Wikipedia talk:Soft redirect

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See also: Template talk:Wi, where this issue is also discussed.

Contents

[edit] Great idea

This is an excellent idea, Pete. Thank you! My two cents worth of rationale for supporting this idea:

I think this template is a much better solution than having to constantly list dicdefs on VfD. No matter how often we delete them, well-meaning newbies are going to constantly create new dicdefs. • Benc • 09:51, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Agreed - this is great. - DavidWBrooks 13:41, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
<AOL>Me too!</AOL> Noel (talk) 17:54, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Great idea! Dwheeler 02:04, 2004 Dec 18 (UTC)

All commentary - including one on WP:AN, now copied here:

I think this is a good policy for topics with no encyclopedic potential. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:00, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

having been positive, and a decent time period for comment having elapsed, this is deemed to move from "proposed" to "adopted". Will modify the page accordingly. Noel (talk) 11:51, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Are soft redirects allowed?

I thought they were speedy-deletable. Kappa 15:30, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If you delete them, someone else will likely re-create the page - and add content, to boot. A soft redirect, while somwhat ugly, is preferable to that. Noel (talk) 14:03, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The page is obsolete

Interwiki redirects have been disabled in MediaWiki (see e.g. m:Help:Redirect#Interwiki redirects and redirects to special pages), so that the page is obsolete. It should be probably deleted or completely rewritten. --Mormegil 08:28, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

The page has been updated to reflect the fact that (hard) interwiki redirects have been turned off. However the page is not obsolete! We still want to create soft redirects for borderline cases where the decision has been to include the content in a Wikimedia wiki other than Wikipedia. Pcb21| Pete 16:12, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Spoilers

Anakin Skywalker is a soft redirect to Darth Vader to avoid spoilers. Is this a valid use of a soft redirect? Perhaps that should be mentioned. Coffee 06:24, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

  • Since there are no objections, I will add it in. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 06:16, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Heh, not much activity here. This should have been discussed at WP:SPOILER. I've removed the now disputed section (disputed by myself) pending the outcome of the discussion on Wikipedia talk:Spoiler warning#Spoiler redirects that reveal true identities. -- Ned Scott 07:01, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What about the template?

Am I missing something, or why doesn't the article make mention of the {{softredirect}} template? Or is this referring to a different type of soft redirect, even though that template links to this page?

#REDIRECTsomewhere else
This page is a soft redirect.

[edit] Can talk pages of normal redirect pages be soft-redirected?

Suppose there is a page with a long title, Aaaaaaa Bbbbbbbbbb Ccccccccccc Dddddddddd, and ABCD as an abbreviation redirects to it. Now if someone wants to link to the talk page of the main article, they should be able to link to Talk:ABCD. This will link to the talk page of the redirect page, which they probably did not want. Putting a hard redirect in Talk:ABCD is probably overkill, as someone may want to talk about the redirect page itself. It seems reasonable to put a soft redirect on the Talk:ABCD page, to the Talk:Aaaaaaa Bbbbbbbbbb Ccccccccccc Dddddddddd. What is the policy on this? --Kprateek88(Talk | Contribs) 06:33, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Depending on how the redirect was made, many will redirect to the proper talk page. If one name redirects to another, then it's ok to do the same with the talk page. If there is old content on the talk page then it probably should be archived on the talk page the redirect points to. -- Ned Scott 07:28, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. --Kprateek88(Talk | Contribs) 07:32, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] how much content on a soft redirect?

Should the template be the only thing on a soft redirect page, or can there be one or two sentences explaining the item in addition? --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 03:44, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Why is that necessary? nadav (talk) 08:11, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Redirects to sister projects

If a page is transwikied and deleted, should it usually be replaced with a soft redirect? Some say that all redirects out of the wikipedia mainspace are to be avoided. See this RfD for a particular case, though I am more interested in the general question of redirects to sister projects. nadav (talk) 08:09, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question re: soft redirects to other GFDL wikis

See Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Soft redirects to Wikia wikis and other non-Wikimedia GFDL projects. --Stormie 00:08, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question: Redirect usage for clarification

Is this soft redirect from slack space to internal fragmentation a good use of a soft redirect? I am pretty sure it is not, but what else can I use? Using a hard redirect will probably confuse, but the term itself does not need its own article. Qevlarr (talk) 12:41, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Soft redirects to reduce data duplication in WP -- Where's the policy?

Wikipedia is full of duplicated data, often contradictory (e.g. see the History section of United States, compare with History of the United States). Frankly, the whole thing is becoming a mess. The solution is an increased use of soft redirects to channel editors towards a "core" article. Where is the WP policy against duplication? Emmanuelm (talk) 14:03, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Soft redirect discussion

I have started a discussion on soft redirects, and their future on the project, here. Any input from people knowledable about redirects in general is welcome and encouraged. - TexasAndroid (talk) 19:50, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Has been archived to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive_34#Soft redirects without much response. --Kubanczyk (talk) 13:13, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The transwiki section does not belong here!

The whole section "Wikipedia:Soft redirect#Soft redirects from Wikipedia to Wiktionary" does not belong here. If unexperienced Wikipedians look for a guideline what to do with a dictdef article, they do not expect that the answer can be found under "soft redirect" title. The "soft redirect" is in fact the answer! I think this section should be moved to WP:AfD WP:SISTER. --Kubanczyk (talk) 13:22, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Done. --Kubanczyk (talk) 08:43, 14 May 2008 (UTC)