Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Anthony (talk | contribs) at 21:48, 7 February 2004. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Sometimes, we want to delete redirects. Hence this page.

Other Votes for deletion (VfD) pages: copyright violations -- foreign language -- images -- personal subpages -- lists and categories -- votes for deletion

Deletion guidelines for administrators -- deletion log -- archived delete debates -- undeletion -- blankpages -- shortpages -- move to Wiktionary -- Bad jokes -- pages needing attention -- m:deletionism -- m:deletion management redesign -- Wikipedia:Cleanup

List articles to be deleted in this format:

When should we delete a redirect?

To delete a redirect without replacing it with a new article, list it here. This isn't necessary if you just want to replace a redirect with an article: see meta:redirect for instructions on how to do this.

You might want to delete a redirect if one or more of the following conditions is met:

  1. The redirect page makes it unreasonably difficult for users to locate similarly named articles via the search engine. (see meta:searches and redirects for proposals to lessen this impact)
  2. The redirect might cause confusion. For example, "Charles C. Boyer" used to redirect to "Daniel C. Boyer", because Daniel was accidentally called Charles on one external web page. However, this caused confusion with the article on Charles Boyer, so it was deleted.
  3. The redirect is offensive, such as "Joe Bloggs is a Loser" to "Joe Bloggs", unless "Joe Bloggs is a Loser" is a slogan being discussed in the article.
  4. The redirect makes no sense, such as [[Pink elephants painting daisies]] to love

However, avoid deleting such redirects if:

  1. They have a potentially useful page history. If the redirect was created by renaming a page with that name, and the page history just mentions the renaming, and for one of the reasons above you want to delete the page, copy the page history to the Talk page of the article it redirects to. The act of renaming is useful page history, and even more so if there has been discussion on the page name.
  2. They would aid accidental linking and make the creation of duplicate articles less likely
  3. They aid searches on certain terms.
  4. 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 a liar, but because you browse Wikipedia in different ways.

For example, redirecting Dubya to George W. Bush might be considered offensive, but the redirect aids accidental linking, makes the creation of duplicate articles less likely, and is useful to some people, so it should not be deleted.

Redirects to be deleted

People voting here may also be interested in the discussion on the policy regarding the deletion of offensive redirects.




January 23


January 26

  • (From vfd) INFOrm -- Nearly no content apart from a link to a webpage that also contains no content. Also poses ambiguity issues with Inform. Only reachable if capitalized correctly -- i.e., oddly. 1/23/04, 9:28 AM EST. -- Adam Conover.
    • Keep. If we have a list of newspapers, we can merge it. Optim 00:54, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)
    • Keep. Agree with Optim. (i.e. keep and merge, not keep this page) Anjouli 05:35, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC) ⊙
      • The link to the external webpage could easily be merged into the list of newsletters on Libertarian socialism, but I believe that the page itself should still be deleted because of ambiguity with Inform. Adam Conover
    • Delete. Content free. Tempshill 01:34, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)
    • I merged the info in Libertarian socialism. The link now does not point to INFOrm but to the external web site. The info copied-pasted from INFOrm. Ambiguity is not a reason for deletion. Ambiguity is a reason for merge or addition of disambiguation messages. I think the merge I performed was right action, but if somebody has objections feel free to revert and explain us why this needs to be a separate article when the info fits very well in Libertarian socialism. Optim 11:13, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)
      • In case you agree INFOrm does not need to be a separate article, it should be kept as a redirect pointing to Libertarian socialism. Of course if this journal is important and somebody adds more info we can turn it into a separate article again. Optim 11:18, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)
      • Optim, doesn't the redirect to "libertarian socialism" violate the principle of least astonishment? Also, here are two of the guidelines from Wikipedia:Redirect about when it is appropriate to delete a redirect:
        1. The redirect page makes it unreasonably difficult for users to locate similarly named articles via the search engine. (see meta:searches and redirects for proposals to lessen this impact)
        2. The redirect might cause confusion. For example, "Charles C. Boyer" used to redirect to "Daniel C. Boyer", because Daniel was accidentally called Charles on one external web page. However, this caused confusion with the article on Charles Boyer, so it was deleted.
      • I think that in this case, the redirect at INFOrm causes a similar confusion with the page Inform. Finally, there are now no article pages that link to this article. Thus I still maintain that the redirect should be deleted. If a new article is created, it should probably be called "INFOrm newsletter". Adam Conover 1/24/04 2:19 PM EST
        • i don know, do whatever you think it's better for the reader. Optim 17:51, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
        • And as I deleted the reference to INFOrm in the Libertarian Socialism article (the INFOrm website has no content) a while ago the redirect will be very confusing. I say delete. -- Ams80 10:46, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)
          • May I ask you to restore the content you deleted, please? It doesn't matter whether the website has content or not. The newsletter seems to exist. Optim 11:44, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)
            • In the same manner you should delete Mikis Theodorakis (don't do it). lack of online info is not a reason for deletion. The readers come here to learn things, and Wikipedia is not a mirror of the Internet. Optim 11:47, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)
              • No content is (1) reason not to link to the Website (2) evidence of the newsletter being either moribund or a never significant, both of which should be countered with non-Web evidence to the contrary, more specific than "seems to exist". --Jerzy 14:18, 2004 Feb 1 (UTC)
            • Hi Optim, I have no intention of re-creating the link (for the following reasons) but if you believe it should be there then please put it back, I won't re-remove it. The reason I removed the link to the website is that (in my opinion) it is a waste of people's time, if Wikipedia links to an outside source we should be (again in my opinion) saying 'we have told you all we know about (e.g.) Libertarian Socialism, here are some other sites which you may find useful/be able to gather more info from'. Personally if I read an article on Wikipedia and then followed an external link to what is effectively a dead link I would be a bit frustrated, why would someone add a link which is of no use? I'm not in a position to say whether INFOrm is worthy of being mentioned (I expect there are probably hundreds of anarchist newsletters/publications, is INFOrm really above the general standard and thus worthy of note?) so perhaps my complete removal of mention to it was over-zealous, I guess had the mention just been of INFOrm's existence rather than linking to the website then I mightn't have removed it. I should perhaps add that I agree that a lack of web presence is no reason for not including something, I myself have edited articles on ex-Masters of Trinity College, Cambridge, information on whom is barely available online. I wasn't removing the link because I couldn't find information online about INFOrm and thus thought it irrelevant, but because that particular page is useless. Anyway, I leave the decision to you/others, have a good day. -- Ams80 16:00, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)
            • Hi thanks for answering. After googling I found this link which refers to INFOrm. So it exists. Now, I have really no idea whether it is famous or not, and I am a bit undecided over whether we should list all magazines/newsletters in the wiki. I think a separate INFOrm article is not needed, but it doesn't harm to have its name somewhere. We have so many lists, including lists of prime numbers, cartoon characters and companies or minor local television channels. So I think it doesn't harm to collect all publications of a country or of a specific subject and list them as (for example) List of anarchist newsletters, List of Swedish magazines etc. Do we have any Wikipedians from Sweden here to tell us whether this newsletter is famous in Sweden? Optim 16:28, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)
              • I've struck thru, above, the patently absurd assertion, So it exists. Here is the evidence: (1) Web site dead (2) No evidence of current existence. (3) Most postive evidence about is that someone made reference to it, judging from the URL, 3.5 years ago. Prima facie conclusion: we are researching the last ripple of some overambitious project that may belong to one crackpot who couldn't get anyone to help out. How did this get into the article in the first place? Swedes who've heard of it, specify what and when, plz. --Jerzy 04:44, 2004 Feb 2 (UTC)

January 31

  • Odidience plant - was redirect to Arrowroot but appears to be typo for "Obedience plant". Only google hits are for wikipedia and its derivatives. WormRunner 06:17, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)
  • UN Security Council Resolution 721 - appears to be the text of the resolution. Bmills 12:43, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)
    • Transfer to sourceberg. Secretlondon 19:34, Jan 29, 2004 (UTC)
    • Keep the redirect to UN Security Council Resolutions or something likeThe Fellowship of the Troll 18:53, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
    • Redirected. If anyone wants the source text for Wikisource, it's in the page history. Angela. 01:35, Feb 1, 2004 (UTC)
    • Delete redirect; I dont see why we shouldn't have an article on this resolution, while we may have them for the listed resolutions this redirects to. --Jiang 02:07, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

February 2

February 4

  • What caused the American Civil War? -> Origins of the American Civil War - question is wrong form for Wikipedia. Speedy deletion? Listing here. Fuzheado 05:48, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • seems to be doing no harm. leave it. -Anthropos 05:52, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • Anon is creating a lot of redirects to that page. Should we suggest that he work elsewhere? Pakaran. 05:59, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • Presumably, he was inspired by my query at Wikipedia talk:Redirects#Redirects phrased as questions. I would say let this one stand for a week or two and see if it significantly impacts google/ask jeeves ratings. Tuf-Kat 06:11, Feb 4, 2004 (UTC)
      • No Wikipedia article exists in the top 100 google hits for What caused the American Civil War (no quotes) on either google or askjeeves. I'll try again in a week and see what happened.

February 5

  • GULag -> Gulag - Why do we need this screwed up capitalization as a redirect? - Texture 04:26, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • Because Glavnoye Upravleniye Lagerey is often written in that way. -- Nico 05:06, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)
      • I am impressed and contrite. I learned something today. (Never occurred to me that it was an acronym instead of a name...) - Texture 15:27, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)
  • Dolly Llama -> Dalai Lama - irreverent redirect by an anon. Fuzheado 02:55, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • Delete. Silly and potentially offensive. RickK 03:14, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • Keep. Seems like a legitimate mispelling of Dalai Lama. Maximus Rex 03:27, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • Delete. --Wik 03:33, Feb 6, 2004 (UTC)
    • Delete. Bmills 10:39, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • Delete. Doesn't seem like a legitimate misspelling to me. --Delirium 10:47, Feb 6, 2004 (UTC)
    • Keep. Seems like a legitimate misspelling to me. Anthony DiPierro 17:05, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)
  • Asperger's syndrome -> Asperger's disorder. These need to be swapped, so the primary article is "Asperger's syndrome" with "Asperger's disorder" as a redirect to it. I tried the three-way move but it would not work. -- Amillar 18:58, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • Done

February 7

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