On 2007.10.21 16:04:46 -0600, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca> scribbled 0
lines:
Charlotte Webb wrote:
On 10/18/07, Magnus Manske
<magnusmanske(a)googlemail.com> wrote:
Thanks, should be fixed now. Should there be a
MediaWiki function that
prevents one from saving a #REDIRECT to the same topic? ;-)
Yes. I'd guess 1 in 100 times that happens it's experimental vandalism
of the "Hehehe, I wonder what would happen if..." sort, and the other
99 times it's an embarrassing paste error by an at least somewhat
serious editor.
I'd guess that about 5% of the times it happens it's some tremendously
witty and clever person who's come up with the novel concept of
redirecting [[Self-referential humor]] to itself.
Honestly, I'd disagree. Webb's right that a lot of the time it *is* just a
copy-paste error - I've seen quite a few hand-copied sort of template things.
But based on my experience delinking hundreds of self-redirects using the Pywikipedia
script I've already mentioned, most of the uses are far more sordid and pathetic: they
self-link to get *bolding* on the name.
Yes, that's right, instead of going '''Page name''', they go
[[Page name]].
Oy gevalt.
--
gwern
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