User:Splintax/Double redirects

The Double redirects cleanup page is a great, easy way to help out Wikipedia by fixing double redirects. However, the code for detecting double redirects is a little buggy, and this method allows you to fix all the problems with double redirects rapidly. (working from the batch started 13th July)

1. The first issue to note (after claiming a section) is the somewhat odd error (and probably quite simple to fix) that semi-mangles the 'edit' URLs. View the wikicode and you can see why:

#([http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=final Cause&action=edit edit]) [[final Cause]]

Whereas inter-wiki links [[like this]] - the second link in the above example - automatically replace spaces with underscores, as is required by the MediaWiki software. However, specific links (like the first link in the example) do not. So the first step is to automatically correct all of the links by adding underscores (which only occur in the query / article name itself).

#([http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=final_Cause&action=edit edit]) [[final Cause]]

It should be noted that links like the following

#([http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=sNÉTA&action=edit edit]) [[sNÉTA]]

are mangled and should just be replaced with that word.

1. The second thing to do is find out which links are actually double redirects, as often several are already fixed. To do this, I suggest that you middle-click (using a browser such as Opera or Firefox) all the links to open them in the background, including the 'edit' links, then after the first few load, check them. One of two things will happen when you open the article link.
   1. The article redirects to a new article, with the text '(Redirected from original link)' at the top. In this case, the redirect is fixed already.
   2. The article redirects to something like this: New page. In this case, the article is really a double redirect. You now have to copy the text from the final redirect target (in this case, 'New page'), edit the original page (using the edit link from the broken redirects project page), and replace the original #REDIRECT link with the final target. Then, save the page.

1. After you've done this, double-check all the links and ensure that they lead directly to a real page.

1. You're now finished! Delete all the links, and declare the section closed.

Thanks for reading the tutorial. I hope you found it helpful.

splintax ^(talk) 16:13, 13 September 2005 (UTC)