Help:Redirects

Redirects automatically forward users from one page name to another. They can be useful if a particular article is referred to by multiple names, or has alternative punctuation, capitalization or spellings.

Creating a redirect

To create a redirect, you must create a new page with the name you want to redirect from:

1. Create the page using the usual methods (described on Help:Starting a new page).

2. Add the following text:

#REDIRECT [[pagename]]

where pagename is the name of the page you want to redirect users to.

3. You can use the Show preview button to check that you have entered the correct page name. (Generally you will be redirecting to an existing page name, so the link should be blue, not red.)

Changing an existing page into a redirect

If two pages with similar content are accidentally created, you may want to change one page to redirect to the other:

1. Consolidate information on one page.
2. Erase all content from the duplicate page.
3. Add the redirect text to the duplicate page: #REDIRECT [[pagename]]
4. Save and you're done!

Viewing a redirect

After creating a redirect, you can no longer get to that page name. The browser is always redirected! However, a link back to the redirect page will appear near the top of the page. Click this link to view the redirect.

Then you can do all the things that any wiki page allows: go to the associated talk page to discuss the redirect, view the page's edit history, edit the page if the redirect is wrong, or revert to an older version to remove the redirect.

Viewing lists of redirects

To see a list of all redirects on the wiki, go to Special:Listredirects.

To see a list of redirects to non-existent pages, go to Special:Brokenredirects.

To see a list of double redirects, go to Special:Doubleredirects.

Deleting a redirect

There's generally no need to delete redirects. They do not occupy a significant amount of database space. If a page name is vaguely meaningful, there's no harm (and some benefit) in having it as a redirect to the most relevant existing page in your wiki. Furthermore, if you delete a redirect that was previously the name of the page, it will become a broken link on any other wiki pages or other websites that may already link to it. However...

If you do need to delete a redirect, e.g. if the page name of the redirect is offensive, or you wish to discourage people from referring to concept by that name, then you simply go to the redirect page, and follow the same procedure for deleting a page. See Help:Deleting a page

Double redirects

A double redirect (a page redirecting to a page which is itself a redirect) will not work. The redirecting will not follow through to the end of the chain. Instead, you will be presented with the relevant link (a view of the redirect page). This is a deliberate restriction, partly to prevent infinite loops, and partly to keep things simple. It avoids the growth of an unpleasantly complicated tree of redirects!

However, this does mean that you should look out for double redirects and eliminate them by changing them to one-step redirects instead. You are most likely to need to do this after a significant page move. Use the what links here toolbox link to find double redirects to a particular page, or use Special:DoubleRedirects to find them throughout the entire wiki.

Broken redirects

A "broken" redirect is a redirect that points to a page that does not exist yet. These are undesirable because they show up as active (blue) links in articles, so readers will think a page exists for a topic when it does not. This confuses and frustrates readers who click on the link, and prevents users who might create the page from knowing that it's needed.

A list of all broken redirects can be found at Special:BrokenRedirects.

Category redirects

Inter-category redirects are discouraged. Articles added to a "redirected" category do not show up in the target category, preventing proper categorization. What's worse, since redirected categories do not become "red links", editors won't be aware even when they add an article to a redirected category.

A redirect to a page in the category namespace

To prevent a page that redirects to a category from appearing in the category; precede the word Category with a colon like so: #REDIRECT [[:Category:Glossary]]

For any other questions, you can use the Talk page or contact the Fanlore Committee