Wikipedia:Redirect

From Free net encyclopedia

Template:Wikipedia subcat guideline (To go to a redirect click http://www.netipedia.com/index.php?title=X&redirect=no and change the page name (here X) in the address bar of the browser. Type it in canonical form, i.e., starting with a capital and with underscores for spaces.)

This section discusses policy on the use and abuse of redirects on the English Wikipedia.

Contents

[edit]

How to make a redirect

To redirect a page (1) to a different page (2), enter the following on the top of page 1. Please note that although the redirect command itself is not case sensitive, some anti vandalism bots will automatically revert you unless it is all capital letters. 

#REDIRECT [[NAME OF PAGE 2]]

For example, to redirect the Cambridge University page to the University of Cambridge page, edit the Cambridge University page and enter: 

#REDIRECT [[University of Cambridge]]

Please note that you can redirect only to articles, not sections in them; although the syntax allows them, they don't work: 

#REDIRECT [[University of Cambridge#History]]


Everything after the redirect line will be blanked when you save the page. Any text on the same line as the redirect will stay, but will not be visible unless someone edits the page.

To go back and edit your redirect after it's working, add ?redirect=no to the end of the URL for your redirect: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_University?redirect=no

To add a reason, select one of the tags from the Tag column below and add it one space after and on the same line as #REDIRECT [[Wherever]]. For example, on the redirect page University of cambridge, 

#REDIRECT [[University of Cambridge]] {{R from other capitalisation}}

That will also add the redirect to the category listed in the Category column below.


More examples are included below:

[edit]

What do we use redirects for?

Reason Usage notes, and text that will be shown Tag Category to find articles so tagged
Abbreviations  

This is a redirect from a title with an abbreviation.

For more information, follow the category link.

Template:Tl Category:Redirects from abbreviation
Misspellings  

This is a redirect from a misspelling or typographical error.

Pages using this link should be updated to link directly to the redirect target, without using a piped link that hides the correct details.

For more information, follow the category link.

Template:Tl Category:Redirects from misspellings
Other spellings, other punctuation  

This is a redirect from a title with a different spelling.

Pages using this link may be updated to link directly to the target page. However, do not replace these redirected links with a piped link unless the page is updated for another reason.

For more information, follow the category link.

Template:Tl Category:Redirects from alternate spellings
Other capitalisations, to ensure that "Go" to a mixed-capitalisation article title is case-insensitive  

This is a redirect from a title with another method of capitalisation. It leads to the title in accordance with the Wikipedia naming conventions for capitalisation, and can help writing.

Pages linking to any of these redirects may be updated to link directly to the target page. However, do not replace these redirected links with a piped link unless the page is updated for another reason.

For more information, follow the category link.


Adding a redirect for mixed-capitalisation article titles (e.g., Isle of Wight) allows "Go" to these articles to be case-insensitive. For example, without the redirect Isle of wight a "Go" for "Isle Of wight" or any capitalisation other than exactly 'Isle of Wight' would not find the article Isle of Wight.

Why: Articles whose titles contain mixed-capitalisation words (not all initial caps, or not all lower case except the first word) are found via "Go" only by an exact case match. (Articles, including redirects, whose titles are either all initial caps or only first word capitalised are found via "Go" using a case-insensitive match.)

Note: "Go" related redirects are needed only if the article title has more than two words and words following the first have different capitalisations. They are not needed, for example, for proper names which are all initial caps.

Examples:

  • Natural Selection redirects to Natural selection
  • Redirect Vice chancellor of austria to Vice Chancellor of Austria is needed because the Go search is case-sensitive for mixed-caps titles. Adding this redirect allows the article to be found when a user enters "vice chancellor of austria" or "vice chancellor of Austria" as a Go search.
  • No redirect to Francis Ford Coppola is needed because the "Go" command is case-insensitive for an article whose title is all initial caps. Any capitalisation (e.g. "francis fOrD CoPPola") entered as a "Go" will find the article.
Template:Tl Category:Redirects from other capitalisations
Other names, pseudonyms, nicknames, and synonyms Template:R from alternate name Template:Tl Category:Redirects from alternate names
Scientific names  

This is a redirect from the scientific name to the common name.


Template:Tl Category:Redirects from scientific names
Scientific names Template:R to scientific name Template:Tl Category:Redirects to scientific names
Other languages  

This is a redirect from a title in a language other than English.

It leads to the title in accordance with the naming conventions for titles in other languages and can help writing. However, do not replace these redirected links with a piped link unless the page is updated for another reason.

For more information, follow the category link.

Template:Tl Category:Redirects from alternate languages
Accents  

This is a redirect from a title in basic ASCII to the formal article title, with differences that are not diacritical marks (accents, umlauts, etc.)

Use this redirect link (without piping) when the page concerns language translation or English language equivalents. Other pages using this link should be updated to replace text with the redirect target (again, without piping).

For more information, follow the category link.

Template:Tl Category:Redirects from titles with ASCII
Plurals, tenses, etc  

This is a redirect from a plural word to the singular equivalent.

This redirect link is used for convenience, usually for plurals that do not follow simple conventions. In many cases, it is preferable to add the plural directly after the link (that is, [[link]]s). However, do not replace these redirected links with a simpler link unless the page is updated for another reason.

For more information, follow the category link.


Note that [[greenhouse gas]]es shows up as greenhouse gases, so it is not usually necessary to redirect plurals. However third-party websites started adding automatic links to wikipedia from their topics (see, e.g., [1]). Many of them follow the opposite naming convention, i.e., topics are named in plural, and the link to wikipedia may land into an empty page, if there is no redirect.

Template:Tl Category:Redirects from plurals
Related words  

This is a redirect from a related word.

Related words in an article are good candidates for Wiktionary links.

Redirects from related words are not properly redirects from alternate spellings of the same word. But at the same time, they are also different from redirects from a subtopic, since the related word is unlikely to warrant a full subtopic in the target page.

For more information, follow the category link.

Template:Tl Category:Redirects from related words
Sub-topics or closely related topics that should be explained within the text  

This is a redirect from a title for a topic more detailed than the target page. When the target page becomes too big, this redirect may be replaced with an article carved out of the target page.

Do not replace these redirected links with a link directly to the target page.

For more information, follow the category link.

Template:Tl Category:Redirects with possibilities
Facilitate disambiguation  

This is a redirect to a disambiguation page. This redirect is used by links that should always point to the disambiguation page, rather than be disambiguated.

For more information, follow the category link.


Template:Tl Category:Redirects to disambiguation pages
To track statements that date quickly  

This redirect page affects an "as of ..." link. All redirects should use capitalized month names.

The primary purpose of linking to this redirect is to keep track (using the "Whatlinkshere" feature) of information that was current in the year when the link to this redirect was created, but may need updating later.

For more information, follow the category link.

Template:Tl Category:Redirects from "As of"
To redirect to decade article Template:R to decade Template:Tl Category:Redirects to decade
To redirect from a shortcut Template:R from shortcut Template:Tl Category:Redirects from shortcut
Oldstyle CamelCase links  

This is a redirect from a CamelCase title. In the initial versions of Wikipedia, all links had to be CamelCase.

They are kept to keep edit history and to avoid breaking links that may have been made externally.

For more information, follow the category link.


Template:Tl Category:Redirects from CamelCase
links autogenerated from EXIF information Template:R from EXIF Template:Tl Category:Redirects from EXIF information
From school microstub to merge location Template:R from school Template:Tl Category: Redirects from school articles
  • Avoiding broken links (see below)
  • Minor but notable topics

Sub-topic redirects are often temporary, eventually being replaced by fully fledged articles on the sub-topic in question. Be conservative when creating sub-topic redirects — they can sometimes be counter-productive, because they disguise the absence of a proper article from editors. Sub-topic redirects should only be used where the main article has a section on the sub-topic. For example, denial of service has a section on distributed denial of service. Sub-topics should be boldfaced on their first appearance in the section, to indicate that they are in fact alternate titles or sub-titles.

In accordance with wikipedia:naming conventions (precision) it's best to have an article at a well-defined, unambiguous term, with redirects from looser colloquial terms, rather than vice versa.

Some editors prefer to avoid redirects and link directly to the target article, as it is reported that redirects lower search engine rankings.

See also: Wikipedia:Template messages/Redirect pages which contains a somewhat longer list of available redirect templates

[edit]

Renamings and merges

We try to avoid broken links, because they annoy visitors. Therefore, if we change the layout of some section of Wikipedia, or we merge two duplicate articles, we always leave redirects in the old location to point to the new location. Search engines and visitors will probably have linked to that page at that url. If the page is deleted, potential new visitors from search engines will be greeted with an edit window. The same is true for anyone who previously bookmarked that page, and so on.

On a small scale, this applies to cases where we had duplicate articles on some subject, or lots of twisty little stubs on different aspects of the same overall subject. On a larger scale, we've had a few fairly major reorganisations:

[edit]

When should we delete a redirect?

To delete a redirect without replacing it with a new article, list it on redirects for deletion. See deletion policy for details on how to nominate pages for deletion.

This isn't necessary if you just want to replace a redirect with an article, or change where it points: see How do I change a redirect? for instructions on how to do this. If you want to swap a redirect and an article, but are not able to move the article to the location of the redirect please use Wikipedia:Requested moves to request help from an admin in doing that.

Template:Wikipedia:Redirect/DeletionReasons

[edit]

What needs to be done on pages that are targets of redirects?

We follow the "principle of least astonishment" — after following a redirect, the readers's first question is likely to be: "hang on ... I wanted to read about this. Why has the link taken me to that?". Make it clear to the reader that they have arrived in the right place.

Normally, we try to make sure that all "inbound redirects" are mentioned in the first couple of paragraphs of the article. For example:

Don't cause a secondary redirect. They don't work like a primary redirect; same with tertiary redirects.

[edit]

Self-links, duplicate links

Avoid self-links, including self-links through redirects ("loop links"). Also, avoid having two links that go to the same place. These can confuse readers, and cause them to unnecessarily load the same page twice.

[edit]

Don't fix links to redirects that aren't broken

Some editors are tempted, upon finding links using a legitimate redirect target, to edit the page to "fix" the link so that it points "straight" at the "correct" page. Unless the link displays incorrectly—for instance, if the link is to a misspelling or other unprintworthy redirect, or if the hint that appears when you hover over the link is misleading—there is no need to edit the link. Most especially, there should never be a need to replace [[redirect]] with [[direct|redirect]].

Some editors are under the mistaken impression that fixing such links improves the capacity of the Wikipedia servers. But because editing a page is thousands of times more expensive for the servers than following a redirect, the opposite is actually true.

[edit]

See also

ar:ويكيبيديا:صفحة تحويل cs:Wikipedie:Přesměrování da:Wikipedia:Hvordan omdirigerer jeg en side de:Hilfe:Weiterleitung es:Wikipedia:Redirecciones eo:Vikipedio:Alidirektilo fr:Aide:Redirection fy:Wikipedy:Synonym ko:위키백과:넘겨주기 문서 id:Wikipedia:Pengalihan it:Aiuto:Redirect he:ויקיפדיה:דף הפניה nl:Help:Redirect ja:Wikipedia:リダイレクト pl:Wikipedia:Przekierowanie sv:Wikipedia:Omdirigeringar th:วิกิพีเดีย:หน้าเปลี่ยนทาง vi:Trợ giúp:Đổi hướng yi:הילף:רידיירעקט zh:Wikipedia:重定向

Retrieved from "http://www.netipedia.com/index.php/Wikipedia:Redirect"