Wn/syl/Wikinews:Redirect

An example of a Wikipedia redirect, showing a message that Pichilemo redirects to Pichilemu

An example of a redirect on the MinervaNeue skin, from Web redirect to URL redirection. Note the black message bar on the bottom.

A redirect is a page that automatically sends visitors to another page, usually an article or section of an article. For example, if you type "UK" in the search box or click on the wikilink UK, you will be taken to the article United Kingdom with a note at the top of the page (or on mobile, in a black message bar at the bottom): "(Redirected from Template:Wn/syl/No redirect)". This is because the page Template:Wn/syl/No redirect contains special wikitext that defines it as a redirect page and indicates the target article. It is also possible to redirect to a specific section of the target page, using more advanced syntax.

Redirect pages can contain other content below the redirect, such as redirect category templates, and category links (which provide a way to list article sections in categories).

Redirects are used to help people arrive more quickly at the page they want to read; this page contains guidance on how to use them properly. For technical help relating to how redirects work, Template:Wn/syl/Crossref. Other relevant pages are Wikipedia:Double redirects, Wikipedia:Hatnote § Redirect and WikiProject Redirect.

Purposes of redirects

Shortcut:
WP:POFR

Reasons for creating and maintaining redirects include:

• Alternative names redirect to the most appropriate article title (for example, Edson Arantes do Nascimento redirects to Pelé).
• Plurals (for example, Greenhouse gases redirects to Greenhouse gas).
• Closely related words (for example, Symbiont redirects to Symbiosis).
• Adjectives or adverbs point to noun forms (e.g., Treasonous redirects to Treason)
• Less specific forms of names, for which the article subject is still the primary topic. For example, Einstein redirects to Albert Einstein, whereas Albert is a disambiguation page rather than a redirect, since no Albert is regarded as the primary topic for that name.
• More specific forms of names (for example, Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union redirects to Articles of Confederation).
• Abbreviations and initialisms (for example, ADHD redirects to Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). But often an abbreviation will have multiple meanings, none of which is a primary topic—in that case a disambiguation page should be created rather than a redirect.
• Alternate forms of a name as found in reliable sources and common databases. For example, Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences : CMLS redirects to Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences, based on its PUBMED entry.
• Alternative spellings or punctuation. For example, Colour redirects to Color, and Al-Jazeera redirects to Al Jazeera.
• Stylized forms of names. For example, Ty Dolla $ign redirects to Ty Dolla Sign.
• Punctuation issues—some titles containing dashes should have redirects using hyphens, and vice versa. The proper title depends on official spelling (in the case of a name, such as Olivia Newton-John), or established Wikipedia policy and naming conventions (such as Spanish–American War).
• Representations using ASCII characters; that is, common transliterations (for example, Pele also redirects to Pelé, while Kurt Goedel and Kurt Godel redirect to Kurt Gödel).
• Likely misspellings (for example, Condoleeza Rice redirects to Condoleezza Rice). Note: this criterion typically does not apply to redirects from typos in the template namespace; consensus is that such typos, unless they are very common, should remain as red links until they are fixed.
• Likely mixed-up technical names (for example, Oxygen chloride redirects to Chlorine oxide).
• Likely alternative capitalizations (for example, Natural Selection redirects to Natural selection). This is not necessary for user searches made via Wikipedia's search engine, but may aid linking from other articles and external sites, as well as direct URL entry.
• To comply with the maintenance of nontrivial edit history, pursuant to Wikipedia:Merging#PROMERGE for copyright licensing requirements.
• Subtopics or other topics that are described or listed within a wider article. (Such redirects are often targeted to a particular section of the article.)

• Redirects to disambiguation pages that do not contain "(disambiguation)" in the title (for example, Durham (disambiguation) redirects to Durham). These help maintenance by allowing deliberate links to disambiguation pages to be distinguished from links that need to be disambiguated. Template:Wn/syl/Crossref
• Shortcuts (for example, WP:V and Wikipedia:V redirect to Wikipedia:Verifiability). This is commonly done in project space, but not in article space.
• Old-style CamelCase links (if already in existence) (AnnaKournikova redirects to Anna Kournikova).
• Links auto-generated from Exchangeable image file format information (Adobe Photoshop CS Windows redirects to Adobe Photoshop).
• Finding what links to a section, when links are made to the redirect rather than the section.

There are redirect templates to explain the reason for a redirect.

Note that redirects to other Wikimedia wikis, other websites, special pages, or direct file links (Media: namespace) do not work. These should be avoided or replaced with a {{soft redirect}} template. Soft redirects are also used in category space (using the {{category redirect}} template). Redirects from list titles to categories (e.g. a redirect from [[List of things]] to [[Category:Things]]) are highly discouraged.

How to make a redirect

Editing the source directly

To create a basic redirect using the source editor, type #REDIRECT [[target page name here]] as the only text on the page. The capitalization of the word REDIRECT doesn't matter. For instance, if you were redirecting from "Template:Wn/syl/No redirect" to "United Kingdom", this would be the entire body of Template:Wn/syl/No redirect:

#REDIRECT [[United Kingdom]]

Using VisualEditor

To create a redirect using the VisualEditor:

1. Open the "page options" menu (icon with three parallel horizontal bars) at the top right of the editor
2. Select "Page settings"
3. Check the box marked "Redirect this page to"
4. Enter the name of the target page in the text box below the checkbox
5. Click on the blue "Apply changes" button
6. Save the page. You may enter an edit summary, or an automatic summary will be generated.

When moving a page

Redirects can also be automatically created when you move (rename) an existing page.

Requesting a redirect

If you can't create pages, you can request redirects at Wikipedia:Redirect wizard.

How to edit a redirect or convert it into an article

Shortcut:
WP:EDRED

Sometimes an existing redirect should really be handled by a full article, per Category:Wn/syl/Redirects with possibilities. For example, the name of a notable musician (who does not yet have an article) may instead be a redirect to an existing article about a band of which the musician is a member. In this case, you can edit the redirect to make it into an article. Also, if an existing redirect points to the wrong page, you can edit the redirect to point to a different page.

If you want to edit a redirect page you must use a special technique in order to get to the redirect page itself. This is because when you try to go straight to the redirect page and edit it, the redirect page will automatically redirect you to its target page (because this is what a redirect page is meant to do). Below is an example of why you might need to go to a redirect page itself (to do a small edit) and how to actually get there.

For example, say Trygve Halvdan Lie did not have his own article, and so this link was a redirect to the page Secretary-General of the United Nations. If, later on, the page Trygve Lie was created as a biography, the page Trygve Halvdan Lie should be changed to redirect to Trygve Lie per WP:COMMONNAME. To do this, go to the redirect page by clicking the existing redirect note on the target page, which in this case would read "(Redirected from Template:Wn/syl/-r)". Once there, you may click the "Edit" tab, and change the page from

#REDIRECT [[Secretary-General of the United Nations]]

to

#REDIRECT [[Trygve Lie]]

When adding or changing a redirect, always verify the links that already point there. For instance, if another person named Trygve Lie becomes very well known, it would make sense to make Trygve Lie a redirect to his page (after renaming the existing Trygve Lie page). Such a change cannot be made without changing all the preexisting links to Trygve Lie; these links can be found by clicking on What links here in the left hand menu. Also, when changing the target of a redirect verify that its talk page is not also a redirect and if it is, either retarget it to the current target's talk page, replace the redirect with {{talk page of redirect}} or if you turned the redirect into an article, remove it entirely unless WP:TALKCENT applies.

Targeted and untargeted redirects

Shortcut:
WP:TARGET

Most redirects are untargeted, i.e. they lead simply to a page, not to any specific section of the page. This is usually done when there is more than one possible name under which an article might be sought (for example, Cellphone redirects to the article Mobile phone). For deciding which should be the actual title of the article, Template:Wn/syl/Crossref.

It is also possible to create a targeted redirect, i.e. a redirect to a particular point on the target page—either a section header or an anchor. For example, the page Malia Obama contains the code #REDIRECT [[Family of Barack Obama#Malia and Sasha Obama]], which redirects to the Malia and Sasha Obama section in the article Family of Barack Obama. Therefore, entering Template:Wn/syl/Kbd will bring the searcher straight to the content that deals with "Malia and Sasha Obama".

Consider that when the target page is displayed, it is likely that the top of the page will not be shown, so the user may not see the helpful "(redirected from... )" text unless they know to scroll back to the top. This is less likely to cause confusion if the redirect is to a heading with the same name as the redirect.

The text given in the link on a targeted redirect page must exactly match the target section heading or anchor text, including capitalization and punctuation. (While spaces and underscores are interchangeable in the current implementation of the MediaWiki software, it is generally good practice and aids maintenance to use exactly the same spelling in links as is used in the corresponding targets also for these characters.) (In the absence of a match, the reader will simply be taken to the top of the target page.) It is often helpful to leave a hidden comment in the target text, to inform other editors that a section title is linked, so that if the title is altered, the redirect can be changed. For example:

 == Vaccine overload ==
 <!-- "Vaccine overload" redirects here. -->

To ensure that a redirect will not break if a section title gets altered, or to create a redirect to a point on the page other than a section heading, create an explicit target anchor in the page, e.g., by using the {{anchor}} template. Alternative anchors for section headings are ideally placed directly after the name of the heading (but before the closing equals signs):

== Section title {{subst:Wn/syl/Anchor|anchor name}} ==

Substitution ({{subst:Anchor}}) is preferable to simply using {{Anchor}} because otherwise, when the section is edited via its own Template:Wn/syl/Nobr
ꠁ ꠙꠣꠔꠣ ꠁꠈꠣꠘ ꠙꠣꠔꠟꠣ ꠊꠥꠞꠣꠘ꠆ꠐꠤ

link, the anchor markup and alternative section title(s) will appear as undesirable clutter at the beginning of revision history entries.  Template:Wn/syl/Crossref

The anchor text will not be visible on the page, but it will serve as a permanent marker of that place on the page. Editors should generally not remove or alter such anchors without checking all incoming links and redirects. If several logically independent aspects of a topic are discussed under a single section header and should be linked to, it is sometimes useful to define separate anchors for them, if the current amount of information doesn't justify a division into multiple sections already. This makes it easier to rearrange contents on a page as it develops since those anchors can be moved with their corresponding contents without a need to fix up incoming links.

For example, in the Google Search article, the text Template:Wn/syl/Tnull is placed at the point where Google Calculator is discussed. The title Google Calculator can then be redirected to Google Search#calculator.

When a section title is known to be the target of incoming links, the Wikipedia Manual of Style , so that such links will continue to work even if someone renames the section without creating an anchor with the old name. Technically, the redundant section and anchor names result in invalid HTML. However, when a document contains multiple tags with the same id value, browsers are required to return the first one, so in practice, this is not a problem.

Be careful with anchor capitalization, as redirects are case-sensitive in standards-compliant browsers. Template:Wn/syl/Talkref

Double redirects

The software will not follow chains of more than one redirect—this is called a double redirect. A redirect should not be left pointing to another redirect page.

Double redirects often arise after a page is moved (renamed)—after moving a page, check whether there are any redirects to the old title (using the link on the move result page, or using "What links here"), and change them to redirect straight to the new title. Double redirects are usually fixed by a bot in a few days; however, an editor should not leave behind any self-created double redirects.

Linking to a redirect

You can link to a redirect page just as you can link to an article page by placing the redirect page name within a set of double brackets, such as:

[[Template:Var]]

replacing Template:Wn/syl/Var with the name of the redirect page to link.

To link to a redirect page without following the underlying redirect, use: {{No redirect|Template:Wn/syl/Var}} replacing Template:Wn/syl/Var with the name of the redirect page to link. Clicking on a no-redirect link will send the reader to the redirect page rather than the final redirect destination.

Categorizing redirect pages

Most redirect pages are not placed in article categories. There are three types of redirect categorization that are helpful and useful:

• Maintenance categories are in use for particular types of redirects, such as Category:Wn/syl/Redirects from initialisms, in which a redirect page may be sorted using the {{R from initialism}} template. One major use of these categories is to determine which redirects are fit for inclusion in a printed subset of Wikipedia. Template:Wn/syl/Crossref for functional and alphabetical lists of these templates. A brief functional list of redirect category (rcat) templates is also found in the {{R template index}} navbar.
• Template:Wn/syl/Short Sometimes a redirect is placed in an article category because the form of the redirected title is more appropriate to the context of that category, e.g. Template:Wn/syl/No redirect redirects to the band article The Honeycombs, but the redirect is placed in Category:Wn/syl/1943 births and other categories which relate to Lantree as an individ