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Clarification of "do not fix redirects"

Does this apply to template redirects? For example, {{Cn}} and {{Fact}} that point to {{Citation needed}}. If I'm going to already be editing a page and it happens to have a redirected template like that, I think it should be changed. Either way the section should give positive or negative affirmation if templates should follow this guideline, as right now it is unclear. –meiskam (talk•contrib•block) 20:03, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

If you want to replace {{cn}} by {{citation needed}}, I have no serious objection, although I think it's a waste of effort. The important takeaway is that you should almost never replace [[redirect]] by the piped form [[target|redirect]]. --Trovatore (talk) 20:46, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Redirects and Wikipedia:Books

Headbomb recently added the bullet below.

• Redirects found in Wikipedia books should be bypassed or removed entirely. The reason for this is that Wikipedia books are collection of articles, and thus if an article used to be standalone, then redirected to another (because of a merge, or similar reasons), it might lead to the book containing duplicated articles (for example Descent 3: Mercenary redirects to Descent 3, including Descent 3: Mercenary in the book would mean rendering the Descent 3 twice).

I have reverted the edit pending discussion here. I understand the need to avoid duplication in the Books. I'm not sure that a blanket prohibition against redirects is the best way to solve this problem, though. Any Wikipedia article can become part of one or more Wikipedia books. While a redirect could create a duplicate entry in the book, the most efficient way to resolve the duplication is to remove the redirect from the book's table of contents. In the example above, the book is defined at Book:Descent series. Removing the merged page from the table of contents removes any duplication of content.
I note by the way that the redirect in the example above still exists (though not in the Book's table of contents). When I downloaded that book, I found no duplication despite the redirect still existing in the project. Rossami (talk) 15:41, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

There's nothing to discuss really. Books should not contain redirects, they are just way too dangerous to have around. That's why bots (like User:NoomBot) will alert people that books contain redirects, so people can make sure that articles are not duplicated, or that the redirect's target is still topical. Duplicates should be removed, but duplicates are not the only danger. The target can just be plain wrong. This has been standard practice for as long as books have been around, it's just never been mentionned on this page.Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:50, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Indeed nothing to discuss: this note should be removed from this page. It is WP:Books-specific and thus should be noted there, not here. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 18:06, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

The change, as written, can be interpreted to say that no redirect can point to any page in a Wikipedia Book. That is patently not the case. Many pages in existing Wikipedia Books have inbound redirects. It does not cause duplication.
Your proposed change also explicitly says to bypass redirects. The only interpretation I can put on that clause is that they can not be used outbound on any Wikipedia page in a Book - that every outbound link must be a direct link and never a redirect. This may be the current practice but the justification offered above does not substantiate the practice. An outbound redirect creates no automatic duplication in the Book. Neither does it make any assurances about the ongoing relevance of the redirect any more or less than the ongoing relevance of any other link. Any target can become "just plain wrong" as editors rewrite the text of a page. That's not a reason to eliminate links.
Regardless, these are technical problems for the Book project. They should be resolved by the editors working on the various Books but not at the cost of a blanket prohibition on redirects which will be misunderstood and misused.
So let's go back to first principles. What, exactly, do you mean by "Books should not contain redirects"? Your example above does not illustrate the problem. Rossami (talk) 19:56, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

It means exactly what it says, Wikipedias book should not contain redirects, instead they should contain direct links to the articles. This is not a matter of being technically possible to have them, it's a matter of what should or should not be done. This concerns good practices to prevent duplication, bad targets, and clear the various maintenance backlogs associated with books (e.g. [1]). A classic example is someone creating a book such as Book:American_Carriers, which at that time contained USS Reprisal (CV-35), USS Iwo Jima (CV-46) which now both redirect to Essex class aircraft carrier, and CVN-80, which now redirects to Gerald R. Ford class aircraft carrier following merge discussions. Bots flag redirects so people know there is a good chance something is wrong with the book, and books need to be updated accordingly. Another example would be a book on female comic characters which included say Bitchy Bitch, which is now redirected to its creator Roberta Gregory, which is not what was meant to be included in the book.

Keeping these redirects in the book serve zero purpose, clutter cleanup backlogs, and will very often drastically cripple books by making them contain duplicated articles, or simply articles that were never meant to be included. This is no different than updating navigational templates to use the actual links rather than redirects, except in this case the consequences of failing to do so are much worse than having something display in bold or not. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:20, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

So trying in good faith to understand your latest examples:
Interpretation 1: You are talking about the table of contents of the book. Allowing redirects to be listed on that index page does create the duplication you talked about. Removing the redirect from the list of pages that constitute the book makes sense. If that is the case, then a) the proposed change should be changed to something more like "redirects should not be in the list of pages that define a book". That would be uncontroversial. To say that "redirects should not be in the book", though, is ambiguous since the book consists of both that index page and all the constituent pages assembled by it. If this interpetation is the case, however, the b) I agree with Czarkoff above - that is a problem to define and discuss in the Wikipedia:Book policy pages. It is unnecessary and potentially confusing here. Only the small subset of Book editors would benefit from that instruction and better Help pages exist for them.
Interpretation 2: You want to exclude all redirects from use on any page that is included in a book because of the potential that some future editor will use the Add pages withoug visiting them function and will mess up the book more than to fix it. If that is the case, then I strongly disagree. Editors can add any number of irrelevant articles if they fail to pay attention to what's actually on the other side of the link. Books, while important, remain a minority effort of Wikipedia. The many other values that redirects bring outweigh the maintenance costs to the subset of folks working on and maintaining Wikipedia books. Rossami (talk) 23:27, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Good then we agree. Hopefully you won't revert it this time. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:43, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ But I'm counting hours to do it. Your concerns, though IMHO completely valid, are just not appropriate on this page. You should post it to Help:Books or Help:Books/for experts instead. Here it is just a case study with undue weight given to it. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 00:12, 21 March 2012 (UTC) OK, hold on, Headbomb — what do you mean by "bypassed"? To a lot of people, that means "piped". Extreme justification is needed to recommend pipes. If you don't mean "piped" then we need to make that clear; if you do, then you have a much higher burden of proof. --Trovatore (talk) 00:38, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

It depends on the book. Sometimes it means removing pipes (e.g. changing :[[P. Diddy|Sean Combs]] to :[[Sean Combs]] if you want the article to be displayed as 'Sean Combs'), sometimes it's adding pipes (e.g. changing :[[P. Daddy]] to :[[Sean Combs|P. Diddy]] if you want the article to display as 'P. Diddy'), sometimes it means adding them (e.g. :[[P. Daddy]] to :[[Sean Combs|P. Diddy]]), and sometimes it's about updating the pipes (e.g. :[[The Family Jewels (Marina and the Diamonds album)|''The Family Jewels'']] to :[[The Family Jewels (album)|''The Family Jewels'']]). Or if they lead to duplication, then the duplicated article should just be removed. But books should not contain redirects (much like nav templates shouldn't contain them). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:05, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Agree on what???!!! You still haven't made clear what change you are hoping to accomplish or what scope you mean this change to apply to. Nor, by the way, have you responded to Csarkoff's concerns about fit or my and Trovatore's concerns about "bypassed". The only reason I have not already reverted again is that it would put me in violation of the three-revert rule. You have not demonstrated consensus for this change to a core policy of Wikipedia. Rossami (talk) 00:50, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

You spent the entire first half of that post agreeing that the changes made sense (the second half of which is discussing something else entirely). Everything is backed by numerous examples, diffs, and detailed explanations, black-on-white. How is anything remotely unclear? And, BTW, this page is not a 'core policy', it's an editing guideline.Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:44, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I've reverted for now as I think the current wording is unclear. I don't know much about books but taken what has been said here at face value I understand the need for it. However I only understood the current wording after reading the talk page so I think the wording needs more discussion before inclusion. When I first read the start of this I assumed that what it meant was that if an article was in a book all the redirects in that article should be bypassed and what followed did not help clarify it in my mind. It was only once I looked here on talk that I realised what was being referred to.

In my opinion the fact that someone doesn't understand something that has been added suggests that the wording needs work. Guidelines and policies should be understandable to the vast majority of wikipedia editors seeing as how they are so key to how wikipedia works. In this case two different editors (Rossami and me) didn't understand it when we read it. This is not desirable for a guideline. Although I now agree with the intent of what has been added I think a clearer form of words needs to be worked out before it's included as I feel less harm will come from not including this in the guideline for a short while than people possibly misinterpreting what has been added and so acting inappropriately, especially given that, it appears, a bot already makes book editors aware of the problem. Dpmuk (talk) 04:16, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

If the problem is the wording, then all that needs to be done is make the wording clearer, not remove the whole thing. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 04:44, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be much less confusing to follow Czarkoff's suggestion to keep the book-related specifics somewhere at Wikipedia:Books (where it doesn't seem to be mentioned at all so far)? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 05:09, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

By that logic, we should remove the advice on nav-templates because it's template-related. The point is to have the advice here because people would look for WP:NOTBROKEN, and this is an exception from the usual NOTBROKEN advice. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 05:30, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I gave my reasons for removing the whole thing - namely that I think it will result in less harm. To explain that further, if the wording you added caused people to bypass redirects in article space it could create a lot of drama as these sort of minor edits often do for no good reason. I suspect most people creating books won't look here and so will find out about the issue via bot no matter what's here. Hence I see no harm from not having any text about it here and some possible harm if we have unclear text. Hence I think the text should be clear before it's included. There's also the point that changes to guidelines and policies need consensus - see WP:PGLIFE. Although there's nothing wrong with bold changes once they have been objected to we require consensus for their insertion. All that said, if I could have come up with an alternative wording myself I would have done. I thought about it for quite some while after the removal but without much success - possibly due to my lack of experience with books. I have a preference for this going on a book specific page but can see arguments both ways so wouldn't object to it being here. Dpmuk (talk) 05:25, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

There is nothing in [2] that remotely suggests that redirects found in articles should be bypassed if the article happens to be part of a Wikipedia book. It very clearly speaks of redirects found in books, not redirects found in articles. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 05:32, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Can I suggest you try looking at it from the point of view of someone that only understands books at a very basic level (which I suspect is most editors). My point is probably best illustrated by an example. Book:Alaska_class_cruisers has in it the article Alaska class cruiser. The first sentence of this article includes a link to a redirect - Battlecruisers. This redirect is therefore included in the book (for example the pdf version has a link to [3]). Hence in my opinion this redirect is found in a Wikipedia book (even though it originates in an article) and so meets the very first sentence of the proposed addition you link to. It's clear that this isn't what you meant but it's how I and, I think, others interpreted it. No amount of argument on your part will change the fact the we incorrectly interpreted when we read it. If people can easily misinterpret it then it needs clarifying. Dpmuk (talk) 05:47, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

"Redirects found in Wikipedia books (located in either the Book: namespace or at User:USERNAME/Books/Foobar) should be bypassed." It's the very first thing that's written. Is the Battlecruisers article located in either the Book: namespace or at User:USERNAME/Books/Foobar? No. Then the advice does not apply to redirects found in Battlecruisers. It's black-on-white. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 05:51, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘No, it's not in the book space but, when I first read this, I viewed that as clarification of where books are stored (and so an attempt to help editors not familiar with books - many may never have come across them) rather than a definition of where the redirect originates. It may be "black-on-white" to you but it clearly isn't to others. Please accept that just because it's obvious to you doesn't mean it is to everyone.

Can I suggest "Redirects found in the definition of Wikipedia books"? I'm not sure definition is quite the right word but what I'm trying to get across is that what we're referring to is redirects found in the meta-data that defines a book rather than the content of the book. Dpmuk (talk) 05:57, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Please just stop this. WP:R is improper place to discuss WP:Books practices. Period. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 22:52, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

WP:R is exactly the place to discuss what happens with redirects. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:23, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, WP:R is an appropriate place to discuss what happens with redirects, but your addition isn't about that. Instead you describe the practices of editing WP:Books regarding redirects, which is only appropriate in WP:Books-related guidelines and is place waster here. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 23:37, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes it is! It's an exception to WP:NOTBROKEN, and it should be mentionned at the place where all other exceptions to WP:NOTBROKEN are mentionned. I.e., in WP:NOTBROKEN. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 00:07, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

OK, let's put it another way: where is your addition applicable outside WP:Books? — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 00:16, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

How is that remotely relevant? Books are part of Wikipedia, just like navigational templates are. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 01:02, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

For one, navigational templates occur inside articles and are frequently seen by average readers. The book index page (which is not the same as "the book") is only seen by the small minority of people who look for and work on that specific page. Rossami (talk) 01:29, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

So? They are no less part of the encyclopedia than our articles. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:16, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ In Wikipedia policies and guidelines it is normally considered inappropriate to intermix site-wide and local guidelines. Eg., the guideline on judging the notability of companies and organizations (and other notability guidelines with a narrow scope) is separated from WP:Notability. The same reason applies here: if the information is site-wide (as eg. the navigation templates), it is included here; if it is only limited to several thousands of pages in a single namespace, it just should go to the guideline with an appropriate scope. Do you now understand the difference? — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 09:55, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Protection

While you discuss this, I've protected the page to give it some stability. You're all plenty experienced enough to know not to edit war, but if I blocked you, then the discussion wouldn't happen, so take that as a warning if you like. GedUK  12:49, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

RfC: Should WP:REDIRECT contain advice related to redirects found in Wikipedia books?

Proposal: targeted anchored

I was ever confused by such terms as "targeted/untargeted redirect". Obviously, the redirect's target is the link in square brackets, so there is no untargeted redirects. This terminology was apparently introduced much after bugzilla:218 by someone lacking an attitude to select words carefully. Note that in bugzilla's discussion the people spoke about anchors. So, the distinction between redirects with and without #-fragments should be called anchored/unanchored. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 12:16, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't really care one way or the other, but since it starts off with a definition, I don't think that the existing terms are likely to generate that much confusion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:47, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Proposal for a bot to bypass redirects in rare cases that are exceptions to WP:NOTBROKEN

All interested editors are invited to comment at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/AnomieBOT 63. Thanks. Anomie⚔ 02:51, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Seeking clarification on when redirects are acceptable for existing articles

I have come across some instances of existing Wikipedia articles which have been blanked and redirected to another article (eg, a locality article) without any prior discussion, thus effectively deleting the article. I cannot find any guidelines on this page as to the current practice and what is acceptable. I can understand that a redirect is acceptable if an article has been tagged for merging and and no objections are received, but I am concerned that some editors are effectively drive-by tagging articles and then using the redirect process to bypass AfD for articles that they feel are not notable. I've also found instances of articles that have been redirected simply because of a lack of references. See the edit history of Loreto Secondary School Kilkenny, Kilkenny for instance. It's very easy to tag and redirect an article but it takes much more time to seek out reliable sources. I would be grateful for clarification on this issue, and also on the acceptable procedure for reverting redirects. Dahliarose (talk) 15:46, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

The practice you describe is entirely acceptable and routinely practiced. It has nothing to do with "deletion" as we use that term here at Wikipedia. Deletion is a specific term that means the deletion of the page and it's page history. Deletion requires special admin powers to execute and special admin powers to undo. The pagehistory is unavailable while deleted.
Removing content from a page, even to the point of blanking the entire page and turning it into a redirect, can be executed and reversed by any editor with no special powers required. It also leaves the pagehistory intact and fully visible (ensuring compliance with the attribution requirements of GFDL and CC-BY-SA). Turning a page into a redirect is not deletion. AfD is not relevant and the nomination of a page to AfD with a recommendation merely to "redirect" would be immediately closed as "snow keep" (meaning keep the pagehistory, not necessarily keep-as-is).
If you think a decision to turn an entire page into a redirect was in error, be bold and revert the action. Or if you think that decision will be controversial (and given the history you describe, this one might be), open a discussion on the Talk page and seek consensus there about whether the page can or should stand alone. Rossami (talk) 18:10, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Dahliarose. Few Wikipedia readers know how to look at a redirected article history and even fewer bother checking histories when reading articles. Why not propose a merge via discssion at WP: afd instead? Ottawahitech (talk) 22:05, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

AfD is not for merge discussions. The outcome of the discussion can be a consensus to merge, but that is not the purpose, and it could be considered an abuse of process to start an AfD with that goal in mind.

Merges and redirects can be done boldly, as long as you're willing to be reverted and then talk about it in good faith. Or, if you want to seek others' input in advance, you can start a merge discussion with the {{merge to}} and {{merge from}} templates. --Trovatore (talk) 22:59, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

I have in practice reverted redirects that I have thought were inappropriate, but I am still concerned that the practice exists and that quite lengthy articles can seemingly be redirected unnoticed, often on the whim of a rogue editor. I appreciate that the page history is preserved, but to all intents and purposes the end result is the same as deleting an article. The article is hidden from public view, doesn't show up in search engine results, and only more experienced editors who understand the system will know how to restore the article. The only difference with deleted articles is that only admins can see the hidden content and restore the article. It seems entirely contrary to one of our core policies Wikipedia:Wikipedia is free content, so I'm really wondering why we allow such a practice. Dahliarose (talk) 23:34, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

The issues are not particularly different from any other change to the article. Presumably editors that care about the article have it on their watchlists and will notice if it is redirected somewhere. It is true that the non-editing reading public is out of luck with regard to articles that no editors care about, but that issue is not specific to redirection (it's probably even worse for them if the article is subtly vandalized with misinformation, and that won't be corrected either if the article is not watched). --Trovatore (talk) 02:17, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

• Trovatore, are you suggesting that articles that are not popular at Wikipedia have no value? Ottawahitech (talk) 15:04, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

  Not at all. I am saying that if an article is not watched, then it is not possible to protect its content, whether or not that content is valuable. There is no special issue involved because the removal of content involves a redirect. --Trovatore (talk) 18:34, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

I would suggest that it's more of a problem to have unpopular articles effectively censored by allowing them to be redirected on the whim of a single editor. At least if a vandalised article is present in mainspace anyone finding the article has something to work with. It's much more difficult if the article is hidden from view. Surely there should be a policy that articles can only be redirected if there is no more than a sentence of content. I would have thought that if editors have any concerns about an existing article the recommendation should be to request a merge or to take it to AfD. Dahliarose (talk) 15:30, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Dahlia, honestly I don't know what you're talking about. Redirects are not "hidden". Changing a redirect back into an article is no more difficult than restoring content that has been removed. --Trovatore (talk) 18:34, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

I understand the content will not appear in search results. It will not be immediately obvious to a new editor that an underlying article exists beneath the redirect. This is contrary to our policy that Wikipedia should be an encyclopaedia that anyone can edit. We shouldn't be hiding existing articles away for no good reasons so that people can't see them. Dahliarose (talk) 20:02, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

They do appear in search results, if you mean Wikipedia search. If you mean Google search, perhaps not, but Google search is not a particularly useful editing tool.

Nothing is being hidden; redirects are not hidden, period. Please stop making this false assertion. --Trovatore (talk) 20:21, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

If articles aren't showing up in Google searches because they've been redirected then they are effectively hidden. People often find Wikipedia articles through Google searches. They might then be encouraged to start editing the article. They can't edit an article they can't find. Dahliarose (talk) 21:57, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

No, they are not "effectively hidden" just because they don't show up on Google. --Trovatore (talk) 01:24, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Sure, you should use WP:Proposed merges (not AFD; see the FAQ) if you (using your very best editorial judgment) expect the merge to be controversial. On the other hand, if you (also using your very best editorial judgment) believe that it's not going to be controversial, then you should WP:Just do it, and skip all the needless, time-wasting bureaucratic processes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:51, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

I realise people can just go ahead and do it and that is what I see as the problem, because this power is being abused, and there's a limit as to how many articles people can watch. Dahliarose (talk) 20:02, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Your proposal does nothing to solve that problem, though. If there is a limit to how many articles a person can watch, then that person will miss the change whether it's simply boldly executed or executed by a tag on the page first (which is all the warning that a deletion discussion provides). Nor, as Trovatore has repeatedly tried to say, is this the slightest bit different from a bold editorial decision to chop out a paragraph or overwrite the contents of a table. We trust that there are more good editors than bad and that there are a sufficient critical mass of good editors to watch the articles. It's not a perfect process but surprisingly it works. Rossami (talk) 04:11, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I've only identified a problem rather than suggesting a solution. I suggest that this guideline should be amended to encourage editors to propose a merge rather than redirecting articles that contain pictures or are of more than a certain length. Dahliarose (talk) 10:04, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Dahlia, I'm not sure that we're looking at this from the same perspective, so let me try an example:
I want to merge the article Foo to Metasyntactic variable. Foo is on your watchlist. When I boldly merge-and-redirect it, your watchlist is going to have an item that says something like:
Foo 12:00:00 . . (-6,424)‎ . . ‎WhatamIdoing (talk | contribs)‎ (←Redirected page to Metasyntactic variable)
If I propose a merge, your watchlist could say something like this:
Foo 12:00:00 . . (+24)‎ . . ‎WhatamIdoing (talk | contribs)‎
Do you really believe that the second item is easier to notice than the first? Do you really think that a user who misses the first one, with the bold red numbers and the announcement of the redirect, will somehow see the second one, in which a {{mergeto}} template is added at the top of the page? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:26, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

No we're not looking at this from the same perspective. If an article is on someone's watch list then redirects are easily spotted. If an article is not on a watch list it's a different matter altogether. I've come across a number of articles quite by chance that have been redirected quite inappropriately, and sometimes even by administrators, which has given me cause for concern. I've no idea of the extent of this practice, but there's no easy way of tracking redirects, whereas proposed merges are categorised and you can check merge lists to see if any articles have been tagged for mergers inappropriately. And of course, as previously stated, once an article has been redirected, it's much more difficult for new users who might have an interest in the subject to find the article. Dahliarose (talk) 21:09, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Watchlists are THE methodology for detecting bad changes to articles. If your point is that there is some other way that once in a while, by chance, might detect a bad change, and that this way is less likely to work if an article has been redirected, I'm sorry, but this is not a problem and there is nothing to be fixed. --Trovatore (talk) 23:07, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining, Dahlia. If the page is not on your watchlist, then you will not notice it being merged—or deleted, or gutted, or expanded, or subtly vandalized. That's a consequence of not watching a page, but it's not a unique problem for merging.

Yes, pages tagged for merging get listed in the categories (temporarily, until the merge is completed). In my experience, however, almost nobody actually looks at these categories, so the tag-and-wait cycle on most pages tends to result in nothing ever happening. That's why we have proposed merges that have been in the cats for up to four years. So far as I know, there is no centralized permanent record of pages tagged for merging. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:09, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

• WhatamIdoing, Can you please educate me (and other lurkers): what categories are you talking about? Where can one see proposed merges that have been in the categories for up to 4 years? Ottawahitech (talk) 15:35, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

  See Category:All articles to be merged also monthly cats under Category:Articles to be merged. There is presently 1 article in Category:Articles to be merged from May 2008 (four years ago). --Redrose64 (talk) 17:26, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

• Trovatore, How do you know there is nothing to be fixed? Can you provide statistics on what percentage of wiki-redirects are those that also blanked previous content? Ottawahitech (talk) 15:32, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

  There is nothing to be fixed because Dahlia's argument is explicitly about what happens when watchlists fail. But there is no provision for what happens when watchlists fail, nor does there need to be. Watchlists are the methodology for watching for bad changes to articles. Occasionally bad changes may be found some other way, and that's fine, but it doesn't enter into our considerations. If an article is not watched, it's cold dark matter. --Trovatore (talk) 20:06, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware there is no easy way of even accessing a list of redirected articles. Merges are a different problem altogether, and if someone chooses to redirect a page that has been proposed for a merge for a long time, the I don't think it's a problem. However, I've come across some of these redirects which are not being done correctly and the person doing the redirect has not made any attempt to include the subject of the article in the target page, making it very confusing for the reader. It seems to me that in these cases redirect is effectively being used to delete (ie hide) the article rather than to complete the proposed merge. Dahliarose (talk) 19:47, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Except in those situations of obvious bad faith, in my experience it is because the editor making the page into a redirect honestly believes that there is nothing worth merging into the target article. You may disagree with that assessment but it is fundamentally no different than the routine editorial decision to slash out large parts of an existing article or to omit to move in large parts of some other article. It is not "deletion" because it is easily seen (via the watchlist, etc.) and just as easily undone. I am very strongly opposed to changing that standard. I see no potential upside and a very substantial downside to the added bureaucracy that such a change would require. Rossami (talk) 22:35, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

• Rossami, relying on people to watch pages may have worked in the past, but as Wikipedia grows more articles, and less Wikipedians per article, I wonder if this approach will continue to be effective. Ottawahitech (talk)

• Dahliarose, I guess I am even more extreme in my views than you are. I do see a problem when someone deletes an existing article by blanking it and then redirecting, EVEN when such a "merge" has been proposed for a merge for a long time. The one advantage of going through a formal process such as wp:afd is that at least the person who created the article is notified formally of the proposal on their talk page, so if they are not around when the deletion takes place (not everyone is on Wikipedia every day, every week, or every month), at least they will find out about it eventally. I hope there will be even more safegards in future (such as notifying more Wikipedians who had contributed to an article and an explsnation of how to appeal deletions). Ottawahitech (talk) 14:04, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

  Excuse me for some strong language but that approach is inherently anti-wiki. It violates the core principles of WP:OWN, WP:BOLD and WP:NOTBURO to name just a few. Even at AfD, notification of the original creator of an article is only a minor courtesy (the idea of making it a requirement has been repeatedly proposed and rejected every time) - and we extend even that courtesy only because, as was said above, "deletion" of a page and its history is fundamentally different from the mere removal of content from a page. What you are proposing are not safeguards which will protect only the "good" articles but process inhibitions which will bog down the pace of innovation and improvement of all articles. It would be a dramatic step backwards from the very processes that have make Wikipedia a success. Rossami (talk) 14:21, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

• I agree: introducing bureaucratic delays that have zero effect on the outcome is anti-wiki. "Wiki" means "quick", and bureaucratic delay is anything but quick. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:09, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

AFD does not require the creator to be notified, so Ottawa's "one advantage" is non-existent. Furthermore, AFD is not for merges (please do read the very short FAQ).

Here are some pages I "speedy-merged" during the last year:

• Founder mutation (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• Adrenergic bronchodilator overdose (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• Extrinsic incubation period (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
• Purse party (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (was tagged for a merge)

I haven't checked, but I believe that in every case the material either already existed in the target article, or I moved it there. Do any of you really think that waiting for a week or having a big discussion at WP:Proposed mergers would have resulted in a materially different outcome? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:09, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

• WhatamIdoing, I am still having trouble following the discussion here. This is why: in Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia it says: “Wikipedia's licensing requires that attribution be given to the original author” – it is not clear to me how this can be accomplished when one “speedy-merges” pages? Ottawahitech (talk) 18:24, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

• You use suitable edit summaries as described at WP:MERGETEXT. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:00, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

• Thank you Redrose64, WP:MERGETEXT is another part of Wikipedia that I have not noticed before. Two questions come to mind:

- Why is there no mention of this text on the redirect page?

- Can "speedy-merges" be accomplished using this method – or will this bog down the process? Ottawahitech (talk) 15:54, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

WP:R describes redirects, not page merges. Those are described at H:M (the same doc that contains WP:MERGETEXT), where in paragraph 2, we find

Merging is a normal editing action, something any editor can do, and as such generally does not need to be proposed and processed. If you think merging something improves the encyclopedia, you can be bold and perform the merger, as described below.

This, I think, covers the situation which you refer to as a "speedy merge". --Redrose64 (talk) 17:24, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

• Rossami, (re your comment: "Excuse me for some strong…") would you be kind enough to explain why you believe my approach is anti-wiki? Ottawahitech (talk) 18:08, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
  • As I said above, because the proposal violates the core principles of WP:OWN, WP:BOLD and WP:NOTBURO among others and as WhatamIdoing notes, it's not "quick" which is the very definition of "wiki". It violates WP:OWN because the proposal assumes that there is some person (and specifically, some one person) to notify. Wikipedia contributions are submitted for everyone and are subject to immediate revision, correction, removal, etc. It violates WP:BOLD and WP:NOTBURO by adding approval layers and decision layers that inhibit the quick, iterative and self-correcting collaboration that makes Wikipedia work. Rossami (talk) 22:03, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Dahlia, there isn't a list of redirected articles, because it would be unwieldy, but Category:Wikipedia redirects includes more than a million redirects. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:33, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the link to the category. It was on the Redirect page all along but I hadn't spotted it. I've no wish to introduce more bureaucracy and a bold merge or redirect is often the best option. I'm really thinking that there ought to be something added to this guideline to the effect that editors should be encouraged to check for sources first and perhaps initiate a discussion on the article's talk page before redirecting articles of any substance. There seems to be a rash of editors who are drive-by redirecting articles. The editors don't seem to make any attempt to read the articles first. The redirect is done without merging any of the content (eg, school articles are redirected but the notable alumni are not moved to the target article). Dahliarose (talk) 22:46, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Is wp:notbroken not contradictory to page move advice?

Should the advice include a sentence specifying that WP:NOTBROKEN this does or does not apply after a page move? I don't know if this is addressed anywhere in the archives, but I think a sentence would be advisable. See Wikipedia:Move#How_to_move_a_page. ʘ alaney2k ʘ (talk) 16:10, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Moving a page#How to move a page says to fix double redirects: that is, redirects where the target is itself a redirect. Let's say that page Foo is a redirect to Bar, and then we move Bar to Baz. The page move process creates a redirect from Bar to Baz.

Users clicking on links formed as [[Bar]] will be taken to Baz, so the link still works and WP:NOTBROKEN applies. However, any links formed as [[Foo]] will no longer work, therefore are broken, and so WP:NOTBROKEN does not apply. This is a double redirect, so the single page Foo must be amended to point to Baz instead of Bar. Articles containing the link [[Foo]] can be left alone - and generally should be, unless there are good reasons to amend (such as Foo being a misspelling of Baz). --Redrose64 (talk) 16:26, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Can you explain your comment in regards to point 5?

5. In the section of that page marked filters, click on the button labeled "Hide links". This will result in the page only showing redirects to the prior name. Open each of the redirect pages (best to do so in new tabs), click edit this page for each one, and change their target to the name of the page to which you have moved the page. Though this is an important cleanup step, if you miss some, they will normally be fixed by a bot shortly afterwards.

This is what I find contradictory, or at least confusing to the layman. ʘ alaney2k ʘ (talk) 16:42, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I think its indicating to open each of the redirects and change their target in that sentence. -DJSasso (talk) 16:59, 23 May 2012 (UTC)