Help:Redirect/Page 2
From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection
- For the main help page on redirects, see Help:Redirect.
This page is for discussion of redirects that is specific to Wikibooks.
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[edit] Renamings and merges on Wikibooks
We try to avoid broken links, because they annoy visitors. Therefore, if we change the layout of some section of Wikibooks we always leave redirects in the old location to point to the new location. Search engines and visitors will probably have linked to that page at that url. If the page is deleted, potential new visitors from search engines will be greeted with an edit window. The same is true for anyone who previously bookmarked that page, and so on.
On a small scale, this applies to cases where we had duplicate modules on some subject, or lots of twisty little stubs on different aspects of the same overall subject.
[edit] Wikibooks-specific guidelines for deleting redirects
To delete a redirect without replacing it with a new module, list it on votes for deletion. See deletion policy for details on how to nominate pages for deletion.
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 modules via the search engine. (see meta:searches and redirects for proposals to lessen this impact)
- The redirect might cause confusion.
- The redirect is offensive.
- The redirect makes no sense, such as Pink elephants painting daisies to Chemistry
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 module 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 modules less likely.
- They aid searches on certain terms.
- 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 Wikibooks in different ways.
- There are pages that link to the redirect page. You can check this with the "What links here" on the sidebar. If there are only a few pages that link to it, you can edit those pages to link to the existing module, but if there are more, you should probably keep it the way it is. Make sure to get all of the links on a page when editing if you choose that path.
[edit] What needs to be done on pages that are targets of redirects?
We follow the "principle of least astonishment" - after following a redirect, the readers's first question is likely to be: "hang on ... I wanted to read about this. Why has the link taken me to that?". Make it clear to the reader that they have arrived in the right place.
Normally, we try to make sure that all "inbound redirects" are mentioned in the first couple of paragraphs of the module.
[edit] Self-links, duplicate links
Avoid self-links, including self-links through redirects ("loop links"). Also, avoid having two links that go to the same place. These can confuse readers, and cause them to unnecessarily load the same page twice.
[edit] Double redirects
As a simple way to avoid problems with infinite recursion, you cannot have a redirect to a redirect to a module. In such a case, only the first redirect is followed. See Special:DoubleRedirects for an auto-generated list of double redirects.
[edit] Related topics
- Practice editing pages in our Wikibooks sandbox!
