Skip to current discussions

If this page has been recently modified, it may not reflect the most recent changes. Please purge this page to view the most recent changes.

Redirects for discussion (RfD) is the place where Wikipedians decide what should be done with problematic redirects. Items sent here usually stay listed for a week or so, after which they are deleted by an administrator, kept, or retargeted.

Note: If all you want to do is replace a currently existing, unprotected redirect with an actual article, you do not need to list it here. Turning redirects into fleshed-out encyclopedic articles is wholly encouraged at Wikipedia. Be bold.

Note: Redirects should not be deleted simply because they do not have any incoming links. Please do not list this as a reason to delete a redirect. Redirects that do have incoming links are sometimes deleted as well, so it's not a necessary condition either. See When should we delete a redirect?

Old discussions are archived at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log.

Before you list a redirect for deletion...

...please familiarize yourself with the following:

• Wikipedia:Redirect — our general policy on what redirects are, why they exist, and how they are used.
• Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion — our policy on which pages can be deleted without discussion. The "General" and "Redirects" section apply here.
• Wikipedia:Deletion policy — our deletion policy that describes how we delete things by consensus
• Wikipedia:Guide to deletion — whose guidelines on discussion format and shorthands also apply here

The guiding principles of RfD

• The purpose of a good redirect is to eliminate the possibility that an average user will wind up staring blankly at a "Search results 1-10 out of 378" search page instead of the article they were looking for. If someone could plausibly type in the redirect's name when searching for the target article, it's a good redirect.
• Redirects are cheap. Redirects take up minimal disk space and use very little bandwidth. Thus, it doesn't really hurt things much if there are a few of them scattered around. On the flip side, deleting redirects is cheap since the deletion coding takes up minimal disk space and use very little bandwidth. In general, there is no harm in deleting problematic redirects that do not contribute to improving the encyclopedia.
• The default result of any RFD nomination which receives no other discussion is delete. Thus, a redirect nominated in good faith and in accordance with RfD policy will be deleted, even if there is no discussion surrounding that nomination.
• Redirects nominated in contravention of Wikipedia:Redirect will be speedily kept.
• RfD is not the place to resolve most editorial disputes. If you think a redirect should be targeted at a different article, discuss it on the talk pages of the current target article and/or the proposed target article. However, for more difficult cases, this page can be a centralized discussion place for resolving tough debates about where redirects point.
• Requests for deletion of redirects from one page's talk page to another page's talk page don't need to be listed here, as anyone can simply remove the redirect by blanking the page.

When should we delete a redirect?

1. The redirect page makes it unreasonably difficult for users to locate similarly named articles via the search engine.
2. The redirect might cause confusion. For example, if "Adam B. Smith" was redirected to "Andrew B. Smith", because Andrew was accidentally called Adam in one source, this could cause confusion with the article on Adam Smith, so it should be deleted.
3. The redirect is offensive, such as "Joe Bloggs is a Loser" to "Joe Bloggs", unless "Joe Bloggs is a Loser" is discussed in the article.
4. The redirect makes no sense, such as redirecting Google to love.
5. It is a cross-namespace redirect out of article space, such as one pointing into the User or Wikipedia namespace. The major exception to this rule is the "CAT:" shortcut redirects, which technically are in the main article space but in practice form their own "pseudo-namespaces".
6. If the redirect is broken, meaning it redirects to an article that does not exist or itself, it can be deleted immediately, though you should check that there is not an alternative place it could be appropriately redirected to first.
7. If the redirect is a novel or very obscure synonym for an article name, it is unlikely to be useful. Implausible typos or misnomers are potential candidates for speedy deletion, if recently created.

1. They have a potentially useful page history. If the redirect was created by renaming a page with that name, and the page history just mentions the renaming, and for one of the reasons above you want to delete the page, copy the page history to the Talk page of the article it redirects to. The act of renaming is useful page history, and even more so if there has been discussion on the page name.
2. They would aid accidental linking and make the creation of duplicate articles less likely, whether by redirecting a plural to a singular, by redirecting a frequent misspelling to a correct spelling, by redirecting a misnomer to a correct term, by redirecting to a synonym, etc. In other words, redirects with no incoming links are not candidates for deletion on those grounds because they are of benefit to the browsing user. Some extra vigilance by editors will be required to minimize the occurrence of those frequent misspellings in the article texts because the linkified misspellings will not appear as broken links.
3. They aid searches on certain terms.
4. You risk breaking incoming or internal links by deleting the redirect. Old CamelCase links and old subpage links should be left alone in case there are any existing links on external pages pointing to them.
5. Someone finds them useful. Hint: If someone says they find a redirect useful, they probably do. You might not find it useful — this is not because the other person is a liar, but because you browse Wikipedia in different ways.
6. The redirect is to a plural form or to a singular form.

Neutrality of redirects

Note that redirects are not covered by Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy. This covers only article titles, which are required to be neutral (see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Article naming). Perceived lack of neutrality in redirects is therefore not a valid reason for deletion. Non-neutral redirects should point to neutrally titled articles about the subject of the term.

Non-neutral redirects are commonly created for three reasons:

1. Articles that are created using non-neutral titles are routinely moved to a new neutral title, which leaves behind the old non-neutral title as a working redirect (e.g. Dalmatian Kristallnacht ? Dalmatian anti-Serb riots of May 1991).
2. Articles created as POV forks may be deleted and replaced by a redirect pointing towards the article from which the fork originated (e.g. Barack Obama Muslim rumor ? deleted and redirected to Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2008).
3. The subject matter of articles may be commonly represented outside Wikipedia by non-neutral terms. Such terms cannot be used as Wikipedia article title, per the words to avoid guidelines and the general neutral point of view policy. For instance, the widely used but non-neutral expression "Attorneygate" is used to redirect to the neutrally titled Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy. The article in question has never used that title, but the redirect was created to provide an alternative means of reaching it.

If a redirect is not an established term and is unlikely to be used by searchers, it is unlikely to be useful and may reasonably be nominated for deletion. However, if a redirect represents an established term that is used in multiple mainstream reliable sources (as defined by Wikipedia:Verifiability#Reliable sources), it should be kept even if non-neutral, as it will facilitate searches on such terms. Please keep in mind that RfD is not the place to resolve most editorial disputes.

See also: Policy on which redirects can be deleted immediately.

Closing notes

Details at: Wikipedia:Deletion process#Redirects for discussion page. See also Administrator instructions for RfD.

Nominations should remain open, per policy, about a week before they are closed, unless they meet the general criteria for speedy deletion, the criteria for speedy deletion of a redirect, or are not valid redirect discussion requests (e.g. are actually move requests).

How to list a redirect for deletion

To list a redirect for deletion, follow this two-step process:

• Please consider using WhatLinksHere to locate other redirects that may be related to the one you are nominating. After going to the redirect target page and selecting "What links here" in the toolbox on the left side of your computer screen, select both "Hide transclusions" and "Hide links" filters to display the redirects to the redirect target page.
• It is generally considered civil to notify the good-faith creator and any main contributors of the redirect that you are nominating the redirect. To find the main contributors, look in the page history of the redirect. For convenience, the template

  {{subst:RFDNote|PAGENAME}}

  may be placed on the creator/main contributors user talk page to provide notice of the discussion. Please replace PAGENAME with the name of the redirect and use an edit summary such as:
  Notice of redirect discussion at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion]]

Index Of Related Pages

The given page title is invalid, because it contains an invalid inter-language or inter-wiki prefix, or characters which cannot be used in page titles.

Previous page (Wiki-wiki)