There are a whole bunch of reasons for using article titles that are the
most commonly known name. The search function is very important - and some
search engines rank redirects differently (i.e., much lower) or don't even
include them, so using the title that is most likely to come up on a search
means the article will almost always come up in the first page of
results. From the movement perspective, it is a *good* thing that most
searches will lead to Wikipedia.
Secondly, redirects are expensive - not to those in the Western world with
fast computers and high speed internet, but to those who are on dial-up or
have comparatively high lag times because of distance (lots of people at
Wikimania had difficulty getting good access to Wikipedia during their stay
in Hong Kong, for example). A redirect means that the reader must first
load up the "redirect" page and then follow the redirect instruction and
wind up on the intended page. I don't think we pay nearly enough attention
to the comparatively poor performance from WMF that our Asian, African, and
South American colleagues experience; we're terribly spoiled.
I'll let someone else cover the logic behind the policy.
Risker/Anne
On 5 September 2013 18:16, Valerie Aurora <valerie(a)adainitiative.org> wrote:
On Wed, Sep 4, 2013 at 5:50 AM, Jane Darnell
<jane023(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Actually you would be surprised at the nature of
some of the renaming
debates on Wikipedia in the area of artists like the one you mention,
but also artists from the 17th-century. One could probably write a
funny book about renaming debates on Wikipedia. I do think the Shirley
Temple article should be named Shirley Temple for the notability
issue. In the second screen effect, during a Shirley Temple movie,
people will google Shirley Temple and not Shirley Temple Black.
Okay, I've been wondering about this argument for a while - "It's what
people search for so we have to keep that as the name of the article."
As far as I can tell, that's what redirects are for: search for
"Shirley Temple" and you can get a page named "Shirley Temple Black"
with a little note at the top that says "Redirected from Shirley
Temple."
Can someone with more WP experience explain why redirects aren't
sufficient for the "what people search for" argument?
(FYI I'm on the "call people what they want to be called, including
pronouns" side of the question.)
-VAL
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