Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Redirect

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Categories for "double" redirects

I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask, but is there any advice/guidance to best practices for categorizing what should essentially be double redirects? The case I just came across is as follows. Evodia rutaecarpa is a (very common) misspelling of Euodia ruticarpa, which in turn is an alternative scientific name for Tetradium ruticarpum. Should Evodia rutaecarpa be categorized as a misspelling (however the redirect target, Tetradium ruticarpum is not the correct spelling of the misspelled name). Should it be categorized as an alternative scientific name (but it's a misspelling of a scientific name)? Should it get both redirect categories? This also comes up with redirects from scientific names to common names and redirects from alternative scientific names. E.g., Lagenaria vulgaris is an alternative scientific name for Lagenaria siceraria, which redirects to the article at the common name Calabash. If Wikipedia allowed double redirects, this would be easy to resolve. I'm inclined to categorize as if double redirects were allowed although this means the rcat template text will be saying something incorrect about the redirect target (i.e. I'm thinking Evodia rutaecarpa should be categorized as a misspelling even though the target isn't the correct spelling of the term, and Lagenaria vulgaris should be an alternative scientific name even though the target isn't the correct scientific name). Any thoughts on how to handle these? Plantdrew (talk) 20:45, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

This would be a good time to use the 1st parameter of {{R from misspelling}}. Since Evodia rutaecarpa is also a redirect that resulted from a page move, I would tag it as follows:

{{Redr|move|typo|p2=Euodia ruticarpa|unprintworthy}}

There is also the option to link to the correct spelling:

{{Redr|move|typo|p2={{-r|Euodia ruticarpa}}|unprintworthy}}

Note that I would not sort the typo to Category:Redirects from alternative scientific names. That cat should be reserved for correct spellings of nomenclatures. As you know, since the target is a tree, then {{R from alternative scientific name}} also has a parameter that can be used to tag redirects like Euodia ruticarpa in the following manner:

{{Redr|from alternative scientific name|p1=plant|printworthy}}

I like to use the "Redr" template, an alias for {{This is a redirect}}, to tag redirects. This is how I would advise to handle such redirects. Joys! – Paine Ellsworth ^CLIMAX! 22:04, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. I've been aware of {{This is a redirect}}, but I've been confused about the proper syntax. I'm starting to get it, but would never have figured out the syntax to link the correct spelling. Plantdrew (talk) 18:43, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

I like your candor, Plantdrew, and would very much appreciate any help you can give to make template This is a redirect as clear as possible and easy to use for all editors. – Paine  20:34, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Paine that this is reasonable in many respects and it may be the best we can do given that "double" and longer serial redirects are not permitted. This approach does break all of the template messages that include commitments concerning the target page.

1. "This is a redirect from a misspelling or typographical error. The correct form is given by the target of the redirect." --no, not if the redirect bypasses a double/serial, as postor says above re Evodia rutaecarpa=>Tetradium ruticarpum
2. "This redirect leads to the title in accordance with the naming conventions for common names ..." --no, not if the redirect bypasses a double/serial, as Harvey Fichstrom=>Margot Zemach bypasses Harve Zemach
3. "This is a redirect from an erroneous name, [...] The correct name is given by the target of the redirect." --no, ... (quoting from Template:R from incorrect name)

The template messages refer to the targets that we bypass, as the case may be. This is tolerable but must cause some editors to stumble.

P.S. As I understand, both Harvey Fichstrom and Harve Zemach are printworthy. My two-year-old WP:COMMENTs direct that the former of two redirect pages is not primary (should be in redirect categories only, among other things)--but it should carry {DEFAULTSORT} if deemed printworthy. The page may not be useful in article space but I hope the example is useful here. --P64 (talk) 17:42, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

To editor Plantdrew: Sorry, I haven't felt up to these more intricate apps, lately, as I just had an operation on the 9th. To cover your second example above, it seems that one way would be just to alter the text a little, so that is what I did at {{R from alternative scientific name}}, which now reads "This is a redirect from an alternative scientific name of an organism to the common name or (edit reverted) the accepted scientific name." If you can think of a better way, then do feel free to make it so. – Paine Ellsworth^CLIMAX! 10:49, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

To editor P64: In your "#1" above, the double redirect is covered by the 1st parameter in {{R typo}}, which changes the text to "This is a redirect from a misspelling or typographical error. The correct form is (parameter 1's correct spelling)."

• In "#2", the naming convention challenge, there are going to be times when such exceptions arise, but if I understand you correctly (and please correct me if I'm wrong), the Harve Zemach redirect is the pseudonym and should be tagged as such, while the Harvey Fichstrom redirect should be tagged with {{R from spouse}}. At present, "Harvey Fichstrom" is tagged with {{R nick}}, which is an incorrect tag since the target is his wife, and his name is not an alternative name for her. Also, if {{R from pseudonym}} is used to tag the pseudonym, Harve Zemach (instead of, say, {{R nick}}), then the "naming convention" problem goes away, at least in that case.
• In "#3", {{R from incorrect name}} also has an unnamed parameter that changes the text to "The correct name is (parameter 1's correct name)." These unnamed parameters were added to some templates for the express purpose of dealing with those times when the targets, for whatever reason, were not the correct spellings, the correct titles, and so on.
• Not sure where you want to go with your "printworthy" comments (I might still be a little fuzzy-headed), but {{DEFAULTSORT}} may be used on a redirect anytime the sort should be different than the redirect's page name. Both Fichstrom and Zemack can carry {{DEFAULTSORT:Fichstrom, Harvey}} and {{DEFAULTSORT:Zemack, Harve}}, respectively. I always put that sort on the fifth line – in example:

#REDIRECT [[Harvey Fichstrom]]

{{Redr|from spouse|printworthy}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fichstrom, Harvey}}

...and if there are any article categories, they would go on the lines that follow the sort line. Joys! – Paine Ellsworth^CLIMAX! 10:49, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

To editor Plantdrew: As noted above my edit to the alt-sci-name rcat was reverted, and this discussion ensued. Hopefully, this will be the appropriate categorization for now. – Paine Ellsworth^CLIMAX! 17:32, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification, I will respond over there. Plantdrew (talk) 22:43, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

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Harej (talk) 16:56, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Redirect from Multiple languages.

Дракуля which redirects to Dracula is listed as a Template:R from alternative language which is absolutely fine. *However*, Дракула is the spelling used for Dracula in a number of languages with the Cyrillic Alphabet including at least Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Serbian and the old Belarusian(be-x-old) (I found wikipedia pages under those names for the Original Novel at least in those languages). Do I put five copies of Template:R from alternative language into the article, one for each language, do I choose one(how?), or do I just leave it as unspecified?Naraht (talk) 17:23, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Naraht – There is actually an easy way to handle this with the {{Redr}} template. While attempting to tag the Дракуля redirect, I discovered what I think is a flaw in the {{R from alternative language}} rcat, so let me have some time to check that and possibly to fix a flaw, and then I'll get back to you to show you how to fix this for future reference. And thank you! for helping to catch the flaw! – Paine Ellsworth^CLIMAX! 19:25, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Okay, Naraht, that was my one mistake for the year. There was indeed a flaw in the language rcat, because it is supposed to populate Category:Redirects from alternative languages when the 1st parameter (from language) is empty and the 2nd parameter (to language) is filled in – and it was not sorting to any category in that special case. That is fixed, so as promised, I'll show you my suggestion that may be used in the future on any other such redirects you come across.

Please take a look again at the Дракуля redirect. If you click on the [show] link, then you will see the text generated by the {{Redr}} template. Near the top is a hatnote that links to the article on Cyrillic script. While fixing the flaw you helped me find, I also tweaked the text to include the possibility of more than one language. Now click to open the Edit screen and take a look at the code to see how that page is generated. That code is my suggestion for how to handle this type of redirect. Hope this helps – Joys! – Paine Ellsworth^CLIMAX! 21:09, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

So if I'm understanding what you did, it's more or less "I don't know what language, but it uses Cyrillic Script" (into english). So no real capability for say "Russian and Bulgarian into English" (or in that case would two RFAL's be used?) I love how versatile {{Redr}} is.Naraht (talk) 23:03, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Essentially, I don't see how anybody could know which language the script represents. This is the English Wikipedia, so this type of question almost never arises, and there is very seldom if ever a need to state more than one language. And for those rare times when such a need arises, it can be easily handled with {{Redr}}'s |e#= parameter. The Дракуля redirect should probably be deleted because it really does not represent a "language" redirect and it is not mentioned on its target page. Because of this, I intend to self revert the edits I just made to RFAL because the correct usage would almost always be from one language to one language. I have been rcatting a long time, and there has never been a need to use one rcat more than one time on a redirect. Using the same rcat more than once on a redirect would probably just add to confusion. – Paine Ellsworth^CLIMAX! 01:48, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Foreign language redirects?

I've been asked on my talk page about foreign language redirects. The ones in question are බණ්ඩාරනායක, නලින් ද සිල්වා, and ඩී.එස්. සේනානායක. Would these be OK as redirects if they're not romanized? Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 11:55, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I think these are okay as redirects, and I began to tag them as follows:

{{Redr|from alternative language|p1=si|n1=en|unprintworthy}}

("Redr" is just an alias/shortcut for the "This is a redirect" template.) The |p1= parameter holds the "from" language code for the Sinhala language, "si", and the |n1= parameter holds the English language code, "en". I held up, because I think the targets might really be Romanized (Latin) versions of the redirect scripts, so now I'm stuck a little myself. I usually just use the "en" for the "to" language, but as you mentioned the redirects are not Romanized, so it may be incorrect to say that their targets are in the English language. Maybe someone else will be able to help us with this? – Paine Ellsworth^CLIMAX! 19:50, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Printability

Just wrote an essay on printability (printworthiness) at:

• Wikipedia:Printability

Maybe another step toward a guideline? – Paine Ellsworth^CLIMAX! 07:31, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

R from message

They've gotten better but:

"For more information, follow the category link."

No thanks. Categories should be categories. We should be sending them to a help page, or a section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.120.164.90 (talk) 18:02, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Cats often give more detailed information as well as have links to even more information. They also show similar redirects, which help editors understand rcat usage applications. Some editors who have been drawn by the "For more information follow the category link", have even taken up the monitoring of some of these categories, which helps in the administration of this project. Joys! – Paine Ellsworth^CLIMAX! 09:50, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Template R from xyz for BLPs

Do we have a redirect template where a title for a person has been redirected to a more suitable article? For example, Heather Cho was recently redirected to Nut rage incident. It seems to be it would be good to categorize these, where there is not enough material for a standalone article and there are BLP concerns (WP:BLP1E comes to mind). But I'm not sure if there's already something like that. §FreeRangeFrog^croak 23:03, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

There is {{R from person}} but it's not limited to living people. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:22, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: That's the one I was looking for, thank you. §FreeRangeFrog^croak 18:01, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

New target for an R from Merge

I'm curious what would be considered best practice for handling an R from Merge when you wish to change the target. From the text of the template and from discussions like this I gather that attribution is the central concern and I appreciate that, but if the target is altered then the text of the template is inaccurate, and it seems considerably less likely that the edit history of the redirect will even be re-discovered at a future date.

I find concrete examples are often easier to understand so here's my example:

• Blackjack (video game) is the "R from Merge"
• This NES game article is the current redirect target (and this reflects the merge)
• This Atari 2600 game article is another possible target for the redirect.
• This disambiguation page is where I would like to redirect "Blackjack (video game)".

How should I proceed in this example? One option I can see is to change the target and add a note below the "R from Merge" template explaining about the old target and the merge. Another option might be to change the target and replace the "R from Merge" template with a note explaining the old target and the merge. Or would it be OK to just change the target and forget about the inaccuracies caused by the text of the R from Merge template? Or should I change target and remove "R from Merge"? If anyone could provide some direction in this matter I'd be grateful. -Thibbs (talk) 10:25, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

As noted at Template:R from merge, the template has a parameter that lets you specify the page being merged to (though the text is still a bit inaccurate), so you can safely (?) retarget the redirect while still keeping a note of the merge.

Also, as the previous discussion says, {{copied}} should be placed on the talk pages of both the redirect and the merged article. Anon124 (+2) (notify me of responses! / talk / contribs) 19:11, 11 May 2015 (UTC)