Wikipedia:Soft redirect: Difference between revisions

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This page documents an English Wikipedia editing guideline.

Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

Shortcuts

A soft redirect is a replacement of usual or "hard" redirects when the destination is another site. Unlike normal redirects, there is nothing special for soft redirects as wiki pages. It's only that soft redirects are very short pages of which all information is the notification to users, showing the destination in another site to obtain the information they were seeking.

The technique is particularly likely to be used when redirecting users across Wikimedia sister projects. — for example Wikipedia:Trolling is a soft redirect to meta:What is a troll? Normal redirects would be undesirable in these circumstances, and hard interwiki redirects are disabled. (Reasons: they could not be easily edited without hand-crafting the correct URL, since clicking on a link to the redirect page would take you straight to the redirect's target and there would be no "Redirected from foo" message to click, so it would be difficult to return to the redirect page itself; there would also be infinite loop security considerations.)

Soft redirects to non-English language editions of Wikipedia should be avoided because they will generally be unhelpful to English-language readers.

Soft redirects are intended mostly for external use, where hard redirects will not function. For internal use in general, hard redirects should be used instead.

Category soft redirects

In English Wikipedia, categories with the {{Category redirect}} template are also called "soft redirects", due to the similarity of interwiki soft redirects. See Wikipedia:Categories for discussion#Redirecting categories for the policy.

Templates

The following templates are used to create a soft redirect link:

{{Soft redirect}} for all soft redirects except those below;
{{Category redirect}} for category redirects;
{{Wiktionary redirect}} or {{wi}} for Wiktionary redirects.

Deletion

For purposes of administration, particularly deletion, soft redirects are subject to the same administration processes as regular redirects, and should not be handled by processes that are intended for articles. For deletion this means that soft redirects are subject to R2 - R3 speedy deletion criteria, and are not subject to A1 - A10 speedy deletion criteria. For more deliberative deletion, soft redirects should be handled through Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion, and are not subject to either Wikipedia:Proposed deletion or Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. They are also specifically subject to G8 deletion if their target does not exist, as this has replaced the old R1 criteria.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 {{subcat guideline|editing guideline|Soft redirect|WP:SRD|WP:SOFTRDR}}
-A '''soft redirect''' is a very short page that essentially tells users to look at another site to obtain the information they were seeking.
+A '''soft redirect''' is a replacement of usual or "hard" [[Help:Redirect|redirects]] when the destination is another site. Unlike normal redirects, there is nothing special for soft redirects as wiki pages. It's only that soft redirects are very short pages of which all information is the notification to users, showing the destination in another site to obtain the information they were seeking.
+The technique is particularly likely to be used when redirecting users across [[Wikipedia:Wikimedia sister projects|Wikimedia sister projects]].  — for example [[Wikipedia:Trolling]] is a soft redirect to [[meta:What is a troll?]] Normal [[Help:redirect|redirect]]s would be undesirable in these circumstances, and hard interwiki redirects are disabled. (Reasons: they could not be easily edited without hand-crafting the correct URL, since clicking on a link to the redirect page would take you straight to the redirect's target and there would be no "Redirected from [[foo]]" message to click, so it would be difficult to return to the redirect page itself; there would also be infinite loop security considerations.)
+Soft redirects to non-English language editions of Wikipedia should be avoided because they will generally be unhelpful to English-language readers.
-The technique is particularly likely to be used when redirecting users across [[Wikipedia:Wikimedia sister projects|Wikimedia sister projects]] — for example [[Wikipedia:Trolling]] is a soft redirect to [[meta:What is a troll?]] Normal or [[Wikipedia:Redirect|"hard" redirects]] would be undesirable in these circumstances because they could not be easily edited without hand-crafting the correct URL: clicking on a link to the redirect page would take you straight to the redirect's target and there would be no "Redirected from [[foo]]" message to click, so it would be difficult to return to the redirect page itself. There would also be infinite loop security considerations. Therefore hard interwiki redirects have been disabled and soft redirects are often used.
+Soft redirects are intended mostly for external use, where hard redirects will not function. For internal use in general, hard redirects should be used instead.
+== Category soft redirects ==
+In English Wikipedia, categories with the {{tl|Category redirect}} template are also called "soft redirects", due to the similarity of interwiki soft redirects. See [[Wikipedia:Categories for discussion#Redirecting categories]] for the policy.
+== Templates ==
 The following templates are used to create a soft redirect link:
 *{{tl|Soft redirect}} for all soft redirects except those below;
@@ Line 10: / Line 18: @@
 *{{tl|Wiktionary redirect}} or {{tl|wi}} for Wiktionary redirects.
+== Deletion ==
-Soft redirects to non-English language editions of Wikipedia should be avoided because they will generally be unhelpful to English-language readers.
 For purposes of administration, particularly deletion, soft redirects are subject to the same administration processes as regular redirects, and should not be handled by processes that are intended for articles.  For deletion this means that soft redirects are subject to [[Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#Redirects|R2 - R3]] speedy deletion criteria, and are not subject to [[Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#Articles|A1 - A10]] speedy deletion criteria.  For more deliberative deletion, soft redirects should be handled through [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion]], and are not subject to either [[Wikipedia:Proposed deletion]] or [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion]].  They are also specifically subject to [[Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#General|G8]] deletion if their target does not exist, as this has replaced the old R1 criteria.
-== Internal use ==
-Soft redirects are intended mostly for external use, where hard redirects will not function. In general, for internal use, hard redirects should be used instead.
 ==See also==