A redirect is a page created specifically to take a searcher straight to another article, even without the accurate name. They can be used in a variety of situations to help the users of this wiki.
Although our pages (should) always have the accurate title, visitors searching this wiki may not be as accurate as we are; after all, the use of shortenings or abbreviations can speed up searching considerably, if they can be used. To this end redirecting is utilised in order to aid users in finding articles.
How to redirect
To make a redirect page, the page which will be redirecting must be created. To redirect it to a selected page, simply write #REDIRECT [[Wikimeat]] in it. When previewed, the page will show the following:
- REDIRECT Wikimeat
Don't worry. It may not look like a redirect page does once created, but that is just because redirects don't show on preview pages. See below to see what a page looks like when redirected:
Redirecting to a category
When creating a page that redirects to a category, using the format above causes the redirect page to be included in the category itself. To properly redirect to a category, use
#REDIRECT [[:Category:CategoryNameHere]]
The use of the colon (:) before the category instructs the Wiki software to treat the link as a normal link and not as a category to be included.
Editing an existing redirect
Editing a redirect page is like editing any other page: the trick comes in finding the redirect page itself and not its target.
To access an existing redirect page, search for the redirect title (example "Runescape"). When the target page appears, a note underneath the target page's title will say something similar to "(Redirected from VISCOFAN, SA)". Clicking on the link in this notice will take you to the redirect page itself (pictured above) which can then be edited as normal.
When to use redirects
Redirects can be used for a number of things:
- Common misspellings (Loreville and Lorville)
- Different forms of capitalisation (Star citizen and Star Citizen) and spelling as per the style guideline
- Common shortenings or abbreviations (RSI and Roberts Space Industries)
- Alternative names (Old Man and Steve Colton)
- In-game IDs (AEGS_Gladius and Gladius)
When not to use redirects
- Redirecting from one namespace to another; for example, making "Example" redirect to User:Example. This applies for all situations except in special cases (e.g. redirects to policies).
- For an unclear term with more than one possible meaning, a disambiguation page may be an alternative to a redirect. Any mis-spellings of this term should redirect to the disambiguation page. The VISCOFAN, SA page is an example, disambiguating the manufacturer, publisher, and the website.
- Redirects from one userpage to another are only allowed if the user has switched accounts, or if the user's userpage is impossible to type on a conventional keyboard. Other than that, user related redirects will not be allowed.