Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2010 October 5

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

October 5[edit]

This is a list of redirects that have been proposed for deletion or other action on October 5, 2010

WP:KNOW[edit]

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more redirects. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the redirect's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was keep. No prejudice against immediate renomination, but editors should consider resolving the dispute over the status of the essay before dealing with this redirect. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:32, 14 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion. The article this page redirects to was userfied, and therefore the redirect should have been userfied as well. TFD (talk) 13:32, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting - no one ever notified me of any userfication discussion -- care to explain why? Collect (talk) 13:35, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Aha - no such discussion took place -- one editor simply moved it. I ask it be replaced in mainspace and stop the nonsense. Excuse was no one referred to the essay -- but it was referred to in the CC arbitration by an arbitrator! So much for "n one using it" indeed. <g> Thanks. Collect (talk) 13:40, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Article currently protected from "move war". Collect (talk) 23:52, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, SchuminWeb (Talk) 15:40, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy keep without prejudice against renomination. It appears to have been un-userfied and move-protected (see history of target) due to "move-warring" (which is a bit presumptuous on the part of the admin IMHO, as only two moves took place, arguably not sufficient to declare a move war; unless of course I'm misreading logs/history?), and anyway as long as it's going to be in project space, WP:CUTS applies. If you want to get the move reversed, discuss on talk page, start a WP:RFC, or take it to WP:RM, but don't delete the shortcut until the title is settled. --NYKevin @023, i.e. 23:33, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as the archive of an RfD nomination. Please do not modify it.

λ-matrix[edit]

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more redirects. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the redirect's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was WITHDRAWN, and the only other !vote is by the redirect creator !voting Keep. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:58, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Not quite an CSD#R3; although recently created, it's not implausible, just wrong. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:01, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep. Please explain what the wrong is. --虞海 (Yú Hǎi) (talk) 15:23, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    It's not used in English-language mathematics books or articles. Perhaps it's used in Chinese-language articles as an English term. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:29, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps, but at least I saw it on ru:Лямбда-матрицы. --虞海 (Yú Hǎi) (talk) 15:35, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It IS used in English:
www.math.washington.edu/~reu/papers/1992/schroder/schroder.ps
solitaryroad.com/c152.html
www.utdallas.edu/~cantrell/ee6481/appI.pdf
--虞海 (Yú Hǎi) (talk) 15:37, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I guess it is, although all of those appear to be self-published. Even so, it needs to be explained in the target article before the redirect is created, or it should be deleted as "not appearing in target article". It is not correct just to put "λ-matrix" in the lede of that article. An actual sentence is required: A λ-matrix is a matrix polynomials in λ as coefficients". Furthermore, it would need to be checked whether some other letter-matrix is used. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:46, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Gosh... They're .edu site, and you told me it's self-published.
"λ-matrix" needn't to be in λ as polynomial varible. It's simply a term. Similar example, when play hangman (game), you needn't hang yourself. So just to put "λ-matrix" is correct, but you removed it. --虞海 (Yú Hǎi) (talk) 16:03, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Nope. That's just wrong. A "λ-matrix" is a matrix polynomial in λ. All the sources you've provided (and the ru.wikipedia article) agree. 16:11, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
And they are in the faculty members' personal page at the institution, so probably self-published. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:12, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Definition verified, and you were right. --虞海 (Yú Hǎi) (talk) 16:28, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
But the redirect should be kept for those readers who seek for “λ-matrix”. --虞海 (Yú Hǎi) (talk) 16:29, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Withdraw nomination; with the source ("λ-matrix") properly defined in the target article, it no longer meets a deletion criterion. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:32, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as the archive of an RfD nomination. Please do not modify it.

Template:Hurricane main[edit]

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more redirects. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the redirect's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was no consensus to delete. Jafeluv (talk) 07:23, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete – completely unnecessary and unused (on article namespace) redirect. Originally created as a new template just for hurricane articles. McLerristarr / Mclay1 04:13, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep per TFD two years ago. It was just to much of a pain to delete it, and would destroy the page history. YE Tropical Cyclone 13:42, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Can you provide a link to the TfD? Why does it matter if the page history is destroyed? If the redirect is useless and unused (and the template should never have been created in the first place), then the page history doesn't matter. McLerristarr / Mclay1 13:49, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom.Jason Rees (talk) 01:31, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, per David Levy's reasoning below. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 01:42, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete I understand why this was kept as a redirect originally, but it is no longer used, and neither is the page history. -Selket Talk 16:44, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Selket: Actually, I believe it is still used. YE Tropical Cyclone 13:46, 7 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
YE its not used anywhere in the mainspace, its all old user sandboxes and disscussions.Jason Rees (talk) 17:58, 7 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have seen it used, you just don't notice it. YE Tropical Cyclone
You can look on "What links here" whether it is used. It is not. McLerristarr / Mclay1 04:38, 9 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - this was redirected at TFD. Coming here to get the consequential redirect deleted is wrong procedure. Correct is to either challenge the close at DRV or renominate at TFD. RFD is not a forum to overturn redirect decisions at other XFDs. Bridgeplayer (talk) 01:19, 7 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Since that discussion was over 2 years ago, I think it's a bit silly to say that that resolution still stands and must be challenged. WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY. There are no longer any uses of the template. McLerristarr / Mclay1 04:38, 9 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion decisions don't expire after two years any other arbitrary timescale. They continue to be valid until circumstances justify a fresh discussion. Bridgeplayer (talk) 19:42, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Again, it is still used. Just not on our heavily viewed articles. Mainly in the userspcae. What harm does it do by keeping the template? YE Tropical Cyclone
No more harm than any other redirect. If there is no point in deleting inoffensive or unbiased redirects, then most of these discussions should end in 'keep'. McLerristarr / Mclay1 11:14, 10 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not only is there no point in deleting inoffensive redirects but deleting harmless redirects can cause problems, for example breaking links in external sites. Consequently existing redirects should be left well alone unless there is a good reason to remove them. This is the policy underlying redirect discussions. Bridgeplayer (talk) 19:42, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, since it is not used where it counts. Hurricanehink (talk) 19:19, 9 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Harmless redirect whose deletion would result in non-trivial damage (particularly to old revisions of articles containing it) without any apparent benefit.
    I don't understand why some editors regard a redirect stemming from a template merger as clutter (somehow problematic by its very existence) that must be disposed of. Provided that the target serves essentially the same purpose (or a similar, syntax-compatible variant deemed more appropriate by the community), what do we stand to gain by deleting such a redirect? —David Levy 20:50, 9 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete to discourage people creating this kind of stuff. This is a gain. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:30, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as the archive of an RfD nomination. Please do not modify it.

Template:FURTHER[edit]

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more redirects. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the redirect's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was delete. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:29, 14 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete – unused, unnecessary redirect. We don't need a redirect to every template from its name in ALLCAPS. McLerristarr / Mclay1 03:54, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as the archive of an RfD nomination. Please do not modify it.

Template:Otheruses3[edit]

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more redirects. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the redirect's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was keep. The consensus is that deleting the redirect would bring little benefit but cause unnecessary complications (due to its usage in articles in earlier versions). Dabomb87 (talk) 23:22, 14 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete – old unused (on article namespace) template redirect; numbering now unnecessary. McLerristarr / Mclay1 03:50, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep. This legacy redirect recently was orphaned by a bot (without need or consensus). It's present in countless articles' histories, and I see no reason to break those transclusions or future transclusions by users unaware that the template has been merged into {{other uses}}. It's for reasons such as these that our standard procedure is to maintain a redirect. What harm does it do? What to we stand to gain by deleting it? —David Levy 04:50, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Redirects of this kind are deleted all the time. {{Main1}} and {{Main2}} were deleted very recently. Since {{Other uses2}} exists, using {{Otheruses3}} in an article could be confusing if people did not know it was the same as {{Other uses}}. McLerristarr / Mclay1 06:13, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
1. The {{main1}} and {{main2}} redirects appear to have been deleted without discussion. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.
2. I don't see what would be so confusing about the scenario that you describe (though no one advocates that the redirect's use be promoted). I do see how an editor would be confused if he/she attempted to use {{otheruses3}} and received a red link. I also see how it would be confusing for thousands of pages' histories to contain such broken transclusions. —David Levy 09:47, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why would someone try to use {{Otheruses3}}? But, yes, the situation I described is not that confusing. McLerristarr / Mclay1 13:15, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Because we don't advertise it, any future use of {{otheruses3}} most likely would be limited to editors who have used it in the past and are unaware that it's been merged into {{other uses}}. (The page history issue, of course, would affect anyone viewing old revisions of articles containing the template.) —David Levy 13:25, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Per my request, Magioladitis has undone the speedy deletion of {{main1}} and {{main2}} and listed them at RfD. —David Levy 02:17, 10 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Redirects are cheap, and in this case, deleting it would unnecessarily mangle previous revision histories, as this was a rather-used template. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 01:44, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - deletion would break links in histories for no benefit. Bridgeplayer (talk) 01:21, 7 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep—no reason to delete, keeping will preserve the readability of old page revisions. –Grondemar 03:42, 8 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep very heavily used in the past. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:09, 9 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete'. Here we go again. We follow this redirect for 6 months and no one ever used it since then. {{Otheruses}} without 3 exists as a redirect and the number 3 serves no purpose. This redirect only increases the number of redirects of maintenance templates making them more difficult to be handled by bots and editors. We can have number-free templates in most cases.-- Magioladitis (talk) 01:05, 10 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
1. You've ignored the point that this template — which did serve a distinct purpose before the advent of the ParserFunctions extension enabled us to merge its functionality into {{other uses}} — was widely used (until a bot was deployed without consensus to needlessly orphan the fully functional redirect), meaning that countless page revisions rely on it to display correctly.
2. Your assertion that this redirect's existence causes its target to be "more difficult to be handled by bots and editors" is new to me. Can you please elaborate? —David Levy 02:17, 10 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
DABlinks are maintained by bots. Cause of the tenths redirects the bots are slow and sometimes miss some cases. Moreover, names with numbers at the end don't help editors to memorise them and use them correctly. I 've seen myself many cases of {{Other uses2}} where {{Other uses}} could apply, etc. Ultimate aim would be to merge everything to 3 or 4 standard generalised templates, which would make it easier for editors to get to known them and use them correctly. Many newly created DABlinks in the series of name_number are created because the creator isn't familiar with the already existing standard templates. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:54, 10 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No properly coded bot is adversely affected by the existence of a redirect (which is extremely common and encouraged in many cases), let alone one that currently is unused (by your own account).
You're quite correct that unnecessary template variants can generate confusion, but that isn't what's occurring here. This is an unadvertised redirect, created via precisely the type of merger that you advocate. We previously lacked the ability to provide all of the required functionality in a single template, but the ParserFunctions extension's creation enabled us to consolidate. So we merged this template's functionality into {{other uses}} and retained the {{otheruses3}} name as a redirect (thereby providing legacy support). You still have not addressed the issue of the countless article revisions that would fail to display properly if this redirect were deleted. —David Levy 17:06, 10 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There are several issues here that I'd like to comment on, forgive me if I go off at a slight tangent (or two):

  • Unadvertised redirects, particularly orphaned ones, do avoid some of the HCI problems of advertised/used redirects.
  • Namespace pollution is still a problem however:
    • Due to their being a numbered series, people will mistype otheruses3 for otheruses2, and not get the red-link they should.
    • Valuable names are used up - this might not be one of them
    • Bots that have carnal knowledge of redirects do have an extra overhead
  • The history problem is simply the biggest bug in MW. templates are being repurposed all the time, anything non-redacted should be temporally transcludable. I shudder to think what the infobox in the history of one of the French communes would look like. deletign this tempalte would casue very minor breakage from that point of view.

On a separate note, but related, the theme "no properly coded bot" (no true Scotsman) is one that I have seen a few times, and started off in full sympathy with. Let the machines do the work! However it's not the machines, it's the programmers. If some relatively inexperienced programmer can make a massive (or even small) improvement to WP that is a good thing. We should, where it doesn't break anything, not only avoid making stuff harder for automated processes, but make it easier. Also the phrase "no properly coded bot" makes assumptions. With redirects for example, if we want to replace them we have a whole slew of possibilities: to refer to one of them as "bad code" or "good code" does not make sense without examining the task it is intended for, and, moreover, the number of crufty redirects.

In particular AWB uses "hard coded" lists, which means the overhead is carried by all operators, and needs software releases to update. SmackBot (as wel as the AWB built-ins) uses periodically generated lists, because it deals with thousands of redirects to hundreds of templates, they are constantly being added, deleted, moved, re purposed. Both these approaches have costs - SmakcBot's takes about an hour to generate for example, with 10 x the number of redirects it would start to look un-feasible (like this for example). At this point the more effective approach would be to look up each template on a page and find its target - probably with caching.

So while I don;t have a strong view on the deletion of this particular redirect, in general template redirects should only be made where useful, and cleared up afterwards. On "no properly coded Wiki" will this cause history problems. Rich Farmbrough, 11:59, 12 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]

1. That a redirect's existence increases overhead is undisputed. But the community has determined that this is justified when a redirect is helpful and not otherwise harmful. "Crufty" redirects should be avoided (thereby preventing the numbers from ballooning out of control), but this is not one of them.
2. The deployment of a bot to orphan a widely used template redirect (a prerequisite to its deletion) also increases overhead. It occurred in this instance, and the redirect's deletion would validate and encourage such acts.
3. The likelihood of someone mistyping {{otheruses3}} instead of {{otheruses2}} and not realizing the error probably is lower than the likelihood of someone intentionally transcluding {{otheruses3}} because he/she is unaware that it's been merged into {{other uses}}.
4. Indeed, some revision history problems are unavoidable. That doesn't mean that we should go out of our way to create additional problems.
5. The key distinction between a "properly coded bot" (as I define it) and a "properly coded wiki" (as you define it) is that the former exists today (and is easier to create than ever before, given the resources available). We certainly shouldn't make things more difficult for coders than we need to, nor should we sacrifice basic functionality for their convenience.
If/when MediaWiki is improved in the manner that you describe, that will change matters. —David Levy 15:30, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - deleting redirects that were formerly templates that existed for years is user-hostile. –xenotalk 15:57, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleting this template would create a virtual template mess, and although a bot could clean it up, it takes too long. WikiCopter (radio • sorties • images • shot down) 22:50, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Idea What about moving Otheruses5 to the position of Otheruses3? Unless we want to end up by a series that mixes redirects and normal dablinks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:32, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    If we did that, the behaviour of otheruses3 will have changed; people who call it from memory will be confused. –xenotalk 20:36, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody used it the last 6 months that I've been monitoring. Stats in mainspace: Otheruses3 has 0 transclusions, Other uses5 has 22 transclusions, Other uses 6 has 163 transclusions. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:37, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Still don't see the need to swap them around. Still don't see why they can't just be left alone. If we change the behaviour, old revisions break. The reason for the low number of transclusions is because someone deployed a bot in contravention of AWB's rules of use to orphan them. –xenotalk 20:40, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. There would be absolutely no benefit. On top of breaking old revisions, such rearrangement wouldn't even reduce the number of redirects (unless step two is to orphan {{other uses5}} and list that for deletion, despite the obvious confusion and inconvenience that the change would cause). —David Levy 20:47, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not "them" Only "3" and after "3" was a redirect of the main one. The assertion that nobody was adding "3" anymore is proven correct. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:48, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
But it still exists in the old revisions. –xenotalk 20:52, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And I don't know how Magioladitis can be certain that no one has used the redirect in the past six months. Perhaps new transclusions were removed (either automatically or manually), just as the old ones were.
Also, as noted above, deleting the redirect would validate the inappropriate bot run(s) and encourage such behavior. —David Levy 20:59, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
They new additions weren't removed automatically because I declined the request to add this change in AWB's code. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:04, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A bot may have removed transclusions, just as one did before. —David Levy 21:53, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Btw, I never sent this redirect for deletion. Other editors did. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:07, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And you've argued in favor of the proposed deletion. We're responding. —David Levy 21:53, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
xeno: I agree that the thing with the old revisions is an important issue. We just have to choose what we prefer in my opinion. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:35, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
But there's no evidence that the redirect is causing any harm. —David Levy 21:53, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as the archive of an RfD nomination. Please do not modify it.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2010_October_5&oldid=1138577500"