Talk:Lichtenstein, Germany

message: Hi Epicadam, i don't get why Lichtenstein should be redirected to Liechtenstein, afaik Lichtenstein is a misspelling in this case... or am i wrong? --MisterGrigri (talk) 09:35, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi. I made Lichtenstein link to Liechtenstein per WP:REDIRECT, which follows the convention of redirecting common alternate names or misspellings to the most common usage of the word; in this case, an independent country. The situation is akin to "Luxemburg", which redirects to "Luxembourg" despite the fact that there are three other world cities/towns, which have the name "Luxemburg". In the case of Liechtenstein, those few readers who are actually trying to find another "Lichtenstein" will be able to find it easily by using the prominent disambiguation link found at the top of the country article. Best, epicAdam(talk) 15:06, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: For me it seems quite confusing to redirect a misspelled entry to its correctly spelled entry when there's also a meaning behind the misspelled version, because in consequence, all user users typing in the correct word are redirected to an article they haven't been looking for. Imho Lichtenstein (disambiguation) holds many possibilities pepole might be looking fora nd in fact the very most seem to know how to spell the country correctly ( vs. ). Would you mind me changing it to redirect to the disambiguation page? --MisterGrigri (talk) 16:21, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: First, it depends on whether or not you think the entry is misspelled. Lichtenstein and Liechtenstein are two rather commons spellings. In fact, the disambiguation page provides all entries for both spellings. The second consideration is how many of those people who type in "Lichtenstein" meant to find another Lichtenstein. Very few. Of the 194 people who searched for Lichtenstein, only 9 went on to look for Lichtenstein, Germany, only 13 went to Lichtenstein (Reutlingen), 63 went to Lichtenstein Castle. That means over 100 people who typed in Lichtenstein probably got to their correct location. And, imho, it is always best to link to an article with a dab page, then to a dab page directly. When you force users to link to a dab page, then every user must navigate the list of possible entries. When linking to an article, it's likely that some (if not most) of people have correctly found the article they were looking for, and the few others who have not, can then use the dab page to find their article. Best, epicAdam(talk) 16:37, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Unfortunately we don't know what the users actually were looking for, e.g. Roy Lichtenstein has quite many hits (), but if it's the common practice just the way it is, let's keep it, it isn't that worldshaking to me. --MisterGrigri (talk) 23:05, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Right, we can't say with absolute certainty, but we can look at what would make sense and be the most likely, given the information we have. As for the names of people, often users type at least the first and last name. There are arguments about the folks at Washington and George Washington about where "Washington" should redirect, but the common belief is that people who are searching for George Washington would almost always type it in instead of just the last name. Best, epicAdam(talk) 00:01, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Liechtenstein or Lichtenstein?