Wikipedia talk:Redirect

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Redirect

This page is within the scope of WikiProject Redirect, a collaborative effort to improve the standard of redirects and their categorization on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.
Note: This banner should be placed on the talk pages of project, template and category pages that exist and operate to maintain redirects.
This banner is not designed to be placed on the talk pages of most redirects and almost never on the talk pages of mainspace redirects. For more information see the template documentation.RedirectWikipedia:WikiProject RedirectTemplate:WikiProject Redirectredirect

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Deprecation of redirecting the talk page of a mainspace redirect

A talk page is just a regular page and can therefore also be a redirect. This is sometimes done when turning a page into a redirect and always done when moving a page since that also moves its talk page. Doing this during a move is fine in my opinion but in almost every other case, redirecting a talk page is a bad practice that should be discouraged. The reason is that if someone retargets one of the redirects but forgets to retarget the other, editors who wish to discuss the redirect will do so at the wrong place. Redirecting the talk page also provides no benefit in comparison with {{talk page of redirect}} which already acts like a soft redirect that can update itself when its page is retargeted. So, my proposal is that we add this to WP:R or WP:TALK:

The talk page of a mainspace redirect should not be redirected unless that was the result of a page move or as specified in WP:TALKCENT. In all other cases, {{talk page of redirect}} should be used instead.

Otherwise we end up with cases like Acts of God (book) where the page itself is a redirect to Acts of God (disambiguation) but its talk page redirected to Talk:Acts of God (novel) before I fixed it. Note that the utility of talk page redirects is much higher in other namespaces. Someone who looks up WT:R probably wants to end up here instead of discussing the redirect itself. So those should be allowed but people should still remember to keep them synced up (not likely that WP:R will ever change but other shortcuts might). I'd also be open to the idea of having a bot sync up such redirects automatically. Nickps (talk) 13:31, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging participants of the previous discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Talk_page_guidelines/Archive_8#Are_redirect_talk_pages_also_redirected?: @Aristophanes68, Thryduulf, Johnuniq, Robertgreer, Flatscan, Redrose64, and Lolifofo. Nickps (talk) 13:34, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also @Jameboy and Uanfala from Wikipedia_talk:Redirect/Archive_2018#Talk_page_of_redirects Nickps (talk) 13:50, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I thought about it again and I'm going about this the wrong way. I'll just ask at WP:BOTR first and if it gets declined then we should consider this. But, if someone else thinks that the change I proposed above is worth making anyway, they are free to pick this up and even open an RfC. Nickps (talk) 23:08, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, here goes nothing: Wikipedia:Bot requests § Bot to sync talk page redirects with their corresponding page. Nickps (talk) 23:44, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I vaguely recall some cases where a talk page was kept so that its history was retained. That is, the talk discussion had some possibly useful information regarding the now-redirected associated page? Johnuniq (talk) 04:03, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I got pinged, and am here to vote keep for Inclusionism. Deleting, moving, shrinking articles makes some sense to me but I'm a huge proponent of keeping talk pages. I like Wikipedia queries to go somewhere useful, and if I end up on a page that doesn't exist, but that I expect to exist, I would like the talk page to already exist explaining why. Mathiastck (talk) 20:52, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

redirects to death of.... articles

I've been looking for any editorial policy or styleguide on Redirects from a person's name towards the article about incident which caused their death. I recall reading the debate that when we have an article which is specifically about the incident (accident, crime etc.) which caused someone's death, but they would not otherwise have been considered Notable for a WP Biography, we should name the article "death of..." or "murder of...", "killing of..." etc., and not merely their name. But, I cannot find anything about redirects for issue. Does anyone know of a consensus on this, one way or the other?

We have Wikipedia:Naming conventions (violence and deaths) - which is about the naming convention of the article itself. Do we have a policy for whether to, or whether to NOT create a redirect from their name to that article? If so, could it please be added to the list of valid reasons Reasons FOR deleting or Reasons for NOT deleting a redirect?

The primary argument that we should create such a redirect is because it aids findability/SEO from the most likely search term (e.g. Tessa Majors redirects to murder of Tessa Majors). The primary argument that we should not create such a redirect is the same as for having the "death of..." naming convention in the first place – that a person's biography shouldn't be defined by the manner of their death (especially if the only reason they're known to the public is because they became someone else's victim).

I'm not expressing a judgement or vote! on either option, but it would be helpful if "NAME -> death of NAME" could be added to the list of valid or invalid reasons for a redirect. Witty lama 10:39, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would think that the advantages generally outweigh the disadvantages, and if the person is notable for any other reason the redirect may encourage someone to write the article. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk):
Anyone searching or such an article would know the name of the person, but not necessarily the article title, which could take on any one of several forms – Death of, Drowning, Fatality, Incident etc, so the name would be the most useful search string, and could plausibly be the most common way to try to find the article, so I think it should be a redirect unless ambiguous. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 14:45, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If I saw a "Death of ..." redirect while doing WP:NPP work, and it pointed to a section on the person's page regarding their death or to a relevant article about it, I'd mark it as patrolled. It's a useful search term and I don't see it as being likely to be deleted at RfD for that reason. Hey man im josh (talk) 15:44, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Talk page scope

What is the difference between here and WT:WikiProject Redirects? These two talk pages seem like they ought to be centralized. Sdkb ^talk 06:31, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion nomination of soft redirects

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2024 November 19 § Template:Wikispecies redirect. Sdkb ^talk 06:32, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Redirect assimilation

Semi-protected edit request on 21 November 2024

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Add WP:ASSIMILATION to the shortcut list of § Do not "fix" links to redirects that are not broken. No source needed since it's pretty obvious. 67.209.130.52 (talk) 19:16, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Completed. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 20:09, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have undone this change. It is by no means obvious to me what this has to do with "assimilation", and there are no nontrivial incoming links. I think this redirect should probably be deleted. --Trovatore (talk) 23:26, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Listed for RfD at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 November 22#Wikipedia:Redirect assimilation. --Trovatore (talk) 03:16, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See related recommended best practice proposal

At Wikipedia_talk:Deletion_policy#Propose_addition_of_the_following_best_practice_to_redirection_section concerning recommending the use of {{Uw-blar}} _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:18, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

RfC on contested BLARs

There is an RfC on the proper venue for BLARed articles at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) § RfC: Amending ATD-R. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:23, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Warning when creating a double redirect

Tech News notes that phab:T326056 has been resolved and will be implemented this week (presumably Thursday). This means that from then you should get an error message when trying to create a double redirect, recommending you change the target to that of the second redirect. Thryduulf (talk) 02:46, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To editor Thryduulf: Thank You, that's very handy and helpful! Guess it was a bit tricky when it comes to page moves that create a handful of double redirects automatically. I was hoping to see this in preview, but you actually have to click "Publish changes" to see the error message. It's similar to the user-set "forgot to type in an edit summary" screen, that is, it stops you in your tracks and shows you your error, but if you click "Publish changes" again, the double redirect will be created anyway. Very helpful, thanks again! P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 09:48, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

All I'm responsible for is spotting the entry in Tech News and thinking people here would find it useful to know about. The developers are the ones who should be thanked. Thryduulf (talk) 11:22, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've grown to expect such a great response from you. You were the conduit by which I learned of this awesome, needed change. That is what I thanked you for; don' sell yursef short, Thryduulf, conduits are important, too! And yes, I have also thanked those pitiful (read that "awesome") devs, as noted in the Phabulous link you left above. 'Tsall good! P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 21:34, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Alternate spellings of given names

I have been involved in at least two WP:RMs, where it was proposed that since a specific person is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC of a specific alternate spelling of a given name, that person should occupy the "real estate" of alternate spelling and not be redirected to the most common name spelling of the given name. I argued that all alternate spellings should redirect to the article about the given name (as per WP:POFR, which has no exceptions), perhaps WP:IAR in the case if that person using the alternate spelling is the primary topic of all alternate spellings of that given name (which maybe very, very rare). At any rate, for "Jhoanna", an alternate of spelling of "Joanna", this is now been moved to an article about a specific person (see Talk:Jhoanna#Requested move 16 January 2025. Another, "Mikha", an alternate spelling of "Micah", is currently being discussed at Talk:Bini (group)#Requested move 29 January 2025. Both Jhoanna and Mikha being discussed are members of Bini (group).

What's the actual policy or interpretation on this? Howard the Duck (talk) 20:50, 1 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If one individual is the most notable (or only) holder of a particular name, they are a likely candidate for being the primary topic. This is especially true for unusual spellings. Jhoanna is not even so much as mentioned at Joanna so there's currently no reason at all to redirect to there. While Mikha is mentioned as a Hebrew spelling of the name at Micah, the page does not list any individuals with that name. Whether Mikha (singer) is the primary topic over Mikha Tambayong or any other individuals with the name can be discussed. WP:POFR does not in any way prohibit such primary topic redirects (or moving a mononymous performer to the base name). A case could also be made to redirect Mikha to Michael (given name) as a hypocorism. older ≠ wiser 21:10, 1 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If one individual is the most notable (or only) holder of a particular name, they are a likely candidate for being the primary topic. I agree with this, and extend that to if a person is the most notable (or only) person who spells their name a given way, then they are likely to be the primary topic for that spelling. Hatnotes can and should be used to direct people to articles about people with similar names in the same way that Carole White and Carol White do. Thryduulf (talk) 22:23, 1 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The names Micah (Hebrew: מִיכָה, romanized: Mikhah) and Michael (Hebrew: מִיכָאֵל, romanized: Mikha'El) are related but distinct. Someone searching for for Mikha is almost certainly searching for Micah, not Michael. Absent a person spelling his name that way or a DAB page, it should redirect to Micah with a {{distinguish}} hatnote. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 15:00, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There are a number of persons named Mikhail for whom 'Mikha' is used as a hypocorism. I only mentioned Michael (given name) because Mikahil redirects there. older ≠ wiser 17:07, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

William Shakspere was well known for spelling his own name in about a dozen different ways. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The guidance that applies is WP:SMALLDETAILS - The general approach is that whatever readers might type in the search box, they are guided as swiftly as possible to the topic they might reasonably be expected to be looking for. So the real question is if the average reader would be more likely to recognize and use such a term as a reference to a specific topic, or as a variant of a common name. --Joy (talk) 13:16, 2 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So apparently my interpretation of

Alternative spellings or punctuation. For example, Colour redirects to Color, and Al-Jazeera redirects to Al Jazeera.

where "Jhoanna" should redirect to "Joanna" is not what most people in this discussion agree to, except for Jewish names I suppose. If the interpretation of most people here is the correct one, I propose that the specific bullet point should be amended. Howard the Duck (talk) 00:33, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Adding a trick

Should I add the trick where you can append ?redirect=no to the end of the URL and ignore the redirect? Justjourney (talk) 03:55, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Merge proposal

The Help:Redirect page bares many similarities to this one. I am aware that the help namespace is supposed to be a tutorial, but for a tutorial, the help page and this one aren't exactly all that different. That begs the question, if the 2 pages are similar, why separate them? Case in point, the Help:Merging page is simply a disambiguation to the Wikipedia one. Senomo Drines (talk) 17:14, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Help:Redirect and Wikipedia:How to make a redirect have a lot of overlap and could be merged without a lot of impact as far as can tell. But I strongly disagree with merging the how-to material with Wikipedia:Redirect. This page has WAY too much obscure details that would be overwhelming for someone looking for simple how-to instructions. older ≠ wiser 18:30, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just been waiting a few years for someone to do it Wikipedia talk:How to make a redirect#Merge into Help:Redirect? Moxy🍁 00:31, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]