Guild Wars Wiki talk:Formatting/Redirects

Draft

I think it would be useful to start tagging and categorising redirects. Any thoughts? Btw, what's the best way to search for redirect pages? -- ab.er.rant 23:49, 15 May 2007 (EDT)

See: Special:Listredirects

Also, I added a comment at Category talk:Redirects for convenience. To me, that category seems poorly named, and redundant to another already existing category. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 00:00, 16 May 2007 (EDT)

Yea, I just noticed Category:Shortcut redirects and was planning to actually change the Category:Redirects for convenience to Category:Redirects from shortcuts. Why the more unwieldly and longer name? It's less ambiguous. Are we redirecting to shortcuts or we redirecting from shortcuts? Does it matter? Maybe not for shortcuts, since it's obvious. But what about an abbreviation? Wouldn't Category:Redirects from abbreviation be more informative than Category:Abbreviation redirects? What if there's a term where the longer name actually redirects to the shorter name? Maybe because the abbreviation was the official term instead?

I'm fine with switching them around if there's a general agreement on that. I just find names like Category:Alternate spelling redirects and Category:Names with punctuation redirects to be equally unwieldy, but more ambiguous. -- ab.er.rant 01:32, 17 May 2007 (EDT)

If I had to rate my preference, I would say 1. "Shortcut redirects", 2. "Redirects from shortcuts", and a very distant 3rd would be "Redirects for convenience". --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 10:42, 17 May 2007 (EDT)

So... "Capitalisation redirects", "Plural redirects", "Singular redirects", "Names without punctuation redirects", "Short name redirects", "Abbreviation redirects", "Shortcut redirects", "Common misspelling redirects", and "Alternate spelling redirects" in place of the ones I suggested? -- ab.er.rant 04:18, 22 May 2007 (EDT)

We should not be encouraging people to fix redirects ever. I've removed the text from the templates. Please see this article on Wikipedia. To quote it directly:

Some editors have the mistaken impression that fixing redirected links improves the capacity of the Wikipedia servers. Because editing a page uses much more resources than following a redirect, the opposite is true.

There is also some more information on Lupin's navigation script article. LordBiro 09:36, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I understand your point. You're saying that we shouldn't specifically encourage readers to edit pages only to fix a redirect. I see. So if I see "Asassin", and if that's the only change I see that needs to be changed, it's preferably that I shouldn't even bother? -- ab.er.rant 09:45, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

That's what I was trying to say, but "Asassin" is a bad example really, because it's a spelling mistake and it should be fixed even if it wasn't a link, i.e. "Asassin". But say someone links to Brother Mhenlo instead of Mhenlo. This is perfectly acceptable, and in fact needn't be altered ever, even though Brother Mhenlo is not the correct article name. Editing the link to point to the real article would just cost resources with no real benefit. 09:56, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Plurals to Single

Why do we have a policy that aloows redirecting plurals to singular nouns? Do we realize how many nouns there are in the game? --Karlos 01:01, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

We have a policy on redirects? I thought the last one was rejected? Also, what's wrong with redirecting from plurals to singular? -- ab.er.rant 08:48, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge, the only mention in policy is at Guild_Wars_Wiki:Article_retention#Redirects. The article here is just a formatting guideline.

As to plurals - why not? It makes life a lot easier for anyone using the search box to automatically land at the right article. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 15:22, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

There is no policy regulating redirects. You can make a redirect whenever you feel it would be useful. Plurals to singular is allowed. Singular to plural is allowed, although article naming guidelines encourage singular article names.

This article does not say that we need one redirect for every noun, but the fact is that redirecting plurals to singular saves resources, both processing power and bandwidth. For example, try searching for "chitin fragments". If a redirect from Chitin fragments to Chitin Fragment existed we would save ourselves around 40 select queries and 4k of bandwidth for that search. LordBiro 15:28, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

"Common"?

What do we consider "common misspelling" versus "uncommon misspelling"? Obviously, there's a line somewhere, but it can't be too broad or we could get 20+ directs for a single article just out of that. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 02:17, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

There is absolutely no harm in having 20+ redirects to one article. In fact it's very beneficial. Redirecting Brother Mhenlo, Brother Mehnlo, Brother Menlo, Mehnlo, Menlo etc. to Mhenlo is perfectly acceptable.

Redirecting is not acceptable when there is some doubt as to what the original article is really about. That monk henchman could be about a number of monk henchmen, and not Mhenlo. In this instance a redirect probably wouldn't be suitable, unless there was an article specifically about monk henchmen, which I don't think we have.

To answer your question, I would say that in almost every instance, redirecting a misspelling is fine, and I think the "uncommon" misspelling you are talking about are those words that are so badly misspelled that they are unintelligible or ambiguous. LordBiro 08:43, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

The "20+" was somewhat arbitrary, I was just trying to illustrate the point that theoretically anything is a misspelling of anything else - so essentially we're drawing the line at ambiguity. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 16:50, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

In my opinion, yes :) LordBiro 16:51, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Fine by me, just prefer to have something hard to go on so we're all on the same page. ;) (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 16:52, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the "common" was there from a long time ago so I just retained it. From my point of view, the "common" discourages adding redirects "uncommon" misspelling, like the Mhenlo examples above. But if no one has objections regarding "uncommon misspelling (which means anything goes, as long as it kinda resembles the original word), then we can remove the "common" part. -- ab.er.rant 03:34, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Finalize Draft

This has been sitting around for a bit and it seems like something that would be helpful to get into place, given that there are so many redirects being created. So far I haven't seen any major objections or needed changes - opinions on finalizing this? (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 16:57, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

What's meant by "and links to some of them should actually be fixed"? LordBiro 18:11, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure as I didn't write the text, but from what I see it appears to be referring to other pages within the wiki that link to certain types of redirects, such as those of misspellings - the original linking page should be updated to link to the proper article title, just like any other misspelling would be corrected. Basically, redirects for typos/misspellings shouldn't be linked to from pages, they should only be there for user convenience and temporary functionality until page typos are corrected. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 19:22, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

If this is the intended meaning (as I, too, interpreted it) then it does not belong here. If there is a spelling mistake on an article then it's up to that article to fix the error, and it has nothing to do with redirects. For other purposes, linking to a redirect is perfectly acceptable, and in fact the SQL UPDATE required to amend a link to a redirect is thousands of times more expensive than just leaving the link to the redirect in place. LordBiro 19:43, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, when you pointed it out the phrase seemed a little out of place to me as well. I'm going to remove it, if anyone else including the original author of the text has an opinion, go ahead and mention it here. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 19:45, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

In the case of misspellings, though, perhaps it would be useful to add a note in Category:Redirects from common misspellings that it can be a quick way to find some of the pages needing spelling corrections? For the wikignomes out there. ;) (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 19:51, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I might have worded it rather badly then. Aiiane was correct in her interpretation. I was just mentioning that pages that link to certain types of redirects should be fixed. I wasn't implying that the redirect itself be removed or modified. I've actually repeated that information on the redirect templates, so I guess it's fine to remove it. -- ab.er.rant 03:37, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

{{shortcut}} category vs. {{R for convenience}}?

I noticed that we've used the Shortcut redirects category rather extensively, but the "Redirects for convenience" category would fit better with the others laid out here. Thoughts? (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 17:15, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

History update ;) Category:Shortcut redirects was one of two redirect categories first created, and then this article was written. The original contributor then seems to have stopped contributing and down the line, this redirect article became a Help article instead. I then re-extracted it out of the Help article and moved it back here. So the rest of the redirect categories are just proposals. As you can see in the first section above, the naming for these categories and templates are still debatable. -- ab.er.rant 03:40, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I was aware these were proposals, but they also seemed good ones. I was just proposing that the shortcut redirects category might potentially be changed to redirects for convenience (and that template updated) if this were implemented as proposed. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 03:46, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see. As you can see above, Barek prefers "Category:Shortcut redirects". So this was kinda put aside until more responses came in. I was waiting for the free time to start applying some of them to get ppl who watch Recentchanges to take notice. -- ab.er.rant 03:49, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

"R for convenience" is confusing, I had to open it to figure out what "for convenience" was supposed to be. --Dirigible 11:48, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Yup. Let me repeat what I typed above:

"So... "Capitalisation redirects", "Plural redirects", "Singular redirects", "Names without punctuation redirects", "Short name redirects", "Abbreviation redirects", "Shortcut redirects", "Common misspelling redirects", and "Alternate spelling redirects" in place of the ones I suggested?"

The above are suggested category names. I suppose we could use the singular version as template names. I didn't want to move the templates around and tagging deletes until this has been confirmed. -- ab.er.rant 14:35, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

No comments on the names at all? I might get started on moving the templates around if there are no serious objections. -- ab.er.rant 09:12, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

My 2 cents - it seems that "Capitalization redirects" and "Abbreviation redirects" are going to need their own "Common misspelling redirects". I like the idea of being specific as possible in the category names, but I know I, for one, will have to look them up constantly. :P I'm a fan of as few (relevant) words as possible. 'Spelling redirects,' 'Punctuation redirects,' etc. - Thulsey - talk 05:30, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Your sentence it seems that "Capitalization redirects" and "Abbreviation redirects" are going to need their own "Common misspelling redirects", I'm assuming that you mean ppl would spell the name of the template itself incorrectly? Yes, that is entirely possible and yes, it's possible to create redirects for them as well should they become commonplace.

As for as few words as possible, I agree. But I'm also of the opinion that it should be meaningful. "Spelling redirects" is broad enough to encompass common misspelling, variant spelling, any incorrect spelling, and even redirects from correct to incorrect. "Punctuation redirects" seems to imply that it's redirecting punctuation to or from other articles, doesn't it? Which is why I started off with longer names. But I'm fine if more people voice out for shorter more concise names, but the names themselves haven't really generated much interest. But you seem to the prefer the "redirects" word as a suffix, so I'll concur. -- ab.er.rant 05:39, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, i was really looking forward to creating the redirect "V for Vendetta" to "R for Convenience" but had to draw the line. :P I guess the whole problem with something like 'spelling' is that... well, it ultimately boils down to spelling. If it's incorrectly spelled (as in, speled badlly and not a commmonn misspeling) then a return of 'not found' should be ok. I'm going to have to agree with you about punctuation, though. - Thulsey - talk 05:46, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Accepted redirects

The latest edit changed it to something along the lines of "these are some of the possible types of allowed redirects". I would like some discussion on this. Is there a particular reason why we shouldn't just say "these are the allowed redirects". (in the same vein, I'd like to propose a change to Guild Wars Wiki:Article retention where the redirect section there refers to this policy. By saying "some", then it implies there are other acceptable redirects. If there are more, why not just include them here as accepted? -- ab.er.rant 09:12, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmm..I changed it after noticing that it didn't cover redirects like ascended armor. I considered just adding something for that, but it still seemed like the list wouldn't be exhaustive. --Rezyk 09:22, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I reverted you Rezyk because we're not going to have a policy that lists "some" of the things that are possible. We either say all redirects are fine and here is what is NOT fine, or all redirects are NOT fine and here is what is fine. But to say SOME redirects are fine and here are SOME others that are also fine is meaningless. I also hope you're not changing that has anything to do with the dispute between me and Tanaric. The fact that the policy is incomplete (if it is) is highlighted by the tag on it. No need to make its text ambiguous. --Karlos 09:28, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I think this is the case you were describing. Feel free to describe it in different terms. Not sure if "official" is the word to use. --Karlos 09:36, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Now that I understand the whole process better, I reworded it again. --Karlos 22:17, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Here's how I would prefer to go about it:

• Have some link from Guild Wars Wiki:Article retention to this formatting guideline that effectively says "look over here for the guideline on how to format them".
• Have some link from this guideline to Guild Wars Wiki:Article retention#Redirects saying "look over here for the policy on what redirects are generally allowed/disallowed".
• Try to figure out all the common types of redirects we don't want, and get that list accepted as a proposal change to the Guild Wars Wiki:Article retention#Redirects section.
  • (speedy delete criteria R1) any redirect from the main space to the User: or Guild: namespaces, or any page in a talk namespace.
  • (speedy delete criteria R2) redirects for implausible typos or search terms.
  • ?
• Try to figure out all the common types of redirects we want, and expand the table here with them. There's at least a few still missing, I think. Some examples: Image:Mending Touch.jpg, Vabbian Key, userspace redirects.

--Rezyk 00:20, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Redirects from former names, Redirects from images, Redirects to lists -- ab.er.rant 05:25, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be much safer to say "these redirects are prohibited, everything else is allowed". LordBiro 17:37, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

In that case, we'll probably have to scrap the idea of applying templates and categories to them. Or come up with some policy on how these templates and categories are to be created and named. -- ab.er.rant 01:27, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Or simply try to enumerate categories for the majority of them (which has already mostly been done), and then create one additional "Miscellaneous Redirects" category. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 02:32, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Well this is a formatting article. We can have as many redirects as we want that aren't categorised. If the current deletion and article retention policies are not enough then we should have a redirect policy article, separate from this one, that says "these redirects are not allowed, everything else is fine, some redirects have guidelines for categorisation, please see the formatting article for redirects." LordBiro 06:54, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

What effect would "everything else is fine" have? Would it mean that we should not tag any of them for deletion? --Rezyk 15:52, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes. LordBiro 21:23, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm... if it becomes unnecessary to categorise all redirects, and it's not encouraged to encourage people to fix certain redirects, then I suppose there's really no point in using categories for redirects then. -- ab.er.rant 08:37, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Well fixing redirects to misspellings is still encouraged, since it means that there is a misspelling in the originating article, it's just that these redirects shouldn't be removed afterwards. As for other redirects, categorisation does no harm, and my be useful in the future, but categorisation is a guideline, not a policy, so it's not like we have to go around tagging redirects. LordBiro 16:24, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, once this is made official, I'll probably feel like I have to go and make sure all of them are tagged! :P -- ab.er.rant 01:25, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

(reset) but in any case, are we fine with the proposed names of the templates and categories? Or are there a greater number of users whose preference is more towards names like "Template:Shortcut redirect", "Category:Shortcut redirects", "Template:Common misspelling redirect", "Category:Common misspelling redirects", etc.? -- ab.er.rant 01:28, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Template and category names

I have updated the names for both template tags and the categories, taking into account some of the comments made above, mostly with regards to shortening the names. (I haven't moved the old templates but I will when the names can be finalised). Note that the word or phrase used describes the redirect itself, which is why I suggested {{common}} and {{former}} instead of the previously suggested {{official}}. Are the template names too generic? I think they should be fine.

Are there any other clarifications or decisions that should be made before making this official? -- ab.er.rant 06:17, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Although I agree with shortening them, some of them seem a bit too general for a template name, to the point where they might cause confusion - for instance, {{punctuation}} might be better off as {{lacks punctuation}}, {{common}} and {{former}} better as {{common name}} and {{former name}}. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 20:32, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I missed former and common previously. Changes:

• former -> former name
• common -> common name
• grammar -> grammar derivation
• plural -> plural term
• punctuation -> omitted punctuation

I wanted to change "capitalization" too, but figured it should be fine, like "shortcut". But I couldn't come up with a good one for "icon". {{symbol}}? {{icon representation}}? {{iconic token}}?. -- ab.er.rant 03:15, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Icon is fine, as there's nothing else that should really be templated as an icon - icons are pictures you click on, and that's what image redirects are. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 04:05, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Make official

It's been over a week since the previous comment. Proposing to finalise. -- ab.er.rant 11:49, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Support. Glancing over the current version, I don't see anything I take issue with. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 13:30, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Template usage

I don't understand why to use templates for redirects because you do not see any content on redirect pages. For example Collectors (no redirect link): You don't see the content of the plural term template which is used there. So why we need to use those templates? We could just add the category manually. poke | talk 12:31, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

What if you want to remove the category entirely? What if you want to rename the category? :) And with the template, you can use the "What links here" link on the left menu to see what pages are using redirects of that nature. -- ab.er.rant 13:45, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

When you remove the category then the template will also be deleted. What if you want to rename the template? And you can also see the pages that are using this redirect by using the category. And each redirect also has a "What links here" page. poke | talk 15:33, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Not necessarily. Renaming the template won't affect anything as long as you retain the old name as a redirect. I wasn't looking for "What pages use this redirect". The "What links here" for those templates will show you all the redirects of that type and who uses them. This is primarily to help with fixing incorrect links but LordBiro pointed out that we shouldn't encourage making edits just to replace redirects. And that is also the reason why removing the category doesn't necessarily mean deleting the template, since whether you have the category or not, the template will work. Also, with the template, I could apply multiple categories as well, such as Category:Abbreviations and Category:Abbreviation redirects, if such a need arose. Or perhaps put some sort of tag in it. -- ab.er.rant 17:10, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, thanks :) poke | talk 20:19, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

And oh! I forgot the most important one. This should make it easier for applying multiple redirect templates to a single redirect. Like applying both the {{capitalization}} template and the {{omitted punctuation}} template to redirects for skills. But I do understand your concern regarding this. It might prove to be rather useless, but I'm all for keeping things nicely categorised :) -- ab.er.rant 07:37, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

template:Shortcut

Note: The {{shortcut}} template already had a different purpose on this wiki before it was hijacked to be used as listed here. As a result, all pages that previously used it no longer function as originally designed. Now we have a mess to fix. PLEASE check if a template already exists for another purpose before trying to use it for some other purpose. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 00:27, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Fixed by restoring {{Shortcut}} back to its originally designed use - then creating {{Shortcuts}} for the alternate use documented here. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 00:44, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

As mentioned on my talk, I wasn't really trying to hijack it, just trying to "couple" it :P I thought the parameter fixed it, guess I was wrong. I didn't want to use a plural template name because it would be both inconsistent and illogical. I'll try to come up with a different name then. -- ab.er.rant 07:26, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Would {{project shortcut}} be good? Or maybe {{wiki shortcut}}? Maybe even {{gww shortcut}}... hmm... -- ab.er.rant 07:27, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

better name?

→ moved from Template talk:Omitted punctuation

I guess there isn't but omitted just doesn't sound right. --Jamie 09:54, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Better to discuss it at Guild Wars Wiki talk:Formatting/Redirects. -- ab.er.rant 10:13, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

It was renamed from "Names without punctuation". Omitted feels better than... say "no puncutation" right? No? -- ab.er.rant 11:50, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

{{short name}} and {{long name}}

Currently only {{short name}} exists for redirects like Echovald → Echovald Forest. However, we also have redirects like Alesia Baptiste → Alesia. Do we want to have a single template for either cases, or two templates for each separate situation (for example {{long name}})? Or no template at all? --  (CoRrRan / talk) 17:56, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

We don't have that yet. But for Alesia's case, I think it's more a case of {{former name}}. -- ab.er.rant 17:59, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

You think so? I've never seen Alesia being mentioned ingame as Alesia Baptiste, so {{former name}} doesn't really cut it IMO. --  (CoRrRan / talk) 18:01, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it was during the first beta or something. Otherwise, where did the "Baptiste" come from? Her notes on GuildWiki does seem to suggest that she used to have a longer name. But I don't really know. -- ab.er.rant 18:04, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I think might as well create a template for "long name" huh? I was also thinking of whether we need a "singular term" template too. -- ab.er.rant 18:07, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict)*Truds of to Emily's talkpage...* If that is true, then what to do with the one I just created? Tahlkora Zarranu? Because according to this image, that's her full name.

Well, I like a single template for it, but I only got as far as {{name}} or {{renamed}}, but both of those suggestions really suck. --  (CoRrRan / talk) 18:10, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

That picture is not in-game. "former name" is more when Anet decides to rename a term, most notably the 15k armor rename. Tahlkora has never appeared with a last name so I think she's fine, which makes "long name" suitable for Tahlkora's case. I guess we could apply "long name" to Alesia's full name as well. Doesn't really matter. A former longer name is both a former name and a longer name :P -- ab.er.rant 18:16, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

You're not seriously suggesting {{former longer name}} as well are you? ;) (And I think I know where how {{former name}} is supposed to work, no worries.) --  (CoRrRan / talk) 18:21, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I noticed that "Experience points" doesn't have a page, whereas Experience does. Should I just create a page for the former and include a {{long name}} redirect for now? Or should I move Experience to "Experience points" and take care of all the redirects? --SZK 20:13, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd say, keep experience where it is and create a Experience point redirect. Don't know about the long name tag, since it doesn't exist yet. - anja 20:17, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. :) --SZK 20:28, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

fansite vs misc policy

I dont know what other policies require redirects, but I prefer to have a separate category for fansite redirects, not mixing them up with other policy redirects. --Xeeron 19:21, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The

Next project: Creating redirects for quests/locations that start in "the", unless the new redirect would interfere with the name of another article. For example, Redirect Kodash Bazaar to The Kodash Bazaar (already did that one). Comments? Good? Bad? Maybe? Unnecessary? Calor - talk 02:16, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

It's fine. It's likely unnecessary to do all of them, just the more common ones, but it's fine to do them. Just tag with {{grammar derivation}} (unless this isn't grammar... hmmm). -- ab.er.rant 02:57, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Should be {{short name}}. Adding "the" is not grammar, it's an extension of the name. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 02:59, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

*slaps me own head* Of course! I need sleep... -- ab.er.rant 03:00, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

{{short name}}, eh? No problem. Calor - talk 03:08, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Info appearance

I noticed that the info for capitalization redirects only appeared once I tagged the page for deletion. The category was properly assigned, but the text, "This is a redirect from one form of capitalization..." was not showing with only the {{capitalization}} present. G R E E N E R 21:15, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind, sourced the problem. It was my expectations ; ) G R E E N E R 21:22, 27 September 2010 (UTC)