Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2008 March 25

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March 25

This is a list of redirects that have been proposed for deletion or other action on March 25, 2008

MS-DOS Compatible Operating Systems

The result of the debate was kept. — Gavia immer (talk) 14:34, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Redirect that resulted from an against-consensus page move that was reverted. See this: [1] JeremyMcCracken (talk) 21:32, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

• Weak keep. The term is still used in the target article, although I have a feeling that this was an oversight by editors enforcing the consensus. Nevertheless, I think that it's a reasonably likely search term for someone looking for DOS as opposed to disk operating system. The controversy around the name seems to justify that thinking. -- Kéiryn ^talk 00:48, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

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

Callous → Callus

The result of the debate was keep with a disambiguation hatnote on the top of the Callus article. bibliomaniac15 Hey you! Stop lazing around and help fix this article instead! 20:39, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

The redirect word "callous" has a completely different meaning. 154.20.111.37 (talk) 20:04, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

• Endorse. However, these are relatively common misspellings of each other. That said, as callous would likely be nothing more than a dicdef article, it would probably be wise to have a placeholder page with a soft redirect to the Wiktionary entry (as I'm sure there is one) and disambiguate to callus. I hope that makes sense. LaMenta3 (talk) 22:20, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

• This is not WP:DRV; so it's not clear what "endorse" means here. Is the deletion being endorsed here, or is the presence of the redirect being endorsed? B.Wind (talk) 04:17, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

• I endorse the idea that the redirect as it stands is inappropriate, which is what the nominator pointed out. It's kind of a special case in which keep or delete isn't entirely appropriate, as is weighing in with a comment, which is generally taken as neutral.LaMenta3 (talk) 15:44, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

• Comment: It is a problem spelling with many mistakes (i just corrected a few articles). And the meanings are not completely independent; they are entangled. The area of thickened skin is a "callus"; two are "calluses". The adjective "callused" might or might not exist -- it is supposed to be "callous", meaning having callus(es). "Callous" also means emotionally hardened or unfeeling. (Thus "Callouses" and "Calloused" cannot exist, but they are common.) (And what about "callusing"?) What to do? Disambiguation? but where is the article for "emotionally hardened"? One could put the "emotionally hardened" article at "Callous", and then link to "Callus" as a hatlink, but there's no article, so no hatlink. Or, you can say that callus is a metaphor for emotional hardness (callousness?), and explain it there. -Whiner01 (talk) 06:59, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
• While it is a common spelling mistake, in this case it changes the meaning of the term. Since the changed meaning can create confusion, reluctant delete. Many thanks to Whiner01 for helping me make up my mind on this one (he/she almost convinced me to suggest converting "callous" into a dab page).B.Wind (talk) 01:27, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
• Keep per Whiner. I'd disagree that it "changes" the meaning of the term, it's just a question of whether something is physically hardened or emotionally hardened. It's an extremely common mistake, so it's fairly likely that someone searching for "callous" is looking for callus, and even if they're not, the terms are related. Perhaps a hatnote could help solve the confusion?

Callous redirects here. For a definition of the word "callous", see callous.

-- Kéiryn ^talk 00:53, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

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

FOSS → Free and open source software

The result of the debate was Keep. Looking at at this discussion and at the redir's history I'd say no one really wants it deleted. The issue is about the target not about the redir existing. Nabla (talk) 18:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC) (note: as an editor I boldly turned it into a disambig page)

This redirect has many incoming links, including from external sources (which link to it in expectation that it links to the Alternative terms for free software article[2][3]). For a long time, this article pointed to Alternative terms for free software, but in December it was changed to point to a new stub. That stub was used to launch a merge proposal. After 4 months, the merge has not happened, and there have been no substantial contributions to the stub.[4] I suggest changing this redirect back to alternative terms for free software - an article with 2.5 years of development from 30 contributors (bots excluded) about terms such as FOSS, FLOSS, software libre, open-source software, etc. Gronky (talk) 14:03, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Keep, failure to get user's personal outcome on his AfD nom for the target. While said article exists, it's obviously the correct target for an abbreviation of its own title. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:35, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

The target article shouldn't exist and was only given grace by the voters on Afd on condition of "Let's see how it evolves". Even then it only survived by 5 votes to 4. In the four months since, it has completely stagnated. I will request again that it be deleted, but yet another (seemingly doomed) merge proposal has been made, so I will let that run it's course. In the mean time, pointing the FOSS and FLOSS redirects to this tug-o-war sandbox stub is not good for Wikipedia. That said, as I said on Talk:Free_and_open_source_software#About_the_FOSS_redir, if any future merge is successful, I will then support redirecting FOSS and FLOSS to the merged article. I'm only trying to prevent this issue from harming Wikipedia along the way. --Gronky (talk) 09:03, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

• Keep, The fact that the target article survived AfD is at odds with the statement "The target article shouldn't exist." Additionally, "target shouldn't exist" isn't a valid criteria for RfD. However, "target doesn't exist" would be valid, so if the target were deleted, I'd change my position to delete. Dansiman (talk|Contribs) 19:19, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

  I think I'll put it on Wikipedia:Requested moves and suggest it be moved to user space so that people can continue to work on it for the basis for proposals but it won't be masking good content any longer. --Gronky (talk) 21:28, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

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

Fedora (GNU/Linux distribution) → Fedora (Linux distribution)

The result of the debate was kept (no consensus to delete). — Gavia immer (talk) 14:34, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

POV redirect with only two links (both by the editor who created the redirect). Unnecessary as the disambig page Fedora and Fedora Core, the old name for the OS, both link to Fedora (Linux distribution). ~~ [Jam]^[talk] 12:31, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

• keep Fedora is indeed a distribution of GNU plus Linux. "GNU/Linux" and "Linux" are both names used to describe what Fedora is, and a search of their fedoraproject.org wiki (using an external search engine because the site's search box gives a Error-500 right now) shows that many core developers describe it as "GNU/Linux" themselves. --Gronky (talk) 12:39, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

  From what I can see, the Fedora Project wiki does not actually say that Fedora is a GNU/Linux distribution. The developers may say that they use GNU/Linux, but that is there own personal opinion, not one shared by the project itself. ~~ [Jam]^[talk] 13:17, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

  It's a community project, so I think it's members/developers *are* "the project", but if you insist on officials, John Babich (who sits on two of Fedora's steering committees) calls the OS "GNU/Linux"[5]. I'm sure there're plenty more, he's just the first person I found. --Gronky (talk) 13:29, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

  I'm sorry to seem to be so pedantic, but as I said, the official pages (that the general public will see) don't say that it is a GNU/Linux distribution. For example, the overview page specifically says it is a Linux-based distribution, not a GNU/Linux(-based) distribution. ~~ [Jam]^[talk] 13:36, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

  Yes, but that's not your point :-) We all agree it's Linux-based. The disagreement is that I say it's also a GNU/Linux-based distro, and I've pointed to developers and people with official status in the project who refer to the operating system that Fedora is based on as "GNU/Linux". There are also studies showing that the OS is based on GNU - indeed, there's more GNU in there than there is Linux[6]. So it seems unquestionably GNU/Linux-based. --Gronky (talk) 13:46, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

  Fair enough - I'm not debating whether or not it is more GNU than Linux (which I don't doubt is that case) but it is still pushing the GNU/Linux POV. As I said in my original proposal, the only articles linking to it are posts by yourself, and I very much doubt that someone is going to go to the trouble of typing in the article name "Fedora (GNU/Linux distribution)" (or searching for it for that matter). That is why I think the redirect is unnecessary. If it later became the case that the article was re-written in terms of GNU/Linux (which I hope it doesn't, personally) then the article could be re-instated. ~~ [Jam]^[talk] 14:20, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

  Well, I'm new to this procedure, and I don't agree there is anything POV about "GNU/Linux", but my reading of the policy is that a POV redirect would be ok anyway: Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion#Neutrality_of_redirects. I think calling Fedora a "Linux distro" is misleading, so I think this redirect isn't unnecessary. Anyway, that's my piece said, so I'll leave this one for the closing admin or others to comment on. :-/ --Gronky (talk) 14:27, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

• Keep I believe Gronky is correct, POV is not a criteria for RfD. Dansiman (talk|Contribs) 23:05, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
• Keep- Even if no one use this redirect, there are still no good reason to delete. It is not POV, as it don't state anywhere that "GNU/Linux distribution" is more right term than "Linux distribution" (it is the other way: it actually redirect to "Linux distribution"). POV would be to delete it, a pitiful try to hide the fact some people prefer to call Linux distributions as "GNU/Linux" instead of "Linux". SSPecter ^Talk|E-Mail ◆ _{05:08, 28 March 2008 (UTC)}.

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