Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion

For other meanings of rfd see RFD

[[:|WP:RFD]]

Sometimes, we want to delete redirects. If you think a redirect page should be deleted, please insert {{rfd}} at the top of the page and list the redirect at the bottom of this page. Note that a bug causes {{rfd}} to be ignored if it follows #REDIRECT.

List articles to be deleted in this format:

this article → that article -- Delete because...
- Opinion #1
- Opinion #2

Please sign and date all contributions, using the Wikipedia special form "~~~~", which translates into those automagically.

When should we delete a redirect?

To delete a redirect without replacing it with a new article, list it here. This isn't necessary if you just want to replace a redirect with an article: see meta:redirect for instructions on how to do this.

You might want to delete a redirect if one or more of the following conditions is met:

The redirect page makes it unreasonably difficult for users to locate similarly named articles via the search engine. (see meta:searches and redirects for proposals to lessen this impact)
The redirect might cause confusion. For example, if "Adam B. Smith" was redirected to "Andrew B. Smith", because Andrew was accidentally called Adam in one source, this could cause confusion with the article on Adam Smith, so it should be deleted.
The redirect is offensive and/or POV, such as "Joe Bloggs is a Loser" to "Joe Bloggs", unless "Joe Bloggs is a Loser" is discussed in the article.
The redirect makes no sense, such as [[Pink elephants painting daisies]] to love
It is a cross-space redirect out of article space, such as one pointing into the User or Wikipedia namespace.
If the redirect is broken, meaning it redirects to an article that does not exist, it can be deleted immediately, though you should check that there is not an alternative place it could be appropriately redirected to first.
If the redirect is a placeholder for an article which we need, and which has been set (theoretically temporarily) to redirect to the closest reasonable match (e.g. Irish cream → Cream liqueur). Deleting such redirects causes references to the article to show up in red, so that we know that we need to create it.

However, avoid deleting such redirects if:

They have a potentially useful page history. If the redirect was created by renaming a page with that name, and the page history just mentions the renaming, and for one of the reasons above you want to delete the page, copy the page history to the Talk page of the article it redirects to. The act of renaming is useful page history, and even more so if there has been discussion on the page name.
They would aid accidental linking and make the creation of duplicate articles less likely
They aid searches on certain terms.
You risk breaking external or internal links by deleting the redirect. There is rarely a reason to delete historical CamelCase links.
Someone finds them useful. 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 Wikipedia in different ways.

For example, redirecting Dubya to George W. Bush might be considered offensive, but the redirect aids accidental linking, makes the creation of duplicate articles less likely, and is useful to some people, so it should not be deleted.

See also: Wikipedia:Candidates for speedy deletion#Redirects for policy on which redirects can be deleted immediately, and /Precedents for precedents that are followed with regards to redirects.

If you delete one of these redirects, don't forget to delete any accompanying talk page.

June 19

[[Ås<caron>rÄ«mÄ?lÄ?-sÅ«tra]] -> Srimala sutra. RickK 06:07, Jun 19, 2004 (UTC)

Delete the entry with cur id:736339, if it's still there. How does one link there ( [[<i_>ÅrÄ«mÄ?lÄ?-sÅ«tra</i_>]] ) -- User:Docu
- Special:Whatlinkshere/Srimala_sutra has nothing linking to it, which suggests 736339 doesn't exist. Angela. 10:30, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  - I just ran SELECT cur_title, cur_text, cur_namespace FROM cur WHERE cur_id = 736339
    on a more recent version, and it still shows up. --User:Docu

July 25

[[L. S<caron>arounová]] This redirect page should be deleted because the S caron in the title is not ISO-8859-1 (and thus won't show correctly on some machines, such as Macs). As for the "mistake", my understanding is that the redirection entry would work only for Windows users (which do include the S caron in their ANSI character super-set). I'm not completely clear yet on how redirects work with non ISO-8859-1 characters. Let me be clear: the proper name of the astronomer in question is "L. S<caron>arounová". Links within pages could be in either long or short ("L. S<caron>arounová") form, with or without accents (so there are eight link forms total). The target page cannot be titled "Lenka S<caron>arounová" because the S caron isn't kosher. What's the correct solution? Urhixidur 12:12, 2004 Jul 25 (UTC) (moved here from vfd by Graham ☺ | Talk 22:23, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC))

September 15

Moldova Noua, Caransebes, Bocsa, Baile Herculane, Otelu Rosu, Oravita -- so the article from Moldova Noua, Romania, Caransebes, Romania, etc can be moved in place. Bogdan | Talk 20:13, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- All these articles were originally at the places where there are redirects now, and were moved to the "XXX, Romania" forms some time ago. Alas, it was done via a cut-and-paste, so the edit history is partially on the redirect page. What's the Wikipedia standard now for pages on cities? I think it's to put it in the "XXX, <country>" form, no? Noel 21:56, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  - I don't think there is a standard for international (non-US) parties. Usually, if there is only one placename with a name, it can have the article without country name. The names of the cities listed here do not conflict with any others. Bogdan | Talk 22:14, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

September 18

Please delete Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. I'd like this because I want to move University of Thessaloniki on it, and then create an opposite redirect. Take a look at my talk page to see why I opted for this. Thank you in advance. Etz Haim 09:47, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Sounds reasonable, but a quick question: when people in the region talk about the Univsity, or write its name, do they use the full name, or do they just go with the short version? On Wikipedia, we try to put articles under the "common" names of things, with redirects from the full, formal name. Thanks! Noel 12:12, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  - Well, they mostly use its acronym ΑΠΘ (Αριστοτέλειο Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλονίκης) in Greek. At least for the academic community and the alumni, that's the case. Nevertheless, University of Thessaloniki is going to be preserved, in order to either redirect to Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, or disambiguate between this and the newer University of Macedonia. Etz Haim 16:40, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Well, that seems OK. The problem is that Aristotle University of Thessaloniki has a lot of history. It would be good to merge that into the other page before moving it over. I'll do it eventually, or someone else could go ahead and take care of it. Noel 21:18, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  - That shouldn't be a problem. This way, the names of the three contributors, User:Tupsharru, User:Sky and me are all going to appear to the page's history. As for me though, I wouldn't even mind if some attribution for my work gets cropped out; the final result is all that matters. :) Etz Haim 21:26, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- I 'll do it. Just give it some time because the histories take ages to reappear. - Ta bu shi da yu 11:54, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  - Hmmm. I checked the history of University of Thessaloniki and there was only one entry (it was a move). So I deleted University of Thessaloniki and then moved it to Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Voila! Swap around fixed. Nice and simple. I like being an admin. :P - Ta bu shi da yu 12:00, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    - Well, something happened then, because they both used to have significant history. Perhaps domeone must have gotten tired of waiting, and went ahead and did the merge? Or perhaps they just deleted the old AUOT page, and moved UOT there? Noel 12:27, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    - Nope, I checked, at least one of the listed contributors is no longer on the history - sigh, will have to find out when it was deleted, try and retrieve, and then do the merge properly. Noel 18:11, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- Regardless of the concearn about page history, the university's name is Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and University of Thessaloniki should redirect to the former. Ta bu shi da yu messed the situation a little bit... Oh well. Etz Haim 17:16, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  - I have temporarily put the page at AUoT, till I can fix things properly. Noel 18:11, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

September 22

Irish Cream needs to be red so someone will write an article; shouldn't redirect to one brand. Gehirn
- It could be redirected to Cream liqueur instead. sjorford 13:08, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Yes, but do we want an article about Irish Cream specifically, as opposed to cream liquers in general? If so, deleting it would be the right move. Noel 21:59, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

September 24

Nation of Islam anti-semitism -> Louis Farrakhan. The content has been fully merged into the "Louis Farrakhan" article. Nation of Islam anti-semitism was the subject of a deletion debate where credible arguments were raised that the title reflected an unfixable POV that was inappropriate for Wikipedia. The edit history of the article has already been cut-and-pasted into the Farrakhan discussion page in order to satisfy GFDL. Rossami 06:29, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Delete POV redirect. • Benc • 09:36, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- I do not believe that removing on this page is appropriate. Please take it back to VfD. It's quite possible it will be voted for deletion again due to the fact its name is POV, however I am reluctant to delete from this page. Incidently, apologies to Rosami for insinuating he did this to bypass the VfD procedure (see history). - Ta bu shi da yu 12:57, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  - Umm, it's only a redirect now, not a page - and yes, I know about my comments (below) about not setting a precedent by deleting a redirect that used to contain objectionable content, but since VfD already decided to delete the page, I think we're OK. Noel 18:15, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

September 26

Neolioberalismo -> Neoliberalism
- Started life as a misspelled Portuguese title for a short diatribe in Portuguese on a topic we already handle appropriately. Redirected; nominating this as a redirect for deletion. -- Jmabel 00:27, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)
- You should probably put the contents back, and then list the page on VfD. Turning a page into a redirect, and then asking for it to be deleted, is not really the way to handle these cases. Noel 16:21, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  - I don't think it really matters whether this is listed here or on VFD; the end result will either be a delete or a redirect. Delete, I suppose. • Benc • 09:33, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    - Yes, but it will set a precedent we probably don't want. Do you really want people to delete pages with content (and their history) by turning them into redirects, and listing the redirect here? Noel 12:53, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- I agree. Have reverted back to previous edit before redirect, placed a google translation of Portugese to English on the discussion page and have listed on VfD. - Ta bu shi da yu 12:05, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  - OK, so it's their problem now! Will wait a few days, then discard our entry. Noel 18:22, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

October 5

Jirga > Loya jirga. It's like redirecting Parliament to House of Commons. The Loya jirga is one instance of a jirga--in fact, not even the only one, but the (hiearchically) "highest" such body--in Afghanistan. Village jirgas have also been in the news in Pakistan.—iFaqeer | Talk to me! 20:39, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)
- You're absolutely right. Delete. (Side note: the best solution would be to get a Jirga stub set up with a link to Loya jirga. The trick is writing more than a dicdef, though. I'll see what I can do over the next day or so, unless anyone else wants to take a crack at it?) • Benc • 08:10, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  - Gone. Please create a dicdef though. - Ta bu shi da yu 12:30, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sample article title -> Topological Geometrodynamics. Remnant of an article move. --Slowking Man 20:58, Oct 6, 2004 (UTC)
- Done. There seems to also be a Talk:Sample article title page, which seems to contain an early version (plus edit history) for the Anthotype page. I think it's probably safe to delete, though, as the creator - User:Pachuco2 - seems to have moved the content to the Anthotype page (via cut-n-paste, sigh), so their contribution is recorded for GFDL purposes. Better would be to merge, though - I'll do it when I get a chance if nobody else does it first (there are some other merges waiting to be done too). Noel 21:01, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

October 9

Hacker (software) > Hacker. I was looking for info on the Hacker game from the 80s, and it would only take me to the Hacker page. I don't know enough about the game to write an article myself, maybe removing the redirect will encourage someone else to. 24.68.238.102 08:10, 9 Oct 2004
- I think linking Hacker (software) to Hacker is the right thing, for the same reasons as I'd link Hacker (computer) to Hacker. For the game, it should be listed under Hacker (game) (or Hacker (computer game)). Noel 16:43, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- Confusing. Delete. anthony (see warning) 16:35, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  - That would be OK with me too. I mostly meant my comment to mean that I would opposed listing the game under Hacker (software). Noel 23:35, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yargo > User:Yargo. I remember seeing that redirects to the User namespace are discouraged, but can't presently find where I saw that. —tregoweth 19:51, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)
- This'll do: User:Tim_Starling/Redirects_from_:_to_User:. tregoweth 20:01, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)
  - See the top of this page, under "When should we delete a redirect?", number 5. Noel 00:33, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  - They are candidates for speedy deletion. anthony (see warning) 16:34, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- Oh, right, I forgot about that special case for User: pages; most cross-space redirects are not CSD. Alas, when I looked, prior to nuking it, the page had significant history - no time to sort it out right now. Someone probably did the cut-n-paste wrongo-move. Noel 14:41, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  - - Just a comment: there is a novel by Jacqueline Susann ("ah, the classics") titled Yargo. ShutterBugTrekker 23:50, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

European Centre for Medium Range Forecasting - I created this by mistake. Its useless and needs to die - William M. Connolley 07:51, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC).
- Keep. Useful. anthony (see warning) 16:33, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

MediaWiki:ASEAN - No pages link there, wrong namespace —siro χ o 21:20, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)

October 13

List of Biblical names starting with A - List of Biblical names starting with B - List of Biblical names starting with C - List of Biblical names starting with D - List of Biblical names starting with E - List of Biblical names starting with F - List of Biblical names starting with G - List of Biblical names starting with H - List of Biblical names starting with I - List of Biblical names starting with J - List of Biblical names starting with K - List of Biblical names starting with L - List of Biblical names starting with M - List of Biblical names starting with N - List of Biblical names starting with O - List of Biblical names starting with P - List of Biblical names starting with Q - List of Biblical names starting with R - List of Biblical names starting with S - List of Biblical names starting with T - List of Biblical names starting with U - List of Biblical names starting with V - List of Biblical names starting with Y - List of Biblical names starting with Z
- I've combined all of these stubs into one List of Biblical names article. Deletion is necessary to simplify searching (these 26 articles clutter many internal and external search results). -- Netoholic @ 03:53, 2004 Oct 13 (UTC)
- Strongly oppose as this would destroy a lot of history. There are other solutions to this problem, such as marking redirect pages as no archive. Or, even better, we could introduce an archive flag that any user can set or clear for any article. anthony (see warning) 14:36, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

October 15

King of Cambodia - there have been multiple Kings of Cambodia. This redirect is downright idiotic. Someone please write an article or delete the redirect --Jiang 18:30, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- I agree. Have removed the redirect, and I encourage writers to create an article about the King of Cambodia! - Ta bu shi da yu 11:08, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  - OK, never saw the admin policy bit about leaving these here for up to a week, so have restored the article. I strongly suggest we remove it however. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:11, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Delete. anthony (see warning) 19:08, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

October 16

Deer lake - this article should have been Deer Lake, Newfoundland and Labrador. I moved it there.--Big_Iron 11:45, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- Redirect to Deer Lake instead. -- User:Docu
- I did the redirect since it would make sense if it stays. Should it stay? --Big_Iron 09:34, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

October 18

[1] -> Cosimo de' Medici
- Anyone have any clue what this is supposed to be? The last characters show up as a Euro symbol and a ^TM symbol on my machine. Noel 03:44, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  - It's someone's attempt to paste a Microsoft (MS Word) "smart quote" into the Wikipedia, which, because invalid ISO-8859-1, is misinterpreted by the software, and then URL encoded. Anárion 11:53, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  - So it's trash we can nuke? Noel 22:36, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

October 19

Matthew Smith (programmer) redirects to Matthew Smith The redirect was created by a move; I don't believe it is necessary any more. - Mike Rosoft 14:09, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- I have just fixed all pages which link to the redirect. - Mike Rosoft 18:55, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- Keep. No reason to break inbound links. anthony (see warning) 19:06, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- Keep, and encourage people to use the long version. The short name may need to be a disambig page someday. Noel 22:35, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

ObviouslyBadArgumentsForTheExistenceOfGod
Obviously bad arguments for the existence of God
TraditionallyRespectableArgumentsForTheExistenceOfGod
Traditionally respectable arguments for the existence of God All redirect to Arguments for the existence of God but seem rather POV to me. they're also all but unused. Bryan 14:31, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- The history needs to be kept. If you think the title is too POV, a solution is to move to an NPOV title and then delete the redirect. Then the history is kept at the NPOV title. anthony (see warning) 19:14, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- I basically concur with that position, with two caveats: i) Is the text in the large initial entry a copyvio? If so, delete. ii) Each pair (of upper/lower case names) of pages seems to have the same basic content in the initial edit. Maybe we only need one of each? Noel 21:45, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Î© redirects to Ohm. Nothing links to it. Looks like a mistake. JFW | T@lk 21:38, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- Nuke. Noel 22:35, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)