enhancement request, see bugzilla:218.  -- Rick Block (talk) 20:16, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Improvement on software

message: are there other commands besides #redirect that start with an # and do something interesting? I just found meta:ParserFunctions, but is there anything else? --Abdull 15:35, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I assume you mean something beyong the obvious... ;-) I think this and ParserFunctions are all there is, but I can't say for sure. -- Visviva 17:34, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  other # words 

message: See this version of Kin Kin. For me it says:
"1.  REDIRECT Kin Kin, Queensland"
But one version worked...  so it is now reverted to that. Note that I think I added a space onto the end of one of the edits.
:The third revision didn't work because it had two pound signs (##) instead of one.  That's to be expected.  What's interesting to me is that the first revision, in which the comma was replaced with %2C,  also didn't work.  Apparently URL-encoded redirects always fail, although redirects with HTML%20entities and underscores do not.  (Test:  if you replace one of the spaces/underscores with "%20", that will also cause the redirect to fail.)  -- Visviva 05:07, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This appears to be a known bug, though not a high priority... it seems to me that fixing this would just require a single call to PHP's urldecode function, but I'm not a developer.  In the meantime, this page should probably mention something about how links pasted from the URL may not work.  -- Visviva 05:20, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirect BUG?

message: From the article: "Everything after the redirect line will be blanked when you save the page. Any text on the same line as the redirect will stay, but will not be visible unless someone edits the page." The second sentence makes me assume that everything below the redirect will be deleted when you save, but for the two articles I have redirected, neither removed the text below the redirect. The first was months ago, and I assumed I did something wrong so I deleted the information myself. The second time was yesterday where I let the article sit for 12 hours before checking again and the information was still not removed. So is this a bug or am I misreading? By not removing anything, categories remain which results in duplicates next to each other in the same category. — CobraWiki ( jabber | stuff ) 21:10, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The software does not automatically delete everything after the redirect. I believe the page is referring to the fact that text after the redirect is not displayed when you view the page. There are actually cases when having a redirect in a category makes sense. -- JLaTondre 22:48, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The software used to remove everything following the redirect line.  Preserving this content was a change in the not too distant past (6 months, maybe?).  -- Rick Block (talk) 02:06, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, Rick Block. That has really had me confused for a while. — CobraWiki ( jabber | stuff ) 06:00, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Everything after the redirect line will be blanked"