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Helpful user script
Members of this project may find
this user script, which highlights links to redirects with possibilities, helpful. I've had it enabled for a month or so (kudos to @
Headbomb and @
Anomie for
technical help), and it's been useful in identifying several instances of pages that ought to be created or where the tag was applied erroneously. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}}talk 07:32, 4 January 2024 (UTC)reply
I've made this tool for creating suggested redirects. It's still in beta, just looking to see if anyone wants to test it out. —
Qwerfjkltalk 16:39, 10 January 2024 (UTC)reply
@
Qwerfjkl Interesting. I've had a go, though found the instructions easy to misunderstand/misread. Because people tend not to read instructions carefully, it would be helpful to have more instruction on the action screen: it wasn't obvious to me that I had to click on my chosen redirect target, rather than just amend the text in what I now see is the edit summary box, if I wanted to opt for a different choice from the one suggested.
It might be useful to offer a link to the full list of rcats at {{
R template index}}, to help those not very familiar with the range of choices there.
It would be useful to be able to click through to the candidate target articles, to see whether the proposed redirect looked useful, and what Rcat to give (eg "is that pair of names really someone's two-part surname, or is it middle name plus surname?").
I'm not sure about redirects of the form "initial surname" (like "Z Smith"): I doubt that they should ever be created unless there is one notable person very commonly known as "initial [fullstop] surname". If "Z Smith" is redirected to a "Zoe Smith", someone creating "Zillah Smith" will be unlikely to check for it. I'm not sure whether "Z Smith" is best "dismiss"ed, or redirected to the surname page for "Smith (surname)". (That's just a demo - the examples I came across weren't Smiths).
Another category I worried about were "date place", mostly sporting events. I suspect most of these should not be redirects, but I think skipped them on the grounds that sport is not my specialist subject.
I can see it being quite an addictive time-sink, a danger to wikignomes who really ought to be getting on with other jobs in real life!
How did you choose the set of potential redirects? Was it terms which are piped in articles?
PamD 18:28, 10 January 2024 (UTC)reply
How could I make the instructions / edit summary clearer?
A link where?
How would you differentiate between selecting the option and going to the Wikipedia page? Perhaps the title would select it, and the snippet take you to the article?
Not really sure it's possible to filter these.
Ditto.
I got the potential redirects based on piped links. The code is based off of
User:Nickj/Redirects PHP code (though I had to rewrite it to run on Toolforge).
@
Qwerfjkl Perhaps the instructions need to be more "What process you go through" rather than "what you do with each of the buttons"? I'll have a go:
====
This system creates redirects from suggested terms, which have been listed because they appear in piped links in en.wiki articles.
A proposed redirect and its suggested target will be shown. Five articles found by searching on the term will be displayed, as possibly appropriate targets for the redirect.
If the suggested redirect appears to be appropriate:
(Optionally but preferably) Select a Redirect Category from the dropdown menu (eg "R from short name", "R from diacritic" or "R from surname": see the full list at {{
R template index}}
Click "Save"
If one of the other targets seems appropriate, click on it. The text displayed as "Redirected to ..." will change. Select a Redirect Category, and click "Save".
If the term should not be made into a redirect, click "Dismiss"
If you are unsure, or do not want to decide on this redirect, click "Skip".
You may find that on investigating the term and potential targets, it is more useful to create a disambiguation page or take other action.
====
And there could usefully be a note about some of the more common terms which are unlikely to be appropriate redirects: to my mind the ones like "Z Smith" (initial plus surname) and "Paris 1974" (place plus date), both common in detailed tables of results in sports articles. There may be some other groups, which people testing the system might be able to discover and add.
Perhaps beside each snippet there should be a button saying "Open article in a new tab" or similar? Or as a popup? Something platform-neutral, which might be complicated ... but there must be a way, and I suggest it would be useful.
Is there any point in having that "redirected to ..." box as editable? I edited it a couple of times, misunderstanding that as the way to change the target of the redirect from the suggested one. Perhaps it shouldn't be editable?
But anyone else who tests the system may be able to come up with a quite different set of comments.
PamD 22:07, 10 January 2024 (UTC)reply
@
Qwerfjkl And just one oddity:
FM 50 already exists as a redirect, created October 2010, but it appeared in the system.
PamD 22:17, 10 January 2024 (UTC)reply
Next idea: How about a button to click to "Create dab page" which would open up a page creation with {{subst:refer}} at the top and {{
Disambiguation}} at the bottom? I've just had to go off and create
Junqua as a dab, rather than a redirect, as there were two surname-holders and a light plane.
PamD 22:45, 10 January 2024 (UTC)reply
Israelite consistories is an example of one where the snippets aren't enough to work out which, if any, is the target, and it would be nice to be able to click a button to see one or more of those articles in full. I'll skip, as I'm getting tired.
PamD 22:47, 10 January 2024 (UTC)reply
PamD, I'm currently working on this, sorry for the delayed response. The thing with
FM 50 is what I'm trying to fix - it's because the suggestion has some Unicode character in it (like a
nbsp instead of a space) which means it is just slightly different from the title that exists. Re {{
R from alternative spacing}}, it only list actual templates, not redirects. I could possibly allow you to add it by typing in manually, not sure about that. The edit summary box was suggested by
BD2412. —
Qwerfjkltalk 21:53, 11 January 2024 (UTC)reply
@
Qwerfjkl: More questions. If I skip a suggestion, it stays in the queue, and might be seen by another editor using the tool, yes? Conversely, if I dismiss, it is removed from the queue for everyone? If so, is there some record being kept of all the dismissed suggestions? Lastly, what is the total number of suggestions in the set at this point? By the way, now that the discussion is here, let's keep it here, as it is likely to get more eyes than my talk page.
BD2412T 22:14, 11 January 2024 (UTC)reply
BD2412, if you skip a suggestion it could be seen by another user. If you dismiss it, it won't. I record the titles of dismissed suggestions, but not the target. At this point there are around 300,000 suggestions (which is why the page takes a few seconds to load initially). —
Qwerfjkltalk 07:05, 12 January 2024 (UTC)reply
I suggest that any redirecting Rcats which editors are advised to use, such as {{
R from alternative spacing}}, ought to be provided for in this system. See the documentation for {{
R from alternative spelling}} which says:
PamD, that category helps a lot, thanks! I'll just include category members that start with "R ". —
Qwerfjkltalk 15:56, 12 January 2024 (UTC)reply
PamD, okay, I've implemented/fixed most of these. I've rewritten the instructions. added a link to the Wikipedia article, hopefully dealt with pages that exist appearing, and I've added the additional rcats. @
BD2412, what would you think of removing the edit summary box/changing it somehow? It seems excessively prominent given its limited utility. —
Qwerfjkltalk 21:51, 12 January 2024 (UTC)reply
The instructions are much clearer, but something is wrong with "If one of the search results appears more results..."
How can I see the article to which the redirect is suggested, if it isn't one of the five below -
Sir William Cameron being an example
How can I redirect to an article which isn't either the one suggested or any of the five below - in this case
William Cameron dab page? (I'll skip this one, with those two queries!)
I'd appreciate a "Search" button to scan through for other uses of the term beyond the top five, especially for surnames where there may well be other nameholders so that a name page would be more appropriate than a redirect to the one person
You say "If none of the search results are appropriate, but there is an appropriate target, then manually type that into the target field and save it.", but I can't type into that box (Using Firefox under Windows 11 in case that matters). I wanted to add a section, to redirect
Village of Webster to
Webster#Places rather than just to
Webster
It would be nice if "R from" appeared automatically in the dropdown menu so I didn't have to type it every time
Enough for today. It would be good if some other Redirect enthusiasts had a go at it too.
PamD 12:56, 14 January 2024 (UTC)reply
You can manually type it into the target box. You seem to being having problems with this,
is your browser supported? It appears Firefox is supported, so can you explain exactly what happens? Presumably you try to click on the target box and nothing happens.
You mean a link to the search results?
See 3.
You don't need to type in "R from", the results will filter by any match, not just at the start. Also not all rcats start with "R from".
I have just discovered that Ethene redirects to ethylene
Ethene should not redirect to ethylene. It should be the other way round. Ethene is the accepted IUPAC standard term. Its use should not be undermined by Wikipedia. That just adds to the confusion in nomenclature by students and other naive users, like journalists.
The justification paragraph for this redirect says
"In chemistry: 2-methyl-1,3-butadiene -> Isoprene"
But isoprene is an accepted IUPAC synonym, so this is a false argument.
Unless there is a good reason (and this isn't) for preferring an obsolete term, Wikipedia needs reflect current standards of terminology. By all means have a page on the history of the term "ethylene" for the luddites, but the main entry should reflect current technical standards as they change and achieve widespread acceptance.
Cvhorie (
talk) 09:27, 20 January 2024 (UTC)reply
@
Cvhorie This isn't really the place for this discussion. The rules on choosing names for Chemistry articles are at
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (chemistry). If the name of the article you're looking at doesn't comply with those rules, then please see
WP:Requested Moves for how to suggest a move to the right title. If it does comply but you don't think the rules are sensible, you can discuss it at
Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (chemistry). Thanks and Happy Editing.
PamD 09:56, 20 January 2024 (UTC)reply
And I see that in June 2007 the article was moved from
Ethene to
Ethylene but was moved back with the comment "Moved back; move was against naming guidelines and without consensus".
PamD 09:59, 20 January 2024 (UTC)reply
Misspelled redirect
Melodeon (accordian) was created almost 20 years ago and the word "accordion" is misspelled. Is there a reason to correct it, and if so, how would one go about correcting it?
Matuko (
talk) 21:50, 10 February 2024 (UTC)reply
@
Matuko: You could nominate the redirect for deletion at
WP:RFD. With that said, I don't see any harm in the redirect existing. I think that's a pretty common misspelling of accordion and, as such, could be considered a useful redirect.
Hey man im josh (
talk) 21:54, 10 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Thanks. I was more curious about whether there were other remedies than deletion. Question answered.
Matuko (
talk) 02:43, 11 February 2024 (UTC)reply
If this came to RfD I'd recommend keeping it as a very plausible misspelling. It's not caused any harm in the nearly 20 years it has existed, so the likelihood of it causing any in the future is infinitesimal so we'd gain nothing by deleting it.
Thryduulf (
talk) 22:47, 10 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Ok, thanks. I'm not sure what a "plausible misspelling" is, but I'm fine with it. I'd only noticed because I've adopted the typo "accordian". I also play the accordion, so it grates a bit to see it memorialized, but I shall move along.
Matuko (
talk) 02:41, 11 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Should this be a subcategory of
Category:Redirects from alternative names? I was going to add it myself (my thought process being that a personal name would be an alternative name for a person best known under a different name), but then I thought I'd ask for a second opinion beforehand. All the best, —
a smart kitten[
meow 01:56, 26 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Correct categorization for redirects to/from yyyy-mm-dd (ISO 8601) dates
I just created
Solar eclipse of 2024-04-28 (I directly opened that page and was surprised it didn't exist), but am not sure how to best categorize it. The name is a mechanical transformation of the target's title,
Solar eclipse of April 28, 2024, and yyyy-mm-dd (
ISO 8601) dates are acceptable per
MOS:DATE, but the closest redirect category template I can find for that purpose is {{
R to alternative spelling}} (with a manual {{
R unprintworthy}}), which feels overly generic.
It's close to {{
R from technical name}}, but I don't know if an ISO 8601 date is "technical" (and the rest of the title is unchanged), and that's printworthy by default.
It's close to {{
R from numerals}}, but that's for mathematical symbols, and I don't feel confident in calling a date a mathematical object, even though the ISO standard formatting is close to standard mathematical formatting.
It's close to {{
R from abbreviation}}, but I don't feel comfortable calling the ISO standard formatting of a date an "abbreviation", even if it happens to be shorter here.
This might work under {{
R from sort name}}, but the sort name of this article doesn't use the ISO 8601 format, even though I'd say putting the year first sorts better.
It's close to {{
R from more specific name}}, but this date formatting isn't strictly more specific here.
It seems like there isn't a true standard for rcat documentation pages, and I'd imagine the creation of new doc pages relies on copy and pasting from existing subpages. I suggest the creation of a template that allows these to be easily created. This could help standardize things like parameter usage and printworthy information (something I can't believe isn't standardized yet.
I'd be happy to create a mockup if this sounds interesting! ~
Eejit43 (
talk) 20:03, 15 April 2024 (UTC)reply
Is there a reason the rcat templates shouldn't all use the same /doc? I feel like the majority of them will have identical or similar usage. Creative use of #if and #switch statements along with magic words should allow us to cover 90% of cases without excessive bloat.
Primefac (
talk) 12:13, 16 April 2024 (UTC)reply
My thoughts exactly! A
centralized template would suit well, especially as the far majority of rcats don't even have parameters. ~
Eejit43 (
talk) 14:43, 16 April 2024 (UTC)reply
{{
Rcat doc}} seems to have been created for this purpose. As the template is currently unused, I'm going to rework it to make it more functional. ~
Eejit43 (
talk) 15:25, 16 April 2024 (UTC)reply
(as the creator of that template)
Eejit43, that's exactly what I made it for, after I got tired of making new documentation for each new rcat. I'd appreciate any improvements you make to it. —
Qwerfjkltalk 16:26, 16 April 2024 (UTC)reply
Thanks! I see your template was built around the template being substituted, but I think it would be better to simply allow transclusion of the template. Any objections to that? ~
Eejit43 (
talk) 18:04, 16 April 2024 (UTC)reply
Category:Redirects from alternative spellings – Should this be a subcategory of
Category:Redirects from modifications? On the one hand, redirects in this category are modifying the spelling of a word; but on the other hand, an alternative spelling may not be a small enough modification for/may not be within the scope of that category (stated on the cat-page as being for redirects from alternative layouts, word order, punctuation and the like).
Let me know if there are any queries. All the best, —a smart kitten[
meow 12:12, 26 April 2024 (UTC)reply
I've taken the liberty of numering your queries for easy reference. My answers would be:
No, since a misspelling is an error and unprintworthy, while an alternative spelling is valid (attested in RS, albeit sometimes obsolete ones or whatever), and usually printworthy (when not, this can be individually tagged with {{
R unprintworthy}}, but that doesn't apply to the entire alternative-spellings category). The disambitguation situation isn't actually analogous, since how WP disambiguates is an arbitrary internal decision, while whether something is standard in English or erroneous is a matter of external convention as determined by reliable-source usage (especially reliable sources about English usage, but in various specialized contexts with might be use within topical publications).
No, because not all alternative spellings are modifications of another spelling; they often develop side-by-side in different national, regional, or social dialects. "Modification" is this sense is generally an alteration that a reader might make to a search term that is a matter of style or grammar, such as variation in capitalization, hyphenation, presence/absence of diacritics, use of ligatures, etc., as well as grammatical variants like adjectival forms and so on, in their own subcat.