Help talk:Redirect

Accents: suggestion to remove the need for such redirects

I just embarked on setting up redirects for Bundózo and Chilémbi without the accents as per the guidance in this help page and tradition of this wiki. However, if you type in either of those names without accents the wiki finds the page anyway. Adding a redirect is then not needed. Worse, it potentially means the names of these cities could be misspelt because of the existence of a page without the accents. We have a rule: However, do not make redirects to cover potential typos for exactly this reason.

I am unsure if the wiki automatically copes with all diacriticals in the search. If it does, I suggest we amend this help page to remove the need for redirects for accents and other diacritical marks. -Fleanetha (talk) 19:13, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

No discussion in more than 5 years and MediaWiki continues to handle this automatically. Since this isn't a policy or guideline, I've just removed the line. -Oznogon (talk) 20:51, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks Oz. It's been a long wait. Much appreciated. However, and this must not sound ungrateful, I just typed in bundozo and nothing came up; ditto chilembi. Has this feature stopped working in the six years? Mystified once more. --Fleanetha (talk) 00:11, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Sounds like an issue for User:Virenerus, then. This accent/diacritic-folding behavior depends on the search backend and database.

And yes, this does appear to have been an issue in recent versions of MediaWiki, including for official WMF wikis. It works on English Wikipedia as of today, at least, so our issue is likely related to either our MediaWiki version or our implementation (database, search backend, extensions, etc.).

In the meantime we're flooded with a glut of new redirects to maintain, and I don't have much appetite for more of them. If we have any way to avoid needing even more redirects for usages that don't appear in canon works, I'd prefer it. -Oznogon (talk) 04:21, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

Unintentionally confirmed that the LinkSuggest extension folds diacriticals when auto-suggesting links in the source editor, and is therefore unaffected by this issue. That more strongly suggests to me that this is either an issue specific to our configuration or a MediaWiki core problem outside of our purview. -Oznogon (talk) 02:53, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

Expand and amend redirect usage

I propose expanding the "What do we use redirects for?" section from a list of examples to several detailed subsections that clarify each use case. Great examples of this can be found on my talk page. The "alternative capitalization" use case also does not appear to be relevant any longer, and should be removed. --Rexert (talk) 08:46, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

I've expanded the examples into subsections, added new examples, and added new subsections.

I've retained "alternative capitalization" because it remains in use, and clarified it and other examples to prefer alternatives that appear in canon works. -Oznogon (talk) 18:42, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Much appreciated. Unsure why the alternative capitalization remains in use when the PathfinderWiki search appears to automatically detect every possible permutation of capitalization. The Aldori swordlords example given in the help page is also automatically redirected to when typing "aLdOrI sWoRdLoRdS" despite the lack of such a redirect page. Therefore, I would argue, the Aldori Swordlords redirect page should be deleted, while the alternative capitalization might remain within the article to clarify inconsistent usage within the sources. --Rexert (talk) 05:04, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

I understand what you're suggesting, and it's worth considering. I remain disinclined to remove it as advice without broader consensus, and while search is a significant use of redirects, it isn't the only one. But I'm also very open to removing unnecessary redirects.

The example redirect Aldori Swordlords exists because both forms have appeared in canon works; the redirect exists as a result of a page move from an inconsistent canon usage within The Inner Sea World Guide (Talk:Aldori Swordlords), and the inconsistency persists into Lost Omens-era works (Character Guide, for example, uses lowercase in body text but uppercase in the glossary). That example remains a significant application of a redirect that captures and handles a valid canon usage, even if it doesn't serve an obvious function—search functionality has made it redundant, and no article links to it. -Oznogon (talk) 06:47, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

Automate redirect creation and management

I propose implementing a way to reduce the manual labor of creating and tracking redirect pages. This would likely involve listing all desired redirects within the target page, and having a bot automatically create all redirect pages based on that list. Preferably, any future changes to the page name would automatically retarget all of its redirects in bulk. While any changes to the redirect list within the target page would result in the redirect pages being automatically moved to the new redirect name.

Overall, this could drastically reduce manual labor for editors, increase the PathfinderWiki search bar reliability, improve redirect tracking, and standardize their usage. --Rexert (talk) 08:46, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

Mentioning User:Virenerus for the notification as this is more their realm.

Rigid automated standardization might not be desirable in all cases since titling articles and creating redirects can be subjective, blanket application of rules can result in ambiguous outcomes, and some search functions should be implemented in the search backend instead of adding content overhead in redirects. This help page is advice—not an official guideline, much less an enforced policy—and many of its suggestions should not become either of those things.

However, anything that reduces the labor of maintenance (especially regarding double redirects and moving or renaming articles) is still worth exploring. -Oznogon (talk) 18:42, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

The approach I suggested doesn't necessarily imply blanket application. Editors would still be in charge of creating the redirect list somewhere at the bottom of the article, similarly to the way categories are listed. This still means subjective application of all redirects, if any. It would simply consolidate the creation process of redirects with the creation of their target page, and lead to standardization through features like redirect suggestions within the template of any given Template:ArticleSpawner.

Of course, maximizing backend functionality and minimizing the number of redirect pages is still a preferable solution. However, considering some redirects are inherently necessary for the application of their specific categories, like the redirects from the alloy orb's variants, my suggestion still stands until a better solution for categorizing topics that don't require their own article is found. --Rexert (talk) 05:04, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

I'd personally be happy with just a page-move tool that simply updates any redirects at the time of the move, automatically resolves any double redirects that a move causes, and allows non-admins to move articles without creating new redirects. Those are the most frequent papercuts involving redirect maintenance that I experience in practice.

We already suggest that editors add comments documenting incoming redirects in the headings or anchors of sub-topic redirects. Formalizing that as a practice for full-article redirects as well, and then using a bot to then keep redirects in that list aligned with the target, isn't a bad idea.

The item variant redirects that you mention also benefit from individualized categorization at creation that might not be easily added or tracked through automation.

After creation, such lists could end up being redundant with MediaWiki's built-in backlink tracking, which might be a more reliable and lower-effort source to use for tracking redirects.

Such a solution would need to resolve potential conflicts between the lists and redirects, such as manually created or deleted redirects that drift from the article-managed list, not clobbering articles when one is created from a redirect in the list, or reporting or handling when multiple articles list the same redirect to manage. Those aren't impossible problems to solve but would complicate or resist automation.

Toward the edge cases, counter to Wikipedia's practices we have many redirects that are intentionally dead-ended or broken because they point from a subject's known alternative canon references to a proposed primary title, but there's no article at that title—a practice I've never been personally fond of because it creates "false" blue links to dead ends, but which has sufficiently deep-seated consensus to still exist. Nothing reports on those except Special:BrokenRedirects, which can't distinguish between intentionally and unintentionally broken redirects. I'm not sure whether or if any such bot should track or create these.

IIRC a small handful of redirects related to Starfinder subjects are interwiki redirects that would require special handling to create or track. A bot would be especially well qualified to maintain those since it can be more aware of the state of such redirects on both wikis.

As alternatives, Wikipedia applies maintenance templates to redirects to classify and track them, identify their purpose to users, and bot-manage them. Retroactively classifying redirects on PathfinderWiki in a similar manner would be a massive undertaking, but the end result would allow for more transparency around their purpose and creation.

There also exists the RedirectManager extension, which "adds a dialog window to the WikiEditor toolbar, in which to view a list of all redirects to the page being edited as well as add new redirects". If a goal is to improve redirect management for editors, extending the editor with awareness of redirects seems useful. -Oznogon (talk) 06:47, 26 February 2025 (UTC)