On Fri, 13 Aug 2004, Jens Ropers wrote (to WikiEN-L):

Can I suggest we implement a "cover all" redirect, whereby ALL [[Wikipedia:Some stuff here]] kind of links can alternatively be written [[WP:Some stuff here]]?

This has been suggested before, and I must say I'm in favour, but it was turned down on the grounds that it's too Wikipedia-centric to warrant changing the code. However, I think other installations might be pleased to have some kind of "namespace alias" system (in this example, we would make "WP" an alias for "Wikipedia"). It might even be useful for some of the non-English 'pedias, since they could have the English namespace names as aliases for localised ones. [Of course, in that scenario, it would be better to have a "replace on save" system, rather than one where the links look different but go to the same place, but it might be handy either way...]

Not all "Wikipedia:(...)" pages have "own" their redirects (meaning redirects such as WP:SB), but it still seems like a good idea to ALWAYS allow the "Wikipedia:" bit to be abbreviated as "WP:" -- so that if I'm writing e.g. [[WP:Dispute resolution]], this would automatically redirect/be expanded to [[Wikipedia:Dispute resolution]]. Again, I'm asking whether we can do the WP: to Wikipedia: redirecting/expanding stuff on a GENERIC basis. (I know it /could/ be done on an individual article basis, but that's not my point.

And this is even more useful for namespaces with longer names, of course: Wikipedia_talk: is just a pain to type!

It would help, be really convenient and it would not get in the way of anything. Pages can still have actual own redirects such as [[WP:SB]].

Of course, if it were a real aliasing system such as I am imagining, a page "called" [[WP:SB]] would actually be called [[Wikipedia:SB]], but I don't see that that would matter much - we'd just have to move all pages called WP:xxx to Wikipedia:xxx before activating the alias (with a bot, or a database script). This would have the added benefit of taking these shortcuts out of the main article namespace, where they are likely to confuse people mirroring our content.

BTW, I've re-addressed this to what I hope is a more appropriate list, and moved wikien-l to a CC. Also, I'm off on holiday, so having stirred things up, I'll leave you to fight this one out between yourselves ;)