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Hello, Thinking of England, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! Hyacinth (talk) 07:02, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NBSP. Glad to help :) Other useful codes are – for date and number ranges (5–7 October), and — to indicate a thought ("He picked up the shoe—which was by now, very wet—and put it on"). Parrot of Doom (talk) 09:43, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

bah, I don't know how to stop the browser auto formatting those codes, but you can click the edit button to see what I've done! Parrot of Doom (talk) 09:48, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the first link WP:NBSP is part of Wikipedia's WP:Manual of Style, which instructs users how to correctly format articles. Its a massive topic and takes some reading, but it offers some very good advice. I use nbsp in any place where the disconnection of a number from a word might cause confusion. Its especially important where images and tables, and other things which break up the page and disconnect numbers and words, are present. Parrot of Doom (talk) 09:58, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Have a look under your edit window - there are lots of useful little markup thingies, you can insert special characters, or you can change the box to wiki markup, which has things like nbsp in there, as well as nowiki, etc.

Another very useful tool is in your "my preferences>gadgets" (top right of your screen). If you enable refTools, that, on the edit window, gives you a nice little button that enables the autoformatting of references. It can save new users a lot of time. Twinkle is another good tool, although I recommend you be careful using that for the first time as it can issue some fairly powerful warnings on userpages :) Parrot of Doom (talk) 10:13, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note to self: – "–" and — "—" used above -- Thinking of England (talk) 10:18, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Re [1], WP:LEADCITE states "The verifiability policy advises that material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and quotations, should be cited." and wp:bop: "All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation." It was challenged [2] [3] and is a quote. -- Jeandré (talk), 2009-07-05t10:08z

Granted, I haven't reviewed our citations policy lately, but it seems to me that citing a quote dozens of paragraphs after it (first) appears in an article is simply not acceptable. And, no, I didn't notice the citation in the "Critical review" section. - dcljr (talk) 04:20, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't strongly object to the edit (so there is not much to discuss here), but it is incorrect to assert that this particular citation in the lead is require by WP:LEADCITE. The sentence you quote is satisfied by the citation in the body, and the use of "redundant citations in the lead" should be "determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus". In this case I do feel that the flow of the lead is hindered, albeit very slightly, by the citation of this three word snippet of a quote in the second sentence of the lead, with the full quote properly cited in the body. -- Thinking of England (talk) 00:43, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(In response to this)
I am the nominator, not Tyciol. I put down multiple entries because the instructions told me to. Xanthoxyl (talk) 05:44, 23 July 2009 (UTC) (Responded to here, here, and here.)[reply]

Just curious, what do you mean when you say:

"The earlier layout was poor, with the camel's toe above the cameltoe, but the removed photograph would provide an appropriate illustration for the (currently missing) etymology. Perhaps a side by side layout would work well."

Nocturnal Wanderer 21:00, 7 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Regarding the etymology (and borrowing words from one of the references) the "fashion faux pas" cameltoe derives its name from a "visual analogy" with the arrangement of a camel's toes, though this etymology is not mentioned in the text of the article. Thus the photograph of the camel's foot does "fit in with the article" and perhaps even obviates an explicit etymology.
• Regarding the old poor layout, it placed the photo of the camel's foot at the top of the page and that of the cameltoe (the subject of the article) well below so that the latter did not even appear without scrolling down. Being separated from the upper photo with some article text, the lower photo was presented as if it were secondary to the subject of the article. I thought that if the images were appropriately scaled and properly aligned side by side, the visual analogy might be more apparent.
• The current revision looks good to my eye (and on my browser). The photo of the camel's foot has been restored, and while it is still on top, the photo of the cameltoe has been moved up immediately below it. The order makes sense because the latter photo is so much taller than the former, and the lower third of the latter photo is not necessary for the visual analogy. Thus if, as with my browser, a portion of the lower photo is off screen, the visual analogy is still apparent. This would not be the case were the order of the photos reversed.
• I no longer feel that a rearrangement of the photos is necessary, and with the visual analogy well presented I am indifferent as to the addition of an explicit etymology in the text (although one that included the history of the term would be welcome).

-- Thinking of England (talk) 01:08, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I agree. Nocturnal Wanderer 01:45, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(In response to this)

thanks for your note. innocent spelling error.

glad you liked the article-- hope someone can expand it someday. J. Van Meter (talk) 13:12, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(In response to this)

Hehe, I know it's a tiny mistake, but saying Rio Grande de Norte would be like saying West or East Korea instead of North or South...I mean, actually it makes gramatically no sense (Rio Grande do Norte means lit. North Great River, whereas Rio Grande de Norte means Great River of North, suggesting there's more than one possible North direction). I've put a delete word before my comment at the RfD. I created all those articles on Brazilian cities because each of them is the eastern, western, southern or northernmost city of each Brazilian state. I know it sounds useless, but it was a nice excuse for creating more Brazilian cities articles. As I was in a certain hurry, those mistakes occured. There's no problem for dragging that to a RfD, you were just doing your job here. =) Cheers! Victão Lopes ^{I hear you...} 21:46, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I saw it. I'm glad the issue is over now. =) Victão Lopes ^{I hear you...} 19:52, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Gage is an older spelling; it doesn't seem to be in wide use anymore, but I'm not sure if it's necessary to replace it. --NE2 13:19, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I won't track anymore down. It's worth noting that in the majority of my edits the article used "gauge" nearly exclusively, each with a single instance of "gage" (not in a different context) that resembled a typo more than an intentional choice of an alternate spelling. In other cases I corrected the spelling of proper nouns, such as "Narrow Gauge Road" in Pennsylvania. -- Thinking of England (talk) 17:09, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(In response to this)

I put the hatnote on the Oregon page and received this message back: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Rkmlai#Watching_my_page

I respect Katr's request and moreso hear the feeling she expressed, of feeling "stalked". I choose to recuse myself from the discussion as I am choosing to not interfere in areas she might feel more of an attachment than I do. I hope the best for the discussion. Peace, rkmlai (talk) 02:34, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

User:Thinking of England has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian, and therefore, I've officially declared today as Thinking of England's day! For being such a beautiful person and great Wikipedian, enjoy being the Star of the day, dear Thinking of England! Peace, Rlevse 01:28, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] A record of your Day will always be kept here.

For a userbox you can add to your userbox page, see User:Rlevse/Today/Happy Me Day! and my own userpage for a sample of how to use it. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:28, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I wish to request a second account for use in a manner permitted by policy. My choice is ToE, but this is too similar to Toe(talk|contrib) to be granted without request. User Toe has made only two edits (12), both on 18 October 2005, both retverted in a single edit a few minutes later. -- ToE^T 05:27, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• The requested account ToE(talk|contrib) was created five minutes after the form was submitted. Thanks guys! -- ToE^T 05:44, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

ToE wrote

Hello ToE. Im trying to resolve the problem with Vyzas F.C. players at WP:FOOTBALL now. Yes, the redirect is useless. Thank you for reminding me that. --Vejvančický (talk) 09:27, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

ToE replied

No problem, no harm done. This article is useless in my opinion, completely wrong informations, not notable third-league player. However, the third-league is professional, and I'm not sure with deletion. Have a nice day, ToE. --Vejvančický (talk) 09:37, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

ToE wrote

Thank you for your tag about the redirect I signalled ToE, I just wanted to say that keeping a misspelled name in the field of taxonomy could be dangerous...I mean that you could be sure that a name is right while it isn't, without paying attention that is a redirect. But there is no problem, there will be many other cases in the whole Wikipedia :D Aytrus (talk) 18:24, 6 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

ToE responded

You PERFECTLY understood ;D Aytrus (talk) 10:23, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

ToE wrote

The article could be much better with so many sources and articles that we have. I'll fix and admit to any mistakes I make, but you always can also. I do have done a lot of editing to Hitchens' article, so I feel self conscious about being over bearing or being seen as owning the article in some way. We can always collaborate, and so on. Jakeb (talk) 14:36, 7 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

ToE replied

I was originally going to mention HitchensWeb to you, but that's unfortunatley unactive as of now. Jakeb (talk) 19:19, 7 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm curious, how are you finding all those redirects with invalid or inextant section targets? -- œ^™ 00:28, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

By seeking out those redirects that link to (or, more specifically, transclude) {{R to section}} but fail to successfully link into the body of their target article.

Ahh so you just click on each one at random then to find out if they link to the target? Ok I was just wondering, I thought you might've had some kind of automated script that discovered these links.

If you are concerned about the correctness of any particular edit I have made, please do let me know as I continually reappraise my own actions. I have been operating under the assumption that if tagged with {{R to section}}, a redirect is supposed to target a valid, extant section of an article. I'd estimate that over half of my edits to these redirects are of updating the link subsequent to a section title name change, but there are a good many cases where the article has changed enough that there is no readily identifiable, direct descendant of the original section, and I have to decide upon some other section of that, or occasionally, a different article. When the originally targeted section is nonextant and no relevant material survives in the current article, I retarget the redirect to the overall article itself and remove the tag.

Oh no, no concern, I think you're doing a great job. Keep up the good work. :)

I am troubled by those redirects which have never targeted any section but appear to have been intentionally tagged with {{R to section}}. I have assumed that these were tagged in error and have remove the tag (unless a section retargeting seems desirable). There is one particular editor who is responsible for creating a handful of these (using AWB) who I should contact to verify there is not some purpose I am missing.

Yes these were probably in error and agree you should contact this editor. -- œ^™ 01:39, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

{{R to section}} and {{R to anchor}} I think I understand, but {{R to list entry}} confused me. From its name I assumed that it would be a special case of {{R to anchor}}, but its documentation describes it as a redirect to a "list of minor entities"-type article, thus not a redirect to a list entry but a redirect to an article which contains a relevant entry. Hmmph. -- ToE^T 01:19, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I too thought "R to list entry" was a bit confusing and redundant to "R to section". I usually use it in cases like Coup de maître where it refers to a specific single item in a list such as a list of words. BTW, have you considered joining WP:WikiProject Redirect? -- œ^™ 01:39, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the invitation. I was just reading WP:WikiProject Redirect and saw that the open tasks list there includes, "Add redirect templates to all redirect pages." Is it believed that there is a template for every redirect? I didn't think the list was that comprehensive and it didn't seem to have a catchall template. -- ToE^T 15:16, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah I should probably change that, I doubt it's possible to tag every redirect. I just tag the easy ones like {{R from alternative name}} and {tl|R from abbreviation}}, and also the important ones like {{R from merge}}. -- œ^™ 17:58, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

_[outdenting]
I wasn't trying to pick nits (although accuracy is desirable). When I saw that note I thought that perhaps some sort of tag was necessary to identify redirects in general. I thought that perhaps a "what links here" or category list tool was necessary to generate a list of redirects.

I now see that Special:ListRedirects does include some untagged redirects, though it only returns through redirect #1000 and appears to contain the oldest redirects so the distribution of types is not indicative of the overall population. (Over representation of {{R from CamelCase}}, for example.) Also WP:Quick index and Special:AllPages does display redirects in italics, but it would be nice if you could select for redirects only, and then even filter based on inclusion/exclusion in various categories.

It's also possible to visualize redirects by displaying them in a different color if that helps. See Wikipedia_talk:Redirect#Visualizing_redirects. -- œ^™ 00:24, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Since I brought up {{R from CamelCase}}, it most properly seems to be used for cases such as AccessibleComputing, but it is also used for cases such as Angola/History. While not strictly CamelCase, I assume that it is a proper use as it dates from the same era of old style article titles. If that's so, then perhaps an example of that format should be included in its documentation on WP:Template messages/Redirect pages. It could also be worth including an example like FielD as this single-word style of CamelcasE caused some confusion over at RfD recently. -- ToE^T 23:59, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes you're right, an example would help. Or at least a link to Wikipedia:CamelCase and Wikipedia. Go ahead and update it if you want. -- œ^™ 00:24, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Can you confirm that {{R to section}} is only ever supposed to be used for redirects that specifically target a section in the redirect link? I think its documentation doesn't leave much room for interpretation. It says, "This is a redirect from a topic, name or term that does not have its own article, to an article section which covers the subject" not "..., to an article with a section which covers the subject" but I think that is how some people might have misread it.

Not sure I understand what you want me to confirm. I think the documentation is pretty self-explanatory. Every redirect to a section must include the article's title in the redirect link in order to properly redirect to that section. And to me, "article section" and "article with a section" mean the same thing.

>>new<<

OK, this is really important. I am asking "Does a redirect warrant an {{R to section}} template if and only if there is a "#" character in the redirect's target link?"

I would say yes.

Regarding "article section" vs. "article with a section", consider Sorcerers & Secretaries which redirects to Amy Kim Ganter. "Sorcerers & Secretaries" is only discussed in the Comics section of that article, but that section is the first and largest of an article with a very short lead, so the author of the redirect decided (and I agree) that it makes more sense to redirect to the article as a whole than to that section. Now, does this redirect deserve an {{R to section}} template? As I understand it, such a template would be incorrect (and thus I removed it), but if the definition read "article with a section", then yes, this redirect would fit the description perfectly. -- ToE^T 01:04, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ah I see what you're saying, and yes your example would fit the description, however you also need to take into account the title of the template, which is "Redirect TO section" so it would be defeating the purpose of the template if it's not redirecting straight to the section.

And I also agree that in those cases where the section which mentions the subject of the redirect is close to the lead, and thus in plain sight (no need to scroll down), there is no need to redirect directly to the section and thus no need for the template. In fact I think a better template for Sorcerers & Secretaries would be {{R from subtopic without possibilities}}. Or you could also just create your own redirect template.. {{R to article with a section}} maybe? :P

So as with many things on Wikipedia, basic common sense is involved, and while there may be different ways to interpret documentation, when faced with questions of correct usage it's always best to just use your judgment. -- œ^™ 01:59, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't help that {{R with possibilities}} says, "Conversely, if the topic is not susceptible to a major expansion, tag instead with Template:R to section, or Template:R to list entry, depending on how the topic should be handled" only implying the "if appropriate" part.

Well, if you don't think the implication is enough, you know you can just go ahead and edit it to add the "if appropriate" part right? :) Just go ahead and make any changes you see fit, we all trust you know what you're doing.

I hope you don't mind that I've adopted you as a redirect related mentor, of sorts. There isn't an informal forum such as a village pump for redirect chatter, is there? I am happy to raise more substantial questions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Redirect. -- ToE^T 14:12, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. At Village Pump Miscellaneous you can discuss just about anything related to Wikipedia, or the WP:Help desk for help with using Wikipedia. And Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Redirect is the perfect place to ask Redirect related questions. -- œ^™ 16:54, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've restored the anchors for NickServ, Nickserv, MemoServ, and BotServ. These and other redirects that point to the same target article are subtopics of Internet Relay Chat services and will eventually have their own sections. --Tothwolf (talk) 12:08, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Roger that, and thank you for the note. I just reviewed my edit history and those were the only such redirects to Internet Relay Chat services I edited, and I will make a note to avoid messing with the other IRC service redirects. May I ask why you have section redirects prior to the creation of the sections? Is it simply that the sections are planned and so you just got the redirects out of the way first, perhaps mapping out what you plan to do, or is there a Wikipedia practice in which sectionless section redirects are intended to flag something? If so, is this practice informal or is it described somewhere? (I am not trying to sound at all critical here -- I really do wish to understand the common practice so I can avoid making unhelpful edits.) -- ToE^T 13:10, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I'm aware, there are no set guidelines as to how to plan section redirects such as in the case of this article. I set these up while merging some other articles and sorting out all the existing redirects. I set them up because as the article is cleaned up and expanded these sections will be created. From what I've seen, section/anchor type redirects generally tend to be neglected and most people do not check for existing redirects when modifying a section name or removing it entirely from an article. The {{anchor}} template and leaving a HTML comment in the markup can help at times, but section redirects are commonly broken by other edits. --Tothwolf (talk) 15:06, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(In reply to this)

Firstly, apologies for taking so long to get back to you on this - I'm currently abroad, and though I've been monitoring my own talk page I've only just now seen your note on DarknessBot's.
Thank you for raising this issue to me - I have to admit, redirects to 'Target page name' have been noted before, though this is the first that's resulted in problems upstream with 'corrections' to other redirects. What I'll do for now is simply have DarknessBot ignore redirects to 'Target page name', and leave it to the anti-vandalism bots to revert.
I can see your concern with the potential for abuse of DarknessBot to cause vandalism, and more stringent logs and logic will certainly be implemented in the future, however I believe this case was a mostly an issue of bad timing, and isn't likely to happen except in extremely rare cases. To explain how the bot works:- it primarily checks recent redirect edits to see if they're double-redirects, and fix them if they are, but in times of low numbers of new edits (and the bot is idle), it will then download a fresh list of all redirects on Wikipedia, and check through them alphabetically.
What seems to have happened in this case is, 'Abu Dhabi' was redirected to 'Target page name', and 'fixed' immediately by DarknessBot (bad design on my part certainly ^_^;;). After this it ran out of recent edits to check, and instead started on the downloaded list - since 'Abu Dhabi' and the other spellings are right up at the top alphabetically, it then propagated the damage.
I can't see this at all being a common occurrence. Indeed, it's now fixed 96,672 double redirects and only a handful of those did it earn a telling off for.
I'll keep a close eye on him to make sure it doesn't happen again, but I'd rather avoid having to add periodic 'checks' to pages as not only will it increase the load on the bot, but also on wikipedia's servers (DarknessBot runs 24/7, and not on the toolserver). And one major screwup every 100,000 corrections (and close to 3 years runtime) isn't tooooo bad going :)
Thanks again, ShakingSpirit^talk 16:46, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

ToE wrote

It is "geneology" in the original. Just checked. Carrite (talk) 03:00, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

ToE replied

Thanks to a tip from Splarka, I've now replaced {{anchorencode}} with {{FULLPAGENAMEE}}, which seems to have solved all our problems. Actually, I've made that replacement in {{stats.grok.se}} and added this template to {{rfd2}} instead, which gives much cleaner output. Let me know if you notice any problems with the current version. --Zach425 ^talk/contribs 05:14, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, let's try it out.

====<span id="Baggy jeans">Baggy jeans</span>====
*{{noredirect|1 = Baggy jeans }} → [[:Jeans]] ([[Special:Whatlinkshere/Baggy jeans|links to redirect]]) ({{#ifeq:|true|<span class="plainlinks">|}}[http://stats.grok.se/{{CONTENTLANG}}/{{#if:|{{{year}}}{{0expr|}}|{{#if:|{{#ifexpr:{{{month}}}>{{CURRENTMONTH}}|{{#expr:{{CURRENTYEAR}}-1}}|{{CURRENTYEAR}}}}{{0expr|{{{month}}}}}|{{#ifexpr:({{CURRENTMONTH}}-1)>0|{{CURRENTYEAR}}{{0expr|{{CURRENTMONTH}}-1}}|{{#expr:{{CURRENTYEAR}}-1}}12}}}}}}/{{FULLPAGENAMEE:Baggy jeans}} stats]{{#if:stats|| to {{#if:Baggy jeans|''[[:{{CONTENTLANG}}:Baggy jeans|Baggy jeans]]''|this page}} {{#if:|during {{#if:|{{MONTHNAME|{{{month}}}}}}} {{{year}}}|{{#if:|during {{MONTHNAME|{{{month}}}}}|last month}}}}{{#if:|{{#ifeq:{{lc:{{{lang}}}}}|{{lc:{{CONTENTLANG}}}}|| on the [[:{{{lang}}}:Main Page|{{ISO 639 name {{lc:{{{lang}}}}}}}-language Wikipedia]]}}}}.}}{{#ifeq:|true|</span>|}})
Wash because they are dirty.

====<span id="S&P">S&P</span>====
*{{noredirect|1 = S&P }} → [[:Standard & Poor's]] ([[Special:Whatlinkshere/S&P|links to redirect]]) ({{#ifeq:|true|<span class="plainlinks">|}}[http://stats.grok.se/{{CONTENTLANG}}/{{#if:|{{{year}}}{{0expr|}}|{{#if:|{{#ifexpr:{{{month}}}>{{CURRENTMONTH}}|{{#expr:{{CURRENTYEAR}}-1}}|{{CURRENTYEAR}}}}{{0expr|{{{month}}}}}|{{#ifexpr:({{CURRENTMONTH}}-1)>0|{{CURRENTYEAR}}{{0expr|{{CURRENTMONTH}}-1}}|{{#expr:{{CURRENTYEAR}}-1}}12}}}}}}/{{FULLPAGENAMEE:S&P}} stats]{{#if:stats|| to {{#if:S&P|''[[:{{CONTENTLANG}}:S&P|S&P]]''|this page}} {{#if:|during {{#if:|{{MONTHNAME|{{{month}}}}}}} {{{year}}}|{{#if:|during {{MONTHNAME|{{{month}}}}}|last month}}}}{{#if:|{{#ifeq:{{lc:{{{lang}}}}}|{{lc:{{CONTENTLANG}}}}|| on the [[:{{{lang}}}:Main Page|{{ISO 639 name {{lc:{{{lang}}}}}}}-language Wikipedia]]}}}}.}}{{#ifeq:|true|</span>|}})
Buy, buy, buy!

====<span id="Kirchhoff's current law">Kirchhoff's current law</span>====
*{{noredirect|1 = Kirchhoff's current law }} → [[:Kirchhoff's circuit laws]] ([[Special:Whatlinkshere/Kirchhoff's current law|links to redirect]]) ({{#ifeq:|true|<span class="plainlinks">|}}[http://stats.grok.se/{{CONTENTLANG}}/{{#if:|{{{year}}}{{0expr|}}|{{#if:|{{#ifexpr:{{{month}}}>{{CURRENTMONTH}}|{{#expr:{{CURRENTYEAR}}-1}}|{{CURRENTYEAR}}}}{{0expr|{{{month}}}}}|{{#ifexpr:({{CURRENTMONTH}}-1)>0|{{CURRENTYEAR}}{{0expr|{{CURRENTMONTH}}-1}}|{{#expr:{{CURRENTYEAR}}-1}}12}}}}}}/{{FULLPAGENAMEE:Kirchhoff's current law}} stats]{{#if:stats|| to {{#if:Kirchhoff's current law|''[[:{{CONTENTLANG}}:Kirchhoff's current law|Kirchhoff's current law]]''|this page}} {{#if:|during {{#if:|{{MONTHNAME|{{{month}}}}}}} {{{year}}}|{{#if:|during {{MONTHNAME|{{{month}}}}}|last month}}}}{{#if:|{{#ifeq:{{lc:{{{lang}}}}}|{{lc:{{CONTENTLANG}}}}|| on the [[:{{{lang}}}:Main Page|{{ISO 639 name {{lc:{{{lang}}}}}}}-language Wikipedia]]}}}}.}}{{#ifeq:|true|</span>|}})
Apostrophe's can be problematic!

====<span id=""Ron" Paul">"Ron" Paul</span>====
*{{noredirect|1 = "Ron" Paul }} → [[:Ron Paul]] ([[Special:Whatlinkshere/"Ron" Paul|links to redirect]]) ({{#ifeq:|true|<span class="plainlinks">|}}[http://stats.grok.se/{{CONTENTLANG}}/{{#if:|{{{year}}}{{0expr|}}|{{#if:|{{#ifexpr:{{{month}}}>{{CURRENTMONTH}}|{{#expr:{{CURRENTYEAR}}-1}}|{{CURRENTYEAR}}}}{{0expr|{{{month}}}}}|{{#ifexpr:({{CURRENTMONTH}}-1)>0|{{CURRENTYEAR}}{{0expr|{{CURRENTMONTH}}-1}}|{{#expr:{{CURRENTYEAR}}-1}}12}}}}}}/{{FULLPAGENAMEE:"Ron" Paul}} stats]{{#if:stats|| to {{#if:"Ron" Paul|''[[:{{CONTENTLANG}}:"Ron" Paul|"Ron" Paul]]''|this page}} {{#if:|during {{#if:|{{MONTHNAME|{{{month}}}}}}} {{{year}}}|{{#if:|during {{MONTHNAME|{{{month}}}}}|last month}}}}{{#if:|{{#ifeq:{{lc:{{{lang}}}}}|{{lc:{{CONTENTLANG}}}}|| on the [[:{{{lang}}}:Main Page|{{ISO 639 name {{lc:{{{lang}}}}}}}-language Wikipedia]]}}}}.}}{{#ifeq:|true|</span>|}})
Reloveution, "y'all".

-- ToE^T 05:56, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, far from clean indeed!!! That's some pretty disgusting output. The reason I subst'd was to establish a consistent date, but this obviously isn't the way to go. I'll try again... --Zach425 ^talk/contribs 06:33, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Let's try again:

• Kitty cat → Cat (links to redirect) (stats)

Here, kitty kitty. ToE^T 08:05, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It took a little while, but I think I finally got it. Now when we use {{subst:rfd2}}, it should provide the current month & year. I'll keep my fingers crossed that the example below confirms that! Let me know if you catch any other problems with it. Thanks for all your help with everything - as a new editor, it's nice having an experienced set of eyes to guide me.

As for the "Ron" Paul issue, it looks like it's a stats.grok.se problem specific to pages that begin with " - no other character seems to trigger the bug. I've left a note about this on the developer's talk page, we'll see if he ever gets a chance to address it. --Zach425 ^talk/contribs 11:00, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Doggy → Dog (links to redirect) (stats)

Woof. Zach425 ^talk/contribs 11:00, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please explain how you came to the interpretation this edit was the conclusion of an rfd? Geo Swan (talk) 01:28, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Geo Swan. Perhaps I've made an erroneous assumption; if so I'll be able to identify and roll them back based on the summaries in my edit history. I'll take another look at the active and closed RfDs before I explain. -- ToE^T

I'm still locating and looking through the various RfDs, but first a quick question to you. Is it your desire that the redlinks to those deleted redirects be kept? (I've no problem with redlinks in general -- I'm just asking about these.) -- ToE^T 02:09, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Eventually I think there should be an article, or series of articles, about the specific associations with al Qaida and the Taliban. I am just about finished a comment at the {{rfd}}. Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 02:14, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've struck out my redlink cleanup suggestion at the RfD and have added a note asking anyone who was involved to either revert their edits or enter your discussion about handling the association characterizations. (I don't know that anyone besides Mako joined in.) As I was motivated solely by a misremembering of the RfD and not by a separate, informed opposition to these redlinks, I have reverted all the changes I made. -- ToE^T 03:04, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Geo Swan (talk) 03:07, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Alright then. This wasn't clear to me either. I'll respond in more depth on the ongoing WP:RfD. I might wait to see where the conversation goes but I'll probably go ahead and revert my edits were appropriate soon. Thanks for clearing this up. —mako๛ 04:14, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is done. Thanks for leting me know.Againme (talk) 14:03, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for fixing the typo in T.P. Wiseman! A little thing, maybe, but appreciated, as I've been having some vision problems and don't always catch the things I used to. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:02, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the thank you. On a good day I try to fix more than I break. -- ToE^T 00:30, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I've just attended to all your Sarah Palin redirect requests. Next time you have several similar changes on different pages, it's probably easier to just make one request rather than scattering them on every different talk page. It would just save time for us. Anyway, not a big deal, and thanks for your work here — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:09, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, and thanks for the advice. -- ToE^T 08:12, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

UltraMagnus (talk) 13:16, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! Sorry it took me a few days to get back to you, things have been busy. I'd say the link is overly tenuous and would advocate the removal of all references to Guitar Hero: The Beatles on the grounds that they were created based largely on a rumor. As far as I can tell (from a quick search), there are no RS's that refer to the possibility of this game as anything more than a rumor. If it were me, I'd probably take it to RfD. Thanks for the consult, I'm flattered to be asked! —Zach425 ^talk/contribs 21:50, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for alerting me to the discussion activity at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2009 September 23#Speights (surname). This prompted me to provide a 'weak keep' opinion with explanation ant to alert the Anthroponymy Wikiproject via Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anthroponymy#Surname redirect under consideration for deletion. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:05, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I love history merging pages; it's fun to rescue older edits and move them to the correct place. If you find redirects that have resulted from recent cut-and-paste moves, list them at Wikipedia:Cut and paste move repair holding pen. I've history merged Armenian education in the Ottoman Empire. Graham87 02:37, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hand merge the edits, noting where they're from in the edit summary. Graham87 11:19, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've just history merged it, more for the time information of the edit than anything. If the edits were two minutes apart I would've just deleted the redirect. After the history merge, I deleted the redirect as an obvious misspelling, per CSD R3. I know that the criterion says "recently created", but this is a time to ignore all rules. Graham87 04:59, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

True. But why bother? Why not just leave it alone? Pdfpdf (talk) 01:56, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(The why is asking about the removal of text following a redirect, in this particular case, a stubbed out disambiguation page, and the "true" is referring to the comment that it was still available via history.)

Hello brother, I did not desire to bring you grief. Regarding this particular redirect, I came very close to first sending you a note, but decided to act instead of talk because it appeared to be a dead sandbox, having not been edited in six months and with almost all of its disambiguation targets still redlinks. I assumed that it was a dead and forgotten idea.

In general, I have been tracking down overly long redirects as they often indicate a problem, such as a cut-and-paste move in need of a {{db-histmerge}} or an incomplete merge in need of an {{R from merge}}. So far, I had only run across one other case of a redirect being used as a sandbox, and as its edits were much more recent, I talked instead of acted (though I haven't heard back yet). If you wish, I would be happy to revert my edit with a note in the comment. I would then just keep that redirect in a list of false positives.

I do not know what other, more experienced editors would think of the practice. I just learned that R'n'B, the operator of RussBot, maintains and acts on a similar list, User:RussBot/Long redirects (his based on number of characters vs my lines of code), and looking just now I see that your Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff appears on his list at #285. I do not know if he keeps a separate white list, though I am not aware of any automated action taken against such redirects. I am pretty sure that they are just listed for case-by-case investigation and action. -- ToE^T 02:38, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A good reason to remove text after redirects is bug 7304, which causes the what links here list to be messed up when a link is placed after the text of a redirect. See my message at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Orphaned image deletion bot for an explanation and some examples - I use User:Graham87/sandbox8 to test the effects of this bug. Graham87 05:04, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, that is good to know. In this case Pdfpdf had carefully wrapped it all up in an html comment, but that is the exception. -- ToE^T 05:10, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings!

The folowing section is a bit of a red herring:

"Hello brother, I did not desire to bring you grief." - Don't be concerned - you haven't.

In fact, unintentionally (I assume), you have brought me bemusement. Regarding my sentence "But why bother?", I intentionally used the word "bother". (i.e. I meant, "But why got to the effort of doing that?") I am interested that you assumed it was a typo. I guess "bother" is not a word in common usage, but in Australia (outside of trades union and secret societies), "brother" is only used to address male siblings. I assumed you are British, and that the use of "brother" was similar in Britain to its use in Oz. Perhaps not?

Returning to the matter in hand ...

So, I'm deducing from your reply that you "undid" it because you assumed it was "stale". Is that correct?

Well, "staleness" is/was a reasonable assumption. (Yes, I had forgotten about it.)

But you haven't answered my question, which I will reword-for-clarity: "Why revert it?"

It wasn't doing any harm sitting there in a hidden comment. (Was it?)

So why go to the effort of expending time and energy to undo it? Why not just leave it there?

Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 11:08, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(P.S. As we were both unaware at the time of the unintended consequence of it possibly causing a bug, let's leave that out of the conversation for the moment. OK? --Pdfpdf (talk) 11:08, 7 October 2009 (UTC))[reply]

(P.P.S. For clarification: As far as I'm concerned, this is "no big deal". I'm just interested to understand why you made the edit. I'm reasonably confident that this issue will have zero impact upon global warming and the arrival of the four horsemen. Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 11:08, 7 October 2009 (UTC))[reply]

Regarding my sentence "But why bother?", ... I am interested that you assumed it was a typo. Ha! I did not assume a typo on your part but experienced a "reado" on my part. (You would think that I'd have noticed the missing comma, if not the missing "r". I just now checked this talk page history to ensure that you were not pulling a fast one.) I do not typically employ so fraternal a greeting, but I thought your usage of it endearing, and was happy to respond in kind. (I did ponder the usage for a bit, and was most surprised at your boldness in assuming a gender. I have been considering making a userbox along the lines of "He/She/It/Whatever -- this user considers gender irrelevant to editing Wikipedia and encourages you to pick a pronoun at random" but that seems a bit verbose.)

Regarding the issues brought up by Graham87, I think that the <!-- html comments marks --> surrounding the text insulate it from causing any problems.

So, I'm deducing from your reply that you "undid" it because you assumed it was "stale". Is that correct? Well, that is why I felt confident enough to remove the text without writing to you about it, but as you point out, that alone is insufficient motivation. (And while I now see that my edit served to undo your two edit taken as a whole, I considered it more a doing than an undoing -- a doing that I would still be happy to revert, if you wish.)

I thought that I had explained my motivation above, so I assume you will forgive me for going into more detail to cover what I might have missed. I am interest in the maintenance of redirects, and have been experimenting with writing various scripts analyzing a pages-articles database dump I downnloaded last month. (I am particularly interest in fragment redirects, that is {{R to section}}, {{R to anchor}}, {{R to list entry}}, {{ER to list entry}}, &/c. type redirects where the validity of the redirect is effected by edits to the target article. As of last month there were 148,606 of these out of 3,912,543 total redirects, and roughly one in four of these is broken.)

Some of my scripts dumped out the bodies of "interesting" redirects, and I was surprised to see occasional entire articles amongst them. You can imagine how a single four hundred line redirect would stand out in a file with a couple hundred other redirects all one to three lines long. The long redirects were relatively uncommon; there were only sixteen over one hundred lines long, and another eighty-two over twenty-five lines long, and the majority of them were left over from merges. I read up on merge instructions and discovered that once a merge is complete, the text below the redirect is supposed to be removed. A good number of the remaining long redirects were the result of cut-and-paste moves that needed history merges.

Realizing that long redirects were typically problem redirects, I worked through my list in descending length to correct them. A side benefit was that the next dump would presumable have fewer long redirects (while they don't cause my scripts any problems, when I glance at a one line redirect I know what it is in a trice, while a hundred line redirect requires some moments' study to locate possibly hidden categories and templates), but my primary motivation was truly that of properly fixing those in need of {{R from merge}} and {{db-histmerge}}.

Your particular redirect was quite different from most the rest, and while I've no problem with it staying, it did not seem to be serving any purpose, and removing the text would keep it from showing up as a false positive on future scans for long, problem redirects.

While my motivation for tracking these redirects down was my own, one I started I discovered that I was far from alone in removing extraneous text following redirects. R'n'B is the most prolific, but there were several other editors I recognized who had already cleaned up some of the long redirects in the three weeks since I downloaded the dump, and I cannot speak for their motivations.

So, did I do better this time? Please let me know if there is some aspect of your question that I have still not answered. Cheers, ToE^T 13:14, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"So, did I do better this time?" - Oh yes! Notably!! I was thoroughly entertained by your reply, and enjoyed reading it. (In fact, I enjoyed reading it the second time, too.) Being an antipodean, it is now half-past-midnight here. If it's all the same to you, I'd prefer to go to bed now and reply to you tomorrow. But to avoid keeping you in suspense, yes, the information I was/am after was included in your reply, along with a lot of information that I found FAR more interesting than the information I requested. Enjoy your afternoon whilst I'm sleeping. Best wishes, Pdfpdf (talk) 13:56, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"I just now checked this talk page history ... " - <chuckle ;-)> "but I thought your usage of it endearing" - Oh dear. I am sorry to destroy such goodwill from you with my mundane reality. I guess that's a consequence of me being mundane. How sad. "and was happy to respond in kind" - clearly, you more readily entertain a wider range of options than I do. I must admit to a tinge of envy. "and was most surprised at your boldness". Indeed. Sadly, in reality, I am just not that bold ... "but that seems a bit verbose" - Hmmmm. Given that at least 90% of WP contributors seem to be males, I really wonder about gender being irrelevant to editing Wikipedia. I have a suspicion that most women think that there are better ways to spend their time ...

"I think that the <!-- html comments marks --> surrounding the text insulate it from causing any problems." - That's fortuitous. (i.e. a "problem" that doesn't require a solution.)

"but as you point out, that alone is insufficient motivation" - Did I point that out? I seem to recall having had that thought, but I don't remember actually saying it. In fact, I thought I had said the opposite! (i.e. When I said: "Well, 'staleness' is/was a reasonable assumption. (Yes, I had forgotten about it.)", I was attempting to say: "Yes, I think it is quite reasonable of you to have assumed that, because I hadn't touched something for six months, I had forgotten about it.")

"I would still be happy to revert, if you wish" - After having read your information, and thus understanding why you did it, I can see more benefits in leaving it as it now is, rather than reverting back to the lengthier version. So, thank you very much for the suggestion, but I think it would be better to leave things as they now are. Although I may not now be "older and wiser", I am older and MUCH better informed. Thank you. Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 10:22, 8 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Someone (I didn't bother checking who) moved the page name incorrectly. The correct name as per The Peerage, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and Hansard is Annie Llewelyn-Davies, Baroness Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, not Patricia Llewelyn-Davies, Baroness Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 11:16, 8 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. The double "l" is of course a misspelling and should be deleted. (I sometimes don't bother in these sort of cases, because even an incorrect spelling might be the spelling used by some to locate the subject.) But in this case to avoid further confusion any misspelled redirects should be deleted. Thanks for taking care of it, and thanks again for bringing this matter to my attention. Yours, Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 11:29, 8 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Whatever you think is best. You are much more knowledgeable than I am about this sort of thing. As you understand the basic parameters of the correct spelling, I trust your judgment. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 13:47, 8 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Skittleys (talk) 12:13, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Skittleys (talk) 13:00, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi
Hmm, I don't think removing the template from those pages is correct. Why should it be only applicable for redirects to dab pages with the disambiguator in the title? What's the use of the template and category in the first place?
Amalthea 13:13, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Amalthea, I'm glad you asked. I think that what I'm doing is correct, but if its wrong, then the earlier I know, the less I have to clean up! I think that this redirect is better documented at {{R to disambiguation page}} than at Category:Redirects to disambiguation pages. (I just now noticed the conflict in their descriptions.) I'll put my fixing on hold while I write up my understanding of things, and verify it with you (or someone else in the know) before starting up again. -- ToE^T 13:27, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That would be good, thanks. As I said I'm not sure what the template is used for in the first place, I'd suggest asking User:Tassedethe and User:R'n'B, they both do redirect and DAB work I believe, maybe they can tell. I can't think of a reason though why it should make a difference whether the title contains " (disambiguation)" or not, often enough one redirect to the other anyway. Amalthea 13:47, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, my understanding of {{R to disambiguation page}} is that it is intended to mark those redirects which are created to be used as intentional links to those disambiguation pages that themselves lack "(disambiguation)" in the name. It is rare for articles to intentionally link to disambiguation pages. Usually, when a page links to America (a disambiguation page), the intended link is one of the targets listed on that dab, such Americas of America (band). Those pages that link directly to America get flagged for disambiguation. Unlike America, England is an article, with its corresponding disambiguation page named England (disambiguation) If a page were to link to England (disambiguation), then the intent is clear and it is not flagged for disambiguation. So a page that intentionally wishes to link to America, uses the America (disambiguation) redirect instead. And it is the purpose of this template to mark those specific redirects. Unfortunately, its name is insufficiently precise to express its restricted purpose.

This is explained at the template page itself, {{R to disambiguation page}}, which states, this template generally should only appear on pages that have "(disambiguation)" in the title. (The same information is transcribed at WP:TMR.) It goes on to suggest that further information is to be found at the category page. Unfortunately, the description there tends to confuse things, implying that membership denotes that the redirects themselves (rather than the links that use them) should not be disambiguated. It does, at least, include a link to Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Links to disambiguation pages which explains the process further, including the creation and tagging of such redirects. (WP:INTDABLINK takes you to that specific part of the section.)

This doesn't explain why such a categorization is desired, other than simply to keep track of these particular redirects. Category:Redirects to disambiguation pages implies that it induces special behavior in whatlinkshere, but it's not clear to me that the template is actually causing anything special to happen.

The vast majority (96%) of redirects in this category do have "(disambiguation)" in their name. I am about a quarter the way through removing the template from the remainder. A typical edit would be this removal of the template from the tyredirect Hurricane Olga → Tropical Storm Olga. I won't start back up again until I get the go ahead from someone in the know. -- ToE^T 14:17, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My interpretation based on the title of the template is the same as Amalthea's and what it says on the category page. I never thought of it the other way. Looking at the category and template history, the (disambiguation) pages only wording only showed up in the template last year; the original wording was the same as the first paragraph of the category description. There was also some debate on the interpretation of this before on the template talk page, but with no resolution.... All that considered, I would be inclined to support the "not just (disambiguation)" interpretation.

However, I just searched the WT:DAB archives, and this isn't the first time it's been brought up. One particular discussion occurred here. It seems that everyone agreed that it was confusing, and therefore a rename should be done, but it never happened. The creation of {{R from disambiguation}} (which I just answered on my own talk page, but I'd not looked at the history at that point) seems to have been made to help rectify this confusion...but was never documented or promoted or anything. More relevant to the point, though, is that everyone agreed that it was only supposed to be used from titles with (disambiguation), which, of course, is your interpretation of it. Based on all of that, I'd think that {{R to disambiguation page}} should be used only for titles with (disambiguation), whereas other ones like will power → willpower and Hurricane → Tropical cyclone should use templates like {{R from modification}} and {{R from alternative name}}.

On top of all that, there's also {{R from incomplete disambiguation}} and Category:Redirects from incomplete disambiguations, which makes me wonder whether the links to dab redirects should be subcategorised into from (disambiguation), incomplete disambiguation, and something else that's generic....

Soooooooo, now that I've thoroughly confused myself...I'm thinking the best recommendation is to rename that template to something else (like, say, {{R from disambiguation}}!) to make its use clearer...then do something with "R to disambiguation page", either redirect it to the new one or make it an entirely new one that categorises redirects that don't have something parenthetical in the name.... I'd suggest proposing something like this at WT:DAB, WT:WPDAB or WT:RE. Without the rename, based on consensus, I'd use your interpretation.

Did that help at all, or did I just make things more confusing?!?! —Skittleys (talk) 16:24, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is the same as TOE's; that is, that {{R to disambiguation page}} was intended only to mark redirects that were meant to be used as the targets of intentional links to disambiguation pages. Granted, that is not explained very clearly, and I suppose one would have to ask User:Docu what his/her original intent was upon creating this template back in 2004. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 17:57, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think I get the reasoning, but don't see the use of the template then: I think it is obvious that if I use a link to a target with " (disambiguation)" in its title, then I intentionally wanted to link to the disambiguation page. Who needs the category on it? The more I think of it, the less useful I start to find many of those redirect classification templates anyway. If there is no bot using the template/category, and the intended use is as you say, I would actually RfD it, since I see no use here for editors, reader, scripts or bots, and if a re-user or some future process needs to figure them out, they are trivially classified through a database query (SELECT * FROM `page` WHERE page_title like "% (disambiguation)" and page_is_redirect=1). Amalthea 20:04, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep in mind that the R templates were also meant to be descriptive and display text on the redirect page itself and were not intended to be just for categorical purposes. Due to MediaWiki T16323 that feature is currently not working though. This came up with the big mess with {{R from other capitalisation}} with the two TfDs, AN/I, and DRV. --Tothwolf (talk) 01:51, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but that descriptive text would be just as useful at will power → willpower or Two-by-four‎ → 2x4. Amalthea 07:51, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So you are saying a redirect such as ARM which redirects to Arm (disambiguation) should be classified as {{R from incomplete disambiguation}}? --Tothwolf (talk) 01:37, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just went through the Category:Redirects to disambiguation pages history, and it seems clear that the intent has always been for "(disambiguation)" style redirects. Its original wording stated, "These redirects are pointed to by links that should always point to the disambiguation page rather than be disambiguated." The wording was confused by a this good faith edit of 8 February 2008. I just reverted that edit and added a bit of the language from {{R to disambiguation page}} to clarify it. -- ToE^T 05:52, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's still contradictory. Both will power → willpower and Two-by-four‎ → 2x4, for example, are intentional redirects to disambiguation pages and should not be disambiguated. If *anything*, all redirect targets of redirects with the template should be renamed to a topic with the " (disambiguation)" qualifier.
But seriously, if there is no known purpose for the templates, what reason is there to keep them? At the very least they could be classified and maintained automatically by bot. Amalthea 07:51, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I fail to see the contradiction. The issue is over the disambiguation of links, not of redirects. The assumption is made that any redirect that targets a dab page does so intentionally; they are not listed for disambiguation. On the other hand, any article that links to a dab page is assumed to have done so in error unless the name of the link includes "(disambiguation)" (perhaps via a piped link). Thus the issue is not that of Two-by-four‎ being an intentional redirection to 2x4, but that any instance of a link to Two-by-four‎ or 2x4 in an article will be listed for disambiguation, while those to 2x4 (disambiguation) will be left alone.

An alternative policy would be to require that all dab pages have "(disambiguation)" in their title, and that every "X (disambiguation)" is linked to from an "X" redirect (unless there is a separate "X" article). That is certainly a viable option, but the current scheme requires an "X (disambiguation)" redirect, not for every dab page, but only for those relatively few that are intentionally linked to from some article. Your "If *anything*" scheme would seems to merge the two methods, and would require that a dab page be moved the first time it is intentionally linked to from an article. Under the current scheme all that is required is the creation of a redirect, as described at WP:INTDABLINK.

As far as the purpose of this tag, I mentioned earlier that Category:Redirects to disambiguation pages seems to imply that it does some voodo to Special:WhatLinksHere, but I don't see it. Tothwolf mentioned above that it serves to label the purpose of such a redirect, and would do a better job if 14323 is ever addressed. That alone might be considered reason enough to keep it as I've seen a few of these redirects over at WP:RFD with the nominator asking why we need a redirect from so unlikely a search term. There may also be other reasons that I haven't thought of.

Finally, at this point I do think that a bot could probably maintain these. I was a little wary of the "generally" in this template generally should only appear on pages that have "(disambiguation)" in the title at {{R to disambiguation page}}, which is why I was scrutinizing the non-"(disambiguation)" redirects that I was removing these templates from. I can't think of such a case where it should stay, but I was still looking for an exception to the "generally". Barring objection, I plan to finish removing these, and I will certainly let the world know if I see an exception. (Then again, perhaps they were all exceptions that I was too dense to see!) -- ToE^T 10:42, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see the contradiction anymore either, I was probably confused. We can agree that if anyone links to a topic following the " (disambiguation)" naming scheme, then the link was placed intentionally, no matter if that target is a page or a redirect, or if the redirect is marked with template or category. I'm also very certain that there is no built-in MediaWiki magic with the template or categories to do anything. So I can only see two possible uses for this: Displaying the informational text, which doesn't currently work, and categorizing in Category:Unprintworthy redirects, which may very well be incorrect (A redirect from "Foo (disambiguation)" to "FOO" or even "Bar", which I expect we have, might well be printworthy).
You have my blessing to carry on with this of course, but for the uses we identified I still think this should be approached differently, to take in all redirects to DAB pages, and depending on the type display one text or the other, and Category:Unprintworthy redirects only on some. Limiting to the redirects with " (disambiguation)" in the title focuses on the trivial part of them, and removing them from the others without replacement will probably invite re-adding the template. Amalthea 11:37, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify the above: If consensus finds use for the template, I suggest that you either pass in parameters to specify its exact status or to replace it with a new one, instead of removing it. Amalthea 13:44, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

After rereading the text at Category:Unprintworthy redirects, I no longer think that it is claiming any special power:

When using such redirects, "What links here" on a disambiguation page with links sorts such links separately (e.g. see Special:Whatlinkshere/Georgian )

I have been reading this to say that Special:Whatlinkshere provided special treatment for these redirect (though I could never see it in action) but I now think it is simply saying that Special:Whatlinkshere sorts incoming links via redirects separately from those that link directly, listing them under the redirect, and when that redirect is labeled with "(disambiguation)" in its title, then the WP:DPL people know that the links listed under it are not in need of disambiguation. No voodoo, and again no real relation to the category itself, other that that the category in intended to include such redirects. -- ToE^T 13:56, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As I understand it, a working patch exists for T16323 and the display of text on redirect pages. The edit/preview code however was (last I heard) a complete mess and would likely require a rewrite to get it in shape so that you could preview the text while editing redirect pages (this would also fix another bug where categories do not show for edit previews of redirect pages). --Tothwolf (talk) 15:10, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It would be nice to know some figures:

• 115,610 members of Category:Disambiguation pages
• 27,843 members of Category:Redirects to disambiguation pages ( 27,087 now that the category is cleaned up. -- ToE^T 03:43, 14 October 2009 (UTC) )[reply]

But:

1. How many of the 115,610 are actually redirects? (Should properly be 0, I would think.)
2. How many of the 27,843 don't redirect to any of the 115,610? (Should again be 0.)
3. How many redirects with "(disambiguation)" in their name aren't amongst the 27,843? (Should they all really belong? (Assuming that the category and template are not to be deprecated, that is.) What about Foo (disambiguation) → Foobar where the target is not a dab? Perhaps Amalthea's SQL query needs to take the categorization of the target into account as well.)
4. How many articles with "(disambiguation)" in their name aren't amongst the 115,610? (Should there ever be an exception?)
5. How many redirects without "(disambiguation)" in their name are there that target the 115,610? (Just for comparison.)
6. How many of the 27,843 are actually linked to from articles? (Their supposed raison d'être -- although such links may have existed once and been subsequently deleted, and there are presumably cases where the redirect is the result of a merge with another disambiguation page.)
7. How many of the 27,843 are of the form "Foo (disambiguation)" → "Bar" where there is no other "Foo" article or redirect?

The last question address Amalthea's Unprintworthy concern, which is an issue with other templates as well. Should {{R from other capitalisation}}, for instance, always categorize as unprintworthy? Should TAR → Tar (disambiguation) really be unprintworthy? (It is tagged {{R from merge}} and not currently {{R from other capitalisation}}, but I wouldn't be surprised to see that change.) Perhaps such templates should have a parameter allowing an opt-out from unprintworthy. -- ToE^T 07:16, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just ran across WP:MDP which bears here, particularly WP:MDP#Instructions #4 which mentions that adding {{R to disambiguation page}} to the remnant of the move of a dab page makes a future revert of the move harder. -- ToE^T 23:03, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My memory is hazy of those redirects... it was a project that I had to abandon due to other concerns. I think that the intention was to make redirects from improperly spaced notations. (e.g. NCG1 points to NGC 1, etc.) If this goes against WP convention then feel free to alter or delete those rdr's, I've lost interest in them and claim no ownership.
--Slyguy (talk) 17:13, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for doing that, I was not aware of {{R from systematic name}} -- one of these days I'll have to resume the project, or at least add to it bit-by-bit one day at a time...
--Slyguy (talk) 14:22, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Since (due to time constraints) I will not be able to continue that particular project any time soon, please feel free to take control with respect to the missing ones.
--Slyguy (talk) 02:15, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hey there, thank you for your tireless efforts in adding, updating, and reorganizing redirect templates, a thankless but much-needed task. However, I'd ask in cases where you're removing a template on a technicality (and thus leaving a redirect completely template-free) that you replace it with one you feel is more appropriate. If one doesn't exist, then either one should be created or the scope of another should be expanded. I know the redirects left template-free are probably a small percentage compared to the number of ones you add or update, but it still seems counter-productive, and only sets up someone else to make a judgment call later without your eye for nuance. Thanks.— TAnthony^Talk 14:15, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi TAnthony, thanks for the thanks, and thanks for the advice. I am making multiple passes through this particular list of redirects (the mistagged {{R to disambiguation page}} ones). While it might have been more efficient to retag them on the fly, I used my first pass through to gain a better understanding of the particulars I was dealing with. Also, as evidenced by the long discussion above, the confusion surrounding {{R to disambiguation page}} may be sufficient to warrant the dedicate edit and long summary I gave with its removal. In any case I am working back through the list, reapplying more appropriate templates, but I must admit that I had not initially intended to take care of all of them.

I assume from your remark that you believe that all (or nearly all) redirects deserve some template. If so, then I could really use your advice, as I am confused at the use of many of the templates specifically as they apply to redirects to dab pages. I am almost through retagging about a quarter of my list with obvious cases of {{R from incomplete disambiguation}}, such as with Union (album) (that one with a {{R to anchor}} thrown in to boot). Once that is done, I'm left with more difficult decisions -- decisions that would be straight forward were they redirects to articles instead of dab pages.

Keeping with {{R from incomplete disambiguation}} for the moment, is there any sense in which that would apply to Knob Creek, Tennessee? Clearly it would apply to Knob Creek (Tennessee creek), but is there a distinction? And if "Tennessee" is a partial disambiguation of "Knob Creek", then is "Sir" in Sir Arthur Elton a partial disambiguation of "Arthur Elton"?

I must admit that I am not an avid tagger. My primary interest is in fixing broken section redirects, but when in the process I've run across systematic misuse of some tags, I've worked at identifying and replacing them -- just recently with all cases of {{R from scientific name}} which where not applied to scientific names in the intended sense of biological nomenclature. I sat on that list for a couple of days until I discovered and accepted Skittleys' new and welcome {{R from systematic name}} and {{R from technical name}}.

If it is to be the case of a template on every redirect (and a tofurkey in every pot) then I will make sure to replace what I strip, but I would sure like to vet some of my decisions with more experienced taggers. I don't mind doing it all on my talk page, however I had hoped that WT:RE would be a good forum, but either it's not being watched by many editors or I ask inane questions.

Skittleys is working on some new redirect template related documentation, and I will be happy to work up a cheat-sheet from what I learn. -- ToE^T 15:21, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And here is what should be an easy one, as it doesn't deal with the subtleties of redirects to dab pages. I understand the use of {{R from alternative name}} in the sense of alternative names of the subject of the article, such as The Bronx Bombers → New York Yankees, but does it also apply to alternative names of the article itself, such as Hannity (television program) → Hannity? There seems to be a "meta"ness (or possibly even self referentiality there). -- ToE^T 16:02, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Since we've obviously discussed R templates before, I do know that you put a lot of thought into these edits and I guess we certainly can't expect you to fix every single redirect, LOL. I just wanted to make sure you were replacing templates when possible, but of course I see the obstacles. I do think every redirect should have a template, but the whole concept is relatively recent so I know that at the moment not every situation has a completely appropriate template.

As far as {{R from alternative name}} goes, I've noticed that problem myself; it really does not appear to be intended for alternative title names (as in your Hannity example), but for lack of a better template it seems widely used for this purpose (I've used it myself). In the past you've had a good sense of potential problems/inefficiencies cased by this kind of "double use," do you see an advantage in a separate template, or in expanding the scope of this one in the usage documentation?— TAnthony^Talk 16:21, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there is Template:R from alternate title → Template:R from alternative name, which adds some distinction and would allow for a split in the future if desired, although it appears to have been created simply to catch typos, and I've no reason to necessarily believe that those redirects that use it are of any different character than those that use Template:R from alternative name directly. I do think that the thing to do is to categorize what I can and group the rest into classes to discuss. (There isn't a secret IRC#redirtagger nobody's told me about, is there?) -- ToE^T 17:03, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And in support of that I created the redirect Template:R from alternative title → Template:R from alternative name. It had 26 accidental transclusions awaiting its creation, and I have no illusions that it will treated as anything but a synonym of {{R from alternative name}}, but it makes me feel more comfortable tagging such redirects. -- ToE^T 01:57, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You may already be familiar with it, but there is some existing template documentation at Wikipedia:Template messages/Redirect pages although it does not currently cover all of the templates that are in use. --Tothwolf (talk) 05:43, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Melián → Melian (disambiguation) is a good example of a troublesome tagless redirect to a disambiguation page (troublesome, that is, based on the assumption that all redirects should be tagged). The dab page has mutiple entries for both "Melián" & "Melian", so {{R from title with diacritics}} with its accompanying unprintworthiness seems a bad idea. Perhaps {{R from alternative title}} is the way to go, or maybe there does need to be a new template to cover these as Skittleys suggested above. {{R to disambiguation page}} does seem a logical sounding name, but I don't know how realistic it is to propose changing the 27,000 current uses of it under its restrictive definition to something more descriptive like {{R for intentional link to disambiguation page}} or whatever. Another option could be installing a parameter in several of the templates to allow for disabling of the unprintworthiness. I need a couple of days to survey the template landscape. -- ToE^T 03:52, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The only value of redirect tagging I see is "redirect with possibilities". Unprintworthy may have peen potentially useful. The rest it seems to me don;t greatly matter - and in some cases are inherently unreliable, like R to dab, obvious, like R to/from alternative caps, or not always well defined, like "mis-spelling" vs. "alternative name" - and are also rather "so what" - why do we want a category of mis-spellings? Are we collecting them? Rich Farmbrough, 00:06, 16 October 2009 (UTC).[reply]

Hey I just left you a reply to your message here: User talk:Captain-n00dle#Inferior Alveolar Nerve Block RfD. Thanks! Captain n00dle ^T/_C 23:04, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! I can see that you do a lot of work with redirects/templates and I was just wondering if it would be a good idea to have a {{R from Eponym}} template as a lot of medical articles have a term which is mainly used and an Eponymous term after the person who discovered it etc. A {{R to Eponym}} may also be a good idea.

To put this into context, I just created a couple of redirects for this reason just today Pancreatic duct of Santorini and Pancreatic duct of Wirsung.

Thanks in advance, best regards, Captain n00dle ^T/_C 00:04, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have good advice for you here, Captain-n00dle. I have been working with redirects recently, but I am quite frustrated by the lack of quality documentation regarding redirect message templates and of any central forum for discussion of their related issues. Skittleys is working on an updated and improved version of WP:TMR, and he recently created {{R from systematic name}} and {{R from technical name}} (and their "to" counterparts) to replace {{R from scientific name}} where it was being used incorrectly. (It is intended for scientific names in the biological nomenclature sense only.) Thus, he may be a good one to speak to regarding the utility of a {{R to Eponym}}. -- ToE^T 14:38, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your input, I have just dropped him a message on his talk page, he seems to be doing some good work! I'll let you know how I get on. Thanks again, Captain n00dle ^T/_C 20:19, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've moved this discussion to WT:RE#R from Eponym. -- ToE^T 02:09, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Was received but not understood. Did you mean Perl 6? If so, I still don't understand. Thank you. 7&6=thirteen (talk) 14:54, 21 October 2009 (UTC) Stan[reply]

Reply archived here. -- ToE 22:10, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose we could both agree that 8&5=thirteen. -- ToE 22:10, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How's this? Clearer, I hope. (Somehow, I managed to miss the change...) TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 03:03, 29 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]