Wikipedia:Talk page redirects

This is a report of redirects in the Talk: namespace that appear to be incorrect. This report was generated from the database dump of March 6, 2009. You can help clean up these redirects by following the suggestions below. Pick a subpage to work on, and as you fix the problems, please remove the corrected entries from that subpage.

Article page is not a redirect

For example, [[Talk:Article-1]] is a redirect to [[Talk:Article-2]], but [[Article-1]] is not a redirect. In practice, there appear to be a few different ways this can happen, and the solution differs depending on the cause.

1. [[Article-2]] exists and is about a distinct subject from [[Article-1]]. This usually occurs when an editor moved [[Article-1]] to [[Article-2]] in order to make room for a new article at the previous title on a different (but usually somewhat related) subject. Solution: Delete [[Talk:Article-1]]; if you are not an admin, you can tag it with {{db-g6|wording=it is a redirect to the talk page of a different article}}.
2. [[Article-2]] exists but is about essentially the same subject as [[Article-1]]; i.e., a content fork. Solution: merge the two articles at the title [[Article-1]] (and then move both the article and the talk page to another title if desirable).
3. [[Article-2]] is a redirect to [[Article-1]] and has no history other than redirects. At some time in the past, [[Article-1]] was moved or redirected to [[Article-2]]. An editor later moved [[Article-2]] to [[Article-1]] over the existing redirect using the Move function, but either was unable or neglected to move the talk page at the same time. Solution: Just move [[Talk:Article-2]] to [[Talk:Article-1]]; this can be done by any auto-confirmed user if [[Talk:Article-1]] has never been edited, but will require an administrator if it has been edited. In the latter case, non-admins can tag [[Talk:Article-1]] with {{db-move|Talk:Article-2}}.
4. [[Article-2]] is a redirect to [[Article-1]], but has history showing that earlier versions were not redirects. This can have two causes:
   1. At some time in the past, [[Article-1]] was moved or redirected to [[Article-2]]. An editor later tried to reverse this by a "cut-and-paste move"; that is, taking the text out of [[Article-2]], replacing it with a redirect and pasting the same (or somewhat edited) text into the body of [[Article-1]]. Solution: this will require a history merge, which can only be done by an administrator. If you are not an admin, please tag [[Article-1]] with {{histmerge}}.
   2. Or, the text in [[Article-2]] was at some point merged into the article at [[Article-1]], leaving behind a redirect to preserve the edit history. Solution: move [[Talk:Article-2]] to [[Talk:Article-1]] as in case 3, above.
5. Cases not falling within the previous 4 categories are rare, but if you come across one, it is important to review the edit histories of both articles carefully to determine what to do with the redirected talk page.

Subpages

• 1—done
• 2—done
• 3—done
• 4—done
• 5—done
• 6—done
• 7—done
• 8—done
• 9—done
• 10—done
• 11—done
• 12—done
• 13—done
• 14—done
• 15—done
• 16—done
• 17—done

Article page is a redirect to a different title

For example, [[Talk:Title-1]] is a redirect to [[Talk:Title-2]], but [[Title-1]] is a redirect to [[Title-3]]. In this case, [[Talk:Title-3]] does not exist (if it did, a bot would have retargeted the redirect automatically). These cases generally fall into the following categories:

1. [[Title-2]] is a redirect to [[Title-3]], and has no edit history other than redirects. Solution: Move [[Talk:Title-2]] to [[Talk:Title-3]] (and silently ask yourself why this wasn't done before). Then either fix the resulting double-redirect of [[Talk:Title-1]], or let a bot do it.
2. [[Title-2]] is a redirect to [[Title-3]], but the edit history shows earlier versions that were not redirects. This can be because:
   1. Two separate articles were text-merged; solution: move [[Talk:Title-2]] to [[Talk:Title-3]]
   2. One article was cut-and-pasted from the old title to the new one. Solution: Needs a history merge; see case 4(2) in the previous section. After that is done, you can move [[Talk:Title-2]] as in the previous case.
3. [[Title-2]] is an article on a distinct topic from [[Title-3]]. Solution: Delete [[Talk:Title-1]] as it serves no purpose; if you are not an admin, tag it with {{db-g6|wording=it is a redirect to the talk page of a different article}}.
4. [[Title-2]] is an article on essentially the same topic as [[Title-3]]; i.e., a content fork. Solution: merge the articles as in case 2 in the previous section, then make sure [[Talk:Title-1]] redirects to the talk page of the merged article.
5. Again, any other situation should be very rare. If you find something that does not fit the above categories, please check the edit histories of all pages carefully before doing anything.

Subpages

• 1 — done
• 2 — done
• 3 — done
• 4 — done
• 5 — done