Wikipedia:Redirect
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This page documents an English Wikipedia editing guideline. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should follow, though it should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page. |
- "WP:REDIRECT" redirects here. For general info and coordination guidelines for all Wikimedia projects, on creating redirects see Help:Redirect.
[edit] How to make a redirect (redirect command)
To redirect page A (the redirecting page) to a different page B (the target page), enter the following redirecting command at the top of the redirecting page.
#REDIRECT [[NAME OF PAGE B]]
For example, to redirect the Cambridge University page (redirecting page) to the University of Cambridge page (target page), edit the Cambridge University page and enter:
#REDIRECT [[University of Cambridge]]
You can and should also give a reason for a redirect:
#REDIRECT [[University of Cambridge]] {{R from alternative name}}
See below for an incomplete list of possible reasons.
A redirect to a changed, misspelled, or otherwise non-existent section name will simply lead to the top of the target article.
[edit] Redirects to page sections
You can also redirect to page sections within an article. See Meta:Help:Redirect#A redirect to an anchor:
#REDIRECT [[University of Cambridge#History]]{{R from alternative name}}{{R to section}}
Consider that when the target page is displayed, it is likely that the top of the page will not be shown, so the user may not see the helpful "(redirected from... )" text unless they know to scroll back to the top. This is less likely to cause confusion if the redirect is to a heading with the same name as the redirect; see for example "Argument from contingency". One fix of this is to use the template {{Redirectstohere}} below the section title. This both documents the section title should not be changed without a concurrent edit to fix the redirect section and tells reader they did in fact not hallucinate—no clicking of ruby slippers left them in Kansas unawares!
Another option for documenting a redirects to a section heading is to leave a comment using <!-- ... ---> to remind others that the title is linked, so that if the title is altered, the redirect can be changed. For example:
==Evolutionary implications== <!-- This section is linked from redirect "[[Richard Dawkins]]" -->
A more resilient approach is to insert an {{Anchor}} inside the heading, copying the heading's current title as a parameter to the template; then, even if the heading is renamed, its original anchor is preserved and the existing anchor links will still work. {{Anchor}} will take multiple parameters, so several names and variations can be accommodated, and {{Redirectstohere}} will display quite a few as well. Documenting terms expected in the subsection without confusing the readers is encouraged. The above example becomes:
==Evolutionary implications {{Anchor|Evolutionary implications}}==
{{redirectstohere|Evolutionary implications}}
This method however has a unwanted side effect: the {{Anchor|parameters}} will appear in section edit summaries:
/* Some section title {{Anchor|parameters}} */ the user summary
The following markup avoids this side effect:
==Evolutionary implications ==
{{Anchor|Evolutionary implications}}
{{redirectstohere|Evolutionary implications}}
or this real example, which does have a convenient nearby section title:
==Table of AWG wire sizes==
{{Anchor|Table of AWG wire sizes}} <!-- redirect target and direct link from other articles -->
{{Anchor|any text for an anchor link}} will also work in the body text of a long section where one might not want a section or sub-section title, such as above a table referenced by another article.
[edit] Undesirable redirects
Do not make double redirects (a redirect that points to another redirect); they do not work (to prevent endless looping, a redirect will not "pass through" more than one entry; if someone is redirected to a redirect, the chain stops at the first redirect), they create slow, unpleasant experiences for the reader, and they make the navigational structure of the site confusing.
Double redirects are usually created after a move when old redirects are left unchanged and pointing toward an old name. This is one reason good editors check links and observe if the link traversed was a redirect or direct path.
Another type of undesirable redirect is a self-redirect: an article that redirects to itself through a redirect. This is particularly common in a series of new inter-related topics moving together from the stub stage. Many editors despise red links, even temporarily in new topics. The team working the articles may well intend to expand such redirects to full articles, so the cyclical links are place holders; in such cases, checking the page histories should make it clear whether to make a corrective edit.
Redirects to other Wikimedia projects, other websites, or special pages do not work. These should be avoided or replaced with a soft redirect template.
[edit] Creating new redirects
You can create a new page in order to make a redirect.
Only the redirect line will be displayed when you save the page.
To go back and edit your redirect after it is working, add ?redirect=no to the end of the URL for your redirect:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_University?redirect=no
If you wish to add a reason, select one of the tags from the Tag column below and add it one space after and on the same line as #REDIRECT [[Wherever]], enclosed in double braces. For example, on the redirect page University of cambridge,
#REDIRECT [[University of Cambridge]] {{R from other capitalisation}}
That will also add the redirect to the category listed in the Category column below. Note that there must be a space between the end of the redirect code and the template code for this to work properly.[citation needed]
Redirects take effect immediately after saving a page. You may need to clear your cache to see these changes.
[edit] Redirect or rename?
If there is an article named, say, Oxford University, and you discover that the title "University of Oxford", although a reasonable alternative designation and search term for the same university, is still a red link, you can create a page with that title as a new redirect page, redirecting to the page Oxford University. An alternative is instead to rename the Oxford University page to "University of Oxford". This is also called a "page move"; see Help:Moving a page for more detail. The old page becomes a redirect to the new page.
The following table summarizes this schematically, using arrows to indicate who redirects to whom:
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Old situation: Oxford University University of Oxford New redirect: Oxford University ← University of Oxford Rename/move: Oxford University → University of Oxford
To choose between two such possibilities, the main consideration should be that the preferred title of an article is the most common name for the topic of the article as would normally be used in articles written in English (language). So we prefer "Italy" over "Italia", and "Pope" over "Pope of Rome". However, it is often better to have an article at a well-defined, unambiguous term, with redirects from looser colloquial terms, rather than vice versa. There are many declarations of independence, but there is only one United States Declaration of Independence. For more on this, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions.
[edit] Categories for redirect pages
- See Wikipedia:Categorizing redirects for situations where categorizing a redirect might be helpful.
Redirects should not normally contain categories that would fit on the target page because it can result in duplicate listings of the same page within a category. Relevant categories should be moved to the main page where the redirect is pointing. In some cases, however, adding categories to a redirect page allows legitimate alternative titles or names to be found in category lists. Redirect pages within categories will appear in italics.
[edit] Navigating redirects
When a redirected page is linked to normally, the user is taken to a page that is neither the original page nor the page to which it is redirected. Instead, the user is taken to a page that has the content of the destination page with a clickable mention of the redirect at the top, and the URL of the original page. To go to the original page, one can click on the aforementioned link, or append the string &redirect=no to the end of the URL. To go to the actual article, rather than simply viewing the mirror version, click on the "article" or "project page" tab at the top of the page. For instance, clicking on the phrase "clickable mention" above will take you to the "embedded link" page, which is redirected to the "hyperlink" page. Towards the top of the page is the phrase "Redirected from Embedded link", with the words "Embedded link" in blue. Clicking on these words will take you to the actual Embedded link page. Directly above the article title "Hyperlink" at the top of the page is the word "article" in blue. Clicking on this word will take you to the actual Hyperlink page.
[edit] What do we use redirects for?
- Compare the more complete template list in the guideline sub-page: Wikipedia:Template_messages/Redirect_pages and the notations in the corresponding category.
The templates in the following lists are used to classify redirect pages, depending on the reason for the redirect. Use as many of these templates to tag the redirect as are applicable. Some redirects will have both alternative spellings, alternative capitalisations, and perhaps be a redirection to a list article entry or section. In the final analysis, all these templates do is establish a categorization of the redirect page, and like articles, more than one category can – and frequently should – apply.
[edit] Spellings, misspellings, tenses and capitalisations
| Reason | Usage notes, and text that will be shown on Previewing the page when applied. |
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. |
{{R from abbreviation}} |
Too short for own article List entry or Section |
Category:Redirects to list entries
This is a redirect to a "list of minor entities"-type article which is a collection of brief descriptions for subjects not notable enough to have separate articles. This template automatically categorizes pages to Category:Redirects to list entries
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