Wikipedia talk:Redirect

See also: Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy/redirects, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Redirect, and Wikipedia:Article wizard/version1/Redirect

Help me with Redirect shrey mittal article page https://en.m.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Shrey_Mittal&redirect=no

Thank you so much Wikipedia Admin and Members

Questions on NOTBROKEN

Part of NOTBROKEN states : It is almost never helpful to replace [[redirect]] with [[target|redirect]].

What about replacing [[redirect|target]] with [[target]]?

This replacement seems to be in keeping with WP:NOPIPE, but possibly in contravention of NOTBROKEN. I've seen this crop up most often when a page has been moved from [[redirect]] to [[target]].

There are also BOTREQs to change [[redirect|displayed text]] to [[target|displayed text]] following a page move, and editors quote NOTBROKEN as a reason not to do it: is this a valid reason? Some occurrences of "displayed text" happen to be the new article name, which is what I noticed and led me to raise this. Spike 'em (talk) 09:23, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Changing [[redirect|target]] with [[target]] should be OK, particularly if you are making other valid changes to the article. I would not send in a bot to do it though. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:41, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Ah, I've just seen Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 79#New election article name format - in which case WP:MULTI applies. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:44, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks: I'm not trying to venue-shop, just thought here would be a better place to ask the general question. I'm not that bothered about the specific BOTREQ mentioned there, though I have had a discussion about making similar edits due to some AWBing I did a while back (following a page move involving Lord's). Spike 'em (talk) 13:13, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm very much a WP:NOTBROKEN enforcer, in cases where the redirect is a distinct topic rather than an alternative name to the target. However, I tend to fix modifications and incorrect/unnecessary disambiguations to sort of "retire" incorrect redirects. So, I would leave redirects with possibilities like Mon Mothma, but I would change cases of Dune (upcoming film) to the correct Dune (2020 film).— TAnthony^Talk 22:08, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

It's a little tangential to the question, but can anyone tell me how widespread the discussion and consensus on this guideline was? I personally think any like which requires a redirect is, by definition, broken. So the guideline is not only misnamed, but I think people should be encouraged to replace [[redirect]] with [[target|redirect]]. None of the justifications for this guideline make sense to me, and I don't understand why the whole [[target|redirect]] mechanism would exist if we aren't supposed to use it. Fcrary (talk) 09:59, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

The last question is easy. Help:Link gives the example [[train station|station]], to be used in a sentence like "The train arrives at the station at noon." It would need disambiguation without the pipe. Or "We all know [[Wikipedia:Civility|why you can't call me names like that]] ..." You wouldn't fix either of those with a permanent redirect. Art LaPella (talk) 14:19, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

For your main question, besides the explanation here you dismissed, there's more at Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups/About fixing redirects and some discussion at its talk page. The fact that NOTBROKEN has survived since January 2006 gives some evidence of unspoken consensus. Art LaPella (talk) 15:49, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

You're referencing a reason not to use popups to fix a redirect. That's particular method. Personally, I edit the raw ascii, so that doesn't really apply. In any case, it does describe the edit as fixing a redirect, which implies something is broken. The argument that a more relevant article might be added later (and the automatic redirect is more easily be modified) doesn't really convince me, since the opposite is also true. A change could as easily send the redirect to a new, less relevant article. And, finally, saying it's been a guideline since 2006 means nothing; lots of things have changed since then and consensus can change.

In any case, you did not actually answer my main question: "can anyone tell me how widespread the discussion and consensus on this guideline was?" I don't know of any way (without great effort) to look up that sort of information, but I'd hope it exists somewhere. Fcrary (talk) 07:28, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes those could happen. If the redirect is more specific, then it is possible that someone will come along and write the more specific page. Using the redirect, in addition to simplifying the change, reminds some people of the possibility of a new page. Gah4 (talk) 08:50, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

One that might be more likely is fixing red links with a redirect. I believe it is worth doing, but maybe not always. You have to consider each individual case, and guess how likely it is to go either way. Gah4 (talk) 08:50, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

I found that NOTBROKEN existed first with popups before it came here, so that's the best discussion I found. Clicking "Search archives" above gives more results like this and this. Art LaPella (talk) 16:53, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

And while an established guideline is obviously some evidence of consensus, I'm not personally expressing an opinion on removing, keeping, or changing NOTBROKEN. Just keep the popups article consistent with any changes. Art LaPella (talk) 18:17, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

NOTBROKEN necessarily follows from the very nature of the project: there isn't a 1:1 mapping between topics (which we link to) and articles (where the links go), new articles get written, old articles get renamed, and topic structures get reorganised. – Uanfala (talk) 14:28, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Replacing [[redirect|target]] with [[target]] is most often a good idea, but you can imagine rare situations where it's not. For example, when Redirect is a subtopic of Target (for which a separate article will at some point exist) and the context around the link requires the word used to be target rather than redirect. – Uanfala (talk) 14:28, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

RfC on introducing redirects

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Is it disruptive or beneficial to introduce redirects into articles, i.e. to replace pipes with redirects? E.g. is it beneficial or disruptive to replace [[Season (sports)#Off-season|off-season]] with [[off-season]], [[Defender (association football)|centre-half]] with [[centre-half]], etc? More examples can be found here. After the RfC is concluded, this should ideally be clarified in the guideline itself. 11:40, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

• Links to article section titles are better and should not be replaced with redirects. One reason is the auto hovertext that tells the reader what page that wikilink will download. In this respect, redirects are misleading. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:42, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
  • That contradicts this guideline, which says (among other things) that "shortcuts or redirects to embedded anchors or sections of articles or of Wikipedia's advice pages should never be bypassed, as the anchors or section headings on the page may change over time. Updating one redirect is far more efficient than updating dozens of piped links." Surtsicna (talk) 11:57, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
    • If there are many incoming links, it means it is a mature article. In mature articles, section titles tend to be stable. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:33, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
      • Neither of those premises is necessarily correct. And as Uanfala explained, the hovertext is not misleading when a redirect is used. It is misleading when the pipe is used instead of the redirect, because a reader seeing "Defender (association football)" when hovering their mouse over "centre-half" might conclude that those two are the same thing. Surtsicna (talk) 13:14, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
• Beneficial, as there is nothing wrong with redirects and this guideline lists several persuasive reasons why redirects are preferable to pipes: indicating future articles, reducing unnecessary invisible text, making better use of the "what links here" feature, etc. Surtsicna (talk) 11:57, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
• Disruptive as articles are (and should be) written for the benefit of the readers. Deliberately introducing redirects after the event is of no benefit to our readers at all, including the annoying "Redirected from:" which is seen at the top every page a redirect takes our readers to. I also note your RFC doesn't specify to whom this is beneficial or disruptive (a different case for readers [of which there are millions] or editors [of which there are perhaps a dozen main editors for any given article]). Also, I note your examples are quite specific, and don't involve other such issues your disruptive edits introduced, including introducing redirects to football team names only when required thus leaving less experienced editors somewhat confused as to the methodology being applied. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 12:03, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
  • • I have to say that the edits in question were not disruptive, but in line with guidelines and in at least some cases were clearly helpful. Take centre-half for example: this is a well-defined term, and the link with a redirect takes you directly to the article section that defines it. On the other hand, something like [[Defender (association football)|centre-half]] is at the very least less convenient for readers (they'll have to scroll down to the relevant section), but also potentially misleading: a reader who hovers their mouse over the link and sees Defender (association football) might drawn the conclusion that a centre-half is the same thing as a defender. – Uanfala (talk) 12:37, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
  • The RfC should obviously take into account both readers and editors. Examples are inherently specific. If "Redirected from:" is annoying or in any way negative, the guideline should address that. If it's not (and I do not see how it could possibly be), using redirects instead of pipes does not affect readers at all. Being of no consequence to readers yet very helpful to editors does not make a practice disruptive but beneficial. Surtsicna (talk) 12:30, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
    • Quite the opposite. I see not one single editor anywhere around the article you edit-warred over unable to update it because of piped links. In contrast, as a reader, I find the "Redirected from" tag each time I click on an unnecessary unpiped redirect to be very offputting and indicative of a sub-par project. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 12:42, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
      • This is not about one article. It is about a general practice. This guideline explains in great detail how redirects help editors of other articles (and the project as a whole) and underlines that there is "usually nothing wrong with linking to redirects to articles". If you believe redirects to be detrimental to the project, you should explain how the supposed unsightliness of the "Redirected from" tag outweighs all the benefits of redirects listed at WP:NOTBROKEN. If it does, then the guideline should be rewritten. Surtsicna (talk) 13:10, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
• Moot. There already are pretty solid guidelines here: mainly MOS:NOPIPE, but also to some extent MOS:SECTLINK and MOS:REDIR. If used with common sense, there will be no need to come up with such overgeneralised black-and-white rules. – Uanfala (talk) 12:37, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Yes, I agree that there are solid guidelines here, which point to this being a beneficial practice. The proposal is that this guideline, after an RfC consensus, should make it explicit whether actively simplifying links (replacing pipes with redirects) is beneficial or detrimental. The guideline currently does not address this. Surtsicna (talk) 13:10, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
• Potentially Disruptive. One of your examples, [[Season (sports)#Off-season|off-season]] versus [[off-season]] is a case where a pipe should be used. "Off season" can apply to many things, for example, tourism and low hotel rates outside the busy times of year. The pipe clearly links the use to the specific meaning. The redirect would become misdirected if someone wrote an article on a non-sports meaning of off-season. Guidelines are supposed to be open to common sense and how their justifications apply to specific cases. We don't need to add more and more specific and restrictive guidelines. (Also, the way you phrased the request for comment, it isn't clear exactly what a reply of support, oppose, disruptive or beneficial means.) Fcrary (talk) 15:29, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
  • That's a fair point; we have a problem with off-season redirecting to Season (sports)#Off-season and it's not a good example. I am merely asking whether replacing a pipe with a redirect (one that leads to the correct page) is helpful or unhelpful. Surtsicna (talk) 16:48, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
• Moot. WP:NOTBROKEN is explicit regarding when redirects are more appropriate than piped links, and I restore redirects from piped links all the time (citing the policy) without challenge. I'm hesitant to add an unnecessary restriction to the guideline (even one I agree with). Have you been challenged recently on these types of changes? Fcrary makes a good point about off-season, though I would actually consider this overlinking of a common word.— TAnthony^Talk 16:07, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Yes, TAnthony, I have been challenged recently on these types of changes. Please see Talk:Kevin Beattie#Pipes and redirects. There is such a strong opposition to replacing pipes with redirects that it left me wondering whether the guideline should be changed or clarified if my edit really was disruptive. Surtsicna (talk) 16:48, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
    • I guess this depends on what you think a guideline (as opposed to a policy) is, and to be honest, I've yet to find any clear statement of the distinction. Personally, I don't think you should always (or habitually) remove pipes. I see a guideline as advice (guidance). It doesn't mean there is a right or a wrong answer, it means you need to think about it and decide if it applies to the particular case in question. It serves to document what the consensus usually is when the subject comes up and explains why. (If it's rule we should always follow unless there is a very good reason not to, I'd call that a policy.) So, in the case of a pre-existing pipe, I'd assume someone did it that way for a reason and that, at least at one time, there was a consensus not to apply the guideline. I wouldn't change it to a redirect without at least knowing why someone felt a pipe was more appropriate. Of course, if the pipe is a recent edit, then changing it would be part of defining the consensus. Fcrary (talk) 18:00, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
      • The reason some people consider pipes more appropriate is that they think redirects are broken, hence WP:NOTBROKEN. In the case of Kevin Beattie, the pipes are there because the major contributor feels that the "Redirected from" tag seen on top of articles is annoying. Does this (or any other aesthetic objection) outweigh the pros of redirects listed in this guideline? If so, what is the point of the guideline? I do not see anything in the Kevin Beattie pipes that would not apply to pipes in general. Surtsicna (talk) 18:23, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
        • No. Some people may think a redirect is inherently broken. There are also people who simply hate pipes (hence the prejudicial name for WP:NOTBROKEN. But there are good, legitimate reasons to use a pipe rather than a redirect. When replacing a pipe with a redirect, I think you need to consider why it was written as a pipe and whether or not that logic makes sense. And that could apply to a broad subset of pipes, not just the one in question. I don't think you should assume the pipe is there because an editor just didn't know what he was doing.

In the case of someone not liking the "redirect from" tag, I'd personally consider that a weak reason. But I also think some of the WP:NOTBROKEN reasons for avoiding pipes are pretty weak. Regardless, consensus can change. If a large number of editors said "redirect from" was annoying and should be avoided, and that was more important than the Not Broken justifications, then I'd have to say that was the new consensus.

In a way, the idea that guidelines are rules that must be followed is an obstacle to changing consensus and allowing guidelines to evolve. If I suggested changing NOTBROKEN (which I'd like to do), the first thing I'd hear was how it reflects how articles are written and how editors write them. Therefore the guideline is simply documenting a consensus and needs no changes. But how much of that current usage is either people following the guideline because they feel like they have to follow the rules (even if they disagree with them) or because someone goes through and actively enforces it? That keeps guidelines from evolving by creating the impression of a consensus when there may not be one. (Yes, I know that's getting a bit philosophical...) Fcrary (talk) 21:58, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

• I'll also add that I think some of the reasoning in WP:NOTBROKEN needs work. For example, the business about pipes adding invisible text and invisible text making page source hard to read. I agree about invisible text, and this might have made sense in over a decade ago. But honestly, today and in the articles I edit, pipes are an almost trivial contributor to invisible text. Most of what I see comes from citations, where the invisible text is often longer than the main text making the citation. Does this invisible text argument against pipes really make sense anymore? Fcrary (talk) 18:00, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

• Wrong question. A link should be as useful as practicable to both readers and editors. For readers, taking you to the best and most directly relevant available information relevant to the linked phrase is best. This is often a section link. For editors, links which allow for reasonably predictable changes are best. This is often a redirect with possibilities. When the redirect with possibilities sends you to the best currently available relevant information everybody wins. This may well be a redirect to a section, which some day will be split out into a full article at the redirect. The "redirected from" notice is informative and useful to both the reader and the editor. It tells you that you have in fact arrived where the link was intended to bring you, but which has a different title, and not accidentally at some random place. It would be even more useful if it worked with section links, but we can live with it at the top of the article if it cannot be displayed where it would be most useful – the top of the page as opened, at the section header. A redirect is not "inherently broken", it is a useful tool when used correctly, as are piped links, which bypass the need to use exactly the same terminology as the target title. I have no doubt that sub-optimal usage of all these things exists, but they all have their uses. Sometimes a piped link is best, sometimes a redirect is best. What is definitely not useful is to substitute an ambiguous or potentially ambiguous redirect for an unambiguous piped link · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 08:21, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

I think another important consideration is what those reasonable, predictable changes would do. The fact that a broken link can be fixed a redirect with one change, as opposed to needing separate changes for each and every pipe, is frequently mentioned. But I think a pipe is more robust. If someone writes a more specific or appropriate article about the subject, it would be nice if the link just went there. A redirect does that. But if the new article is about something different (e.g. the "off season" example, discussed above), the redirect would send readers to a irrelevant page or a disambiguation page. I'd consider that badly broken, and it would take changing each and every redirect to fix. If it's done with a pipe, then the link would no longer point to the most relevant and appropriate article, but it would still point to something reasonably relevant (the preexisting, more general article.) That's not ideal, but it isn't what I'd call badly broken. And, with luck, the linked article would itself have a link to the new one. Fcrary (talk) 23:03, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

I think just the opposite, redirects are often much more robust than pipe links. In the automobile project we have summary articles like Toyota Camry which then links to the genrational articles like Toyota Camry (XV10), Toyota Camry (XV20), etc. However, Toyota Camry (XV70) has not yet been fleshed out, so it is a redirect to Toyota Camry#XV70. Now, other articles coudl do a pipe link to Toyota Camry#XV70 (possibly pipe linked as 'Camry XV70') becuase it is the final destination. But one day we will finally flesh out its article and Toyota Camry (XV70) will be the actual article instead of a redirect to Toyota Camry#XV70. How do we update all the articles that link to the XV70 info? We could go to Toyota Camry and see what links there. Oh joy - it's hundreds of articles. Many of these are from the timeline template added to the bottom of almost every Toyota article but the link is shown as being from the other article, not the template. Hands up who wants to check hundreds of articles for the handful of XV70 links! On the other hand, having articles link to Toyota Camry (XV70) (currently a redirect) means that when it is converted into a full article then there is no extra work to be done - the system works automatically.  Stepho  talk  01:45, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

I think that's a fine example of why we have to apply guidelines on a case-by-case basis, and every time think about if and why their rational applies to that particular case. In your case, I can't imagine someone writing an article titled "Toyota Camry (XV70)" which was about anything other than a particular model of car made by a major, Japanese corporation. Since the article doesn't exist but eventually will, then your example is a perfect match to the rational for using a redirect. But that's not always the case.

I mostly edit planetary science and spaceflight articles. What would you do with the sentence, "The Principal Investigator for Dragonfly is Elizabeth Turtle." I'd like to link to the article on the PI and the article on NASA's Dragonfly mission. Currently Zibi is the only Elizabeth Turtle with an article about her, so that isn't a problem. But it could, eventually be, since that's not an uncommon name and someone may add an article which makes it ambiguous. The right person isn't obvious enough for a redirect and a comment at the top, "For other uses, see..." I don't want to send people to a disambiguation page either. Should another article appear, I think a pipe would be the most sensible solution. Similarly, I don't want to put "Dragonfly (spacecraft)" in the visible text (and don't know how I'd make it work with Dragonfly italicized.) I don't want to create a redirect, since that would send people looking for the insect to an article about a spacecraft. So, again, and in this case, a pipe seems like the sensible choice to me. That's why I don't think guidelines should be strictly followed and enforced rules. Fcrary (talk) 18:58, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

If it isn't helpful to apply a rule without considering issues that may or may not occur to others in the same way, does that mean we would be better off without a guideline at all? Each rule removal helps the TLDR nature of the rest of the rules. Art LaPella (talk) 20:51, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure I'd go that far, although I do like the idea of reducing the number of guidelines overall. But I think it helps to have the issues which should be considered written down in one place (they might not be obvious to the editors involved.) It also gives you something to point to in a discussion. Otherwise, every time some issue came up, we'd be writing the same arguments over and over again. I'd rather just say, "I think items 1, 3 and 4 in the justification for NOTBROKEN apply because..." or something similar. Fcrary (talk) 21:39, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

• Comment my last entry here in this timesink, but it's fundamentally clear that the answer is "it depends" and edit-warring across stable (featured!) articles to deliberately introduce redirects is disruptive and a waste of the community's time and should be discouraged. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 22:27, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
  • No, it is absolutely not clear that deliberately introducing redirects is disruptive. If redirects are preferable to pipes, as this guideline suggests, then replacing pipes with redirects should be encouraged. It only turns into a time-wasting edit-war when one editor decides that he simply does not like redirects. Surtsicna (talk) 17:55, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
    • That is not really correct. There are good reasons for using a pipe instead of a redirect. Blindly, automatically replacing pipes with redirects is disruptive. If you know why the previous editors originally decided to use a pipe, and you disagree, that's a different matter. But someone should not go through and automatically replace every pipe they see, without thinking. That is disruptive. Fcrary (talk) 20:45, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
      • Agreed, doing almost anything blindly is just asking for trouble. Some people hate redirects with a passion and unless you have a real good reason with demonstrable benefits (eg: my car example above makes the links far more future proof) then they will revert it as a knee jerk reaction and an edit war and/or protracted, time wasting discussion starts.  Stepho  talk  00:24, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
      • Yes, of course there are situations when a pipe is preferable to a redirect. This guideline lists numerous "good reasons to bypass redirects". I know the original editor used a pipe because they "hate redirects with a passion", as Stepho-wrs put it, but merely hating redirects is not listed in this guideline as one of the "good reasons" to use pipes. Should it be? Surtsicna (talk) 10:22, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
        • Well, if you know, as an actual fact and not an assumption, that the original author just used a pipe because he hates redirects with a passion, then that's a fair reason to consider replacing it. I'm not sure how you could know that without having psychic powers, but whatever... On the other hand, if you're just assuming the original editor felt that way (because some people do) and not stopping to think whether there were good reasons for the pipe, that's terrible logic. In addition, the guideline is quite specific about the wording. It says "Good reasons to bypass redirects include" That's include, not limited to. The list is some of the many reasons to use a pipe. It's not an exclusive list. You can't treat it as a checklist, and once you've gone through it declare that there isn't a good reason for a particular pipe. Fcrary (talk) 21:37, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
          • I am not sure I follow, Fcrary. Why would I need psychic powers when we have talk page discussions to engage with other editors? In this case, the author has stated on this very talk page that he considers redirects "very offputting and indicative of a sub-par project" and has given no other explanation for opposing my "deliberate introduction of redirects" (as he tellingly calls it). Is the rejection of the entire feature one of the good reasons not mentioned in this guideline? Besides, I never said I saw that as a checklist. Surtsicna (talk) 22:21, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
            • I was thinking in general, not about your specific case. In that case, you have comments from the editor on the talk page, and that's certainly evidence of a bad reason for preferring a pipe over a redirect. But I've also seen people who just go through ever article they see and remove pipes, just because they like it better and think its a "rule" that must be followed. No discussion on the talk page, not consideration of which is more appropriate. And I've also seen people who, in a talk page discussion, do treat the list in the guideline as a checklist. Those people have said, in effect, "Well, none of the reasons on that list apply, therefore a pipe is inherently inappropriate." I think more thought and consideration is appropriate in those cases. In your case, it looks like that thought and consideration has already happened. Fcrary (talk) 22:39, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
              • Oh, so it was the impersonal you. That's a quirk of English grammar that I am yet to master! Thank you for explaining in more detail. Surtsicna (talk) 23:01, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
• Big ol' It depends. Even 'mature' articles get refactored occasionally, and we can't rely on section headers being permanent. In new prose, links to individual section headers should be redirects ideally. In existing prose, redlinks broken by changing a section header should be replaced with an appropriate redirect - This seems like an easily-automated bot task. If a link is blue and goes to the right place right now, it should be left alone. It's not that important. Pipe links should mostly be used to bypass a disambig page. -- a ^{they/them | argue | contribs} 12:36, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
• It depends. Redirects with possibilities should generally be linked to, redirects that will never be articles are generally less useful, WP:NOTBROKEN applies and it doesn't make a significant difference in most cases. It's just not possible to have a single rule that is relevant to every case. Thryduulf (talk) 00:46, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
• Potentially disruptive, in either direction when done en masse, both per WP:NOTBROKEN and as WP:MEATBOT behavior. Making trivial changes that don't help readers and which don't serve a technical/maintenance function, is discouraged, as it pings a zillion people's watchlists for no good reason. Redirects exist for a reason and so does piping. It's about evenly useful, but to different kinds of reader-editors, to have a link just be the expected word or to have it be clear about the exact link target. More experienced editors tend to favor the latter, and mostly-just-a-reader users tend to prefer the former, but neither is objectively better.  — AReaderOutThataway ^t/_c 07:56, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Is it possible to make targeted redirects show hover-previews of the targeted section?

I have done some reading (about 30 minutes) but can't find a way to do this: Many common anatomical terms such as anterior and caudal redirect to a specific section of the very general page anatomical terms of location. However, those links all unhelpfully show a page preview of the top of that page, rather than just showing the text of the definition (i.e. of 'anterior' or 'caudal', respectively). Is there a way that the redirect system can be used to show these short, specific previews without requiring the reader to actually click on the link? I couldn't find a way to do it, hence posted this new section here. 24.55.212.21 (talk) 14:15, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

This is a technical matter, you may find that WP:VPT is a better place for a question like this. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:14, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Useless Draft Redirect

I came across the redirect Draft:Black Stane Examination when assessing Black stane and then considering its Orphan status. Does this Redirect ever have a use in the future? I learned that Redirects are not eligible for Speedy Deletion. After a Draft article has become a mainspace article for more than a year, why would any editor or reader ever have any use for the draft? Advice please. --Dthomsen8 (talk) 02:23, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

"Blank and redirect" and the suitability of the redirect

Currently, Wikipedia:Redirect#Redirects that replace previous articles has two paragraphs of text detailing the practice of blanking and redirecting (as an alternative to deletion). A crucial missing point is the suitability of the resulting redirect. What I often see is redirecting to some more general article, which however does not have any relevant content. For example, if an article about a village in province X is blanked and redirected, then the target of the redirect will often be the article about the province. The trouble is, the province article will never have any content about this village, and so the redirect will not be just useless, but a positive source of confusion and disappointment to any readers who follow it. If brought to WP:RFD, such redirects almost always get deleted.

Should we maybe add a sentence to the effect that editors should generally only use blank-and-redirect if the resultant redirect makes sense as a redirect? – Uanfala (talk) 02:10, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

Encourage new article creation

FYI: "Encourage new article creation" is a common argument to delete redirects. On WT:RFD editors discuss to drop or overrule RFD keep reason #K7, i.e., keep redirect for not logged-in users and an ad-hoc expansion of the redirect into an article. This disguises missing proper enwiki articles in all other Wikimedia projects with InterLanguage Links. –84.46.52.59 (talk) 03:37, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Redirect to DAB

What is the best way to tackle Game development, the Talk:Game development is hopeless, and a SoFixIt could be okay or disruptive. –84.46.53.116 (talk) 00:36, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

I'd be happy to create a disambiguation page to replace the redirect, but as you point out there are a large number of links to the page that would need to be fixed. Ping me if you'd like me to do that. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 18:32, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

@Shhhnotsoloud: I've removed my bookmark for ….170 (….116 is long gone), as expected no new insights on Talk:Game development. –84.46.52.79 (talk) 04:47, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

I think the status quo is OK now, with Game development redirecting to Video game development, which has a hatnote to Board game development. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 16:52, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Deletion section is out of step with practice

WP:R#CRD (WP:Redirect#When should we delete a redirect?) doesn't entirely reflect actual practice any longer. One of the most frequent causes of deletion at WP:RFD is that the redirected name/term (other than an obvious and common typo) is not mentioned at the target article. This redirect-deletion reason should be added to the list of rationales in R#CRD, since it is in fact one of the primary ones, and has been for at least a decade. This will also comport better with MOS:BOLDSYN, which expects that a redirected term/name will appear somewhere in the article and will be boldfaced at (but only at) its first occurrence.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:45, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Funny that, just a few days ago I was reading a discussion about such "not mentioned in target" deletions and some problems that result from them. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:07, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Maybe RfD should conform to the guideline instead? "Is not mentioned" sounds like a lazy variant of "The redirect might cause confusion" or "The redirect makes no sense", or otherwise a bad reason to delete. A word can have dozens of synonyms and there's no need to turn a Wikipedia article into a thesaurus, or an appendix to Wiktionary, just for the sake of justifying suitable redirects. Nemo 08:14, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

This is badly needed and I would strongly support. While I agree that these cases do, in fact, make no sense, that they inevitably keep happening is evidence that the guidance needs to be clarified. The Drover's Wife (talk) 08:27, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

I would be against adding that without strong caveats. For example, Journal of Nippon Medical School isn't mentioned at Nippon Medical School, but that reflects a problem with the article (which should mention the journal), and not with the redirect (which should point to the school). The solution here is to update the article, not delete the redirect. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:24, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

{{R to article without mention}} exists. While it might as well serve as a maintenance category, it has sub-cats of misspelling and incorrect names, which would be rightful exceptions to that rule, and I'd also include synonyms to that list as well. -- Tavix ^(talk) 11:14, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: might have an opinion here. --Izno (talk) 14:32, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

There are valid cases where the redirect-from would not be mentioned in the target article. Uncommon synonyms, formerly common terms, "flash in the pan" terms that may have been "all over the press" for a few weeks many years ago, and the like make reasonable redirects even if the term is not mentioned in the article. Perhaps the rationale used at RfD should be rephrased "Not used in article, no rationale given on redirect page or its talk page or article talk page, and no obvious rationale." Informally, this deletion rationale could easily be overcome even post-deletion by someone re-creating the redirect and providing a suitable rationale, such as "term was in common use in newspapers in 1927 [see link1, link2, ...]". davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 15:44, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

TBH, these do not seem like valid cases to me. If the linked article does not support the usage, the redirect is likely to be mystifying. I agree some common sense exceptions are applicable if the context for the usage is clear enough. In general, if the redirect is nominated for deletion and reviewers feel the usage is justified, the usage should be added in some fashion to the article. older ≠ wiser 16:08, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Why? Why do you think that redirects are "mystifying" if the name of the redirect isn't explicitly visible on the page? I'll give you an example. There are currently 184 redirects to Paracetamol. A few are common misspellings, but almost all of them are brand names (many used only in a few countries, or in previous decades) for this drug. Do you think that the article would be improved by merging in the Paracetamol brand names (to which several dozen more brand names redirect), so that every redirect is mentioned on the page? (Regular editors at that article have discussed it, and they do not support a merge.)

Or do you think most readers are actually so easily confused that they couldn't guess why they ended up on that page? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:14, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Much depends on context. I don't have examples ready at hand, but I've often come across linked redirects where following the link IS completely mystifying. I mean, you have an article with a link through a redirect to some other article that has no obvious relation to the previous article or even to the sentence/paragraph containing the link and nothing in the linked article to indicate why I have been taken to that article. So, rather than a blanket criteria where the redirect is eligible for deletion if it is not mentioned in the linked article, I'd support some more nuanced criteria. But as a general rule, the target of a redirect *should* mention the term with some exceptions. older ≠ wiser 17:47, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

• I think it is too overbroad as a criteria. The problem is, once people have a set of criteria, they use them as a checklist, or worse, a "if...then must" set of conditions to be applied automatically and without forethought. The idea that a redirect is not mentioned in the text is a possible thing that might lead one to think it's worth checking into fixing something. Usually (most of the time) that means adding some text to the target article instead, which is probably the best way to deal with it. In a few, rare cases, perhaps deletion would be useful, but really that would be rare. Sometimes (and probably the second-most-used action to take) is to do nothing at all, because the redirect is from something like a common misspelling or something like that. Putting a condition like this into writing would discourage thoughtful solutions to redirect issues (sometimes which are "there is no issue that needs solving") and instead turns into the sort of knee-jerk if it isn't mentioned, you must delete kind of thing we need less of at Wikipedia. --Jayron32 18:29, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

  YMMV, but it is far more than a few rare cases where deletion is the best course. All too often some trivial detail is redirected to some other article where a shoehorned mention might be possible, but more often than not is either trivia or WP:UNDUE. If the redirected term is in fact encyclopedic -- it *should* be not only mentioned, but referenced. And I think, where the topic IS encyclopedic, a redlink makes the gap more obvious than redirecting to some sortta kinda related topic that doesn't even mention the term. older ≠ wiser 18:41, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

  The point is, deletion may be the best course of action, but in cases where it isn't, this tends to encourage automated processes where careful and thoughtful consideration and discussion should occur. Wikipedia should usually favor the latter rather than the former in all but the most obvious cases of vandalism and silliness. --Jayron32 18:46, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

  There are other problems with deleting these. Imagine that I blank something from an article; I send the now-unmentioned item to RFD because it's not mentioned, and then the next week (next month, next year...), someone reverts my changes to the target article, and now it is mentioned. Or AFD closes with merge/redirect, but the target article rejects the content (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Involuntary celibacy (2nd nomination)) or trims it down considerably, so that some names get dropped, and now you want to delete the redirects because it's not mentioned by name, which means losing attribution/copyright information for a bunch of freely licensed content, not to mention hiding evidence of POV pushing and general bad behavior. The longer I think about this, the more I think the "exceptions" are going to swallow the rule. It might be a good idea to delete redirects from BLP's names, but overall, I think that most of our history should be kept. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:48, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

  Welcome to the wonderful messiness known as Wikipedia. Regarding the first part, that is all par for the course; I see no issues there. If the term is notable and encyclopedic in nature, eventually it will find it's place. For the attribution history, I don't see this as an issue either. Nothing is ever truly deleted (barring certain sorts of oversight actions). The edit history is still there, even if not readily accessible to muggles (non-admins). older ≠ wiser 22:06, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

  I'm pretty sure that having the history visible is a requirement for the license. It's not okay if you write something, I make your involvement in its creation invisible, and then anyone trying to re-use it can't find out that who wrote it. That's what it says every time you click the big blue button: "You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license." It doesn't say "You agree that a redlink that no longer shows your name to anyone without special privileges is sufficient attribution". WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:33, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

• I think this is too broad. Sometimes a title is not mentioned for reasons that are existing deletion rationales such as 'the redirect might cause confusion' or 'the redirect makes no sense'. Other times it is not mentioned for editorial reasons like Whatamidoing mentions above. When not being mentioned at the target is a side effect of the redirect being generally unhelpful, then we should delete, but not being mentioned in-and-of-itself is not a good reason to delete. — Wug·a·po·des​ 22:16, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
• Something is needed as a deletion requirement for inappropriate redirects. There's a mathematical term (A) on my short-watchlist, which redirects to another mathematical term (B), where it was mentioned for a few minutes last year. Deletion of the article (A) succeeded, but it was replaced by the redirect, and deletion of the redirect did not succeed, even though it confuses all but the few who had heard of (A), and the even fewer who didn't know that it was a distortion of a special case of (B). — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:31, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
  • I disagree. The last thing we need absolute "requirement" for anything like this. There are cases where an absolute requirement simply would not make sense. The editors have to apply some common sense. That doesn't always happen, so there will be occasional problems. But I think a absolute requirement which is followed automatically and without thought would be much, much worse. Fcrary (talk) 22:52, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

As others have said, I think this is not a good reason for deletion in and of itself, and so if redirects are being deleted for this reason alone, then that's what needs to change.
My top-of-mind example is the redirects math and maths, which of course are targeted to mathematics. We obviously don't want to delete them, and they aren't typos. But there is no compelling reason to mention them in the article on mathematics — there's nothing mathematical (or even very interesting) to say about them, and no one is going to be surprised to wind up at the mathematics article after entering one of those terms into the search box. And as it turns out, there's a very good reason not to mention them, which is that if you do, you have to pick which one goes first, and it turns out people argue about that. --Trovatore (talk) 23:42, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

• On the one hand, there is a large number of redirects out there that go to articles that currently don't – and never will – discuss the topics of those redirects, and if nominated at RfD these get routinely deleted. On the other hand, it is also true that if we take the deletion rationale that's most often quoted in these RfDs – "not mentioned at target" – and enshrined it as a Rule, it is bound to be misapplied as there are far too many conceivable exceptions. However, this is a problem with the particular wording of this phrase rather than with the underlying logic. If we tried to unpack that a bit, it would go something like: we shouldn't keep redirects to articles, where 1) the topic of the redirect is not currently covered in the target article, 2) if the article were to become reasonably complete, it would still be unlikely that it would cover the topic. (We're talking about topics, not terms – so that leaves out synonyms, alternative spellings and the like).
  Of course, some (many?) would argue that point 2 isn't necessary: redirects exist now and their usefulness or harm to readers is relative to the state of the encyclopedia at the time they're used, not to some ideal future state; why keep a redirect that doesn't give readers what they're looking for?; and the alternative: expanding the target with that precious mention is a noble aim, but in practice it's all to often less work for everyone, red tape and all, to delete a redirect than to add an informed and contextualised mention to the target; redirects are easy to recreate if needed, and if after a mention is added the redirect isn't recreated the loss isn't absolute as in most cases the content will be accessible via the search results.
  I wouldn't object to adding a carefully worded sentence about the situation at WP:R#DELETE. Trying to see it as an application of some of the other rules there would take a leap of the creative imagination. – Uanfala (talk) 23:53, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Ah, that's a very different matter. I totally agree that if the target doesn't and is unlikely ever to discuss the topic defined by the redirect, then the redirect is not pointing to the right place. (That doesn't necessarily mean it needs to be deleted, of course; other options include retargeting it, turning it into an article/stub, or turning it into a disambig page, but if none of those work it should probably be deleted.)
    But the post wasn't about when the target article doesn't discuss the topic; it's about when it doesn't discuss the term. I don't think that's ever a sufficient reason for deletion. --Trovatore (talk) 00:05, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
  • In practice, because Wikipedia:Nobody reads the directions and Wikipedia:Policy writing is hard, the "carefully worded sentence" would have to say that we never delete redirects on the grounds that it's not mentioned, except under these "extremely limited" situations (e.g., that a complete review of the target article has indicated that nothing related to the topic should ever be mentioned in that article, that the redirect is the name of a private BLP, etc.). If you write it the other way ("we usually delete these, except when...") then the exceptions will be ignored. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:40, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
    • Actually, policy should follow practice. Redirects are routinely deleted (and rightly so) precisely because there is no mention in the target article and no volunteers to take on the task of attempting incorporate an appropriate mention within the target article. older ≠ wiser 19:27, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
      • I haven't been following RFD lately, but if redirects are being deleted only because there's no mention in the target article of the term (as opposed to the topic), I'm sorry, that's not "rightly so". That makes no sense at all, and that should change. --Trovatore (talk) 20:20, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
        • I'm not sure I see the distinction between term and topic. There are certainly related terms which no one with a modest familiarity of English would be surprised to see are redirects. For example, above you mentioned math and maths -- no one should be surprised to find that these redirect to mathematics. But all too often, there is a term Foo that redirects to Bar and there is no mention whatsoever in Bar concerning Foo. I don't see any reason to encourage creation of Easter egg linking. older ≠ wiser 20:33, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
          • It's probably a reasonable criterion that if a typical reader would be surprised to arrive at the target, and the target does not alleviate that surprise, then the redirect is inappropriate. I don't think "not mentioning the term" is a sufficiently well-tailored proxy for that. --Trovatore (talk) 20:38, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
            • User:Trovatore, if you want to see how people are using the "not mentioned" idea, then go to a page like Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 February 24 and search for the phrase. There are a variety of examples, with varying merit. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:14, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:CREEP. Commonsense is better than trying to micro-manage this with further proliferation of rules. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:11, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
• Definitely not. There are tons of good reasons why a redirect might not be directly mentioned at the target article; it wouldn't surprise me if more than half of redirects were of such a nature. As per others, common sense is required. This isn't to say that bringing this fact up is invalid at RFD, but such rationales needs to inherently come with something like "this could be mentioned in the article, but it is such a minor aspect or loose relationship to the topic it is still not a useful redirect." SnowFire (talk) 00:50, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
• The obvious solution appears to be enumerating these "good reasons" (I already mentioned one when I started: typos). That there are definable exceptions to the general rule doesn't mean the general rule does not exist. And it is a rule, since we do act on it every single day a RfD. The CREEP exists in failing to codify it, thereby making people learn it the hard way through arguing half to death at RfD for months or years, rather than us just being clear about it. There's no worse or creepier a rule than one you can't find but which others will hold against you.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:56, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
  • I disagree. First, I don't think Wikipedia has, or should have, rules. It's got policies and guidelines, which are not absolute rules. In any case, based on all the discussion here, I think we should delete the guideline about redirects being mentioned in the target article. We should replace that with a statement that redirects should follow the principle of least surprise. That seems to be what most people are saying the guideline should be about. Fcrary (talk) 20:04, 23 February 2020 (UTC)