Talk:Redirects

Initial text adapted from w:Wikipedia:Redirect --Maveric149 03:11, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Interwiki links

Why do you use EnWikipedia:dog and not the shorter w:en:dog ? - Patrick 11:28, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Because "w:" is too generic and is often disabled outside of Wikimedia (as is en:). EnWikipedia:, however, not only will allways work on any MediaWiki installation, but also works on most other wiki software. --Maveric149 16:34, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I tried it on Meatball and Internet-Encyclopedia, but it does not work, although WikiPedia works on both. Has it yet to be implemented? - Patrick 14:43, 30 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hm. This needs to be fixed. Otherwise there are no inter wiki links to non-English wikis...--mav

Now it also does not work within Wikimedia anymore. - Patrick 09:03, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I sent a bug report. --mav

It works again. - Patrick 11:33, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Does it? And why not to use Wikipedia:en:dog / Wikipedia:hu:December / Wikibooks:en:Main Page? It's far more logical and useful, and naturally interwiki-compatible. (It could parse better to prevent http redirects, though.) --grin 09:56, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Mav and I already had this discussion elsewhere anew. XxWikipedia links have been retired in favor of Wikipedia:en:dog etc. --Brion VIBBER 09:59, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Inter-wiki redirects and redirects to Special pages

I think that interwiki redirects are evil, because:

1. If someone clicks on a link that looks like it's taking them to a Wikipedia page, they should end up at a Wikipedia page. Taking them somehere else would be disorientating and generally confusing. (And if there are no such links - i.e. if the redirect page is an orphan - then the redirect is pointless anyway.)
2. They are difficult to edit (see further up this page).

So can we introduce a policy to get rid of them altogether? -- Oliver P. 09:43 21 May 2003 (UTC)

I support that. There are a few sep11.wiki pages that would be effected. Martin

Martin, please sign your messages. I like to know who I'm talking to, and at the moment I have to go to the page history just to check it's you... -- Oliver P. 11:14 21 May 2003 (UTC)

sorry Oliver - an oversight... Martin

Anyway, here's some stuff from Votes for deletion (this is still Oliver P. speaking, by the way):

• I don't like them either, not least because they are difficult to edit. I won't mind if someone deletes it altogether. But it is only an orphan, so internal links are rare. If you want to discuss this further, I suggest we move to Wikipedia talk:How to use redirect pages. -- Tim Starling 00:28 21 May 2003 (UTC)
  • If there isn't, you get my vote for creating a policy to disallow them. They are difficult to edit, and they take someone out of Wikipedia without a warning. They also blur the boundaries of what is Wikipedia and what is not. Andre Engels 10:18 21 May 2003 (UTC)

We didn't always have interwiki redirects. It was The Cunctator who requested them here, and Brion implemented them after very little discussion. It would be nice to know what The Cuntator thinks of this discussion.

I don't think we need to get rid of them altogether. I don't think the blurring of boundaries between the various Wikipedia projects is a big problem -- all the projects share the same ideology, after all. The difficulty in editing could be fixed with better software. Orphan redirects are not pointless -- they show up in searches both internal and external. That's why we keep spelling error redirects. That leaves the problem of confusing readers -- which I'll admit is serious. But is it serious enough to ban their use altogether? -- Tim Starling 02:07 22 May 2003 (UTC)

I think so. For one thing, the Wikipedia projects don't share the same ideology. The most serious example of this that I can think of is that the "September 11" wiki lacks a NPOV policy. If a redirect to a "September 11" page is left in the Wikipedia, and someone unfamiliar with the concept of interwiki redirects clicks on one of them (e.g. Anthony Starita), they will be expecting to end up at a proper NPOV biographical article, and they'll get... well, in this case, a proper NPOV biographical article (well, stub). Ahem. But maybe it won't be in the future, and this could easily lead to confusion. And what happens if someone wants to write a proper Wikipedia article on Anthony Starita in the future? Interwiki redirects don't allow you to go back and edit them. As far as I know, you have to do some tedious fiddling with URLs to get to the actual redirect page. It's all just very annoying... -- Oliver P. 08:40 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Can't interwiki redirect

I just can't do it. I've created several redirects, of various minor differences in format, both within Meta and WP, pointing in each other's direction (not on top of one another, but with Real Page targets) and nothing works for me. Why? I'm not that dumb. Xiong 05:28, 2005 Mar 30 (UTC)

You are right, they seem to have been disabled.--Patrick 11:16, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

What exactly does "disabled" mean? Does it mean there is an option to enable the feature again? I am setting up MediaWiki for some people and the lack of content in the Help: namespace is a real problem. I would like to set up various pages in our Help: namespace to redirect to the MediaWiki help pages via an interwiki link. I understand that some people think this practice is "bad", but it would be very helpful to me right now if I could use it.Lsloan 13:34, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

See mw:Manual:$wgDisableHardRedirects.--Patrick (talk) 23:26, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

How about a special case for user pages?

Sure would be nice to be able to keep a user page on just one wiki and redirect others to it. Not R 06:49, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia redirects to a section in a page

There is a page Varangian Guard which contains #REDIRECT Varangian#The_Varangian_Guard. If the link is followed manually it goes to the correct position in the Varangian page. But the redirect seems to send the user to the top of the Varangian page not to the section The Varangian Guard. Is there something wrong with the syntax of the REDIRECT on that page, or is there a bug/feature in the redirect software? Philip Baird Shearer 05:16, 22 May 2004 (UTC)

Redirects to sections are simply not supported. So I'd say there is something wrong with the syntax :) Dori | Talk 06:07, 22 May 2004 (UTC)

Thanks I have put it on MediaWiki_feature_request_and_bug_report_discussion as a feature (enhancement) request - Philip Baird Shearer 03:21, 23 May 2004 (UTC)

The article now says here that

This feature will not be implemented in the future, so such redirects should not be used.

When was this added, and by whom? --Phil | Talk 14:30, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It was added on 7 Jan by anonymous user:68.192.118.69 with the comment "Making desc. of anchored redirects match 'How to edit a page'". It was added to en:Wikipedia:How to edit a page on 28 Aug 2004 by en:user:Gracefool with the explanation "redirects to sections will not be implemented (see bug 218)". I knew we couldn't redirect to anchors now and that the technical issues are significant but I'm disappointed to see it expressed as an absolute that WikiMedia will never try. Rossami 22:19, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This feature still does not seem to work despite it being described in the redirect help page - I created a redirect for Tampon Tax and Corbynomics but they just redirect to the top of the target article rather than the desired section Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 09:11, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Redirects to Category Pages?

Can one cause a page to redirect to a category page? For example:

#REDIRECT [[:Category:Stuff]]

I'm trying to do this on a personally installed wiki and I'm wondering if my install is bad or if this just isn't supported. Thanks. — JoeyDay 23:49, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I was looking to do the the same thing, and found these to be informative:

wikipedia bug report

Help_talk:Category#Category_Redirection

Both seem to indicate that this is a known bug. No fix in sight as of mid-march '05.

— Famine 14:47, 09 Apr 2005 (UTC)

---

I just downloaded and installed mediawiki a few days ago on my website.
I see the follwing behavior:
I created a category Category:Plastic Surgery .
For the convenience of people, I created a article "Plastic Surgery" and made it redirect to "Category:Plastic Surgery".
The redirection works, but it doesn't show any of the subcategories and articles within it.

Has this been fixed and not made availble on the release version? Or has it not been fixed at all?

Thank You. --Nasht 06:08, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

How to redirect to external URL?

I was wondering how to do a redirect to a URL external to the Wiki, but not an interwiki link. I don't mind having to do the whole redirect=no to edit thing, so it should be fine, but I can't seem to get it working. Note that this is on my own Wiki, and not on any of the Wikimedia projects. To be sure, I am using MediaWiki. --Cgranade 21:20, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I would like to achieve this too... it's been over 2 years now and no answer... can we have a confirmation that this is impossible ? XApple 16:26, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I tried a lot of things, but did not get it working :(. any ideas since the last 2 years? --213.23.168.170 11:23, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I would also like to know. --76.110.234.160 21:17, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

It IS possible but recommendet in Intranets Wikis ONLY for security reasons - raw html must be allowed:

<html><a id="redirectme" href="http://some_url&namespace=">alfa</a></html>

<html>
<script type="text/javascript">
document.location.href=document.getElementById('redirectme').href
</script>
</html>

--195.144.99.106 12:22, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Another way that may be helpful in some cases is to edit the language file. For example, I wanted to use a local testwiki, but there was no editing help page included. So I replaced the internal Help:Editing link by changing

'edithelppage'         => 'http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilfe:Bearbeitungshilfe',

in the \languages\messages\MessagesDe.php file. When clicking the link to the edit help page, I am now transferred to the corresponding page of the German wikipedia. Please do not use this particular solution for heavy traffic wikis :) --Bzzz 17:14, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Anon, the above coding worked excellent! thank you. Adamtheclown 16:31, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Added $wgRawHtml = true; to LocalSettings.php and used this:

<html><script type="text/javascript">document.location.href="urlhere";</script></html>

Worked great. Thanks 195.144.99.106. 132.3.65.80 17:01, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

pre-emptive redirects and search page

"When creating new redirects, bear in mind that creating too many redirects can clutter up the search results page, which can hinder users."

Isn't it more important to prevent duplicate pages? Can't the search software just be changed to automatically detect redirects? This seems like a bad case of man adapting to machine. - Omegatron 15:11, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Why do redirects duplicate pages rather than using HTTP 3xx codes?

Why are redirects implemented in such a way that identical content ends up appearing at two (or more) different URLs? Why not just send an HTTP redirect ("301 Moved Permanently" would seem to fit the bill)? - Simon Willison

A difference in the "content" is the redirect message with the link. If another method would be used, it would probably be useful to preserve this.--Patrick 10:09, 29 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That could be solved by adding an url parameter upon redirect. 85.149.120.16 02:27, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Adding Redirects to Category Page

Greetings from a novice.

On a personal installation of MediaWiki, I have a page with a full and correct title of "Bla Bla Bla Junk". I have a redirect at the more commonly-used term "Junk" page to "Bla Bla Bla Junk".

I'd like both pages to show up on a Category page. (My visitors are more likely to search for "Junk".) According to the documentation, #redirect breaks if it's not the first line, and it ignores all lines after. Is there any elegant way of doing what I want, short of replacing the #redirect with "See: " and making my visitors click the link manually?

--Hrynkiw 17:04, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Adding Redirect Stubs into a Category

I'm interested in doing the same thing, I have a number of items redirected to a unified topic page but I'd still like the individual items to show up in a category list. Right now the only way to do what I want is with a "Please See [[foo]]" article stub, it's not very clean. --66.245.216.105 10:26, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Redirect based on Template

How is it possible to make an redirect based on the result of a template evaluation?

Secenario:

Page "Event A" redirect to "Template:ActualSemester/Event A"

Template "Actual Year" outputs the actual Semester (E.G. Summer-term 2006, Winter-Term 2005, ...)

When we tried this, the link work, but the redirect wasn't performed.

Can I force Redirects to appear on search results, somehow?

I know there is a checkbox that lets me exclude or include redirects from the search results... but I'm trying to manage a company of users for whom that checkbox is, by default, deselected. Is there some way to change all my users so that they will find redirects when searching? When I log out and log back in again, or even just perform a new search, the "include redirects" box becomes unchecked. Magically. Arrgh.

My users are using the search term, "Upgrade" and they can't find the "Server Upgrades" page, even though I've created a redirect named "Server Upgrade". Upgrade is used for other things, so I can't just make it a redirect (and a stub would get really messy and difficult to maintain).

I have the same problem and would like to know how I can default the "include redirects" to "checked" for all users and every search. Thanks!

Lines after the redirect

The text says "Extra lines of text are automatically deleted on Save". As far as I can see, this is no longer the case. Or at least it is not so on wikipedia-en. Any problem if I remove that line? Paolo Liberatore 11:24, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I updated it.--Patrick 11:56, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Spam in the footer template

I can't get the spam at the bottom of the page out. But I don't really know how the template system works. Anybody? --fluxist

Problem redirecting images

I can't seem to redirect images. I know that it is entered correctly because it redirects when I enter redirect=yes.

---

Dave, 20060714

Redirect Help page is blank - broken and confusing

Why is this page blank? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Redirect As a somewhat new user, this was confusing and disoriented -- I think this constitutes "broken". It's not supposed to be blank is it? Please add instructions to this mysterious page: what is the reader expected to do to find the expected page explaining redirects? The History page indicates there's content, but there isn't content -- it's a mystifying and broken UI. 66.193.43.130 18:30, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Added categories to a redirect's single-line wikicode

I've stumbled on a special case where it was needed to categorize a redirect page itself. (It was for a CD reissued under a different title). It works, but it seems undocumented on your help page. For the full details of the case and what I did, please see my post at the English Wikipedia:

→ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Albums#NEW.21_Categorizing_retitled_reissues

Even though it's a rare case, I think it should be documented somewhere on your help page that it can be done, and how and when. For instance, there are plenty of books or movies with previous or alternative titles: shouldn't their redirect pages be categorized too, so as to make the main previous titles be findable in categories lists too?

-- 62.147.112.164 19:55, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Some discussion was done on en:Wikipedia talk:Redirect, which lists other uses of categories for redirects. Tizio 19:10, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

BTW, in the recent versions of mediawiki, it's not necessary to have the category to stay in the same line of the redirect. See bugzilla:1476, comment #19. Tizio 19:13, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Redirect to section in Safari

I noticed it doesn't work in Safari, latest version. Is this a known problem? --88.149.143.104 10:38, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

You need Javascript enabled. If you haven't it won't work and link to the article and not to the section Schiste 10:50, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry. I have Javascript enabled; when I go to a page that redirects to a section it, instead, freezes the browser.--88.149.143.104 11:19, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

It don't work in Opera 9.1, either; Javascript enable. --87.9.81.127 15:28, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Javascript is enabled in my Safari browser and it's still only redirecting to articles, not sections (but it's not freezing on me, thankfully.) Lenoxus 23:33, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Examples

The first example of how to make a redirect page sends the reader to the edit page of "Redirection". When you go to this page you get the informative title "Editing Redirection". Has anyone actually considered that this might be slightly just a tiny bit completely mind-bafflingly confusing for newcomers? And a really, really idiotic example? Was the original editor's intention to show off his or her witty meta-redirection prowess or did the author write the piece while overdosing on illegally acquired prescription pharmaceuticals while bathing in boiled sago and having acid flashbacks? No wonder it seems to take Wikipedians 18 months to learn how to change a redirect. Original text from the article follows. Pengo 02:15, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

If you're creating a new redirect, start a new page, write #REDIRECT [[pagename]] (or #redirect [[pagename]]) at the top of the page, where pagename is the name of the target page. Here is an example.

Reason template?

Mention of the reason templates (e.g., {{R from scientific name}}) seems to have disappeared from this page. Is there a reason for that? --Selket 00:30, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Link images

Hi,

Is it possible to redireck an Image page to an other. For exemple, is it possible to make Image:Zeus faber.jpg point to Image:Zeus.faber 2.jpg.

In the case of animal species, it would be interresting to have a "pointer article" titled with the binomial name of the species on the best image representing the animal.

Thanks,

Nepomuk 13:29, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

It does not seem possible to put an image tag and get another image. However, one can create a page with an image, and show the image on another page not only directly or by including the page with the image, but also by including a page that redirects to that other page.--Patrick (talk) 16:03, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be possible to do this by way of transclusion? Ie. Have Image:Zeus faber.jpg be nothing but an transclusion of whatever image page that was chosen as an image? 129.240.70.72 12:06, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Transclusion of an image page gives the editable text, not the image itself. However, the editable text can be an image tag for the image itself:

"{{Image:Zeus.faber 2.jpg|300}}" gives "File:Zeus.faber 2.jpg" [1]

"{{Image:Zeus.faber 3.jpg|200}}" gives "File:Zeus.faber 3.jpg" [2]

Patrick(talk) 23:38, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Detecting redirects: is it possible?

Is it possible for a page to detect that it was called via a redirect? In other words, is there a way for me to write a template whose output changes if the page has been called via a resdirect page? --84.128.217.183 08:37, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Does this page need a lead section?

Am I missing something, or could the Redirect page use a [Lead section]? Maybe something like this?

"A redirect is a special command that can be placed into wiki pages so that everyone who follows a link to page A is sent to page B instead. Redirects are used to keep Wikipedia organized by centralizing information, so that multiple names, abbreviations, misspellings, or related topics can all point to the same place."

--Culix 01:02, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

No one has commented and it's been more than a week, so I'm going to be bold and add this. --Culix 18:02, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

need redirect help

i edited a page called "Orphan City". i moved the info on their 2006 album to their 2008 sampler. i then took off the redirect from their 2006 album to link to the 2008 album. now when one would click on their 2008 album it pulls up the edit page of their 2008 album. how can i save it to just pull up the saved page and not the edit page?? thanks --66.161.212.88 04:56, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

-- nevermind or thank you, if someone did it for me.

Redirect From Image Not Working

Hello - I am attempting to use images as "buttons" on my main page, and it appeared that redirecting the image page would be the easiest thing. I tried it out in the "Sandbox" utility, and it worked great. However, when doing the exact same thing on my actual Wiki, it's not working. When I click on the image, it still brings me to the image's landing page - the redirect is noted both below the title of the page (ie: Image:Course Information, and right below in light grey it says redirect page), as well as showing the curved arrow from the jpg title down to the linked name of the page (which I can then go to if I click on it). Why would it not be directly linking, as it did in the Sandbox? Also, is there a better/easier way to make images into page links within the Wiki (I tried adding =link, etc after the image information, but that did not work).

Thanks - Sonja

Wish: Multiple Redirects on the Same Page

I have used Redirects, on Mediawiki and TWiki, but find them painful to use and administer.

I wish that it were possible to define multiple redirects on the same page, e.g. to have a single page, called something like "Redirects for Virtual and Physical Memory", that might look like:

• Redirect Virtual Memory to Virtual versus Physical Memory
• Redirect Physical Memory to Virtual versus Physical Memory

Also, as I try to indicate above, I often find that I am creating "Comparison" pages - pages that compare one term to another, like Virtual and Physical Memory. Rather than creating a maze of related pages - e.g.Virtual Memory, with a quick blurb, pointing to Physical Memory, and also pointing to the comparison of Virtual versus Physical Memory - it is less work to create a single comparison page, with redirects implicitly created as I describe above.

Indeed, it would be best if there were no need to create a "Redirects for Virtual and Physical Memory" page, but if the Redirects could live in the Virtual versus Physical Memory page.

Of course, if such redirect-from-to directives are allowed in different pages, the possibility arises of two pages creating conflicting directives. This sounds like an opportunity to automatically create a conflicts or disambiguation page.

-- Andy Glew

Text after redirect not rendered in preview

The lead currently says: "Any text thereafter is ignored and is rendered only in preview and in a diff." I don't see any text thereafter in preview. PrimeHunter 13:00, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I fixed it.--Patrick (talk) 19:14, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Listing all redirects in a wiki

Hi to all! Does somebody know a way to show/list all redirects that exist in a wiki? I know there is the special page Special:ListRedirects, but it is limited to 1000 pages. If it is not possible, is there a way to find them (maybe via the logfile) by using the pywikipedia bot? Thanks a lot! --Plasmarelais 16:07, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Illustration of what is meant by Redirect

An image is often worth a thousand words. There is no policy prohibiting to add an illustration accompanying an text explaining a topic. Is there a preferred collaborative drawing tool? Thx for reading and Happy contributing --78.29.239.185 10:56, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Replacing PNG with SVG

What is the best practice for replacing a PNG on commons with an SVG version? For example, ideally it would be possible for all uses of somefile.PNG to be automatically replaced by a new somefile.SVG without having to edit all the articles where the PNG is used. Can a redirect be used for this purpose? Aldaron (talk) 18:51, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

"Broken" (sic) redirects to "missing" user pages where user is using the global user page instead

I currently have five "broken" redirects on Incubator. In each case, they are redirects to user pages that were removed in favor of someone using the global user page instead. In cases like this, the preferred behavior would be for the redirect to function, and to redirect the seeker to the local transclusion of the global user page. Does anyone know if there is a way to make that happen, or are we forced to depend on soft redirects for cases like this? StevenJ81 (talk) 19:47, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Double redirects documentation is out of date and no longer correct

The documentation says that non-circular redirect chains work, that is, if A redirects to B which redirects to C, then a link to A will send you to C.

On visiting any page on a simple chain of redirects, the browser is redirected to the final destination. If the chain forms a loop, the browser is brought to its predecessor and the redirect loop is displayed. See, e.g., Redirect 1 → Redirect 2 → Redirect 3 → Redirect 1. Note: The links are relative links and are "redlinks" here. They refer to Help:Redirect/Redirect 1, Help:Redirect/Redirect 2, and Help:Redirect/Redirect 3.

This is not the case, see User:Davidwr/sandbox2 (permanlink) which redirects to User:Davidwr/sandbox2 (permalink) which redirects to User:Davidwr. The current documentation says that both "sandbox2" and "sandbox" should take you to my user page. Only "sandbox" does that. "Sandbox2" takes you to "sandbox1" displayed as a redirect, just as the "redirect loop" above does.

Changes need to be made to the first sentence in Help:Redirect#Restrictions quoted above. The rest of the page will need to be cleaned up as there is no longer any difference between transcluded double-or-more redirects and double-or-more redirects that are merely linked to, therefore no need to spell out those differences. Davidwr/talk 16:58, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

How to moved the redirect page to its old title?

The page "The Book of Us: Negentropy" was redirect by someone to "Day6 Discography" page because at that time the page "The book of us: Negentropy" wasn't created. After that, I created "The Book of Us: Negentropy - Chaos swallowed up in love" and I redirected the "The book of us: Negentropy" from "Day6 discography" page to "The book of us: Negentropy - Chaos swallowed up in love" page. Now, I want to changed the title of "The book of us: Negentropy - Chaos swallowed up in love" page to "The book of us: Negentropy", the original one. How to do it? I'm really sorry about my confusing process, because I'm not fluent in English so I don't understand the rule of redirection too well.

I don't mind if anyone will do it for me, Thank you.

Visual editor instructions

I believe we should add instructions to add a redirection with the visual editor, as there are Wikipedias, like the Catalan, which use it as default. Thus, we should add it here as well so we don't have to add it in our own translated page and lose it in a next translation of this English page. I can do so myself, but I don't know what's the policy here in Meta in doing such changes. Robertgarrigos (talk) 05:51, 13 October 2022 (UTC)