Wikipedia:Historical archive/Policy/To delete or not to delete: Difference between revisions
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Hi Pink, a redirect in that case is ''definitely'' better. Since ordinary users ''can't'' delete pages but only the data they contain, you might as well make the page with the misspelled title point to the one with the correctly spelled title. We do this all the time. Colin, it would have been a little better to have asked this question in the FAQ or on [[Wikipedia chat]] rather than making an entire new page for it. --[[LMS]] |
Hi Pink, a redirect in that case is ''definitely'' better. Since ordinary users ''can't'' delete pages but only the data they contain, you might as well make the page with the misspelled title point to the one with the correctly spelled title. We do this all the time, and search engines like it (why ''not'' give poor spellers a positive result for their trouble? So Wikipedia catches the poor speller traffic--grand!). Colin, it would have been a little better to have asked this question in the FAQ or on [[Wikipedia chat]] rather than making an entire new page for it. --[[LMS]] |
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Revision as of 04:33, 30 July 2001
My admittedly newbie opinion is that misspelt names should not be allowed in. This is, after all, a reference work. Inaccuracies should be purged. Wayne Gretszky is what sent me searching for a page talking about deleting pages. ATM Gretszky redirects to Wayne Gretzky, but is it really beneficial? Eventually search engines will update and dead links will phase out. --Colin dellow
I have seen that it is very desirable not to delete pages,
but only do #REDIRECTs, will be keep doing that, even when a
page is some mispelling (especially mistyping, like Wofgang Amadeus Mozart)?
If there is a consensus that some pages should be deleted every
now and then, I'd put the previous one on the list.
I think the suggestion to keep all pages came as a means of avoiding dead links in search engines. I've encountered similar mispellings (Martin Scorcese); I would like to do away with them also but I'm not sure it would be a good advertisement for Wikipedia to leave dead links. I guess whatever action is taken depends on how common the misspelling is? It seems that wikipedia does not fuzzy-match search results; is that the case?
I think there are two things discussed here. One is deletion of data. I don't like that. The other is moving data from an unsuitable location (a misspelling) to a correct one. I don't think this is a problem.
If someone creates a new page with a misspelled name and you spot it the day after, I think it's a good idea to move the data and remove the misspelled entry. Of course you should also use search to make sure that any other links to the page are changed. If the misspelling is on an old page so that it can be suspected of being in search engines like [[1]], then I guess a redirect is better. --Pinkunicorn
Hi Pink, a redirect in that case is definitely better. Since ordinary users can't delete pages but only the data they contain, you might as well make the page with the misspelled title point to the one with the correctly spelled title. We do this all the time, and search engines like it (why not give poor spellers a positive result for their trouble? So Wikipedia catches the poor speller traffic--grand!). Colin, it would have been a little better to have asked this question in the FAQ or on Wikipedia chat rather than making an entire new page for it. --LMS