User:Nickj/Redirects

What is this?

This is a project to help suggest new useful redirects and disambiguation pages from the data that we already have in the Wikipedia.

How does this work?

1. Randomly select a page from the list of pages below (that hasn't been crossed out already).
2. On that page, randomly select a section from the list of contents.
3. In that section, you will find a suggested redirect or disambiguation.
   • Each suggestion will have a link that says "Easy Preview". Clicking this link automatically fills in the description, and the contents of the page, but doesn't save it. You still have to then press the Save button if you want to save the suggestion, but you don't have to type a single thing.
   • Each suggestion will have the name of the page that's being suggested, just to the right of "Easy Preview". If this link is red, then there is nothing at this page currently, so you can add the suggestion, if you agree with it. If this link is blue, then it's probably already been done.
4. If there were suggestions that you thought were bad suggestions, then please strike them out (and they will be excluded from future lists). Update: You no longer have to delete from the page any suggestions that you added, or that have already been done (as the red links make it easy to see what's not been done yet). When all the suggestions on a page are either blue or have been struck out, then that page is completed (and can be crossed off the list).
5. That's it. Repeat, if you like.

Redirect Suggestions

Tip: Please ignore instruction number 3 on these pages, about deleting things you add (it's no longer necessary to do this). What instruction number 3 should say instead is this:

If there were suggestions that you thought were bad suggestions, then please strike them out, rather than deleting them (and they will then be excluded from future lists). When all the suggestions on a page are either blue or have been struck out, then that page is completed (and can be crossed off the main list).

None at the present time

Completed redirect suggestions

- 000 - 001 - 002 - 003 - 004 - 005 - 006
- 007 - 008 - 009 - 010 - 011 - 012 - 013
- 014 - 015 - 016 - 017 - 018 - 019 - 020
- 021 - 022 - 023 - 024 - 025 - 026 - 027
- 028 - 029 - 030 - 031 - 032 - 033 - 034
- 035 - 036 - 037 - 038 - 039 - 040 - 041
- 042 - 043 - 044 - 045 - 046 - 047 - 048
- 049 - 050 - 051 - 052 - 053 - 054 - 055
- 056 - 057 - 058 - 059 - 060 - 061 - 062
- 063 - 064 - 065 - 066 - 067 - 068 - 069

Completed disambiguation suggestions

- 000 - 001 - 002 - 003 - 004 - 005 - 006
- 007 - 008 - 009 - 010 - 011 - 012

Completed Geographical Disambiguation suggestions

Tip: These disambiguation suggestions contain one or more geographical names (e.g. "Portage Township, Cambria County, Pennsylvania").

- 004 - 005 - 006 - 008 - 009 - 010 - 011
- 012 - 013 - 000 - 001 - 002 - 003 - 007
- 014 - 015 - 016 - 017 - 018 - 019

What do the numbers to the right of each link mean?

The numbers are the number of different articles in which a suggestion occurs. So the higher the number, the more commonly something is suggested. However, there are sometimes good suggestions that occur infrequently, and bad suggestions which occur frequently. The best thing is to use your judgement, rather than rely on the numbers.

Where does the data come from? (short version)

The short version is that people had to go out of their way to link a bit of text on something other than just the straight text itself (i.e. the link target and the link label differ, and the label has no page currently, but the target does). Using that information, we can add redirects (where all the links agree), or disambiguation pages (where they don't). Keep reading for more information.

Where does the redirect data come from?

Consider any link where the label and target are different. For example: "November 2004 - [[George W. Bush|dubya]] re-elected". Now, one way of interpreting this is that the author of that bit of text thinks that "dubya" should be a redirect to "George W. Bush". In this case, there already is such a redirect - but what if there wasn't? Suppose this same thing happened enough times (say in 3 or more articles), all unanimously suggesting that "dubya" should be a redirect to "George W. Bush". Surely then we would have enough information to consider creating that redirect. That's what this project does.

Where does the disambiguation data come from?

Now take another example, where people think the same links should point to different places. Suppose that in one article we find this: "[[Sydney|best city in Australia]]", and in another article we find this "[[Melbourne|best city in Australia]]", and some else writes this: "[[Canberra|best city in Australia]]". Then, just from this information, we can look to see if there is a page for "best city in Australia" (there isn't), and then we can create one, as a disambiguation page that says:

 '''Best city in Australia''' is either:
 * [[Sydney]]
 * [[Melbourne]]
 * [[Canberra]]
 {{disambig}}

Of course, I'm using this disambiguation page as a simple example, but it makes the point that it may well be possible to automatically fill in the blanks, using the information and content that we already have in Wikipedia.

What if there is already a page at the target location?

If there is already a page at the target location (i.e. the link is not red), then please just delete that suggestion from the list (as the aim is to add things that are missing, not to change things that have already been added).

Are redirects OK from plural to singular, or from singular to plural?

Yes, they're fine. They're not required, but they are OK. Please see this Wikipedia naming convention if you would like more information on this.

Tip: If you create a redirect from a plural to singular, then Template:R from plural is now automatically included for you (using the rules of noun plurals as defined by the English Department of Purdue University). This will automagically add it to Category:Redirects from plurals.

What if I don't know if a redirect is any good or not?

Then ignore that particular suggestion, and don't delete it from the list (sooner or later someone will read it who knows whether it's any good or not). Only add the redirects that you think are reasonable.

How many suggestions were found in this run?

16739 redirects, and 789 disambiguation pages.

Source code

Source code for the Missing Redirects project is now available. It's a bit of a mess, sorry!

Thank you to contributors

A big thank you to everyone who helps out! Please feel free to add your name to the list below:

• ABCD
• Neutrality/^talk
• Nickj
• Noel
• Quadell
• Inter
• Kevyn
• r3m0t
• Woohookitty
• JPæst

Previously rejected suggestions

The redirect and disambig suggestions rejected in the previous run have now been collected and listed on this page.

Some tentative conclusions can be formed from this list:

• Things that include the possessive apostrophe–s (e.g.: Einstein's, NASA's, Queen Victoria's, Democratic Party's) are bad suggestions.
• Geographical suggestions are the least contentious.
• Things that are 3 characters long (e.g. "O-R" or "Fr.") are often bad suggestions.
• Things that end in a period (e.g. "lt." or "Gr." or "sim. ch.") are bad suggestions.
• Things that contain open and close parantheses (e.g. "(O.S.)", or "President(s)") seem to be bad suggestions.
• Things that start with "Minister for" are bad suggestions (e.g. "Minister for Fisheries & Forestry", "Minister for Supplies", "Minister for the Gaeltacht").
• Things that start with a hyphen (e.g. "-20", "-37", "-38" - which are all aircraft model numbers) are bad suggestions.