Talk: Redirect

Redirect/Piped link policy?

I think it is time to reconsider our policy regarding redirects and piped links. In the past, we often deleted unused redirects (Immediate deletion exception #1), although the deletion policy as well as other pages at the same time state that deletion should occur "only if the problems they cause outweigh their advantages".

At the same time, sometimes piped links are used that simply don't make much sense, probably because a redirect using the same titles would have been deleted immediately. A good example for this is [[Tarquin's homeworld|Tarquin's people]] on Delphic Expanse. Should there ever be an article about Tarquin's people, there's no easy way to find this piped link and change it to the correct target. Using a redirect from Tarquin's people to Tarquin's homeworld would be much better in this case.

I think we should allow more redirects than we do now. Immediate deletion should be reserved for redirects that absolutely don't make sense, are offensive (as described on Redirect) or are misspellings. On the other hand, piped links should be restricted to variants of the title/object (such as: Enterprise, Enterprise-D, NCC-1701-D, ...). What do you think? -- Cid Highwind 11:34, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Good point: an example I may want to introduce into the discussion is MA/en's policy for "early history", in MA/de we have redirects for every century, so that if we might consider to split the page we don't have to search every post; misspellings are indeed to be deleted, that is also why I don't understand the reason to keep Geordi La Forge -- Kobi - (Talk) 11:56, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

As you can see from Pages for immediate deletion, I have been trying to support the retention of useful redirects. Perhaps we should concentrate on expanding the Memory Alpha:List of useful redirects -- make it list every redirect that exists, or has been "patrolled" -- basically create a manifesto of redirects someone has preferred to keep at some point -- and to open discussion if anyone thinks a redirect or series of redirects is inappropriate. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk 18:19, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Clarification suggestion

I'd like to clarify policy by adding the following to the "delete conditions":

1. The redirect uses improper capitalization and another redirect with the same name, but proper capitalization, exists.

This was just discussed regarding Surplus Depot Zed-15 and Surplus Depot Zed-15. While the redirect itself seems useful, two of them probably aren't. Objections? -- Cid Highwind 23:24, 6 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Make it so ;-) --Memory 00:01, 14 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Forum:Redirections to categories

I just saw that articles are now redirected to a category (List of Ferengi, Andorians...) Is there a way to follow automatically the new entries to that list on the category page, because on MA-fr (and probably on the other MA versions), all these articles were not written (4 articles in the Andorians cat and 16 in the Ferengis cat for the moment), that's why I watched for the article to check new entries, but watching for a category only shows the changes in the opening text not the entries that are added. - Philoust123 19:59, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

For some list categories, we have "lists of unwritten articles" here: Memory Alpha:Requested articles. This at least allows you to check for new articles that were on these lists before, although it won't work for articles that are created without being listed there. -- Cid Highwind 20:05, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Forum:Categorizing redirects

Please note that it is now possible to categorize redirects, something which wasn't possible in the past and which led to the creation of some pages that might now be superfluous. It was brought to my attention by Renegade, and I already added a comment to a recent discussion on Talk:Aurora (NC-17740). Basically, if the only reason for a page to exist is to have a page to categorize, we can now have a categorized redirect instead.

Another recent example is Alpha Centauri, where apparently articles about the "star", the "system" and the "colony" were merged into one. If this combined page stays, we should at least categorize some of the remaining redirects so that, for example, a link to the colony can still be found on Category:Colonies. -- Cid Highwind 09:20, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Another example, where I discovered this new use (again from Renegade) was J. Michael Bingham, which redirects to D.C. Fontana (one of her pseudonyms, and makes more sense to have it categorized separately because there is credit under that name, etc, etc). But I agree with Cid's comments, and just wanted to point this one out. -- Sulfur 09:49, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Forum:Episode redirects

Quick question:

I have been deleting the episode redirects created by Bjorn9800991 because I thought they weren't necessary. All of these have been "lower-case" redirects: basically created to avoid having to hit the shift button to capitalize letters when entering a title in the search engine. So, this is why I've been deleting them (that, and I thought it was decided to do so). To quote this page, however, we should avoid deleting redirects if:

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 Memory Alpha in different ways.

So, I bring it up for discussion here, and my question is: are these redirects necessary? They're obviously useful to at least one user, but are they necessary for our goals here or are they just redundant and unneeded? Speaketh! --From Andoria with Love 01:30, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Since I surmise that you want a number of opinions on this, I personally don't use lower-case titles when I enter episode titles, I enter the title as it should be. So, personally, I see no need (for myself) to need these redirects, but if a number of people do use them, by all means keep them. - Enzo Aquarius 01:32, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Even without the redirect, typing in lower case still brings up the episode article at the top of the search list. As an example, here is the result for typing "in the pale moonlight", or "the naked now". As far as I can see, these are not useful redirects, as you get just as good a result without them. --OuroborosCobra ^talk 01:34, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Re:Enzo -- opinion noted, needed, and much appreciated. Thank you. :)

Re:Cobra -- That was my issue, as well, but some "lower-case" titles (such as "change of heart" and the other redirects that were created) don't redirect to the episodes, they go to the search page. So would keeping those that don't redirect automatically be so bad? --From Andoria with Love 01:43, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Um, both of the ones I listed go to the search page, just like "change of heart". My point was that the very first item listed is the episode page. --OuroborosCobra ^talk 01:50, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

My thoughts when creating the redirects was that it would save time 'cause somtimes I search quickly and is forgetting the capitalized letters. One thing I don't understand is why they have to be deleted. Is it taking so much space in the database that it becomes anoying? Do they disturb anyone or why do they have to be deleted? Give me a good reason and don't just say "They are redundent" or "unneeded". To quote the before mentioned page "Alternate capitalizations: Photon Torpedo redirects to Photon torpedo". As I precive it my redirects were totaly in line with the policy that has been layed out. bjorn98009_91 06:52, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Re:Cobra - sorry, I misread you. Ignore me then.

Re:Bjorn9800991 - Glad to see you've joined in. :) Anyway, it is because your redirects don't actually appear to be harming anything but may be perceived as unnecessary that I've started this discussion – I felt they were unnecessary because, as Cobra states, when they're entered into the search field, the first link that pops up in the search is the page you're looking for. Other redirects have been deleted for similar reasons, so I figured it was in agreement that such redirects were not needed. It's not that they were annoying or taking up space; there is no harm in keeping them. It was about necessity – the redirects did not seem necessary, so they got turfed. Since, however, at least one person finds use for them, then they are at least necessary to that one person. As per policy, there really shouldn't be a reason for them to go, I just wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page as I am. So far, one person does not have a problem with keeping these redirects while another finds them useless for the reasons I stated above.

Wow, that was a lot of rambling on my part – I hope you understood it all... if so, perhaps you could explain it to me one day. ;) --From Andoria with Love 18:03, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

One thing I'd like to note... if we have them in semi-mixed case (as they have been put into already), then should we not have them in every mix of case possible so as to cover all eventualities of people typing it in and wanting to go directly to the page? -- Sulfur 18:09, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay. I have thought about it and I can accept that the redirects will be removed if no other person finds them useful.– bjorn98009_91 19:00, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Redirects/Obsolete "Help"

Rather than creating a redirect, fix the link. Edit the page and change Genesis Cave to Genesis cave. Just like you would create or edit any other link. --Alan del Beccio 06:40, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. It seems to me that Genesis Cave is a proper noun, so that adding a link to Genesis cave would be a mistake. I certainly do know how to make links--take a look at my contributions if you are wondering--so why would go thru the trouble of making a redirect if I didn't think it was necessary? As for 46a, a redirect which you also deleted, when I type 46a into the search box I get nothing (not even pages that have 46a on them), so it seemed like an obvious use for a redirect.

In doing these things, I was not just making redirects because I have a "fetish" as you said in one of your deletion comments but based on the page Redirect, which states in part that redirects are to be used for "alternate capitalization" and "aided writing." I was trying to make Memory Alpha better to use.

When you delete something, is it not a matter of ettiqute to make a note on the talk page and wait to see what happens before you delete it? That way people can object before you unceromoniously delete things that others are working on. --Chris Leslie 09:50, 19 March 2007

If Genesis Cave is the proper name then the page should be moved there rather than redirected to the improper name. Our redirect help page is completely out of date, since that was written prior to M/A's affiliation with wikia.com, and as such, the use of Alternate Capitalization and for the most part Misspellings (unless it was an alternate spelling) are now unnecessary, and if they so seem necessary, as alternate usage of the same term, then we also have pages for placing those redirects, a concept which is more often abused than strategically used. In response to 46a, the logical search would be Regulation 46A, as cited on the page it is located on and "regulation 46a" , that redirect is useful. --Alan del Beccio 13:58, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, I prefer to keep discussions on the original page that they were started on. Thank you. --Alan del Beccio 14:00, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, though, Deletion policy states that "Redirects are immediate deletion candidates only in cases described in Redirect", which doesn't seem to be the case with alternate capitalization. If it isn't harmful, don't delete. -- Cid Highwind 14:43, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Just because it hasn't changed in several years doesn't automatically mean it's out of date - it may have been reviewed a number of times in that period and found to require no changes. I have to disagree that "many of those points are no longer up to date". Even the alternate capitalization point, which, as you say, is no longer needed for the search engine, is still valid for redirects from articles in lieu of a piped link. Which of the points aren't valid, and why? -- Renegade54 15:11, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I already pointed those out. Misspellings have more times than not been automatically deleted or consecutively voted for deletion unless there has been a legitimate reason to have a misspelled link (closed captioning conflicts with script, etc)...in those and other similar cases, it should be properly noted on the "common misspelling" and "useful redirects" pages-- which is rarely used. As I also stated before, more times than not the concept of redirects has been abused rather than strategically used. After "patrolling" most All Articles on this site in the past week or so, I've noted and fixed dozens of piped links because of said abuse, and all around laziness, so I would like to think I have something of a unique perspective in the matter, because in the end, it simply makes it more difficult to keep tabs on where everything is coming from and where everything is going. --Alan del Beccio 15:33, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Whether this "Help" page has been edited in the last 3 years or not, Deletion policy has been. The purpose of some of those edits was to clarify what should be deleted "immediately", and what not, also in relation to redirects. Even if neither of those pages had been edited, it still wouldn't automagically make them "obsolete" - and if different policy pages were contradicting each other (which, honestly, I don't really see here), it still would better to work on those contradictions than to declare one of them "outdated". -- Cid Highwind 15:44, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Memory Alpha:Deletion policy/ Candidates for immediate or speedy deletion/ #1 "Unused redirects" -- that can be read as rather vague, especially when many of these redirects were created (i.e. "46a" mentioned above, which was actually a double redirect, but nonetheless) and then are just left floating around unused. This qualifies for a good portion of this site's redirects, and can be seen as a conflict, especially when people are abusing the redirect process, and not using the related pages that go along with useful redirect/misspellings that I noted above. --Alan del Beccio 15:54, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I can quote as well:

'However, avoid deleting such redirects if: [...] 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 Memory Alpha in different ways. (Redirect Help)

I think it's important to note that what you feel is the "logical search" is not necessarily the same way everyone searches. I like many people familiar with searching search for the minimal number of words--the less typing the better. When I search for "The Wrath of Khan," I search for "Khan" and click the right link from the list. Not the logical search for you? You're not me. When I type in something fairly unique, like 46a, I expect it to take me to the page with regulation 46a on it, n o t to get a page that says nothing matched my search! This is just a limitation of the wiki software, which seems to be uncomfortable with short strings, and one that I attempted to address for MA with the adding of redirects, and you deleted without even having the courtesy of finding out if someone else had a valid opinion.

"You destroy what you do not undertand" -- Seven of Nine (but don't search for "7"; that's a null search also, unless someone adds a redirect)

PS the double redirect was looking to a possible future where someone would make a page that was Regulation 46a; in that event, anyone using the redirect 46a would still end up in the right place. Sorry if that offended your sensibilities.

--Chris Leslie 20:50, 20 March 2007

Forum:New redirect feature

I wanted to bring to everyones attention a new feature which I believe came with the Mediawiki 2.9 upgrade. Redirects can now be sent to specific sections of articles. This is quite useful, actually. For example, take "USS Ambassador". This was a redirect to the entire "Ambassador class" article, when in fact the applicable information is near the end of the article. Instead, you can redirect to that specific section (in this case, "Supplementals").

The code for this is #redirect [[Ambassador class#Supplementals]]

I think we should start making use of this with our other redirects, where it makes sense. --OuroborosCobra ^talk 21:30, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

A large number of our redirect pages as such are already doing that actually... not all, but a lot do. :) -- Sulfur 21:45, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Still, it's nifty. ;) - Adm. Enzo Aquarius...I'm listening 21:47, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Great feature and nice work. Thank you StoryMaster 21:54, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Title and name redirect policy

I'd wondered if you could either explain the rationale behind or provide a link to the codification of the policy proscribing redirects consisting of a title and name, which you referenced in recently (re-)deleting the "Gul Dukat" redirect page. I certainly understand the need for precision, even pedantry, when it comes to the titles of actual pages. However, redirects are simply harmless, inoffensive little pages that try to make visitors' lives easier by facilitating their trip to the correct page. They certainly aren't an endorsement of any particular way of putting a term or name, as is evidenced by the fact that Wikipedia even has common misspellings of terms or names as redirects. (Obviously, WP policies don't apply here, but it seems like a useful analogue and a reasonable policy.) In a case like Gul Dukat, where the target of the user's inquiry is obvious and is very unlikely to be a request for any page other than Dukat, what service is done to the wiki by prohibiting a redirect to the obviously associated page? Any guidance you can provide would be appreciated. 132.162.71.136 06:35, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

For many of the redirects that get created, there are multiple possibilities of names. Also, if we create one redirect that's a title/name, we should really create one for pretty much every character. That's really the start of the logic behind it. It continues toward people being lazy when making links, when those links should really be a) more clear, and b) link to both the title and the character in question. -- sulfur 13:46, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

As an aside, we do have a number of common misspellings, but we don't do titles. To bring WP in (which we aren't), I notice that WP doesn't have a redirect for "President Obama". If I create one, how long do you think that it would be before it gets removed? Not very long I'm sure. :) -- sulfur 14:08, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

To be fair, there has been a President Obama redirect on WP since November 5th. --OuroborosCobra ^talk 14:21, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Ok, poor choice since it's very US specific. "Prime Minister Churchill" then.  :) -- sulfur 14:42, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

This is a matter of ensuring propagation of other links -- if someone was allowed to get used to linking to "Gul Dukat" every time they meant to link to "Dukat" then we would see less and less links to "gul" being formed. To build the web, users should really link to both articles. -- Captain MKB 15:06, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, especially when the redirect title is larger than the go-to article title. Anyway, if we are discussing the policy side of the issue, which I believe is what the original poster was seeking, there isn't a *policy* per se, that directly addresses this *practice*, contrary to what is generally stated on this topic.

• On one hand, thanks to the little known "moebius clause", the deletion of these various title+surname redirects (eg. Lieutenant Barclay & Captain Janeway), mostly on the terms that "the redirect might cause confusion", eventually opened to the door to this, ultimately justifying repeated deletes as stated in the deletion policy; specifically, that immediate deletion is applicable if a link "repost[s] content that was deleted according to th[e] deletion policy."
• On the other hand, our redirect guidelines seem to not support these deletions, as the creation of said redirect may very well be useful if, well... "someone finds them useful". As is the cause for the discussion.
• From the housekeeping standpoint, one can conclude that: lazy links = lazy contributors. In the past, having links like Enterprise-D --> USS Enterprise-D have led to a lot of link/piping corrections that have needed to be made on behalf of those misusing the redirect. Sure they're great if you are typing the name in the address or search bar, but not so if they are used in wiki application, as was the untidy mess encountered when Kirk --> James T. Kirk (over 60 pages were linked via redirect to it at one time). It is my firm belief that it will happen again when people start getting lazy-link-happy.
• In rebuttal, also from the housekeeping standpoint, having these links would be useful when we are using them to duplicate billings, rather than to have 700 links to "Captain" (eg 'Starring: Captain Kirk'; with the two being linked separately), there would be 700 production instances of someone being credited as "Captain", yet there is no practical application for the 700 links those instances individually create as being applied to the "Captain" article, in which case a redirect like [[Captain Sisko]] would be useful when Benjamin Sisko is really the item of importance in that type of usage, and the use of [[Benjamin Sisko|Captain Sisko]] doesn't seem to fly with various contributors even if it is following the billing format.

Anyway, just some food for though. --Alan 18:31, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I understand that there are issues with poor linking behavior in the articles, but that's the sort of issue that can be parsed systematically (by a bot, for example) to clean up redirects. Meanwhile, those of us who go to specific articles by typing the url are frustrated to see a page that says "Gul Dukat. This page has been deleted..." or even more stunning "Captain Kirk. This page has been deleted...". That causes confusion and makes the structure of the wiki technology opaque to users. 173.26.198.4 15:05, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Since at least two edits/deletions that I've made in the past were used in Alan's examples above, I'll respond with my two cents. I personally have no issue with redirects with titles per se, either used simply as a search tool or used, as Alan points out, to avoid hundreds of links to titles in credits, which are basically useless in that context. My goal has to keep things consistent on the site, and if we decide that in credits, links should be [[Benjamin Sisko|Captain Sisko]] rather than [[Captain]] [[Benjamin Sisko|Sisko]], than that's fine with me. One problem that we seem to run into, though, is that as soon as we start doing something as an exception, someone will point to that as justification for doing that same thing somewhere else ("Well, you do it here and here and here, so why can't I do it here?"). But if we codify the exception in a policy or guideline, we get dinged for having too many rules on MA.

My changing [[Benjamin Sisko|Captain Sisko]] to [[Captain]] [[Benjamin Sisko|Sisko]] didn't change the billing format at all, though, so I'm not sure, in this instance, what Alan's issue was. The actual change I made was from "Capt. Sisko" to "Captain Sisko", just to avoid abbreviations. Again, if our decision as a group is for this credit listings to be exactly as on screen, then that's fine, too, although it becomes difficult to know, without the credit screens for every episode at hand, to be able to verify if that's what was displayed, or if someone just abbreviated for their own reasons. -- Renegade54 16:03, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Redux

I find this policy to be ill-conceived. You are caving in to your own laziness as editors and are not considering the needs of the readership. Maybe a reader doesn't realize that Gul is a title and isn't Dukat's first name. Maybe he or she forgets that Dr. Selar's article wouldn't include her title. Maybe the phrase "Captain Picard" is so ingrained that it's only natural to type it into the address line. This is why redirects exist, to give people what they were looking for even when they don't quite know how to ask for it. Does having some title-plus-name redirects mean that you have to have an exhaustive list? No, of course not. Having just most popular ones would be fine (main characters who never change rank [except in one-off episodes] are the obvious candidates here). Does having these redirects mean you have to be more vigilant when checking edits? Yes, but so what? Your main obligation should be to the reader. When I enter something into the address line and get an error page when you obviously know what I'm wanting (because I can see that the redirect was deleted), I get frustrated and irritated at the user-unfriendliness of it all. — LCARS 17:18, March 18, 2011 (UTC)

If you type 'Captain Picard' into the search bar, third item is Jean-Luc Picard. Gul Dukat -- first item up is... Dukat. "Dr. Selar" oddly brings up the New Frontier characters first (cute that), but most of the time, what you want as a lazy redirect brings you to the right place anyhow. -- sulfur 17:49, March 18, 2011 (UTC)

Note also that according to Wikia's stats, 90% of readers find pages by the search bar rather than changing the URL. -- sulfur 17:50, March 18, 2011 (UTC)

I often type URLs directly because I've just opened a fresh browser window. Going through the search box for normal viewing just adds an unnecessary step. In the rare case where I hit a deleted redirect, it's frustrating because it's obvious you knew what I was looking for and for some reason are still making me do extra work. This is bad form—especially considering redirects were designed to bridge these gaps. — LCARS 03:51, March 24, 2011 (UTC)

I have to say I completely understand what LCARS is saying and I would have brought it up sooner if I thought I stood a chance of changing the policy on redirects around here. Redirects should be for common terms that people are most likely to type into the search box, regardless of whether the search listing displays it as the third result or not. As LCARS said, someone who is perhaps not computer-savy and is new to Star Trek may type in "Captain Picard" expecting to be immediately shown the article on "Jean-Luc Picard" but instead they are shown the search page. It just makes it easier for them to go straight to the article in question, and IMO it makes more sense so why not do it? It's not like it's causing anyone any harm. --| TrekFan ^{Open a channel} 04:07, March 24, 2011 (UTC)

So let me get this straight, LACARS is for having literally hundreds upon hundreds of these redirects, because let's be honest here, the door is either open or closed, but it's up to us to maintain them, because we are too lazy. Yeah, screw that, this isn't my job, and some of the users here should already be paid for the amount of time spent on nothing more than housekeeping edits. This idea is full of obvious problems if you think it through too. Who gets Admiral Janeway? How about Commander Spock, or Captain Kirk? We would need redirects for every rank anyone ever had, since they're all valid, so we get even more problems, al la Captain Kim, as there are two. I'm also pretty sure any non-computer-savvy users found us by using Google, not any internal search option, and we are already on the first page at Google for most of these searches anyway. All said and done, I'll considered supporting this when I start getting paid to edit here, but until then I strongly oppose any change to the policy to allow for lazy redirects. - Archduk3 05:42, March 24, 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Archduk3. It's not as easy to do as it sounds, especially now that we have two articles on all the main TOS characters due to the last film, but also because many characters have the same name & rank. Despite what LCARS says, we would have to have an exhaustive list, because once you have a few you can't say no to the rest of them. Even if you could, who decides which ones are valid and which are not?

Using the search box also draws one's attention to articles they might not have known about otherwise. I'm wondering how much extra time using it truly takes. Changing URLs to find an article seems the more cumbersome way to operate, not the other way around. Since the vast majority of users don't do that the site should not be bogged down to help an impatient few.--31dot 08:46, March 24, 2011 (UTC)

Plural redirects

I noticed the recently created redirect "Jeffries tubes" was deleted. I don't really care about that, but if that's what we're going to do with these, then plural redirects should be removed from the "What we use redirects for" on this page.--31dot 17:43, August 30, 2010 (UTC)

The wiki search software is supposed to handle plurals and redirect you to the appropriate location (unless it's an unusual redirect obviously). Generally, we don't actually keep plural redirects, but if the search software sucks as much as I think that it does, it might be worth adding plural redirects for most everything. :( -- sulfur 17:45, August 30, 2010 (UTC)

You seem to be saying that we shouldn't need them, but we do. :) In this case the first search term that comes up is "Jeffries tube", so it works there. Should it be a case-by-case basis?(in which case, we may want to clarify the entry on this page)--31dot 17:58, August 30, 2010 (UTC)

I don't quite understand why we're so ready to delete redirects anyway. Wikia's search function is buggy, and redirects are cheap. If it helps a reader find what they're looking for more quickly, what's the harm in leaving a redirect around? —Josiah Rowe 18:06, August 30, 2010 (UTC)

I was saying that we might, because the search software is so... odd.

The problem with redirects is that people get lazy and link to the redirect instead of to the article appropriately. -- sulfur 18:24, August 30, 2010 (UTC)

To my way of thinking, if that's a problem, then we educate editors not to link to redirects, and fix it when they do, rather than deleting redirects that readers might find useful. —Josiah Rowe 19:10, August 30, 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to bump this again, as I see that "Phasers" redirect to Phaser was deleted. Like the above discussion, that itself doesn't bother me(although one could argue it goes against the list of reasons to avoid deleting redirects) I'm going to remove Plurals from the allowed redirects list in a few days unless there are objections.--31dot 02:06, June 9, 2011 (UTC)

I say delete them, unless the redirect is more then just the addition of a "s". - Archduk3 03:12, June 9, 2011 (UTC)

Cut-and-paste moves

In Wikia, can cut-and-paste page moves be repaired? (Delete A, move B to A, undelete A; see Wikipedia .) 86.131.19.228 08:05, June 25, 2011 (UTC)

First off, while we are "hosted" by wikia, we are not them, so if your question is about general wikia policy and procedures, you would need to ask them. As for MA, if an entire page is cut and pasted, then yes, a merge can be done to show the original page's edit history in the new location. If only part of a page is split off to form another article, then no, the pages wouldn't be merged, though a link to the original source is suppose to be included in the new page's edit history by using the summary box. - Archduk3 12:45, June 25, 2011 (UTC)

Confused

I recently created a redirect named "Shadow Play (episode)" to the article "Shadowplay (episode)" because the former is used on Netflix, and searching for "shadow play" does NOT turn up the latter anywhere in the first page of search results. Shortly after creating the redirect, someone else deleted the redirect, stating that it's not up to us to correct for Netflix' mistakes. I don't see anything on the redirect policy article that supports this idea, but I do see points that support my creation of the redirect. What's the deal? --User:HunterZ^(talk) 20:35, November 30, 2014 (UTC)

I can confirm that searching for "Shadow Play" does not bring up the name at all on the first page of results- though if you just type "shadow" in the search bar without searching "Shadowplay" is one of the choices given in the drop-down menu. I do agree that we can't create a redirect for errors in episode titles by third parties like Netflix. 31dot (talk) 20:49, November 30, 2014 (UTC)