Wikipedia talk:Redirect/Archive 1

message: I think it needs to be mentioned somewhere in the documentation that the template message needs to be on the same line as the #REDIRECT tag. The server seems to just reject it if it's on a separate line, and it literally took me several minutes to figure out why the messages weren't showing up on my redirects... --Codeman38 06:21, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: template on the same line

message: * User:Mac asked how to remove inter-wiki redirects from wiktionary to wikipedia. Answer now in article under Inter-wiki redirects.
*:Where is this Inter-wiki redirects article?  I can't find it.  —Brim 06:16, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: inter-wiki redirects

message: Should misspelled redirects be deleted or kept?
I strongly disagree with the present consensus of creating redirects because they are misspelled,
for example, "Hetrosexual" redirecting to "Heterosexual". Sure, this practise helps users who can't spell
find what they are looking for quicker, but it also discredits the Wikipedia as a serious medium because it
sends out the message that we condone inaccuracy and bad English. In my opinion we should aim for no less than being the best encyclopedia in the world, and surely accuracy is a word that must come at the very top of the list of an encyclopedia's missions. Also, there is currently no clear distinction between a correct alternative spelling and a common incorrect spelling in redirects. 
Who agrees? Klafubra 17:01, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I strongly agree with Klafubra. I understand why there is a need for them in some cases, but surely not for mis-spellings! On the "Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name." page, there should also be a suggestion that the user checks their spelling. Bobbis 01:42, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deletion of misspelled redirects 

message: In a redirect page, I edited the page to put some explanation of why I created the redirect page, after the redirection "Command". Naturally, I expected this would not normally be shown, as the redirect in action means that page is not shown. And, that is what happened.
But, if people click on the ""Redirected From"" info in the target page, they can come back to the redirection page. But the text/explanation I put in is not apparent. Yet it was when I did the Preview of the page.
 So, what happened to the text I entered ?? How can I get that explantory text to show, if people want to uderstand why a redirect page exists ?
Or, should I put the explanation in a Talk: page for the Redirect Page. Seems a bit more complicated, unnecessarily so.
 Can we have some explanation of this on this page, please.RB-Ex-MrPolo 10:38, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: What article are you referring to? I'd like to see this... Martin 10:58, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

text: your version of delete looks fine - the current version looks like it's had the explanation text removed. Does this explain things? :) Martin 11:15, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

text: Apparently, as I mentioned in a comment at the top of the page, the server just strips explanatory text if it's not on the same line as the #REDIRECT tag!  This one ended up biting me as well; it took me several minutes to figure out why the explanatory text I added kept getting rejected, until I just happened to make the observation that there was no new line before the explanation in the examples I had looked at... --Codeman38 06:26, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Question re text in a REdirect Page disappearing

message: :: When adding new redirect pages, try to keep the number of redirects to any one article to a reasonable number, those needed to cover common searches, meet user expectations, and particularly common misspellings (not every possible misspelling or permutation of a name, that's why there is a search engine).
I added a para on the key problem with lots of redirects - cluttering searches. People should bear this in mind, obviously.
beyond the search engine, why do redirects need to be kept to a "reasonable" number? I want to exceed user expectations - that's the mission statement of any sensible customer-focused group, and it's a good aim.
Besides, the search engine uses up too many database cycles, so encouraging people to use the search engine will make Wikipedia slower and less reliable. Martin 11:14, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disputed text 

message: Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump on Saturday, August 2nd, 02003.
Can someone who knows about these things please do a redirect from Bell ringing and Bellringing to Campanology. I've just put "Bell ringing" into the Search box and apparently there was no article, but there is!
Adrian Pingstone 09:43 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)
:Done. For the next time, you can do it yourself, it's rather easy:
*Open any Wikipedia page.
*Click into the address-field at the top of your browser. That's where http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Some_article stands.
*Replace the name of the current article (Some_article in the above example) by the title of the page you want to create. Replace blanks by underscores. Hit Enter.
*Click Edit this page on the following, empty page.
*Insert #REDIRECT Campanology into the article field. Write redirect in upper case. Don't put a blank between # and REDIRECT. Put the target into double brackets.
*Hit save. That's it.
:-- JeLuF 10:03 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)
The article is at Bellringing and suggests that "Bellinging" is the correct term, JeLuf, you've made a double redirect. Mintguy 11:28 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)
: No, The Anome was, he moved from Campanology to Bellringing without fixing the redirects 2 hours after I created the redirects. -- JeLuF 08:18, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: My mistake. Sorry. -- The Anome 09:38, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: How to redirect a page (bellringing)

message: Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump:
Is there a quick and easy way (i.e., not involving DDQs) to find broken redirects? I, for one, wouldn't mind going around making sure that any redirect that points to a red link either gets deleted or given a stub at the redirect site. Broken redirects are A Bad Thing because people won't realize that an article doesn't yet exist if they see the link in text, because it's blue, even if it doesn't go anywhere. This makes it that much harder for people who might be inclined to write an article if they new one was needed. --Dante Alighieri 04:21, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Special:Maintenance has a tool for this, but of course all that's presently disabled to keep the server from dying. At some point these things need to get reworked to be usable. Anyone who wants to code up improvements is welcome. --Brion 04:48, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Until an online query is again available, this might easily be extracted from the weekly SQL dumps, just like Short pages, Long pages, Orphaned pages, Most referenced pages, Most wanted pages. If Brion thinks this a good idea and is willing to run the scripts just like the Statistics scripts and upload the output, I will prepare a production version (= optimized, etc) of my current scripts in a few weeks time. The scripts produce two files per report, one in html format, one in wiki format which someone can copy/paste to the Wikipedia (in order to be able to edit the lists after corrections have been made). Erik Zachte 18:22, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Queries can be requested at Wikipedia:SQL query requests. I have it on my watchlist and so I usually run them within 24 hours, but so far Angela is the only one using it. In this case, an appropriate query would be "select cur_title, cur_namespace from cur,brokenlinks where cur_id=bl_from and cur_is_redirect=1 limit 100". I'll run it now. -- Tim Starling 15:01, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: finding broken redirects

message: What is this new bit supposed to mean? Angela 23:37, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Well this got me stumped too. But I read it for 5 minutes and I think this is the gist of it : If a non-ambiguous article redirects to an ambiguous article, the redirect should be removed. Jay 14:47, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: That doesn't make sense though. What would be wrong with a redirect. If anything, shouldn't the ambiguous article be moved to the non-ambiguous title? I don't really understand the issue but I have a feeling the person who added this may be the same person currently wanting to remove the redirct from firearm to gun and I can't understand that either. (See Talk:gun. Angela 15:15, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

text: I think anon just dislikes sub-topic redirects. Martin 15:41, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: new bit about ambiguity

message: *Islamofascism (this term is considered by some as pejorative) leads to terrorism...
** terrorism, redirect from Islamofascism...
This is a really bad example of the principle of least astonishment, because terrorism doesn't even mention Islamofascism. More an example of what not to do... Martin 09:16, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Islamofascism example

message: I don't understand the latest addition to this page. How does a redirect facilitate disambiguation? Creating America (disambiguation) which redirects to America makes no sense at all to me. Angela. 19:02, Jan 4, 2004 (UTC)
:It might be clearer if you look at Special:Whatlinkshere/America. BTW we added a note about it on Wikipedia:Disambiguation -- User:Docu.
::All that shows is that there are some links that need fixing. Why would you create a disambiguation page that is just a redirect? There shouldn't be any links to a disambiguation page. Angela. 01:09, Jan 5, 2004 (UTC)
:Usually there shouldn't, but sometimes there are, e.g. the few that link to America (disambiguation). Those don't need fixing. -- User:Docu
Angela. I think I have a better example of how a redirect facilitates disambiguation.  Suppose two readers wanted information on the term "deaf". They enter the term in the "Find" field that appears on each Wikipedia page.  The resulting page turns out to be "hearing impairment" which discusses all the causes of deafness and the medical practices involved in treating it.  Now, suppose the reader was not looking for "deaf" in the sense of hearing impairment, but rather "deaf" in the sense of someone who identifies with deaf culture.  They would not find discussion of the "cultural view of the term 'deaf' " on the "hearing impairment" article.  This would mean that a disambiguation page is required; a page that distinguishes between "deaf" as an illness in one definition and "deaf" as a social phenomena in another definition.  The disambiguation page might also have a definition of "deaf" as a disability.  The term "deaf-as hearing impairment" can now be redirected to "deaf" the disambiguation page.  Once there, the reader can choose the sense of "deaf" they are searching for and follow the appropriate link to an article that discusses that specific sense of the term.  In theory, that is exactly how it would work. In practice it is sometimes a highly controversial thing to do.  
For example, let's again use the term "deaf".  Some people within the field of medicine refuse to acknowledge the term "deaf-as a cultural phenomena" is anything more than a fringe or freak explanation of the term coined by the community of deaf people who use sign language. Some doctors will refuse to accept the premise at all that the term "deaf" could every or in any circumstances but considered to describe a sense of personal identity with people who use signs to communicate, and that it can *only* be used to refer to the medical model that describes "deaf" as a type of hearing impairment. So that doctor or any person who believes as the doctor does, may be a Wikipedia contributor with tremendous skill in argumentation, writing and manipulating the features of Wikipedia's software. This person might redirect "deaf" to a article on "hearing impairment" and argue strongly and persusively that at no time should this term "deaf" be directed at any other view outside the medical model of the term.  So an innocent reader may come to Wikipedia seeking information on deaf people who identify with the community of signing deaf persons and enter the search term "deaf". But they will forever and always be directed to "hearing impairment" as the means of defining the term. Suppose they then tried the term "deafness" and found that it, too, always resulted in arriving at the "hearing impairment" article.  It would mean that this reader may not be able to find the sense of "deaf" they sought.  Do such things occur on Wikipedia?  Yes. It is the very reason I have chosen the term "deaf" and "deafness" to illustrate all of this. A Wikipedia contributor who is also an M.D. has done precisely this type of manipulation of the term "deaf" and "deafness", the two terms most like to be used in a search for information of cultural deafness.  The logical solution is that "deaf" would redirect to a disambiguation page. Yet this contributor will not permit "deaf" to become associated with the cultural view of "deaf" even on a page that disambiguates the several view of the term.  Such is the reality of Wikipedia. The only solution is to go through the lengthy Conflict Resolution process and argue one's view. But the length of that very process is a discouragement in and of itself and this is a tactic used by people who want to protect certain views of information. Experienced contributors know that when they force others to face a long process of conflict resolution, the complaining party is not likely to want to engage in the debate because it is not merely the length of the process that causes discouragement, but also the tremendous amount of negative discourse that surfaces in the process that tends to sour one's attitude whole motivation to contribute to Wikipedia.  So, if you have an area of specialization you want to contribute, and that area of specialization is one that has potential for heated conflict, you must consider whether you want to spend you energy on writing article on the subject or spending the majority of your time arguing and defending yourself for such mundane acts as adding a comma to a sentence that 20 people will object to.  That's the reality of Wikipedia.  Old timers will call in favors from other contributors with whom they have collaborated for years and you will be hounded, savaged, accused of preposterous intentions, threatened, and when you defend yourself, even if with the most magnificent manners and respect, your responses will be flately brushed aside if invisible.  The Wikipedia Reality, in my humble opinion.  Ray Foster 22:03, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Disambiguation

message: Shouldn't that prominent repeated word "Alternate" (which I think of as "left right left right ...) be "Alternative"? (It may have been discussed here, but a quick scan didn't show me.)
(:-)
:robinp 03:58, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: alternate vs. alternative

message: A sexist re-direct is a redirect of either of 2 kinds:
#A re-direct from a gender-specific word to a gender-neutral word
#A re-direct from a gender-neutral wofd to a gender-specific word
What, with your current knowledge, is the best way to get rid of a sexist re-direct?? The answer is, of course, depends on which kind.
For the former kind, it takes at least moderate skill. Girl was originally a re-direct to child. However, see the comments at Talk:Girl and it was decided that the sexism can be removed by re-directing to woman. This took a lot of work, with part of the intermediate stuff being having girl a page of its own that is not a re-direct.
For the latter kind, it really isn't difficult. Sweetheart was originally a re-direct to girlfriend. However, upon seeing it, I made it into a dis-ambiguation page for boyfriend and girlfriend. This can be done using the same technique used to turn ANY re-direct into a dis-ambiguation page. No more intermediate work was used than the general change from a re-direct to a dis-ambiguation page.
Does Wikipedia currently have any sexist re-directs?? Upon finding any, please make sure you know which of the 2 kinds above it is and knowing how it is to be done. 66.32.124.187 02:57, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sexist re-directs 

message: The terminology here was used to create a series of "Templates:" for redirects. Chameleon suggest to change them to "alternative" (R for alternate capitalisation) and already had made this "minor change" here. Changing it here, would imply fixing a series of messages in redirects. I prefer not to change one without all the others. -- User:Docu.
:As many as possible need to be corrected. — Chameleon 13:55, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Alternates or alternatives 

message: Following on from some comments above, I am quite surprised that there are so many redirects and links to empty pages. These are not on the list of good things and may even be on the list of bad things. Is it possible to reduce their numbers using some form of search and replace mechanism?
Bobblewik 19:52, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Going thru the prose, I was going "huh?", then I got to the list of 'issues' and definately agree. Niteowlneils 04:50, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I should have been more explicit in saying that the multiple empty links exist in the long, long list of 'issues'. :)  Further, when I brought that up in its Talk before, its principal author couldn't see my point--perhaps if others went in there and said the same thing I'm saying, maybe the article could be modified. -- Stevietheman 15:17, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirects and links to empty pages 

message: Many surnames (Heisenberg, Schrödinger, ...) redirect to the
page for the full name. But this is not always the case
(e.g. Veltman). Is it possible to automate this by marking
certain entries as full names? If not, wouldn't it be good to
always manually redirect? E.g., should I create a redirect page
from Veltman to Martinus J.G. Veltman? (In this case, you
even need to know his initials to find the page quickly;
a site-wide Google search for "Veltman" or "Martinus Veltman"
finds only pages with Nobel Prize winners and physicists,
and these then link to the "Martinus J.G. Veltman" page.
It also finds a link that edits the Veltman page, but not
the Veltman page itself. A site-wide Yahoo search for "Veltman"
yields the "Martinus J.G. Veltman" page as the first hit.) Fpahl 05:44, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The policy is to use pagenames with only surnames in case the person is widely known by his/her surname, far more than any other person with the same surname. The situation you've just described only shows that Martinus J.G. Veltman is not that widely known by his surname compared to other Veltman's. -- Paddu 19:51, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  surnames 

message: Is it possible to make a redirect to a category?
I could not find any info about this on the "redirect
help" page. I tried it on this page: Flamenco singers.
Walden 21:54, 2004 Sep 14 (UTC)
:It's possible, but cross-namespace redirects should be avoided. -- User:Docu
::Care to tell me how? The used technique does not work.
::Does anyone agree I should create an Flamenco_singers article (with a category pointer) instead of redirect to the the Flamenco_vocalists category? Walden 14:32, 2004 Sep 16 (UTC)
:::#REDIRECT Category:Flamenco vocalists will work, but it does mean that Flamenco singers will show up as part of the category. Angela. 03:52, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)
:::Is it possible that when you redirect to a category, it doesn't show in the category list, because else you get too much doubles in your category list.
:::: There's a bug that when you redirect to a category, when you click on the link, the articles don't show up, just the category header. It's in Bugzilla already. Noel (talk) 16:57, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirects to categories 

message: I don't know why this was on the page.  AFAIK it is simply wrong.  Am I missing something? JesseW 11:23, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  (Simple version of Redirects) - Wrong 

message: Is it possible to make a page undergo slight modification when it is redirected to?  See, e.g., Orchidaceae, which is redirected to from Orchid.  The word "orchid" has multiple meanings and a disambiguation page, but if someone typed in "Orchidaceae" they wouldn't need the notice at the top of the page about alternate meanings of "orchid".
:I am not sure that that is desirable.  See for example Derry and County Londonderry which are also redirects from Londonderry and County Derry respectively.  I think the double diambiguation links are useful whether you type in Derry or Londonderry to start.  Similarly, even if someone arrives "direct" at Orchidaceae, you still don't know whether they may have clicked on an orchid looking link.  --Henrygb 12:17, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Modify target page of redirect 

message: I created a redirect (Signed English) to a specific relevant section of a larger article (Manually Coded English#Signed English), but when clicking on the Signed English link, I'm taken to the top of the Manually Coded English page (rather than the Signed English section). Is there a way to fix this? One day Signed English will have it's own page, but in the meantime...
Hope this page is the right place for this comment. -- ntennis 02:33, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You can only redirect to articles, not sections in them; although the syntax allows them (e.g.#REDIRECT University of Cambridge#History) they don't work. Noel (talk) 16:57, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirect to other than top of page 

message: Science is full of terms that represent really trivial concepts that are part of something much bigger.  It's very tempting to put redirects from those trivial concepts to the bigger ideas, such as redirecting electron shell to energy level.  I think it's a very bad idea.  If page A redirects to page B, it leads the reader to believe that terms A and B are equivalent.  An electron shell is NOT the same thing as an energy level. --Smack (talk) 05:09, 29 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I support the worrying and partially the suggested solution. Another solution would be to explicitly list in the beginning of a big article on a formal scientific topic the terms that are defined through the text. Like this: In this article, the following formal terms from Area of Science are defined: ..., ..., ... and give internal links to the places in the article with the definitions.--Imz 02:17, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use stubs instead of redirects for scientific terms 

message: The link Unrelated redirect right at the bottom of the article is a loop redirect back to this article. I'm not sure what it's supposed to do so I haven't tried to fix it, but I guess it should just be deleted. Shantavira 14:26, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Loop redirect within article

message: When a page is redirected onto an article with several headings, shouldn't the redirect link target the most appropriate heading?
Example: Amelia Bones redirects to Minor Ministry officials in Harry Potter, when a better target would be Minor Ministry officials in Harry Potter#Amelia Bones.
I noticed that nobody seems to be doing this. Is there any reason not to make more specific targets? --Alex Nisnevich (talk) 16:32, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I commented on this a while ago (see above). It seems that the 'more specific target' gets ignored when in a redirect. I guess it's a limitation of the wiki software? I changed the redirect for Amelia Bones to Minor Ministry officials in Harry Potter#Amelia Bones as you suggested. Try clicking on Amelia Bones now and if your browser behaves like mine does you'll get taken to the top of the page anyway, not the "Amelia Bones" heading. I had the same problem with Signed English which should redirect to Manually Coded English#Signed English. -- ntennis 07:21, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

text: Thankyou user:Jnc for this answer and adding the info to the project page :) — ntennis 04:08, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  More Specific Redirects 

message: There has been some discussion on whether we should continue to keep these, as a general principle (see here for what this is about). I have set up a poll at WT:RfD#CamelCase redirects; anyone who wishes to express an opinion on whether to keep or get rid of CamelCase redirects (as a class) should do so there. Noel (talk) 17:08, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  CamelCase redirects 

message: I've made a proposal to rename the aditional template message tags added to Redirect pages. It's been cross posted to 
*Village pump/proposals and 
*Wikipedia:Template_messages/Redirect_pages talk page
—Pengo 02:56, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: ...and Radiant! has made a proposal to delete them all instead.  See WP:TFD. —Cryptic (talk) 14:53, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Renaming of #REDIRECT <nowiki>{{special tags}}</nowiki> 

message: Is there any stylistic prohibition on categorizing redirects? I am filling in gaps for fictional countries that redirect to the Places in the Wheel of Time series article, but feel they should also be in :Category: Wheel of Time places. I don't want to get mass-reverted, though... nae'blis (talk) 15:21, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as I know, redirects can't be categorized (on submit, the software essentially ignores anything following the #redirect line and deletes it when the change is submitted).  -- Rick Block (talk) 18:28, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually we use the "R for foo" templates for this. See :Category:Redirects and WP:R for a list of templates. ∞Who?¿? 18:53, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

text: hmm, well not to answer for Rick, but I found that some users like it and some don't. I personally prefer it, becuase it gives us a quick reference to what redirects exist, and what they are doing. It's not necessarily an eye sore, because no one really ever sees them :) ∞Who?¿? 20:20, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

text: Yeah, technically I suppose the article is showing up more than once. And you're exactly right, Arad Doman is an example of what I'm after. Ideally, if/when the WikiProject_WheelOfTime gets of the ground, we should be able to expand those articles. But up until today Manetheren was a redlink, which doesn't seem right... Thanks for the tip(s). nae'blis (talk) 02:20, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Categorization of redirects 

message: Say, which one of the redirect categories would you use for The Mahabharata (redirecting to Mahabharata)? (I used .) Perhaps, the answer should be mentioned on the main page.--Imz 01:32, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Which redirect category for a name with article (''the'')? 

message: From When should we delete a redirect?...
:"if a redirect is reasonably old, then it is quite possible that its deletion will break links in old versions of some other articles — such an event is very difficult to envision and even detect."
Doesn't the "What links here" tool help you detect such a problem?--Commander Keane 08:22, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, the "What links here" tool only helps you detect links in current versions, not old versions. However, I don't think that old versions should be a reason to not delete redirects that seem harmful now, no matter how old they are. Kusma (talk) 15:08, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Replacing old redirect - validity of statement on the project page 

message: Whenever we move a page, we are reminded to check for double re-directs and fix them, if any. However, whenever we merge two articles, and convert one of them into a re-direct, we do not get reminded to check for double re-directs. We should probably be reminded whenever a re-direct is made so that this problem can be remedied by the initiator of the re-direct himself. I have placed this suggestion on Wikipedia talk:Double redirects as well but not much action has taken place on that page of late.  --Gurubrahma 10:43, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Double redirects 

message: There is an article, Philippine Pond Turtle, with a redirect from Leyte Pond Turtle -- which I consider to be a simple "redirect from alternate name."  However, there is also a redirect to it from Heosemys leytensis. My question is, should this second one be an "R from alternate name" or an "R from alternate language" -- or should there be a separate category, perhaps "R from scientific name"?— Eoghanacht talk 14:50, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems to me that this is a case where some people will want to track these redirects as a specific group (or subgroup).  Without objection, I shall create it. — Eoghanacht talk 15:54, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirect from scientific nomenclature?