Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion
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V | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Total |
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CfD | 0 | 0 | 0 | 32 | 32 |
TfD | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4 |
MfD | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
FfD | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 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 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:
- Wikipedia:Redirect – what redirects are, why they exist, and how they are used.
- Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion – which pages can be deleted without discussion; in particular the "General" and "Redirects" sections.
- Wikipedia:Deletion policy – how we delete things by consensus.
- Wikipedia:Guide to deletion – guidelines on discussion format and shorthand.
The guiding principles of RfD
- 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?
![]() | This page is transcluded from Wikipedia:Redirect/Deletion reasons. (edit | history) |
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
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):
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- The redirect constitutes self-promotion or spam. (Speedy deletion criterion G11 may apply.)
- The redirect makes no sense, such as redirecting "Apple" to "Orange". (Speedy deletion criterion G1 may apply.)
- 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:.)
- 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.
- 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.)
- 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. - 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
However, avoid deleting such redirects if:
- 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.
- 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 article text 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- The redirect is to a closely related word form, such as a plural form to a singular form.
Neutrality of redirects
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:
- 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).
- 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).
- 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
STEP I. | Tag the redirect(s).
Enter
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STEP II. | List the entry on RfD.
Click here to edit the section of RfD for today's entries.
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STEP III. | Notify users.
It is generally considered good practice to notify the creator and main contributors of the redirect(s) that you nominate. 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
March 23
- User polite2 → Template:User polite2 -- Redirect from article space to template. Probably an accident. Isopropyl 00:11, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
- Delete as needless cross-namespace redirect. — TKD::Talk 12:08, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
- Theendlesmusic → The Endless (music) -- Misspelled, no one would search for that. Nothing links there. AmiDaniel (Talk) 02:49, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
- Deleteseemsimplausibletome. — TKD::Talk 12:08, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
- Hueg → Xbox -- Obviously just making fun of the Xbox's size, never seen it used in context before. ShadowMan1od 05:18, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
- Delete. Though mildly amusing. — TKD::Talk 12:08, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
March 21
- 21th century → 21st century. This redirect is just silly. Who would type that? 64.192.107.242 23:09, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
- Keep. Someone who didn't know English well might type that. --Allen 03:29, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
- Keep. Per Allen's comments. Remy B 07:32, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
- Keep same as above--Looper5920 08:59, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
- Revenge of the Sith trivia → Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith -- Used to be an article which was deleted. It doesnt seem like anyone will type that in... Tutmosis 02:58, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
- Weak delete. I can sort of imagine someone typing it in if they've been reading other trivia articles, but still pretty unlikely. --Allen 03:29, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
- (OSIR) → The Office of Scientific Investigation and Research -- XD, I just happened to notice this on my watchlist. The associated article is long gone. It's up to you guys whether it should go or stay, but I can't see any more purpose in such an odd and random redirect. - CorbinSimpson 03:56, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
- Delete, especially because of weird parentheses. --Allen 03:29, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
- Delete per nom (although I'm not particularly afraid of the weird parentheses :) ). Joe 05:12, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
March 20
- "Antonio Breschi" → Antonio Breschi -- No particular reason why anybody would search for this name with quotation marks, and no reason to encourage this in general, so we have such redirects from all names. Gene Nygaard 17:56, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- Weak keep Nom. is right that this isn't to be encouraged; however, since redirects are cheap, and this is a possible search term, I don't see a compelling need to kill it. Xoloz 21:21, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- Comment People may put part of a name in quotes, but are unlikely to search for a name with the whole thing in quotes. I can understand using quotes:
- When a nickname is involved, as in the redirects at "Gentleman Jim" Corbett or "Rocket" Richard, but not when the whole name is in quotes.
- For things such as titles of songs, books, and the like which people might put in quotes. Gene Nygaard 08:57, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
- Comment People may put part of a name in quotes, but are unlikely to search for a name with the whole thing in quotes. I can understand using quotes:
- Delete bad precedent , highly unlikely search term. Ziggurat 04:22, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
- Delete Agreed Bad precedent. Do we then put all of the redirects in quotes as well?--Looper5920 09:01, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
- Speedy Delete as implausible typo. Most quotation mark redirects seem to fit that criteria, although I could be mistaken. Highly unlikely that someone will search that way, in either case. --Blu Aardvark | (talk) | (contribs) 00:10, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
March 19
- Van der Graaf Generator (band) → Van der Graaf Generator -- Not likely that someone would search with term in parentheses. Target page already disambiguates Van de Graaff generator and vice versa. Hriped 06:22, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
- Keep. They might have been reading another band's page and had to go through a disambig to get there, so they didn't want to do it again and so searched for it with (band). --
Rory09623:09, 22 March 2006 (UTC) - Just a note: no disambig or any other pages link to it at all--except for this one, obviously. --Hriped 22:44, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
- Keep. They might have been reading another band's page and had to go through a disambig to get there, so they didn't want to do it again and so searched for it with (band). --
- Rock Nacional → Argentine rock -- "Rock nacional" means "national rock (music)" in Spanish - which obviously does not only refer to Argentine rock. Besides, it has been previously deleted for the same reason: [1]. --Fibonacci 03:21, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
- Delete per nom. PJM 06:34, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
- Trting to get free Grants → Grant -- Vandalistic page move Adam
(talk) 04:16, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
- Delete per nom. PJM 06:34, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
- Delete per nom. --
Rory09623:09, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
- .il.us → .us -- No vote. Tagged as speedy by User:Txuspe with the reasoning "Not the same as .us". Since that is not a speedy criterion, and because this redirect could be considered useful, am listing it here. Blu Aardvark | (talk) | (contribs) 09:57, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
- On the .us page, each state's domain name is listed as a link. Only .il.us and .co.us are blue. All the others are red. However, both .il.us and .co.us are only linked to from .us and they both redirect back to .us. As loops cause confusion, they both should be deleted. -- JLaTondre 23:27, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
- Keep but ... remove the wikilink brackets for all of the .(state).us links at .us as they don't really add to the article substantially; subsequently add the tag {{R to list entry}} to the .il.us and .co.us redirects. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:32, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- That would be fine as well. -- JLaTondre 13:14, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
- 4 different ways of spelling Rijsttafel, the Dutch word for rice table, all redirecting to Indonesian rice table. See also here MigGroningen 12:29, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
- Keep Rijsttafel (has redirect, spelling in the article) and Rijstafel (I don't know why the t would be doubled). Weak Delete ff variants. Gene Nygaard 22:23, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
- Redirects are cheap; create one at rice table, too (if there is more general usage, someone can always replace redirect with an article later). Gene Nygaard 16:51, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- village pump → Wikipedia:Village pump -- Delete. Cross-namespace redirect and unnecessary self-reference. Superm401 - Talk 08:32, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- Keep. We can consider eliminating cross-namespace links, but don't have to. Don't understand the self-reference point. Gene Nygaard 17:03, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- Delete all cross-namespace links. The different namespaces serve different purposes and we shouldn't confuse readers with such redirects. As for the self-reference, Superm401 is refering to policy / guideline (can't remember which and can't find it quickly) of not writing articles about Wikipedia itself. I don't think that really applies to redirects. -- JLaTondre 13:14, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
- Delete - this one in particular could be conceivably tried in search for information found at pump. It's not an obvious Wikipedia-exclusive term. BigBlueFish 15:35, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
March 18
- Australia at the 1994 Commonwealth Games → Peter Winter (athlete) -- A general article about a games team pointing to a single athlete just doesnt seem right to me. Remy B 13:01, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
- Tv-3 High School -> TV-3 - Formerly a redirect to a vanity page, which itself now redirects to a dab page. Any particular reason to keep this lying around? 00:48, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
- Delete. "High School" dosen't make it very useful. PJM 01:15, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
March 17
- Shadow Land -> Yokai Douchuuki - This redirect was set up by me, but I don't know why I did it as there is already a redirect to Yokai Douchuuki under the name of Shadowland (arcade game). Gingerfield rocks 09:41, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
- (I moved this from afd.) Technically speedyable as an author request, but I think it'd help searches. Weak keep. —Cryptic (talk) 22:13, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
- Keep. It seems feasible. PJM 01:05, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
- Poker/Dominating hand → Dominating hand -- Unused redirect on an article subpage. – Doug Bell talk•contrib 11:19, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
- Delete per nom. — TKD::Talk 01:24, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
- DivX ;-) → DivX -- nonsense AdamJacobMuller 03:29, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
- Keep, mentioned in the article. Kusma (討論) 17:12, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
- Keep That was its original name. kotepho 19:23, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
- Keep. Mentioned in the lead. — TKD::Talk 01:24, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
- Wise After The Event → Wise After the Event -- capitalization of "the" was corrected according to WP:Albums policy. No pages link to the old uppercase spelling Hriped 17:41, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
- Keep. Plausible typo or misconception. — TKD::Talk 01:24, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
- Dragonmarked Houses (Dungeons & Dragons) → Dragonmarked Houses -- This was orginally listed in AFD: [2]. PJM 19:08, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
- Delete. Not likely that someone will search for the term with parentheses. — TKD::Talk 01:24, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
March 16
- Texas Medical Algorithm Project → Texas Medication Algorithm Project -- This was a literal error to start with, and content later transferred to the substntive page. There is a significant MEDical ALgorithm project, which by coincidence is in Texas, and is referred to in the WP medical algorithm page which I have an obvious (intellectual and practical) interest in. But in any case the potential for confusion and misdirection is likely to be there. I think it is just an extra page that was fixed temporarily rather a long time ago witha redirect, and has no reason to persist. Midgley 18:15, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
- Keep. This appears to be a common mistake as per this Google search. In particular, this State of Texas report makes the same mistake on page 3. As such, it's a reasonable term for people to be searching on. -- JLaTondre 23:51, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
- keep: Common mis-spelling. Perhaps a soft dab page may eventually be needed, if an article on MedAl is started some day. Ombudsman 00:10, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- Burda → Qasida Burda -- there is more than one meaning for "Burda". Search for Hubert Burda Media or Hubert Burda
- Probably should be converted into a disambiguation page. — TKD::Talk 03:45, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
- Daddy’s girl → Electra complex -- Previous AFD discussion (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daddy’s girl (2) ) led to this page becoming a redirect, however the topic it redirects to is significantly and misleadingly different from this term. Ziggurat 00:58, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
- Keep -- There is a difference in meaning here in some contexts (and not in others.) Until a reasonable article on the term is written, I think a redirect here is better than nothing. Elecktra Complex is certainly one place to learn about some meanings of the term. Xoloz 21:17, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- 15 peg → 51 Pegasi b -- This redirect was apparently created as a typo when trying to move the 51 Pegasi b article. 15 peg would presumably refer to the star 15 Pegasi, not 51 Pegasi, so this link is misleading. Chaos syndrome 01:31, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
- DELETE 132.205.45.110 19:32, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
- Delete Clear misleading mistake. Xoloz 21:18, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
March 15
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 links, so it's not a necessary condition either. See When should we delete a redirect? above for the reasons for deleting or keeping redirects.