Wikiporno:How to redirect a page
How to make a redirect
To redirect page A (the redirecting page) to a different page B (the target page), enter the following redirecting command at the top of the redirecting page.
#REDIRECT [[NAME OF PAGE B]]
Redirects to page sections
You can also redirect to page sections within an article.
#REDIRECT [[NAME OF PAGE B#PAGE SECTION]]{{R from alternative name}}{{R to section}}
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.
One option for documenting a redirect to a section heading is to leave a comment using <!-- ... ---> to remind others that the title is linked, so that if the title is altered, the redirect can be changed. For example:
A redirect to a non-existent section – perhaps due to a misspelling or name change – will simply lead to the top of the target article.
Undesirable redirects
Double redirects
A double redirect is a title that redirects to another redirect. Double redirects are usually created after a move when old redirects are left unchanged and pointing toward an old name. This is one reason good editors check links and observe if the link traversed was a redirect or direct path.
Avoid making double redirects (a redirect that points to another redirect); they do not work (to prevent endless looping, a redirect will not "pass through" more than one entry).
If you move or rename a page, it is best to click on "What links here" to see if any redirects exist, and to change them to redirect straight to the new title.
Self-redirect
A self-redirect is a title that redirects straight to the page on which the link is found. This may occur if a redirect is created from a red link on the page, or if the title once was an article of its own but was merged. This is particularly common in a series of new inter-related topics moving together from the stub stage. Many editors despise red links, even temporarily in new topics. The team working the articles may well intend to expand such redirects to full articles, so the cyclical links are place holders; in such cases, checking the page histories should make it clear whether to make a corrective edit.
An exception is a redirect to a section within the article, especially in a long article that cannot be viewed all at once on an average-sized computer screen. Essentially, this is comparable to a "see above" or "see below," accomplished by wikilinking [[#Heading]] (no article name, just the heading name prefixed by #).
Nonfunctional redirects
Redirects to other Wikimedia projects, other websites, or special pages do not work. These should be avoided or replaced with a soft redirect template.
Abusive redirects
Redirect vandalism
Vandals may abuse redirects. Usually, the vandals attempt to shock readers by redirecting them to pages with offensive content. They may also redirect random pages to other random pages to confuse readers.
Promotional redirects
Spammers may redirect random pages to their spam page to promote their product.
Creating new redirects
You can create a new page in order to make a redirect.
Only the redirect line will be displayed when you save the page.
To go back and edit your redirect after it is working, add ?redirect=no to the end of the URL for your redirect:
Redirects take effect immediately after saving a page. You may need to clear your cache to see these changes.
Redirect or rename?
If there is an article named, say, Oxford University, and you discover that the title "University of Oxford", although a reasonable alternative designation and search term for the same university, is still a red link, you can create a page with that title as a new redirect page, redirecting to the page Oxford University. An alternative is instead to rename the Oxford University page to "University of Oxford". This is also called a "page move"; see Help:Moving a page for more detail. The old page becomes a redirect to the new page.
The following table summarizes this schematically, using arrows to indicate who redirects to whom:
Old situation: Oxford University University of Oxford New redirect: Oxford University ← University of Oxford Rename/move: Oxford University → University of Oxford
To choose between two such possibilities, the main consideration should be that the preferred title of an article is the most common name for the topic of the article as would normally be used in articles written in English (language). So we prefer "Italy" over "Italia", and "Pope" over "Pope of Rome". However, it is often better to have an article at a well-defined, unambiguous term, with redirects from looser colloquial terms, rather than vice versa. There are many declarations of independence, but there is only one United States Declaration of Independence. For more on this, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions.
Categories for redirect pages
- See Wikipedia:Categorizing redirects for situations where categorizing a redirect might be helpful.
Redirects should not normally contain categories that would fit on the target page because it can result in duplicate listings of the same page within a category. Relevant categories should be moved to the main page where the redirect is pointing. In some cases, however, adding categories to a redirect page allows legitimate alternative titles or names to be found in category lists. Redirect pages within categories will appear in italics.
