YPPedia:Redirect

For general info on redirects in MediaWiki, see Wikipedia's Help on Redirects — part of the MediaWiki User's Guide. This article discusses policy on the use and abuse of redirects on YPPedia, and is taken largely from Wikipedia's policy. Other MediaWiki projects may have different approaches.

How to make a redirect

To redirect a page (1) to a different page (2), enter on the top of page 1:

#REDIRECT [[NAME OF PAGE 2]]

For example, to redirect the Eieio Island page to the Eieio Island (Ice) page, edit the Eieio Island page and enter:

#REDIRECT [[Eieio Island (Ice)]]

It's possible to redirect a page to a section of an article, for example:

#REDIRECT [[Eieio Island (Ice)#History]]

Any text after the redirect will not be visible unless someone edits the page.

More examples are included below:

What do we use redirects for?

Reason	Usage notes, and text that will be shown	Tag	Category to find articles so tagged
Abbreviations	This is a redirect from a title with an abbreviation. For more information, follow the category link. PoE redirects to Pieces of Eight	{{R from abbreviation}} (Usage)	Category:Redirects from abbreviation
Misspellings	This is a redirect from a misspelling or typographical error. Pages using this link should be updated to link directly to the page this link redirects to. For more information, follow the category link. Dubloon redirects to Doubloon	{{R from misspelling}} (Usage)	Category:Redirects from misspellings
Other spellings, other punctuation	This is a redirect from a title with a different spelling. Pages using this link should be updated to link directly to the page this link redirects to. For more information, follow the category link. colonisation redirects to colonization labour redirects to labor	{{R from alternate spelling}} (Usage)	Category:Redirects from alternate spellings
Other capitalizations, for use in links	This is a redirect from a title with another method of capitalization. It leads to the title in accordance with the YPPedia naming conventions for capitalization, and can help writing. Fleet Officer redirects to Fleet officer	{{R for alternate capitalization}} (Usage)	Category:Redirects for alternative capitalization
Other capitalizations, to ensure that "Go" to a mixed-capitalization article title is case-insensitive	This is a redirect from a title with another method of capitalization. It leads to the title in accordance with the YPPedia naming conventions for capitalization, and can help writing. Adding a redirect for mixed-capitalization article titles (e.g., Isle of Kent) allows "Go" to these articles to be case-insensitive. For example, without the redirect Isle of kent a "Go" for "Isle Of kent" or any capitalisation other than exactly 'Isle of Kent' would not find the article Isle of Kent. Why: Articles whose titles contain mixed-capitalization words (not all initial caps, or not all lower case except the first word) are found via "Go" only by an exact case match. (Articles, including redirects, whose titles are either all initial caps or only first word capitalised are found via "Go" using a case-insensitive match.) Note: "Go" related redirects are needed only if the article title has more than two words and words following the first have different capitalizations. They are not needed, for example, for proper names which are all initial caps. Examples: Redirect Infierno De Los Diablos to Infierno De los Diablos is needed because the Go search is case-sensitive for mixed-caps titles. Adding this redirect allows the article to be found when a user enters "infierno de los diablos" or "infierno de los Diablos" as a Go search. No redirect to Crimson Tide is needed because the "Go" command is case-insensitive for an article whose title is all initial caps. Any capitalisation (e.g. "criMson tiDe") entered as a "Go" will find the article.	{{R for alternate capitalization}} (Usage)	Category:Redirects for alternative capitalization
Other names, pseudonyms, nicknames, and synonyms	This is a redirect from a title that is an alternative name, a pseudonym, a nickname or a synonym. It is also used for redirects from a pirate's alt to the main pirate. It leads to the title in accordance with the naming conventions for common names and can help writing. For more information, follow the category link. Bot redirects to Non-player pirate	{{R from alternate name}} (Usage)	Category:Redirects from alternate names
Plurals, tenses, etc	This is a redirect from a plural word to the singular equivalent. For more information follow the category link. taxes redirects to tax, etc. Note that [[tax]]es shows up as taxes, so it is not usually necessary to redirect plurals	{{R from plural}} (Usage)	Category:Redirects from plurals
Related words	This is a redirect from a related word. Redirects from related words are not properly redirects from alternate spellings of the same word. But at the same time, they are also different from redirects from a subtopic, since the related word is unlikely to warrant a full subtopic in the target page. For more information follow the category link. Map redirects to Chart	{{R from related word}} (Usage)	Category:Redirects from related words
Sub-topics or closely related topics that should be explained within the text	This is a redirect from a title for a topic more detailed than the topic of the page this redirects to. Eventually if the target page becomes too big, this redirect may be replaced with an article carved out of the target page. For more information follow the category link. Bid ticket redirects to Market bidding	{{R with possibilities}} (Usage)	Category:Redirects with possibilities
Facilitate disambiguation	This is a redirect to a disambiguation page. This redirect is pointed to by links that should always point to the disambiguation page rather than be disambiguated. For more information follow the category link. America redirects to America (disambiguation)	{{R to disambiguation page}} (Usage)	Category:Redirects to disambiguation pages
To redirect from a shortcut	This is a redirect from a shortcut. Shortcuts are reserved for YPPedia project reference pages (YPPedia: namespace) only. For more information follow the category link. Redirect redirects to YPPedia:Redirect	{{R from shortcut}} (Usage)	Category:Redirects from shortcut

• Avoiding broken links (see below)

• Minor but notable topics

Sub-topic redirects are often temporary, eventually being replaced by fully fledged articles on the sub-topic in question. Be conservative when creating sub-topic redirects — they can sometimes be counter-productive, because they disguise the absence of a proper article from editors. Sub-topic redirects should only be used where the main article has a section on the sub-topic. For example, on Wikipedia, denial of service has a section on distributed denial of service. Sub-topics should be boldfaced on their first appearance in the section, to indicate that they are in fact alternate titles or sub-titles.

In accordance with wikipedia:naming conventions (precision) it's best to have an article at a well-defined, unambiguous term, with redirects from looser colloquial terms, rather than vice versa.

See also: Redirect template message list

Renamings and merges

We try to avoid broken links, because they annoy visitors. Therefore, if we change the layout of some section of YPPedia, or we merge two duplicate articles, we always leave redirects in the old location to point to the new location. Search engines and visitors will probably have linked to that page at that url. If the page is deleted, potential new visitors from search engines will be greeted with an edit window. The same is true for anyone who previously bookmarked that page, and so on.

On a small scale, this applies to cases where we had duplicate articles on some subject, or lots of twisty little stubs on different aspects of the same overall subject.

When should we delete a redirect?

To propose the deletion of a redirect, write in the article's talk page, and add a proposed deletion template if you feel it's warranted. See the deletion policy for details on how to nominate pages for deletion. Please also see this page on Wikipedia for reasons not to delete a redirect.

This isn't necessary if you just want to replace a redirect with an article, or change where it points: see How do I change a redirect? on Wikipedia for instructions on how to do this. If you want to swap a redirect and an article, but are not able to move the article to the location of the redirect please ask on the article's talk page to request help from an admin in doing that.

What needs to be done on pages that are targets of redirects?

We follow the "principle of least astonishment" — after following a redirect, the readers's first question is likely to be: "hang on ... I wanted to read about this. Why has the link taken me to that?". Make it clear to the reader that they have arrived in the right place.

Normally, we try to make sure that all "inbound redirects" are mentioned in the first couple of paragraphs of the article. For example:

• Longships were boats used by the Vikings...
  • longship, redirect from viking ship
• Edvard Munch (1863–1944) was ... The broadest collection of his works is at on display at the Munch Museum at...
  • Edvard Munch, redirect from Munch Museum

Don't cause a secondary redirect. They don't work like a primary redirect; same with tertiary redirects.

Self-links, duplicate links

Avoid self-links, including self-links through redirects ("loop links"). Also, avoid having two links that go to the same place. These can confuse readers, and cause them to unnecessarily load the same page twice.