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Deletion discussions
Articles
Templates and modules
Files
Categories
Redirects
Miscellany
Speedy deletion
Proposed deletion
XFD backlog
V Apr May Jun Jul Total
CfD 0 0 18 0 18
TfD 0 0 6 2 8
MfD 0 0 1 0 1
FfD 0 0 1 0 1
RfD 0 0 0 0 0
AfD 0 0 0 0 0

Redirects for discussion (RfD) is the place where potentially problematic redirects are discussed. Items usually stay listed for a week or so, after which they are deleted, kept, or retargeted.

  • If you want to replace an unprotected redirect with an article, do not list it here. Turning redirects into articles is wholly encouraged. Be bold!
  • If you want to move a page but a redirect is in the way, do not list it here. For non-controversial cases, place a technical request; if a discussion is required, then start a requested move.
  • If you think a redirect points to the wrong target article, this is a good place to discuss what should be the proper target.
  • Redirects should not be deleted just because they have no incoming links. Please do not use this as the only reason to delete a redirect. However, redirects that do have incoming links are sometimes deleted, so that is not a sufficient condition for keeping. (See § When should we delete a redirect? for more information.)

Please do not unilaterally rename or change the target of a redirect while it is under discussion. This adds unnecessary complication to the discussion for participants and closers.

Before listing a redirect for discussion

Please be aware of these general policies, which apply here as elsewhere:

The guiding principles of RfD

Shortcut
  • The purpose of a good redirect is to eliminate the possibility that readers will find themselves staring blankly at "Search results 1–10 out of 378" instead of the article they were looking for. If someone could plausibly enter the redirect's name when searching for the target article, it's a good redirect.
  • Redirects are cheap. They take up little storage space and use very little bandwidth. It doesn't really hurt things if there are a few of them scattered around. On the flip side, deleting redirects is also cheap because recording the deletion takes up little storage space and uses very little bandwidth. There is no harm in deleting problematic redirects.
  • If a good-faith RfD nomination proposes to delete a redirect and has no discussion after at least 7 days, the default result is delete.
  • Redirects nominated in contravention of Wikipedia:Redirect will be speedily kept.
  • RfD can also serve as a central discussion forum for debates about which page a redirect should target. In cases where retargeting the redirect could be considered controversial, it is advisable to leave a notice on the talk page of the redirect's current target page or the proposed target page to refer readers to the redirect's nomination to allow input and help form consensus for the redirect's target.
  • Requests for deletion of redirects from one page's talk page to another's do not need to be listed here. Anyone can remove the redirect by blanking the page. The G6 criterion for speedy deletion may be appropriate.
  • In discussions, always ask yourself whether or not a redirect would be helpful to the reader.

When should we delete a redirect?


Shortcuts

Further information: Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Common outcomes and Wikipedia:Moving a page § Moving over a redirect

The major reasons why deletion of redirects is harmful are:

  • a redirect may contain non-trivial edit history;
  • if a redirect is reasonably old (or is the result of moving a page that has been there for quite some time), then it is possible that its deletion will break incoming links (such links coming from older revisions of Wikipedia pages, from edit summaries, from other Wikimedia projects or from elsewhere on the internet, do not show up in "What links here").

Therefore consider the deletion only of either harmful redirects or of recent ones.

Reasons for deleting

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See also: Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion § Redirects

You might want to delete a redirect if one or more of the following conditions is met (but note also the exceptions listed below this list):

  1. The redirect page makes it unreasonably difficult for users to locate similarly named articles via the search engine. For example, if the user searches for "New Articles", and is redirected to a disambiguation page for "Articles", it would take much longer to get to the newly added articles on Wikipedia.
  2. The redirect might cause confusion. For example, if "Adam B. Smith" was redirected to "Andrew B. Smith", because Andrew was accidentally called Adam in one source, this could cause confusion with the article on Adam Smith, so the redirect should be deleted.
  3. The redirect is offensive or abusive, such as redirecting "Joe Bloggs is a Loser" to "Joe Bloggs" (unless "Joe Bloggs is a Loser" is legitimately discussed in the article), or "Joe Bloggs" to "Loser". (Speedy deletion criterion G10 and G3 may apply.) See also § Neutrality of redirects.
  4. The redirect constitutes self-promotion or spam. (Speedy deletion criterion G11 may apply.)
  5. The redirect makes no sense, such as redirecting "Apple" to "Orange". (Speedy deletion criterion G1 may apply.)
  6. It is a cross-namespace redirect out of article space, such as one pointing into the User or Wikipedia namespace. The major exception to this rule are the pseudo-namespace shortcut redirects, which technically are in the main article space. Some long-standing cross-namespace redirects are also kept because of their long-standing history and potential usefulness. "MOS:" redirects, for example, are an exception to this rule. (Note also the existence of namespace aliases such as WP:. Speedy deletion criterion R2 may apply if the target namespace is something other than Category:, Template:, Wikipedia:, Help:, or Portal:.)
  7. If the redirect is broken, meaning it redirects to an article that does not exist, it can be immediately deleted under speedy deletion criterion G8. You should check that there is not an alternative place it could be appropriately redirected to first and that it has not become broken through vandalism.
  8. If the redirect is a novel or very obscure synonym for an article name that is not mentioned in the target, it is unlikely to be useful. In particular, redirects in a language other than English to a page whose subject is unrelated to that language (or a culture that speaks that language) should generally not be created. (Implausible typos or misnomers are candidates for speedy deletion criterion R3, if recently created.)
  9. If the target article needs to be moved to the redirect title, but the redirect has been edited before and has a history of its own, then the title needs to be freed up to make way for the move. If the move is uncontroversial, tag the redirect for G6 speedy deletion, or alternatively (with the suppressredirect user right; available to page movers and admins), perform a round-robin move. If not, take the article to Requested moves.
  10. Shortcut
    If the redirect could plausibly be expanded into an article, and the target article contains virtually no information on the subject.

Reasons for not deleting

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However, avoid deleting such redirects if:

  1. They have a potentially useful page history, or an edit history that should be kept to comply with the licensing requirements for a merge (see Wikipedia:Merge and delete). On the other hand, if the redirect was created by renaming a page with that name, and the page history just mentions the renaming, and for one of the reasons above you want to delete the page, copy the page history to the Talk page of the article it redirects to. The act of renaming is useful page history, and even more so if there has been discussion on the page name.
  2. They would aid accidental linking and make the creation of duplicate articles less likely, whether by redirecting a plural to a singular, by redirecting a frequent misspelling to a correct spelling, by redirecting a misnomer to a correct term, by redirecting to a synonym, etc. In other words, redirects with no incoming links are not candidates for deletion on those grounds because they are of benefit to the browsing user. Some extra vigilance by editors will be required to minimize the occurrence of those frequent misspellings in the article texts because the linkified misspellings will not appear as broken links; consider tagging the redirect with the {{R from misspelling}} template to assist editors in monitoring these misspellings.
  3. They aid searches on certain terms. For example, users who might see the "Keystone State" mentioned somewhere but do not know what that refers to will be able to find out at the Pennsylvania (target) article.
  4. Deleting redirects runs the risk of breaking incoming or internal links. For example, redirects resulting from page moves should not normally be deleted without good reason. Links that have existed for a significant length of time, including CamelCase links (e.g. WolVes) and old subpage links, should be left alone in case there are any existing links on external pages pointing to them. See also Wikipedia:Link rot § Link rot on non-Wikimedia sites.
  5. Someone finds them useful. Hint: If someone says they find a redirect useful, they probably do. You might not find it useful—this is not because the other person is being untruthful, but because you browse Wikipedia in different ways. Evidence of usage can be gauged by using the wikishark or pageviews tool on the redirect to see the number of views it gets.
  6. The redirect is to a closely related word form, such as a plural form to a singular form.

Neutrality of redirects

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Just as article titles using non-neutral language are permitted in some circumstances, so are such redirects. Because redirects are less visible to readers, more latitude is allowed in their names, therefore perceived lack of neutrality in redirect names is not a sufficient reason for their deletion. In most cases, non-neutral but verifiable redirects should point to neutrally titled articles about the subject of the term. Non-neutral redirects may be tagged with {{R from non-neutral name}}.

Non-neutral redirects are commonly created for three reasons:

  1. Articles that are created using non-neutral titles are routinely moved to a new neutral title, which leaves behind the old non-neutral title as a working redirect (e.g. Climategate → Climatic Research Unit email controversy).
  2. Articles created as POV forks may be deleted and replaced by a redirect pointing towards the article from which the fork originated (e.g. Barack Obama Muslim rumor → deleted and now redirected to Barack Obama religion conspiracy theories).
  3. The subject matter of articles may be represented by some sources outside Wikipedia in non-neutral terms. Such terms are generally avoided in Wikipedia article titles, per the words to avoid guidelines and the general neutral point of view policy. For instance the non-neutral expression "Attorneygate" is used to redirect to the neutrally titled Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy. The article in question has never used that title, but the redirect was created to provide an alternative means of reaching it because a number of press reports use the term.

The exceptions to this rule would be redirects that are not established terms and are unlikely to be useful, and therefore may be nominated for deletion, perhaps under deletion reason #3. However, if a redirect represents an established term that is used in multiple mainstream reliable sources, it should be kept even if non-neutral, as it will facilitate searches on such terms. Please keep in mind that RfD is not the place to resolve most editorial disputes.

Closing notes

Details at Administrator instructions for RfD

Nominations should remain open, per policy, about a week before they are closed, unless they meet the general criteria for speedy deletion, the criteria for speedy deletion of a redirect, or are not valid redirect discussion requests (e.g. are actually move requests).

How to list a redirect for discussion

Shortcut
STEP I.
Tag the redirect(s).

  Enter {{subst:rfd|content= at the very beginning of the redirect page you are listing for discussion and enter }} at the very end of the page.

  • Please do not mark the edit as minor (m).
  • Please include in the edit summary the phrase:
    Nominated for RfD: see [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion]].
  • Save the page ("Publish changes").
  • If you are unable to edit the redirect page because of protection, this step can be omitted, and after step 2 is completed, a request to add the RFD template can be put on the redirect's talk page.
  • If the redirect you are nominating is in template namespace, consider adding |showontransclusion=1 to the RfD tag so that people using the template redirect are aware of the nomination.
  • If you are nominating multiple redirects as a group, repeat all the above steps for each redirect being nominated.
STEP II.
List the entry on RfD.

 Click here to edit the section of RfD for today's entries.

  • Enter this text below the date heading:
{{subst:Rfd2|redirect=RedirectName|target=TargetArticle|text=The action you would like to occur (deletion, re-targeting, etc.) and the rationale for that action.}} ~~~~
  • For this template:
    • Put the redirect's name in place of RedirectName, put the target article's name in place of TargetArticle, and include a reason after text=.
    • Note that, for this step, the "target article" is the current target of the redirect (if you have a suggestion for a better target, include this in the text that you insert after text=).
  • Please use an edit summary such as:
    Nominating [[RedirectName]]
    (replacing RedirectName with the name of the redirect you are nominating).
  • To list multiple related redirects for discussion, use the following syntax. Repeat line 2 for N number of redirects:
{{subst:Rfd2|redirect=RedirectName1|target=TargetArticle1}}
{{subst:Rfd2|multi=yes|redirect=RedirectName2|target=TargetArticle2}}
{{subst:Rfd2|multi=yes|redirect=RedirectNameN|target=TargetArticleN|text=The actions you would like to occur (deletion, re-targeting, etc.) and the rationale for those actions.}} ~~~~
  • If the redirect has had previous RfDs, you can add {{Oldrfdlist|previous RfD without brackets|result of previous RfD}} directly after the rfd2 template.
  • If appropriate, inform members of the most relevant WikiProjects through one or more "deletion sorting lists". Then add a {{subst:delsort|<topic>|<signature>}} template to the nomination, to insert a note that this has been done.
STEP III.
Notify users.

  It is generally considered good practice to notify the creator and main contributors of the redirect(s) that you nominate.

To find the main contributors, look in the page history of the respective redirect(s). For convenience, the template

{{subst:Rfd notice|RedirectName}} ~~~~

may be placed on the creator/main contributors' user talk page to provide notice of the discussion. Please replace RedirectName with the name of the respective creator/main contributors' redirect and use an edit summary such as:
Notice of redirect discussion at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion]]

Notices about the RfD discussion may also be left on relevant talk pages.

  • Please consider using What links here to locate other redirects that may be related to the one you are nominating. After going to the redirect target page and selecting "What links here" in the toolbox on the left side of your computer screen, select both "Hide transclusions" and "Hide links" filters to display the redirects to the redirect target page.

Current list

Older unfinished requests are at Wikipedia:Redirects for deletion/Old.

October 20

October 21

October 23

October 24

  • EURO → European Football Championship -- Not an official acronym; causes confusion with Euro the currency (only difference being capitalization)
    • Change target - Agreed, the current redirect doesn't make sense; the acronym "EURO" doesn't even appear in the target article! Rather than deleting the redirect, how about modifying it so it points to the article about the currency? Engineer Bob 05:32, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

October 25

October 26

  • Cyr → Cyrillic alphabet — This redirect creates confusion in that there is a "Cyr" listed on List of people by name: Cy that links to the alphabet article via this redirect and there is no discernable article for the person. Also, I've looked briefly to see if "Cyr" or a variant is a ISO-type code for the alphabet but have not found that information. Therefore, I would suggest deletion to avoid confusion unless there is evidence supporting the term being a valid abbreviation. Courtland 01:19, 26 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

October 28

October 29

November 3

  • I nominate the following:
They are all the result of me moving templates to subpages of the portal page they where used as part of. They where only used on that one page, and there is no danger of accidental links. Pluss they are cross namespace, wich should be kept to a minimum.
--Sherool 10:24, 3 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

November 4

November 5

  • King of music → Michael Jackson -- Delete because There is no consensus that he has ever been refered to as that and should be deleted. KrisW6 02:57, 6 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Keep because the user you put in this redirect's request for deletion has a history of being bias against Michael Jackson. His fans refer to him as the King of Music, and in my opinion, that is enough. The people who love him are the people who know him best. What makes those who loath him think they know him so well? Give me any other artist more qualified than Jackson to deserve this title. You can't. Because Michael Jackson is the biggest selling solo artist ever, has the biggest selling studio album, biggest selling multiple-disc album and biggest selling remix album of all-time. No other artist has solo more records, or won more awards than Jackson. Street walker 12:23, 13 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Delete. Jackson's nickname is the "King of Pop", not the "King of Music". This redirect violates WP:NPOV and WP:NOR. android's boring signature 13:06, 15 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Strong delete. Elvis is said by many to be the King of Rock'n'Roll, and other genres probably have their crowned "king"s as well. With that in mind, calling any musician the greatest musician ever is inherently POV. --Idont Havaname 00:02, 19 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Electric bicycle → Motorized bicycle - CyclePat wants the redirected deleted so he can recreate a separate article for electric bicycle. He originally listed on AfD. Moving it here since this is where it belongs.
delete: Like he said "delete the link/redirect and have a seperate article eliminating the confusion withing motorized bicycle. (see other reasons at talk:motorized bicycle)--CyclePat 07:37, 6 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
THIS ARTICLE should not be deleted as discused in the talk:motorized bicycle. It is essentially a sub-class of "motor assisted bicycle" and has had it's chance of being incorperated with that article, however... that article is purelly narrow minded propaganda for electric bicycles, hence it is my belief so we can lighten up the article on "motorized bicycle" that we resume the creation of electric bicycle --CyclePat 05:55, 6 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I think CyclePat has nominated this for deletion without really understanding how deletion policies work. cyclePat, this is for nominating an article to be deleted. Sometimes people nominate articles to be deleted when they don't really want them to as a breaching experiment, but I don't think that's what you intended. For anyone else -- CyclePat, a bicycle shop owner in Canada politically active enough to be involved in some petitions and court cases related to the issue, started working on an article on electric bicycles. I and several other editors began helping him. We decided that the article should be moved to Motorized bicycle so that it could incorporate text from several articles about bikes of this sort; they were fractured over electric bicycle, power-assisted bicycle, power-assisted cycle, etc. Not liking changes to the new motorized bicycle, CyclePat has begun reverting the redirect on electric bicycle and re-creating his old article, which was mostly about Canadian jurisdictional laws and was rather POV in spots. Electric bicycle should stay redirected to motorized bicycle. · Katefan0(scribble) 06:08, 6 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
actually, yes and no. I was recreating a brand new article on "electric bicycles." (And it might have contained a broader definition and perhaps more details than motorized bicycle. (this page was cluttered with much propoganda about electric bicycles... and still might have some sections that need clarification. (take a look at this past page to see what I was trying to do. This would be a page that motorized bicycle could link to. We could clarify the ambiguities that exist between the various different types of bicycles. (At least something needs to be done to help clarify this) (I also feel we are going to have the same problem with "power-assisted bicycle" and "power-assisted cycle." Actually, during our edit war, we had even decided that moped deserved it's own place. Why the double standard? --CyclePat 09:03, 6 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Another comment: When the article changed from electric bicycle to motorized bicylce we did not take into consideration the corresponding french article. . A small discussion has started on this @ French:Motorized bicycle link... --CyclePat 08:56, 19 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I think there may be the possibility to separate out an article under this heading in the future, but it's a long way off at the moment. User:Noisy | Talk 18:51, 26 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. (assuming this is a vote to delete the redirect of electric bicycle to motorized bicycle and thus to keep electric bicycle as a separate article). When I think of a motorized bicycle, I think of a bicycle with a motor that burns some kind of fuel. Yes, technically, an electric motor is a motor, of course, but there is a reason we call electric cars electric cars and gas cars just cars. An electric bicycle is a unique type of motorized bicycle that should be covered in a separate article. However, any issues that are common to all motorized bicycles should be in the motorized bicycle article and appropriately referenced from the electric bicycle article. --Serge 17:30, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Proposal: I propose that this is closed as keep. The listing has been open for about three weeks and everybody seems to think we should keep either the redirect or a separate article - in neither case is deletion required. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] (W) AfD? 18:55, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

November 6

November 7

The latter was created at the former name and moved, creating the redirect. At the talk page it was decided the latter was the more correct title, and it appears "Militia Act 1707" is unrelated as it would not be given that title as a bill not given Royal Assent. --KURANDO 13:26, 7 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

November 8

--Mcmillen76 04:17, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

November 9

November 10

November 11

November 12

November 13

  • "Gay straight alliance" and "Gay/Straight Alliance" should just be 'fixed' to link direct as valid alternate puncuations. Having "Gay Straight Alliance" would then be useless and functionally redundant with "Gay straight alliance" and could be deleted. 24.17.48.241 05:26, 20 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

November 15

November 16

November 17

What's wrong with the above 5 redirects that warrants deletion? I've read the talk pages and they don't shed any light on the nominations. —Cleared as filed. 04:11, 18 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The NBA Wikiproject is going to reorganize all the stuff and we've decided that those redirects are usefull (will ever someone search for "Jason Chandler Williams" or "John "Hot Rod" Williams"? Maybe "Jason Williams" and "Hot Rod Williams"...). The Gary Payton redirect is completely unusefull, we've decided to move the article Gary Payton (basketball) to Gary Payton so the redirect must be deleted, same for Randy Smith. see also this. --necronudist 12:44, 18 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The impression I get about Redirect deletion policy is that we don't delete them just because we think no one will use them, we only delete them if there's something actually bad or confusing about them. Obviously someone thought to search for those terms once, because they created the redirect. As far as the redirects that need to be deleted to make way for page moves, I think those requests belong in Wikipedia:Requested moves and will be acted upon faster there. —Cleared as filed. 13:02, 18 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Well, so delete Gary Payton and Randy Smith (basketball) so we can move those pages. --necronudist 20:02, 18 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds like those two just need to be moved to Wikipedia:Requested moves... 24.17.48.241 05:26, 20 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

November 18

November 19

  • Egg (zoology) → Testicle. It was recently created by the same editor, who created the redirects above. Egg (zoology) can't be a disambiguating redirect. I have no idea whether a zoological egg is an ovum, zygote or an egg for food. If editors are aware that a word needs disambiguating, they just don't add an ambiguous extra part, instead they go and look at the disambiguation page. -Hapsiainen 19:07, 19 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

November 21

  • Uranium-lead dating → Radiometric dating -- All of the types of radiometric dating have their own articles or are red links, except this one (see "types of radiometric dating" in the radiometric dating article). The redirect should be deleted so that people will know that we don't have an article about it yet. -- Kjkolb 10:00, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Dan Green comic → Dan Green (artist) — New article created with a name inconsistent with Wikipedia naming conventions. Moved new article to Dan Green (artist). Only two edits to the page are the initial page creation and my subsequent move of the page. → Ξxtreme Unction {yakłblah} 14:27, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Opus (Band) → Opus (band) -- I moved the original page to conform with WP naming convetions. No pages link to the redirect. Frodet 20:05, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hutchinson, book publisher → Hutchinson (publisher) -- Same as above: I moved the page to conform with WP naming conventions. No links. Frodet 20:05, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Genetically identical → Clone -- Fistly, the redirect is to a disambigious page. Secondly, "Genetically identical" != "Clone" (e.g. identical twins). No links. Frodet 20:05, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • %s → Main page -- this redirect in its current form is at best confusing and does not have encyclopedic basis; the title is related to a programming topic, and should be or point to an article related to its title, like %d, for instance: these are format specifiers which are ubiquitous in the subject of computer programming, it is senseless to redirect readers who attempt to lookup these subjects to the Main page, please see Talk:%s.. --Mysidia (talk) 02:41, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Keep. As pointed out (to you!) on the Talk page, this redirect is useful to many users. How many people do you think are interested in a placeholder sometimes used in a C function? Why wouldn't they just go to printf? Twinxor t 03:05, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • As pointed out demonstrated earlier with the link, this supposed bookmarlet doesn't even work in Firefox -- not that the existence of the browser feature makes an otherwise bad redirect into a legitimate one, I personally investigated this browser keyword-based shortcut, and all I get are Bad Request pages, when providing no keyword -- results are not as advertised. %s and other format codes are so ubiquitous, that they sometimes appears in software configuration options visible to non-programmers (for instance, in Xchat) people may very well find the importance of %s without having any idea what printf is, and it's quite plausible that readers sometimes type %s into the searchbox -- the result of doing so should be something reasonable, even a disambiguation page between printf and other things that use %s if need-be. --Mysidia (talk) 03:29, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • By default, it's accessed by typing "wp" into the Firefox URL field. I don't know what the issue was with your test, but I doubt all the people who actually use it are hallucinating. It is inelegant, so maybe I'll file a Firefox bug to have the default search string changed. For now, though, the "bad redirect" is useful enough that it ought to stay. Twinxor t 06:05, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Other browsers, not just Firefox, use this "feature". --Mcpusc 07:13, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • This bookmark is not a default feature of Firefox or other browsers, it is an advanced tweak/something that some visitors have manually added to their browser for their own convenience; the people that use the tweak should have no trouble finding Wikipedia's front page, even if it takes a couple more seconds. While creating bookmarks, it is trivial to setup means to access the front page, or do so with a mouse click (since the Main page is always one click away from any page on Wikipedia). Users will have no trouble finding the main page, it would at most take an extra mouse click. By contrast, having a bogus %s redirect, misleads a user searching for %s, they might not be able to find the article they really wanted out of the encyclopedia --- this is much more harmful than a few wasted seconds or another click. And there are almost certainly not millions of Firefox users who have modified their browser to support wp keyword links, I believe the vast majority of users are still utilizing Internet Explorer, by any count. --Mysidia (talk) 02:24, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
            • Again, you are incorrect that the bookmark is not a default feature of Firefox. It is a QuickSearch that comes with the browser; see [3]. Other browsers can also use the QuickSearch functionality: see [4] for an IE 5 plugin that provides this functionality. Opera also allows users this "advanced tweak" by adding a few lines to a config file; see [5] for a user's page on how it works. It is obvious that you've never used the quicksearch feature of a browser; rest assured that many wikipedia users do.--Mcpusc 03:05, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Your test was based on a wrong assumption, the bookmark for wikipedia in firefox is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s I thought this was a great idea when I first found it. I notice that google no longer searches for %s either (in certain circumstances) bjmurph talk‽ 07:51, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • keep. There should be a disambiguation page or something else because %s is very impoertant. In Firefox, when you use keywords it directs to the %s page. So it is extremely helpful to keep %s. -- Elfalem
    • keep. Gah, that was a very annoying thing to do, Mysidia! I rely on this behaviour to get to wikipedia's main page quickly, and based on the comments above, so do a lot of other people. Seeing as the possible utility of %s in other contexts is very small, usability trumps so-called "sense" here. Philip (Respond?) 07:04, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • keep. The redirect page is quite useful; regardless, %s doesn't warrant its own article. It's mentioned only briefly on printf. --Mcpusc 07:13, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Keep. Only a small part of the printf function, which has it's own article. bjmurph talk‽ 07:51, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Keep. I use it every day with Firefox, but just typing "wp" in the Location Bar. No disambiguation please, just a redirect to the Main page. Thanks. --Edcolins 10:14, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Keep. Oh come on. %s clearly doesnt belong as a seperate article anyway. Are we going to list lparam? how about hwnd? I use this every day in Firefox, as far as i was concerned the argument had been discussed, the solution being decided long ago on the original talk page. CraigF 10:40, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Actually, %s really does have merit as a topic... lparam and hwnd should redirect to appropriate articles about what the Windows API is, as they are important concepts but can be discussed in the larger article -- it would be just as much a problem if they were blank articles or redirected somewhere strange such as the main page.., but these topics on the Win32 API haven't been developed yet and require a lot of work, %s/printf are far more popular, and part of more programming systems -- we have articles on ideas in mathematics, we can certainly have some articles on the popular memes in programming, and %s is a popular one used even by scripting languages such as perl, awk python (and there's no printf in python, either, but part of the % operator). By contrast, it's obvious that a popular bookmarklet has caused the subject to be frequented by readers who have no interest in the subject by its title ---- the very existence of this quirk is practically an illustration of %s' importance of %s for computer users. There's a much simpler way to get to the main page than to search for %s -- make a bookmark, and click on it. --Mysidia (talk) 14:16, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • I could concede that %s is obviously an important term used in many languages, and that yes, its purely a bookmarking function. But you fail to take into account that when the argument was first made, %s was moved to %s (printf), which has since been redirected to printf anyway. So the argument here is if %s AND when people type "wp" into their address bar in Firefox AND when people click the bookmark in Firefox get sent to printf. I vote no and would recommend that people vote similarly. CraigF 15:45, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Keep - for the reaons stated above particularly by Mcpusc, Twinxor and Elfalem. ThomasHarte 13:55, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Keep! A Wikipedian stated that an article on %s as a programming term wasn't thought necessary. In the light of that, the redirect should remain as it enhances usability. Otherwise, it's going to end up either getting deleted altogether or changed to another redirect - though since %s is used in myriad of computer-related subjects, quite where this alternate redirect should lead is not at all clear. --Sanguinus 14:34, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Keep! I use this "feature" very often. Stop trying to remove this redirect. It is useful to many of us. --Jcmaco 15:38, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Keep for the reasons enumerated above by others. Grumpy Troll Talk 16:49, 22 November 2005 (UTC).[reply]
    • KEEP!! - Are you guys kidding me? I use this all day long. Every time I want to go to the Main Page, I hit wp in my Firefox browser. I bet there are millions of others like me! User:Drange_net
    • Keep. For reasons stated by Elfalem. -Falcorian 17:39, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Keep. Even though I agree it's a pretty ugly hack, I do use it all the time. I do not find it likely that amount of people who search for the format string "%s" (and expecting printf) is greater than that of those who write "wp" in firefox's location bar (expecting the main page). -Gustavb 17:42, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Keep Got a bit of a fright when it didn't redirect to the Wikipedia homepage today :-p. Don't forget, new Firefox users (when checking out the "quick searches" under the bookmarks menu) may click on the "Wikipedia Quicksearch", which takes them to this page. --219.88.89.235 00:41, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Keep Its useful when doing a blank search from link
    • Keep As already said by many, this redirect is very useful and deleting it would be a disservice to many users. -- Brian Sisco 02:25, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Keep It's a very useful feature if you want to get to the Wikipedia frontpage in FireFox
    • Keep and please stop discussing it, so we can go back to using the redirect from Firefox. Leaving the page in discussion like this helps nobody. Ben Andrews, 68.65.113.117 03:44, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Keep as it appears to be used quite often by Firefox users. Furthermore, %s is very rarely, if ever, encountered out of context. If I'm given a snippet of C code, I'm not going to see %s randomly scattered throughout the code fragment without context; I'm going to see it associated with printf, sprintf, fprintf, etc. And I would look up the associated function rather than %s, because, seriously, who in their right mind would look up a function's parameters on Wiki? --Arabani 10:50, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment I have removed the {{rfd}} tag, given the clear consensus. For the record, I don’t use the shortcut myself. Susvolans ⇔ 17:33, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thomas mcguane → Thomas McGuane because I do not think it is usefoull to make a redirect page for every "missprinting" of a name - at least not when the only difference are capitalised or not letters. Oyvind 20:12, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • DAVID BOMBERG → David Bomberg. Only diff in names are Capitalized letters. Oyvind 08:28, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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Delete - since these redirects are only used in contexts related to Herbert Cardinal Vaughan and linking there already, having them appear as redlinks would actually be more useful. --Kusma (talk) 05:44, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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Footer

NOTE: WE DO NOT DELETE REDIRECTS SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY DO NOT HAVE ANY INCOMING LINKS. DO NOT LIST THIS AS A REASON TO DELETE A REDIRECT. We also sometimes delete redirects that do have incoming redirects, so it's not a necessary condition either. See #delete and #keep above for the reasons for deleting or keeping redirects.

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