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Latest comment: 1 month ago22 comments7 people in discussion
On 3 September with this diff I changed this guideline to reflect how soft redirects are used in practice and have been for many years. Today this was reverted by @Red-tailed hawk on the grounds that it "substantially changed the meaning". It does change the meaning, but in a way that means it follows actual usage and repeated consensuses at RfD (policies and guidelines are intended to be descriptive).
Specifically the change is from requiring soft redirects to sister projects to be restricted to titles that are "commonly wikified words or that are repeatedly recreated" to noting that these are examples of good uses of soft redirects to sister projects.
Unless there is consensus otherwise I will reinstate my change in a few days (again because it matches actual practice). I will leave a pointers to this discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Redirects and Wikipedia talk:Redirects for discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 10:17, 22 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Examples of consensuses at RfD to soft redirect titles without consideration of the two criteria:
See also this search for many additional examples.
Soft redirects do not get frequently nominated at RfD and when closed the result almost never mentions their soft redirect status (i.e. they are closed as "keep" not "keep as soft redirect") so the discussions are very hard to find but from memory those discussions do not pay (strict/any) attention to the criteria. RfD discussions generally treat them the same as ordinary redirects: i.e. determining whether they are useful search terms, and if so what target best helps someone using that term find the information they are looking for. When the best target is a page on a sister project (in practice this is almost always Wiktionary) the consensus is to soft redirect, regardless of whether it is commonly wikified and/or repeatedly recreated. Thryduulf (talk) 10:55, 22 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
There has been longstanding exclusionist guidance in that guideline going back to 2008; the restriction on only linking commonly wikified words dates to then, while limiting to repeated re-creation has been in the guideline since 2017. Boldly and substantially changing the longstanding guideline to remove both of these restrictions is something that should be evaluated by wider community discussion; I've seen experienced users citing this guideline at RfD as the basis for deleting a redirect rather than linking to another project. Some editors choose to ignore this guideline at RfD, but a survey shows that this guideline does get cited for this exclusionist language by longtime editors. The fact that it's still cited explicitly by longtime editors indicates to me that there's some level of persisting community acceptance and I don't think that a bold removal was warranted. — Red-tailed hawk(nest) 13:48, 22 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Just because it is cited by some doesn't mean it has consensus. Of the discussions found where this is cited (a tiny handful compared to the number of discussions closed as soft redirect without it being considered relevant) only in one does it unambiguously gain consensus (in another it is unclear whether it did or didn't) vs multiple ones where it didn't, was irrelevant (the discussion concluded that there was a better internal target or it was deleted for other reasons) or where the consensus was for soft redirection despite this guideline being mentioned. The change would not prevent the deletion or non-creation of soft redirects, just change it from an exclusionary directive to a guideline that matches how it is applied in practice and the nature of a style guideline. Thryduulf (talk) 14:18, 22 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support change of text. (I came here after seeing the note mentioned above). It is clear from the RFD links provided that the change Thryduulf made mirrors actual practice, and IMHO that's also the correct course of action. Our job is to serve readers the best we can, and if that means supplying them with a Wiktionary link to common terms that lack encyclopedic content rather than a "page does not exist" then that seems good. I have no idea what the comment above "There has been longstanding exclusionist guidance in that guideline going back to 2008" is trying to say... I don't think anyone should be invoking these sorts of Wikipedia "philosophies" (inclusionism, deletionism, exclusionism, Wikiholicism etc.) in debates like this. Our policies and guidelines reflect giving the best experience for our readers and editors, not ideologies. — Amakuru (talk) 14:28, 1 October 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
My use of the term "exclusionist" was descriptive, not an attempt to prescribe a Wikipedia ideology in this. — Red-tailed hawk(nest) 00:07, 6 October 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support change The difference in meaning appears to be quite minor. If there is some specific case that should NOT normally be linked to a sister project, then that should be listed instead. I don't like exact proposed wording as the two sentences do not flow well. I suggest:
Please keep in mind that only topics with a less-than-encyclopedic scope such as commonly wikilinked words or that are repeatedly recreated should become soft redirects. Wikipedia should not contain a soft redirect for every possible word or phrase.MB 15:36, 1 October 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I'm mostly fine with that phrasing, though I will note that there are some common wikilinked words that are of encyclopedic scope, such as COVID-19, so this needs some level of revision. — Red-tailed hawk(nest) 00:08, 6 October 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@MB you say you support the change, but your proposed wording is much closer in meaning to the current wording than the proposed wording. The change is significant in that the present wording very strictly limits soft redirects to a few situations whereas the proposed wording matches common practice (and repeated consensuses at RfD) that soft redirects are appropriate in far more cases. I do not support your suggestion because it doesn't solve the problem of the guideline and actual practice being different. Thryduulf (talk) 08:08, 6 October 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Thryduulf, my wording says "such as..." instead of "that are..."; I think that changes the meaning to align with your proposal. It pulls the examples into the first sentence, which I think reads better. "Such as" is analogous to "Examples of good soft redirects are", I think the meaning is the same as you intend. MB 13:23, 6 October 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support change, although I admit to not having considered this deeply previously, and so I am open to persuasion if there are good opposing arguments. My current !vote is based primarily on Thryduulf's examples, which seem reasonable to me, as well as general, "let's-help-the-readers" philosophy. If it were me, I would want to be offered that choice of learning about the term at the link I clicked; by keeping it as a soft 404 and not a direct interwiki link, that maintains my ability to explore it, while also observing WP:POLA, should I not wish to be taken directly to a sister link. Kind of the same idea as using "preview" links with your favorite url contraction app, instead of direct ones: offer, and let the readers choose. Mathglot (talk) 02:10, 14 October 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support change, but use MB's wording which flows better. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 08:30, 18 October 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
More substantial changes needed. It's not minor fiddling with the wording that's necessary here. The whole WP:SOFTSP section appears to be out of sync with current best practice. It's too eager to promote transwiki-ing: the other wikis are pretty well developed nowadays and they've adopted robust standards, so occasions for appropriate transwiki-ing are much rarer now than they were when this page was first written. And why use criteria like "commonly wikified words" and "repeatedly recreated"? Neither of them are of any meaningful relevance whatsoever. The first (assuming "wikified" means "wikilinked") is unhelpful because inappropriate linking of common words (in the sense of MOS:OL) is very frequent, especially by new users. As for repeated recreation, this is much more often symptomatic of disruptive or uninformed behaviour than of the actual presence of unmet encyclopedic needs. Just imagine if we tried to use the logic of that criterion elsewhere: would we allow pages to become exempt from WP:G4 deletion after a certain number of recreations? Any suggestions about what the new guidelines should look like? My experience has mostly been with Wiktionary redirects, and for these the actual useful and relevant guidelines are found in the documentation of Template:Wiktionary redirect; for this class of redirects, WP:SOFTSP would best defer to (or copy) the four criteria listed there. – Uanfala (talk) 15:28, 15 December 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
There is no scope for a Wikipedia article at this title, and
There is no other Wikipedia page to which this would be an appropriate redirect, and
There is a relevant entry at a sister project, and
Readers search for it on Wikipedia.
I would prefer the last bullet to be "Readers are likely to search for it on Wikipedia" for occasions when search data is not available for some reason, but otherwise I do like that - they match how soft redirects are used in my experience (unlike the present formulation) and I also agree with your reasoning. [missing word "be" added Thryduulf (talk) 00:09, 28 March 2023 (UTC)]Reply[reply]
Yes, that seems quite good to me. I think Uanfala's point is a good one. — Amakuru (talk) 21:28, 27 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Agreed also. Template documentation isn't a good locale for what amounts to a guideline. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 23:38, 27 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Can you elaborate on "no scope for"? It's slightly odd to my ears, and in context, I'm understanding this as "no room for". Are we saying that either it doesn't have sufficient WP:Notability or else doesn't meet WP:PAGEDECIDE? If not, then please explain. If yes, can we link PAGEDECIDE there? Mathglot (talk) 00:24, 28 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
It's not PAGEDECIDE, which is about whether a notable topic should have an article or a section (soft redirects to sister projects should never be used where there is an article or section here). It's not not Notability, as it can be (but isn't always) relevant. What is is is things that are (almost) never going to have an encyclopaedia article because there isn't anything encyclopaedic to say about them (you can write an encyclopaedia-style article about many non-notable things). Examples of pages that are currently soft redirect are probably the easiest way to explain it - Soup de jour, Cowabunga, Simplistic and Hide the salami are all soft redirects to Wiktionary because that site has relevant content that will satisfy many of those searching for it, but there isn't really anything beyond a definition that we could say here. Similarly Driving in Iceland is a soft redirect to WikiVoyage, Armenian proverbs and I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members take readers to Wikiquote. Thryduulf (talk) 01:46, 28 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I think I'm seeing consensus for the original proposal and possibly one for Uanfala's more radical one. Proceeding with the first doesn't preclude doing the latter later after more discussion, but the latter does make the former completely redundant. What are people's preferences for how to proceed? Thryduulf (talk) 11:24, 12 April 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
