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Redlinks or redirects?

A course in walled gardens?

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Steve Bennett

29 Jun 2006 29 Jun '06

11:10 a.m.

Hi all, When discovering a redlink, which is better: to leave it as a redlink, or redirect it to the "closest" topic? Eg, a redlink to the name of a book - best to leave it that way, or create it as a redirect to the book's author? Or, create a substub "X is a book by [[Author]]"? Steve

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Guy Chapman aka JzG

29 Jun 29 Jun

1:59 p.m.

On Thu, 29 Jun 2006 11:10:44 +0200, "Steve Bennett" <stevagewp(a)gmail.com> wrote:

When discovering a redlink, which is better: to leave it as a redlink, or redirect it to the "closest" topic? Eg, a redlink to the name of a book - best to leave it that way, or create it as a redirect to the book's author? Or, create a substub "X is a book by [[Author]]"?

For what value of better? I think it's personal preference. I'm one for describing books on the author's article until it becomes too big, in the first instance, but others prefer lots of tiny stubs. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

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Steve Bennett

2:06 p.m.

On 6/29/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote:

For what value of better? I think it's personal preference. I'm one for describing books on the author's article until it becomes too big, in the first instance, but others prefer lots of tiny stubs.

Good, glad I'm not the only one who finds questions like this tricky. It's hard making articles grow in a balanced way. Imagine an article about a topic which naturally has, say, 5 subtopics. The perfect article would be, let's say, 6000 words - 1000 of intro plus 1000 on each subtopic. Now, imagine our article is currently a 100 word stub, and someone comes along and adds 1000 words on one of the subtopics. I find this very far from ideal, as it vastly overstates the importance of that subtopic. I would almost be inclined to move that subtopic to its own article while waiting for the main article to grow, then move it back later. Since some parts of Wikipedia grow so slowly, it's not right to always talk about "eventualism" - we should make the articles the "right shape" while waiting. On the other hand, making a redirect rather than an a stub might give the impression that we could never have an article about that book, or that someone has decided we don't want too much info - which isn't true at all. How to balance the needs of readers with our need to grow? Steve

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Fred Bauder

2:58 p.m.

On Jun 29, 2006, at 3:10 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:

Hi all, When discovering a redlink, which is better: to leave it as a redlink, or redirect it to the "closest" topic? Eg, a redlink to the name of a book - best to leave it that way, or create it as a redirect to the book's author? Or, create a substub "X is a book by [[Author]]"? Steve _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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Fred Bauder

3:01 p.m.

On Jun 29, 2006, at 3:10 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:

Hi all, When discovering a redlink, which is better: to leave it as a redlink, or redirect it to the "closest" topic? Eg, a redlink to the name of a book - best to leave it that way, or create it as a redirect to the book's author? Or, create a substub "X is a book by [[Author]]"? Steve

A redlink might just be a mistake, so briefly search for an existing article. If it seems it could be a viable article it should be left alone. I think it should continue to be a redlink until someone is ready to write an article rather than being made into a stub. Fred

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Steve Bennett

3:47 p.m.

On 6/29/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)ctelco.net> wrote:

A redlink might just be a mistake, so briefly search for an existing article. If it seems it could be a viable article it should be left alone. I think it should continue to be a redlink until someone is ready to write an article rather than being made into a stub.

But if someone is looking for information on a book, is it not more useful to make that book a redirect to the author, where at least the one liner "John Foo is best known for his brilliant book, Foo Strikes Again, which is all about ...." is better than nothing. I firmly believe that Wikipedia's mission is to answer the question "What the hell is X?" to whatever extent it can, rather than just give up and say "no, we don't know either". Even if all we have time to write is "It's a book, check out these three urls". Steve

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Fred Bauder

4:32 p.m.

On Jun 29, 2006, at 7:47 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:

On 6/29/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)ctelco.net> wrote:

A redlink might just be a mistake, so briefly search for an existing article. If it seems it could be a viable article it should be left alone. I think it should continue to be a redlink until someone is ready to write an article rather than being made into a stub.

But if someone is looking for information on a book, is it not more useful to make that book a redirect to the author, where at least the one liner "John Foo is best known for his brilliant book, Foo Strikes Again, which is all about ...." is better than nothing. I firmly believe that Wikipedia's mission is to answer the question "What the hell is X?" to whatever extent it can, rather than just give up and say "no, we don't know either". Even if all we have time to write is "It's a book, check out these three urls". Steve

In the case of a book on which there is no article a redirect to the author is appropriate. I don't think there are very many books which will support a decent article, but then I don't think the average episode of South Park does either. We need to have a discussion on which books ought to have articles. Some criteria regarding notability. Fred

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Steve Bennett

4:39 p.m.

On 6/29/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)ctelco.net> wrote:

In the case of a book on which there is no article a redirect to the author is appropriate. I don't think there are very many books which will support a decent article, but then I don't think the average episode of South Park does either. We need to have a discussion on which books ought to have articles. Some criteria regarding notability.

Something like that exists, a print run of 5000 figures in there somewhere. I'm leaning more and more towards the attitude of people who equate notability with "the ability to write a meaningful article based on verifiable and reputable secondary sources". At the end of the day, if we have meaningful, verifiable stuff to say about insignificant topics, Wikipedia is not harmed to any great extent by saying it. Steve

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Chris Lüer

8:46 p.m.

At 10:39 AM 6/29/2006, Steve Bennett wrote:

On 6/29/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)ctelco.net> wrote:

We need to have a discussion on which books ought to have articles. Some criteria regarding notability.

Something like that exists, a print run of 5000 figures in there somewhere.

Now that's just stupid. The local grocery store's weekly flyer has a higher print run than that.

I'm leaning more and more towards the attitude of people who equate notability with "the ability to write a meaningful article based on verifiable and reputable secondary sources". At the end of the day, if we have meaningful, verifiable stuff to say about insignificant topics, Wikipedia is not harmed to any great extent by saying it.

Right -- and with books, this works pretty well. Having secondary sources ensures that there is more to the article than just a plot summary. Chl

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Delirium

7:08 p.m.

Steve Bennett wrote:

On 6/29/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)ctelco.net> wrote:

A redlink might just be a mistake, so briefly search for an existing article. If it seems it could be a viable article it should be left alone. I think it should continue to be a redlink until someone is ready to write an article rather than being made into a stub.

But if someone is looking for information on a book, is it not more useful to make that book a redirect to the author, where at least the one liner "John Foo is best known for his brilliant book, Foo Strikes Again, which is all about ...." is better than nothing. I firmly believe that Wikipedia's mission is to answer the question "What the hell is X?" to whatever extent it can, rather than just give up and say "no, we don't know either". Even if all we have time to write is "It's a book, check out these three urls".

This becomes irritating when you're going the other way---you've just read the article about the author, and now are going down the list of books at the bottom looking to read more. If some articles exist and some don't, you can click on the blue links and get articles, and know from the red links that no article exists on those books yet. The situation is considerably more confusing if they're all blue links, but some are articles while others redirect right back to the page you just read. -Mark

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Steve Bennett

8 p.m.

On 6/29/06, Delirium <delirium(a)hackish.org> wrote:

This becomes irritating when you're going the other way---you've just read the article about the author, and now are going down the list of books at the bottom looking to read more. If some articles exist and some don't, you can click on the blue links and get articles, and know from the red links that no article exists on those books yet. The situation is considerably more confusing if they're all blue links, but some are articles while others redirect right back to the page you just read.

Ack, that's true. I can't stand links that lead back to the same page.[1] The only solution I can see there is creating all the stubs, and linking them to the author's article. Steve [1] Even more than I can't stand excessive pipe linking ("this disaster was even greater than [[Hicksville train disaster of 1943|the one]] that occurred twenty years earlier").

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Bryan Derksen

30 Jun 30 Jun

6:51 a.m.

Steve Bennett wrote:

[1] Even more than I can't stand excessive pipe linking ("this disaster was even greater than [[Hicksville train disaster of 1943|the one]] that occurred twenty years earlier").

Gah, hate those. I also particularly dislike ones that hide external links; "for more information, click [http://www.gorgonzola.com/ here]." That combines several pet peeves; directions to "click" somewhere (what if I've printed the page?), uninformative link names, and external links embedded in the article's text rather than at the end in a references or external links section.

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Steve Bennett

1:30 p.m.

On 6/30/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca> wrote:

Gah, hate those. I also particularly dislike ones that hide external links; "for more information, click [http://www.gorgonzola.com/ here]." That combines several pet peeves; directions to "click" somewhere (what if I've printed the page?), uninformative link names, and external links embedded in the article's text rather than at the end in a references or external links section.

Yep. I feel that external links should always be displayed as either: * Raw URLs (quite appropriate for references sections) * Quasi-footnote style ("...according to the official website [www.foo.com]") which renders as "...[1]" * The official name of the page or website in question, like "New York Times" or "How to use Wiki markup". I make an exception for the stock phrase "Corporate website". Even more than I don't like pipe linking for normal links, I really object to it for external links. Thanks for reminding me. :) Steve

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Bryan Derksen

5:50 p.m.

Steve Bennett wrote:

Yep. I feel that external links should always be displayed as either: * Raw URLs (quite appropriate for references sections) * Quasi-footnote style ("...according to the official website [www.foo.com]") which renders as "...[1]"

Of late I've often combined these two approaches by wrapping the URL in <ref> tags. Not as tidy as using a {{cite web}} template, but very fast and easy to do.

Even more than I don't like pipe linking for normal links, I really object to it for external links. Thanks for reminding me. :)

You're welcome. A well-aimed five minute hate is always invigorating. :)

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Steve Bennett

7:33 p.m.

On 6/30/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca> wrote:

Steve Bennett wrote:

Yep. I feel that external links should always be displayed as either: * Raw URLs (quite appropriate for references sections) * Quasi-footnote style ("...according to the official website [www.foo.com]") which renders as "...[1]"

Of late I've often combined these two approaches by wrapping the URL in <ref> tags. Not as tidy as using a {{cite web}} template, but very fast and easy to do.

Yep, that's actually my preferred approach. <ref> tags are so easy to use, I love them. Steve

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Bryan Derksen

29 Jun 29 Jun

5:21 p.m.

Steve Bennett wrote:

Hi all, When discovering a redlink, which is better: to leave it as a redlink, or redirect it to the "closest" topic? Eg, a redlink to the name of a book - best to leave it that way, or create it as a redirect to the book's author? Or, create a substub "X is a book by [[Author]]"?

I say only redirect to an article if the article already contains some kind of substantial content about the subject the redirect is about. So if the author's page actually discusses the book in question go ahead and redirect, but if it doesn't then IMO it will only lead to confusion and frustration on the part of the reader.

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Steve Bennett

5:19 p.m.

On 6/29/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca> wrote:

I say only redirect to an article if the article already contains some kind of substantial content about the subject the redirect is about. So if the author's page actually discusses the book in question go ahead and redirect, but if it doesn't then IMO it will only lead to confusion and frustration on the part of the reader.

Good point. It's a pity there is no way to add meta information about redirects. Sometimes it would be helpful to have something like "Foo is actually a slang term for Boo. Redirecting to Boo...". The alternative is trying to make sure that every article contains every major redirected term in bold in its first paragraph, which is rarely the case. There have certainly been cases where I've been redirected without understanding why (usually because the topic is some synonym for some obscure point discussed in the 14th paragraph...) It's not obvious how to then fix the problem though - you almost need a "Topics discussed in this article" box up the top. Unlike a real encyclopaedia, we don't seem willing or able to have incredibly short articles that say things like "Wreckage: temporary name given to English pop group Ibex in 1970. See [[Ibex (group)]]". You could never write "the perfect article" on a band which technically existed for 1 month, and whose most interesting characteristic is that Freddie Mercury broke it up shortly after forming it. But nor is simply redirecting to another topic altogether always a totally obvious thing for the reader to understand... Steve

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Bryan Derksen

5:38 p.m.

Steve Bennett wrote:

There have certainly been cases where I've been redirected without understanding why (usually because the topic is some synonym for some obscure point discussed in the 14th paragraph...) It's not obvious how to then fix the problem though - you almost need a "Topics discussed in this article" box up the top.

The "Table of Contents" box can serve this purpose in many cases, fortunately. Subtopics often get their own section, whose header shows up there.

Unlike a real encyclopaedia, we don't seem willing or able to have incredibly short articles that say things like "Wreckage: temporary name given to English pop group Ibex in 1970. See [[Ibex (group)]]".

In this case a disambiguation page would be able to hold this information, but I can see the problem where a non-ambiguous name comes in. Hopefully one can come up with enough information to warrant a section header for the topic, at least.

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Steve Bennett

6:03 p.m.

On 6/29/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca> wrote:

In this case a disambiguation page would be able to hold this information, but I can see the problem where a non-ambiguous name comes in. Hopefully one can come up with enough information to warrant a section header for the topic, at least.

Hmm, good thoughts. Steve

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Fred Bauder

7:38 p.m.

On Jun 29, 2006, at 10:03 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:

On 6/29/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca> wrote:

In this case a disambiguation page would be able to hold this information, but I can see the problem where a non-ambiguous name comes in. Hopefully one can come up with enough information to warrant a section header for the topic, at least.

Hmm, good thoughts. Steve

Why would a section header be needed? Some software barrier? Fred

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Bryan Derksen

30 Jun 30 Jun

6:45 a.m.

Fred Bauder wrote:

On Jun 29, 2006, at 10:03 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:

On 6/29/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca> wrote:

In this case a disambiguation page would be able to hold this information, but I can see the problem where a non-ambiguous name comes in. Hopefully one can come up with enough information to warrant a section header for the topic, at least.

Hmm, good thoughts. Steve

Why would a section header be needed? Some software barrier?

The section header would be to generate an entry on the TOC. The situation under discussion is one where we've got a redirect to an article that's about a much more general subject, but which does discuss the subject of the redirect within it. As a hypothetical example, a redirect from [[Boba Fett]] to [[Bounty hunters in Star Wars]] where [[Bounty hunters in Star Wars]] has a section with a header like "===Boba Fett===" somewhere in it. I brought up the possibility of a situation where you might have a redirect like that but the topic being redirected is so trivial that there isn't enough material to warrant its own section, which would make it a lot harder for the reader to figure out why the redirect brought them there and how they're supposed to find what they're looking for.

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Fred Bauder

29 Jun 29 Jun

7:36 p.m.

On Jun 29, 2006, at 9:19 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:

Unlike a real encyclopaedia, we don't seem willing or able to have incredibly short articles that say things like "Wreckage: temporary name given to English pop group Ibex in 1970. See [[Ibex (group)]]".

Need to work on this. Sometimes a redirect is not the right thing. Fred

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Chris Lüer

8:52 p.m.

At 05:10 AM 6/29/2006, Steve Bennett wrote:

Hi all, When discovering a redlink, which is better: to leave it as a redlink, or redirect it to the "closest" topic? Eg, a redlink to the name of a book - best to leave it that way, or create it as a redirect to the book's author? Or, create a substub "X is a book by [[Author]]"?

From an editor's point of view: leave it as a redlink, so one can easily tell it needs work. From a reader's point of view: write the stub, a little bit of information is always better than none. A little bit of easy-to-find information is also much better than having to search through a lengthy article on a related topic to which a redirect goes. Personally, I think we should write for our readers rather than for ourselves, and so I would go with the stub. Chl

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Steve Bennett

10:21 p.m.

On 6/29/06, Chris Lüer <chris(a)zandria.net> wrote:

From an editor's point of view: leave it as a redlink, so one can easily tell it needs work. From a reader's point of view: write the stub, a little bit of information is always better than none. A little bit of easy-to-find information is also much better than having to search through a lengthy article on a related topic to which a redirect goes. Personally, I think we should write for our readers rather than for ourselves, and so I would go with the stub.

You've just about stated the solution: we need a colour other than blue or red. Greylinks anyone? Steve

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Lord Voldemort

10:30 p.m.

On 6/29/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp(a)gmail.com> wrote:

You've just about stated the solution: we need a colour other than blue or red. Greylinks anyone?

But what would they do? Would they go to a stub article or go to a blank, editable article? ;-) I say there is no need to do one or the other. If you have information for a redlink, go ahead and make the stub. If you don't, just leave it alone for the next gal to make it. If there is sufficient info in the author's article about the book, redirect. Just my opinion. --LV

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Bryan Derksen

30 Jun 30 Jun

6:47 a.m.

Steve Bennett wrote:

On 6/29/06, Chris Lüer <chris(a)zandria.net> wrote:

Personally, I think we should write for our readers rather than for ourselves, and so I would go with the stub.

You've just about stated the solution: we need a colour other than blue or red. Greylinks anyone?

Not exactly sure what you mean, but Wikipedia already allows you to configure your preferences so that links to stubs (defined as articles under a configurable number of bytes) have a different color than the usual article link.

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maru dubshinki

8:07 p.m.

On 6/29/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Hi all, When discovering a redlink, which is better: to leave it as a redlink, or redirect it to the "closest" topic? Eg, a redlink to the name of a book - best to leave it that way, or create it as a redirect to the book's author? Or, create a substub "X is a book by [[Author]]"? Steve

Substub it unless you want to insert the substub into the author's page; substubs are acessible to everybody for editing, and besides, many people who wouldn't dare create an article because the responbsiblity or effort is just too much would be perfectly happy to add a sentence to the article or summarize some of the contents of an ext. link. ~maru

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Fastfission

9:26 p.m.

I'm very late to this conversation but I just wanted to chime in (since I don't think I saw anybody say it yet) that I always see red links as an invitation to create an article (blue links, on the other hand, are an invitation to read another article). I don't put red links in anywhere I don't think a full, new article would be warranted. This is obviously a personal call (is it ever not one?), but as a guiding principle it works for me pretty well in ambiguous situations. FF On 6/29/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Hi all, When discovering a redlink, which is better: to leave it as a redlink, or redirect it to the "closest" topic? Eg, a redlink to the name of a book - best to leave it that way, or create it as a redirect to the book's author? Or, create a substub "X is a book by [[Author]]"? Steve _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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participants (9)

Bryan Derksen
Chris Lüer
Delirium
Fastfission
Fred Bauder
Guy Chapman aka JzG
Lord Voldemort
maru dubshinki
Steve Bennett