Steve Bennett wrote:
On 6/8/06, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
Nick Jenkins wrote:
You could have: (Redirected from _Lyon metro_ - _create redirect_)
I don't understand. If it already redirects automatically, why would you still want to create the redirect?
The "automatic redirection" only occurs if you happen to type the name in the box at the left of screen and press the Go button. In any other situation (linking to it, typing the name in the URL, searching) it doesn't "redirect automatically".
Given that, your question comes down to "why create redirects at all?".
And of course, if the various Search options all got their "Do you mean?" functionality just right, we truly would *not* need all those redirects. Many of them exist not because a commandment on a tablet said we had to create them, but rather, as a workaround for the fact that readers do occasionally type in article names spelled wrong, and we want to make it easier to find what they want, and the software hasn't always been smart enough.
So yes, if the software can tell that a user who typed A probably meant B, and if it can implicitly redirect from A to B, we don't need an explicit redirect from A to B, after all. And having the software do that automatically is obviously preferable to the nuisance of creating and maintaining all those thousands of explicit redirects manually.
The remaining case is that if the software is implicitly redirecting from A to B, but there is some distinction between A and B after all, such that a later editor wants to create a distinct article on A, there must obviously be a way to do so without being trapped by the same implicit redirect.
(Apologies if I'm belaboring the obvious here.)