Wikipedia talk:Redirects are costly

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Sorry, but really? If monitoring pages for possible vandalism means we need to delete pages that help users find information then we might as well delete the whole project. Redirects are vital. DiverScout (talk) 06:56, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I am not suggesting that we delete redirects that are useful. I happen to be the proud creator of quite a few redirect. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 07:22, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

This page is subject of a discussion

This page is subject of a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Policies and guidelines#Problematic essay. In my view, this page contradicts policy, as seen by the unanimous keep votes on the redirects you want deleted based on this page. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 17:57, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't like Barack obama but I do like Barack Obama

I propose to delete Barack obama and all other incorrectly capitalized words which will silently redirect to the right place anyway. Please comment at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion#Barack_obama Siuenti (씨유엔티) 22:24, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Circular

My favorite section is "if a redirect is retained it remains a burden on the Wikipedia community forever, or until it is finally deleted." We could solve that problem by deleting the rest of Wikipedia, relieving a similar burden forever. Or we could accomplish the same objective with fewer deletion discussions. Art LaPella (talk) 19:08, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Art LaPella, I cleaned up the formatting a bit, and I wonder whether you might like to take a crack at improving this page. There is a good argument for some redirects being costly or potentially harmful, but that line sounds like a joke. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:53, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

For one thing, I'm a copyeditor. I don't remember the last time I actually wrote an article.

For another, I'm not convinced by any of these reasons to delete a redirect.

Vandalism, for instance, isn't reduced by reducing the number of obscure redirects to vandalize, because that doesn't account for how a vandal is motivated. Why did the vandal choose something like foo ( disambiguation) (with an extra space) to vandalize? He found it by clicking random page, or from What Links Here. If that redirect didn't exist, he couldn't vandalize it, but he would have found and vandalized something else instead. Or he found it by Googling the word "foo". But if that redirect helped a vandal find "foo", it would also help a legitimate user in the same way. Even if he happened to type in the deleted redirect phrase and gotten a search page instead, he would have happily vandalized something on the list instead of something nobody uses (actually, he would be far more likely to vandalize the redirect's target, not the redirect itself, and vandalism is a bad reason for making that article harder to find.) It adds one item to the redirect creator's watchlist, but that's harmless; it won't bother him again if nobody ever edits it, and no editing time is lost. You could argue that as Wikipedia becomes bigger and more well-known it attracts more vandals, but it won't be more well-known unless it's more useful, and cutting Wikipedia's usefulness is a bad way to fight vandals. Art LaPella (talk) 03:16, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Your explanation sounds very rational to me, so I've removed that. A vandal is unlikely to seek out redirects, and even if no redirects existed at all, that wouldn't materially stop the vandal from finding something to vandalize. And these are even easier to catch than usual, because they get tagged and picked up by NPPers.

How else could we improve this page? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:57, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

The removed text doesn't seem very pertinent at face value, but the crux was in the footnote. One situation is the creation of POV forks by non-autoconfimed users: such users could easily do that over a redirect, and this may or may not get picked up by NPP. In these cases we tend to rely on the redirects being watched by some of the people who edit the article, so it makes sense to stick to the minimum set of established and necessary redirects, rather than create less plausible ones that are not going to be on people's watchlists and that stand some chance of disruption. – Uanfala (talk) 10:30, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

I would think the most likely person to have a redirect on his watchlist would be the redirect's creator, not target article editors. When he adds the redirect, he would have to uncheck the "Watch this page" field to avoid watchlisting it. And he would have little reason to un-watchlist it unless somebody edits it. Admittedly, that editing can be a bot edit resulting from a target article move. Art LaPella (talk) 14:27, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Uanfala, I'm pretty certain that if a new editor turns a redirect into a regular article, then it gets dumped into the New Page Patroller's queue immediately. Insertcleverphrasehere, are you able to tell us whether NPPers are likely to overlook the creation of a POV fork in a former redirect? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:40, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Pandora's box

I'm seeing increasingly many references to WP:PANDORA, a recently added section of this page, as if it were an establish policy or guideline with consensus behind it. In reality it is recently added by user:The Man in Question without any apparent discussion anywhere, and directly contradicts the long-standing practice that RfD does not work on precedent, that WP:OTHERSTUFF is not a valid argument for or against the existence of a redirect, and that the existence of one redirect does not endorse or encourage the creation of similar redirects.

I propose to remove this section entirely for these reasons. I will leave a note of this discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Redirect. Pinging also Steel1943 who expressed similar concerns on my talk page recently. Thryduulf (talk) 11:22, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

• Support removal. This page may be an essay, but the "Pandora's Box" section has been cited recently like it was a policy, which it is not. My concerns with this section are that it has been leading to what I consider the deletion of completely plausible and longstanding misspelled redirects that were almost always "keep"s in the past when they were nominated for WP:RFD, many recent examples including Roman numerals where the first numeral is capitalized, but the rest are not. In an essence, this whole section encourages deleting rather harmless redirects, and the whole concept of "WP:COSTLY" does not apply to these redirects anyways, so it does not make sense for this section to be listed here. Steel1943 (talk) 12:12, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support removal, PANDORA is written under the premise that routinely nominating certain types of title modifications for deletion will stop those types of redirects from being created. In practice, most of those redirects are created by editors who are not aware of the deletion process at all, and nominating these articles for deletion does not appear to be putting an end to this behavior in the slights. It is far more costly to continue having RfDs for these types of redirects than it is to just leave them be. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:11, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support removal. Redirects can and should be discussed on their own merits, not due to some hypothetical that WP:OTHERSTUFF may be created. If, for whatever reason, other stuff is created due to the existence of a certain redirect, those redirects should be discussed on their own merits in accordance with WP:RDELETE. -- Tavix ^(talk) 16:39, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
• I definitely agree with the opinions above. However, there is a somewhat similar point to make: even though redirects stand or fall on their own merits, they often do pattern together. Taking account of the bigger picture is important: readers who come across a certain redirect will have the expectation that another redirect of the same type will work. But I guess the best place to make this point is not this page, which is effectively a deletion supplement, but the guide for the creation of better redirects (why don't we have one yet?). – Uanfala (talk) 21:55, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support removal. While I agree that "Cl0ck" and mixed-Cyrillic-script redirects aren't helpful, "Pandora's box" doesn't really explain why redirects aren't helpful (and why similar ones shouldn't be created). As with articles, redirects are primarily there for readers who probably aren't involved in editing. Therefore, if we really want to prevent similar redirects from being created, one could argue that a good way of doing that is to avoid nominating them for deletion (and thus drawing editors' attention to them) in the first place. –Sonicwave ^talk 23:38, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose removal While the section should not be necessary, I've found editors will engage in OTHERSTUFF arguments regardless. Because most redirects are not protected, they remain vulnerable to hijack and for that reason I prefer anything that causes fewer redirects. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:32, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
• Why not keep (and improve) instead of delete? I think Pandora's box is a good argument - I use it a few times. I landed I really already don't know how, but just after using it in my previous two edits! - If you have a redirect that fits in some pattern that would also include (millions of) millions of similar redirects, you probably do not want that. Off course, that is a *opinion* of *some* editors, sure. That is why this is a essay. If editors are using an essay as if it was policy, you teach them the difference, you do not go and forbid the opinion. Instead you probably should refute it at Wikipedia:Redirects are cheap. - Nabla (talk) 16:31, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
  • @Nabla: Because it isn't just poorly worded, it is fundamentally the opposite of established consensus (of at least a decade and probably more) that redirects are judged on their own merits and is actively misleading people and has the potential to harm the encyclopaedia. Thryduulf (talk) 20:39, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
    • @Thryduulf: If it is established consensus that this is a poor argument, how come people are using it?... Also, how do you judge the merits of a redirect (or an article, or a template, or...) without thinking about the big picture, i.e. how can you judge about a redirect (or whatever) if you do not have any reference at all?

This argument is simply one of many such references. A notion that "redirects are cheep" is another, also a general concept, it does not relate to the "own merits" of any redirect. This "pandora's box" argument is not against the consensus (with which I agree) to assess the redirect on its merits, it is one of the angles in which to asses a redirect's merits. Anyway, even if it were against consensus, editors are allowed to express their opinions, in essays as is the case, even if against consensus (otherwise, how could anything ever change?), and deleting opinions just because they are minoritary is a very poor idea. - Nabla (talk) 20:37, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

• Keep - I recognise this is a stale discussion, but I think the WP:PANDORA-generated expectations created from one redirect existing is a reason at least not for creating naother redirect, even if it won't necessarily be a reason for deleting it. FOARP (talk) 10:47, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
• Keep yes redirects may up to a point be considered on their own merits but often when this is cited and argued against it consists of redirects that go to targets of the same type, see Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 January 24#Absolutely every malformed disambiguation without parentheses and Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 August 24#"Title (Disambiguation)" redirects to disambiguation pages where there is often (apart from sometimes shortly being at the title years ago) no more reason to have a redirect to a particular DAB or article than any other eg if we created London (Disambiguation)>London (disambiguation) then why not have Paris (Disambiguation)>Paris (disambiguation). Both redirects will usually have the same merits namely a "(disambiguation)" qualifier capitalized which isn't any more useful to have at one DAB than any other. Similarly some redirects are so implausible that it does make sense to just delete them to avoid precedent to create similar. With other types of redirects which as from sub topics or alternate names etc it is useful to consider them on their own merits where you may have different outcomes such as one sub topic or similar name being used by sources and one not but with DAB redirects unless there is substantial history or the DAB was linked to using the incorrect capitalization externally there is not normally any merits to consider differently. Crouch, Swale (talk) 22:51, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
• Support removal or rewrite. I don't think we should keep WP:PANDORA-- however, the alternate name for this, WP:UNHELPFUL, carries perhaps a hint of potential. I propose that we swap out the reason given as to deletion-- namely, that we should delete redirects that aren't useful to the reader, because the reader is already led to the article's location via the first or second result of the Search function. (Or something along the lines of that. I'm not adding it because I'm slightly afraid that wording it that way will hit redirects that I don't intend lol. Trying to target "Who was the first president of the United States?" without hitting "United States President".) Lunamann 🌙🌙🌙 The Moooooooniest (talk) 03:53, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

discussion

• To editor The Man in Question: Why did you add the "UNHELPFUL/PANDORA" section without discussion? This essay argues against creating redirects and your content furthers that goal, which I support, but without consensus why do you feel this makes sense? Chris Troutman (talk) 16:57, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Just a note: The Man in Question has not edited since 21 July 2019, so there's a chance this discussion may not receive input from them. Steel1943 (talk) 18:47, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
    • That would be unfortunate. I do intend to leave this discussion open at least a week before taking any action, so hopefully they will comment in the next few days. Thryduulf (talk) 08:43, 26 July 2019 (UTC)
      • @Thryduulf: At this point, I think getting a response from the section creator is not happening, given that they edited once on 31 July 2019, and haven't edited since. Steel1943 (talk) 17:28, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
        • @Steel1943: I agree. I'm not going to have any time to do anything with this until at least the early part of next week (more likely the middle). If you want to move on before then then please be my guest. Thryduulf (talk) 17:41, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
• While I do not support such a change without discussion, and would like to mention that WP:OTHERSTUFF is also not policy even if it is common practice, I believe it is important to establish when a group of unhelpful redirects can be judged and deleted on exactly the same individual merits, e.g. some of the other points in WP:COSTLY that predate this addition. I also understand that there are several specific guidelines such as WP:FORRED that can lead to a better-reasoned batch nomination of a "Pandora's box". However, Uanfala raises an important point above: that a common flaw (pattern) that would lead to the deletion of each redirect individually could mislead readers to believe that similar, flawed redirects exist. I thus am inclined to believe that a guideline discouraging that practice is needed (but not necessarily on this page or as The Man In Question writes it), also to avoid mass creation of redirects that could make searching difficult (WP:RDEL point 1). ComplexRational (talk) 22:16, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Scope of essay

Currently, this essay has two sections that describe the costs of a redirect, followed by another section that lists several classes of unneeded redirects. I don't think this latter section belongs here: it doesn't help in any way to elucidate the point of the essay. Wouldn't it make sense to move at least some of those details to Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Common outcomes? – Uanfala (talk) 15:22, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

New essay

I have started Wikipedia:Redirect, DAB entry or hatnote needed which may also be of interest for when redirects work better than search (such as specific things like proper nouns and plurals) and when they don't (such as ambiguous/generic terms) @Amakuru, Dohn joe, In ictu oculi, and Station1:. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:27, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Most redirects are unwatched?

“Most redirects have few or no watchers at all” - is there a way to know this? I thought watchlists were private. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 17:50, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Individual watchers are anonymous, but pages do keep track of how many watchers are following them. This number can be accessed by going to Pageviews or Page statistics from the View history tab of any page. It appears to be a somewhat inexact estimate: for example, this page lists "unknown" watchers, (possibly because it's a talk page and thus is added to watchlists without being directly watched?) That having been said, I think it's safe to infer that most redirects are watched only by their creator, at least until a dispute arises over the redirect to draw more attention to it. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:55, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

It doesn't show the number for pages with fewer than 30 watchers for those privacy reasons. J947 † ^edits 20:58, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

​​​I'm aware that this discussion is old, but virtually all redirects with 30 or more watchers "inherit" them from their target pages as a result of page moves. In some exceptional cases though, redirects may accrue 30 watchers on their own; three examples I can think of are Wikipedia talk:MOS, Main page and Recent deaths, which have currently 33, 40 and 128 page watchers, respectively. None of them resulted from moves. Dsuke1998AEOS (talk) 18:31, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Redirects should not be used as a "save function"

I've seen it said repeatedly at AFD that an article should be turned into a redirect in order to "save" the data in the article. Leaving aside the unrealistic idea that someone coming afresh to writing about a topic would pick up the content from a deleted article to use, rather than write an article from scratch, Wikipedia is not storage-space, nor is it a repository of links.Since the data is anyway held in undelete, a redirect is not anyway needed for this purpose.

I propose to add something along these lines to this essay. FOARP (talk) 10:55, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Capitalization errors should NOT be deleted.

For RDAB, it specifically says "The capitalization and spelling errors portion only applies if (x) is an error variation of "disambiguation")." That means that those pages should not be deleted and should be kept as a redirect, but add {{R from other capitalisation}}. Abhiramakella (talk) 19:59, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

"That means that those pages should not be deleted and should be kept as a redirect..." No, it doesn't. You have attempted a false dilemma argument, and that's not how discussions work. In fact, editors could argue that the capitalization issue is a good reason to delete, and we go by discussion consensus to determine outcomes, even if the consensus may go against established rules. Steel1943 (talk) 22:27, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

A related essay

I read this essay along with WP:CHEAP and wrote a third in response: User:Teratix/Discussions about redirects are costly. I would be interested in any comments. – Teratix ₵ 07:48, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Doubtless true. Removing RfD as we know it and moving it towards discussing categories of redirects rather than redirects themselves is a fairly obvious progression at this point, especially given how outdated the 23-year-old concept of separate redirects is becoming. J947 ‡ ^edits 06:16, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I get the merits for why such a stance exists, but just as there has never been a clean way to categorize pages on Wikipedia, there is not really a way to blanketly categorize the majority of redirects together on Wikipedia in a way that would make sense to bundle them in large group nominations. And yes, I am saying this as someone who has created multiple nominations where more than 100 redirects have been nominated at once; being able to group together redirects in such a matter happens so seldom that trying to do so with every nomination would effectively result in several "Wrong forum" or "Improper nomination" issues that I foresee it effectively allowing bad redirects to run rampant.

I guess what I'm getting at is: Trying to modify our RFD in such a manner would most likely result in only discussions that would be RFC-caliber. What I have found is that in most cases, cherry picking redirects to find a bigger issue (not the other way around, nominating what is perceived to be a big issue, and then doing smaller nominations after the big nomination essentially fails as a whole) has been more fruitful than trying to gather all the redirects together as a group, especially since RFD participants may find issues with one redirect, but not others (basically, inevitable WP:TRAINWRECKs). Steel1943 (talk) 16:53, 27 March 2024 (UTC)