Redirect Project‑class

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 pages Project This page does not require a rating on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.

Members of this project may find this user script, which highlights links to redirects with possibilities, helpful. I've had it enabled for a month or so (kudos to @Headbomb and @Anomie for technical help), and it's been useful in identifying several instances of pages that ought to be created or where the tag was applied erroneously. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:32, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've made this tool for creating suggested redirects. It's still in beta, just looking to see if anyone wants to test it out. — Qwerfjkltalk 16:39, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Qwerfjkl Interesting. I've had a go, though found the instructions easy to misunderstand/misread. Because people tend not to read instructions carefully, it would be helpful to have more instruction on the action screen: it wasn't obvious to me that I had to click on my chosen redirect target, rather than just amend the text in what I now see is the edit summary box, if I wanted to opt for a different choice from the one suggested.

It might be useful to offer a link to the full list of rcats at {{R template index}}, to help those not very familiar with the range of choices there.

It would be useful to be able to click through to the candidate target articles, to see whether the proposed redirect looked useful, and what Rcat to give (eg "is that pair of names really someone's two-part surname, or is it middle name plus surname?").

I'm not sure about redirects of the form "initial surname" (like "Z Smith"): I doubt that they should ever be created unless there is one notable person very commonly known as "initial [fullstop] surname". If "Z Smith" is redirected to a "Zoe Smith", someone creating "Zillah Smith" will be unlikely to check for it. I'm not sure whether "Z Smith" is best "dismiss"ed, or redirected to the surname page for "Smith (surname)". (That's just a demo - the examples I came across weren't Smiths).

Another category I worried about were "date place", mostly sporting events. I suspect most of these should not be redirects, but I think skipped them on the grounds that sport is not my specialist subject.

I can see it being quite an addictive time-sink, a danger to wikignomes who really ought to be getting on with other jobs in real life!

How did you choose the set of potential redirects? Was it terms which are piped in articles? PamD 18:28, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

PamD:

1. How could I make the instructions / edit summary clearer?
2. A link where?
3. How would you differentiate between selecting the option and going to the Wikipedia page? Perhaps the title would select it, and the snippet take you to the article?
4. Not really sure it's possible to filter these.
5. Ditto.
6. I got the potential redirects based on piped links. The code is based off of User:Nickj/Redirects PHP code (though I had to rewrite it to run on Toolforge).

— Qwerfjkltalk 18:35, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Qwerfjkl Perhaps the instructions need to be more "What process you go through" rather than "what you do with each of the buttons"? I'll have a go:

====

This system creates redirects from suggested terms, which have been listed because they appear in piped links in en.wiki articles.

• A proposed redirect and its suggested target will be shown. Five articles found by searching on the term will be displayed, as possibly appropriate targets for the redirect.
• If the suggested redirect appears to be appropriate:

• (Optionally but preferably) Select a Redirect Category from the dropdown menu (eg "R from short name", "R from diacritic" or "R from surname": see the full list at {{R template index}}
• Click "Save"

• If one of the other targets seems appropriate, click on it. The text displayed as "Redirected to ..." will change. Select a Redirect Category, and click "Save".
• If the term should not be made into a redirect, click "Dismiss"
• If you are unsure, or do not want to decide on this redirect, click "Skip".
• You may find that on investigating the term and potential targets, it is more useful to create a disambiguation page or take other action.

====

And there could usefully be a note about some of the more common terms which are unlikely to be appropriate redirects: to my mind the ones like "Z Smith" (initial plus surname) and "Paris 1974" (place plus date), both common in detailed tables of results in sports articles. There may be some other groups, which people testing the system might be able to discover and add.

Perhaps beside each snippet there should be a button saying "Open article in a new tab" or similar? Or as a popup? Something platform-neutral, which might be complicated ... but there must be a way, and I suggest it would be useful.

Is there any point in having that "redirected to ..." box as editable? I edited it a couple of times, misunderstanding that as the way to change the target of the redirect from the suggested one. Perhaps it shouldn't be editable?

But anyone else who tests the system may be able to come up with a quite different set of comments. PamD 22:07, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Qwerfjkl And just one oddity: FM 50 already exists as a redirect, created October 2010, but it appeared in the system. PamD 22:17, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Qwerfjkl And I wanted to redirect O 8 to O8, a disambiguation page, but using {{R from alternative spacing}}, as instructed at the documentation for {{R from alternative spelling}}. It wasn't in the dropdown menu, I typed it in manually, but that didn't work!

Next idea: How about a button to click to "Create dab page" which would open up a page creation with {{subst:refer}} at the top and {{Disambiguation}} at the bottom? I've just had to go off and create Junqua as a dab, rather than a redirect, as there were two surname-holders and a light plane. PamD 22:45, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Israelite consistories is an example of one where the snippets aren't enough to work out which, if any, is the target, and it would be nice to be able to click a button to see one or more of those articles in full. I'll skip, as I'm getting tired. PamD 22:47, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

PamD, I'm currently working on this, sorry for the delayed response. The thing with FM 50 is what I'm trying to fix - it's because the suggestion has some Unicode character in it (like a nbsp instead of a space) which means it is just slightly different from the title that exists.
Re {{R from alternative spacing}}, it only list actual templates, not redirects. I could possibly allow you to add it by typing in manually, not sure about that.
The edit summary box was suggested by BD2412. — Qwerfjkltalk 21:53, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Qwerfjkl: More questions. If I skip a suggestion, it stays in the queue, and might be seen by another editor using the tool, yes? Conversely, if I dismiss, it is removed from the queue for everyone? If so, is there some record being kept of all the dismissed suggestions? Lastly, what is the total number of suggestions in the set at this point? By the way, now that the discussion is here, let's keep it here, as it is likely to get more eyes than my talk page. BD2412 T 22:14, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

BD2412, if you skip a suggestion it could be seen by another user. If you dismiss it, it won't. I record the titles of dismissed suggestions, but not the target.
At this point there are around 300,000 suggestions (which is why the page takes a few seconds to load initially). — Qwerfjkltalk 07:05, 12 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest that any redirecting Rcats which editors are advised to use, such as {{R from alternative spacing}}, ought to be provided for in this system. See the documentation for {{R from alternative spelling}} which says:

"At present, {{R from alternative hyphenation}}, {{R from alternative punctuation}}, and {{R from alternative spacing}} all redirect to this template and feed into the same maintenance category. This is likely to change in the future, so please use the more specific template names."

Presumably all such are included in Category:Template redirects with possibilities, though that category may also include some Rcats whose use is not recommended. PamD 08:05, 12 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

PamD, that category helps a lot, thanks! I'll just include category members that start with "R ". — Qwerfjkltalk 15:56, 12 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

PamD, okay, I've implemented/fixed most of these. I've rewritten the instructions. added a link to the Wikipedia article, hopefully dealt with pages that exist appearing, and I've added the additional rcats.
@BD2412, what would you think of removing the edit summary box/changing it somehow? It seems excessively prominent given its limited utility. — Qwerfjkltalk 21:51, 12 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Qwerfjkl Having another go:

• The instructions are much clearer, but something is wrong with "If one of the search results appears more results..."
• How can I see the article to which the redirect is suggested, if it isn't one of the five below - Sir William Cameron being an example
• How can I redirect to an article which isn't either the one suggested or any of the five below - in this case William Cameron dab page? (I'll skip this one, with those two queries!)
• I'd appreciate a "Search" button to scan through for other uses of the term beyond the top five, especially for surnames where there may well be other nameholders so that a name page would be more appropriate than a redirect to the one person
• You say "If none of the search results are appropriate, but there is an appropriate target, then manually type that into the target field and save it.", but I can't type into that box (Using Firefox under Windows 11 in case that matters). I wanted to add a section, to redirect Village of Webster to Webster#Places rather than just to Webster
• It would be nice if "R from" appeared automatically in the dropdown menu so I didn't have to type it every time

Enough for today. It would be good if some other Redirect enthusiasts had a go at it too. PamD 12:56, 14 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

┌───────────────────────────┘
PamD,

1. Fixed.
2. Will fix.
3. You can manually type it into the target box. You seem to being having problems with this, is your browser supported? It appears Firefox is supported, so can you explain exactly what happens? Presumably you try to click on the target box and nothing happens.
4. You mean a link to the search results?
5. See 3.
6. You don't need to type in "R from", the results will filter by any match, not just at the start. Also not all rcats start with "R from".

— Qwerfjkltalk 18:38, 14 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done 2. — Qwerfjkltalk 19:28, 14 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And 4. — Qwerfjkltalk 18:40, 15 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have just discovered that Ethene redirects to ethylene Ethene should not redirect to ethylene. It should be the other way round. Ethene is the accepted IUPAC standard term. Its use should not be undermined by Wikipedia. That just adds to the confusion in nomenclature by students and other naive users, like journalists. The justification paragraph for this redirect says "In chemistry: 2-methyl-1,3-butadiene -> Isoprene" But isoprene is an accepted IUPAC synonym, so this is a false argument. Unless there is a good reason (and this isn't) for preferring an obsolete term, Wikipedia needs reflect current standards of terminology. By all means have a page on the history of the term "ethylene" for the luddites, but the main entry should reflect current technical standards as they change and achieve widespread acceptance. Cvhorie (talk) 09:27, 20 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Cvhorie This isn't really the place for this discussion. The rules on choosing names for Chemistry articles are at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (chemistry). If the name of the article you're looking at doesn't comply with those rules, then please see WP:Requested Moves for how to suggest a move to the right title. If it does comply but you don't think the rules are sensible, you can discuss it at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (chemistry). Thanks and Happy Editing. PamD 09:56, 20 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And I see that in June 2007 the article was moved from Ethene to Ethylene but was moved back with the comment "Moved back; move was against naming guidelines and without consensus". PamD 09:59, 20 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Melodeon (accordian) was created almost 20 years ago and the word "accordion" is misspelled. Is there a reason to correct it, and if so, how would one go about correcting it? Matuko (talk) 21:50, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Matuko: You could nominate the redirect for deletion at WP:RFD. With that said, I don't see any harm in the redirect existing. I think that's a pretty common misspelling of accordion and, as such, could be considered a useful redirect. Hey man im josh (talk) 21:54, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I was more curious about whether there were other remedies than deletion. Question answered. Matuko (talk) 02:43, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If this came to RfD I'd recommend keeping it as a very plausible misspelling. It's not caused any harm in the nearly 20 years it has existed, so the likelihood of it causing any in the future is infinitesimal so we'd gain nothing by deleting it. Thryduulf (talk) 22:47, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thanks. I'm not sure what a "plausible misspelling" is, but I'm fine with it. I'd only noticed because I've adopted the typo "accordian". I also play the accordion, so it grates a bit to see it memorialized, but I shall move along. Matuko (talk) 02:41, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what a "plausible misspelling" is,

There are more than 52,000 redirects from misspellings in the category. Perhaps one or two can help? And please note that Melodeon (accordian) is actually not a redirect from misspelling, because the page title, "Melodeon", is not misspelled. That is a {{redirect from incorrect disambiguation}}, since it is the qualifying word in parentheses, the disambiguation, that is incorrectly spelled. Best to you! P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 03:05, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion § Improper disambiguation redirects. 74.80.182.75 (talk) 21:13, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Should this be a subcategory of Category:Redirects from alternative names? I was going to add it myself (my thought process being that a personal name would be an alternative name for a person best known under a different name), but then I thought I'd ask for a second opinion beforehand. All the best, ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 01:56, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I would call this a good catch. We see that the closely associated Category:Redirects from birth names is a subcategory of Category:Redirects from long names, which itself is a subcategory of the Redirects from alternative names category. So I agree that the Redirects from personal names category should also be in the category tree under Category:Redirects from alternative names. Makes sense and is something I missed and overlooked. Thank you very much, editor A smart kitten for catching this error! P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 04:48, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Done in Special:Diff/1210345781 - and no problem :) ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 04:58, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I just created Solar eclipse of 2024-04-28 (I directly opened that page and was surprised it didn't exist), but am not sure how to best categorize it. The name is a mechanical transformation of the target's title, Solar eclipse of April 28, 2024, and yyyy-mm-dd (ISO 8601) dates are acceptable per MOS:DATE, but the closest redirect category template I can find for that purpose is {{R to alternative spelling}} (with a manual {{R unprintworthy}}), which feels overly generic.

• It's close to {{R from technical name}}, but I don't know if an ISO 8601 date is "technical" (and the rest of the title is unchanged), and that's printworthy by default.
• It's close to {{R from numerals}}, but that's for mathematical symbols, and I don't feel confident in calling a date a mathematical object, even though the ISO standard formatting is close to standard mathematical formatting.
• It's close to {{R from abbreviation}}, but I don't feel comfortable calling the ISO standard formatting of a date an "abbreviation", even if it happens to be shorter here.
• This might work under {{R from sort name}}, but the sort name of this article doesn't use the ISO 8601 format, even though I'd say putting the year first sorts better.
• It's close to {{R from more specific name}}, but this date formatting isn't strictly more specific here.

I feel like this redirect might be best categorized using a {{R from standard format}}, but I don't want to formally propose that yet; I could very well be uninformed. A Category:Redirects from standard formats would probably be a super-category of at least Category:Redirects from ISO 4 abbreviations, Category:Redirects from ISO 639-1, Category:Redirects from ISO 15924 codes, and Category:Redirects from systematic names, which makes me feel good enough about its validity to informally bring it up here, but I'm also pretty new to categorizing redirects. bb010g (talk) 04:45, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just as a minor note, I've deleted your redirect as invalid, as the eclipse is at Solar eclipse of April 8, 2024 and thus your date makes no sense. Feel free to recreate at Solar eclipse of 2024-04-08. Primefac (talk) 18:20, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks; no idea how I didn't catch that. bb010g (talk) 03:19, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Bb010g, {{R from short name}}? — Qwerfjkltalk 21:02, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion § RfC: enacting X3. ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 18:16, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:R from miscapitalisation § Template intent. Hey man im josh (talk) 12:32, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The redirect Template:R from subtitle has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 April 5 § Template:R from subtitle until a consensus is reached. ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 09:14, 12 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It seems like there isn't a true standard for rcat documentation pages, and I'd imagine the creation of new doc pages relies on copy and pasting from existing subpages. I suggest the creation of a template that allows these to be easily created. This could help standardize things like parameter usage and printworthy information (something I can't believe isn't standardized yet.

I'd be happy to create a mockup if this sounds interesting! ~ Eejit43 (talk) 20:03, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a reason the rcat templates shouldn't all use the same /doc? I feel like the majority of them will have identical or similar usage. Creative use of #if and #switch statements along with magic words should allow us to cover 90% of cases without excessive bloat. Primefac (talk) 12:13, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My thoughts exactly! A centralized template would suit well, especially as the far majority of rcats don't even have parameters. ~ Eejit43 (talk) 14:43, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

{{Rcat doc}} seems to have been created for this purpose. As the template is currently unused, I'm going to rework it to make it more functional. ~ Eejit43 (talk) 15:25, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(as the creator of that template) Eejit43, that's exactly what I made it for, after I got tired of making new documentation for each new rcat. I'd appreciate any improvements you make to it. — Qwerfjkltalk 16:26, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I see your template was built around the template being substituted, but I think it would be better to simply allow transclusion of the template. Any objections to that? ~ Eejit43 (talk) 18:04, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Eejit43, by all means, go ahead. It's not my template. — Qwerfjkltalk 18:06, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

many thanks for your email 154.222.5.121 (talk) 14:25, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Redirect § Deprecation of redirecting the talk page of a mainspace redirect. Nickps (talk) 21:30, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What is the right template for tagging this redirect: Purley, Croydon Okmrman (talk) 19:14, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

{{R from London place name}} as tagged seems to be reasonable. {{R from more specific geographic name}} maybe since Croydon is more specific than London? Primefac (talk) 11:51, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all :) I've got a few questions regarding some members of the redirect category tree that I'd appreciate hearing other editors' opinions on:

1. Category:Redirects from misspellings – Should this be a subcategory of Category:Redirects from alternative spellings? (In a similar way to how Category:Redirects from incorrect disambiguation is currently a subcategory of Category:Redirects from other disambiguation)
2. Category:Redirects from alternative spellings – Should this be a subcategory of Category:Redirects from modifications? On the one hand, redirects in this category are modifying the spelling of a word; but on the other hand, an alternative spelling may not be a small enough modification for/may not be within the scope of that category (stated on the cat-page as being for redirects from alternative layouts, word order, punctuation and the like).
3. Category:Redirects from English words – Should this be a subcategory of Category:Redirects from modifications? It currently is, but I'm not sure that it should be - as far as I can see, an (e.g.) {{R from verb}} is not necessarily a redirect from a modification of a page title. (Pinging SMcCandlish, as you added this category in 2018)

Let me know if there are any queries. All the best, ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 12:12, 26 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've taken the liberty of numering your queries for easy reference. My answers would be:

1. No, since a misspelling is an error and unprintworthy, while an alternative spelling is valid (attested in RS, albeit sometimes obsolete ones or whatever), and usually printworthy (when not, this can be individually tagged with {{R unprintworthy}}, but that doesn't apply to the entire alternative-spellings category). The disambitguation situation isn't actually analogous, since how WP disambiguates is an arbitrary internal decision, while whether something is standard in English or erroneous is a matter of external convention as determined by reliable-source usage (especially reliable sources about English usage, but in various specialized contexts with might be use within topical publications).
2. No, because not all alternative spellings are modifications of another spelling; they often develop side-by-side in different national, regional, or social dialects. "Modification" is this sense is generally an alteration that a reader might make to a search term that is a matter of style or grammar, such as variation in capitalization, hyphenation, presence/absence of diacritics, use of ligatures, etc., as well as grammatical variants like adjectival forms and so on, in their own subcat.
3. Yes, since they are modifications a reader might make to the term that we're actually using for the title, such as converting it into an adjective or gerund. However, Category:Redirects from plurals and Category:Redirects to plurals need to be moved from the parent cat Category:Redirects from modifications to the subcat Category:Redirects from English words. It would also be sensible to rename the confusing latter to Category:Redirects from English parts of speech, or even drop "English" from that as contextually redundant, since we don't do things like create redirects for, all the Latin declensions or tenses of a Latin term that has been assimilated into English uage in a particular form.

 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:10, 27 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]