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It is proposed to approve the use of hard redirects for categories instead of soft ones.
Background: Redirects of category pages work just like other redirects between pages. What they don't do is cause pages that are put into a redirected category to show up in the target category. This task is performed periodically by a bot: User:RussBot.
At present the bot works on the basis that category redirects should be soft, i.e. when a user goes to the redirected category they aren't immediately taken to the target category, but see a page with an arrow and a large link to the target category. Being a category page, this intermediate page also lists any pages which may happen to be in that category at the time. For an example, see Category:Living People, which is a redirect to Category:Living people.
The bot owner has confirmed that it would be relatively easy to reprogram the bot to work on the basis that category redirects should be hard, i.e. when users go to the redirected category they are immediately taken to the target category, like with a normal article redirect. For example, see Category:X2, a test category which is a hard redirect to Category:X1. Clicking directly on the preceding link takes you to the target category, but clicking on this no-redirect link takes you to the redirect.
The bot's activity would otherwise be unaffected; it would simply convert soft redirects to hard ones, rather than vice versa, and it would transfer pages from hard-redirected categories to their targets, rather than from soft ones. This proposal is to approve such a change.
Advantage of switching to hard redirects:
- (A) Users are spared an extra click, from an ugly and possible confusing intermediate page, to get to the category they want if they happen to enter a title that's redirected, or if they click on the category link on a page that's been placed in the redirected category and hasn't been dealt with by the bot yet. Basically the same seamless redirect behavior would be provided for categories as for articles and other WP pages.
Advantage of retaining soft redirects:
- (B) If you click on the category link on a page in the redirected category that hasn't been dealt with by the bot yet, you see first the soft redirect page with that page listed, rather than the target page which (perhaps confusingly) omits to list that page.
Motivation for the proposal to switch: The argument against switching (B) seems greatly outweighed by the argument for (A), because:
- The situation described in (B) is possible only during a short period (a few hours or days) for a given page, while it waits for the next bot run, while the main benefit described in (A) is a permanent one.
- It is far from clear anyway that seeing a soft redirect with one page listed and no other is any less confusing than seeing a full list with one page missing.
- In any case, an explanation can be placed on the target page as to why, temporarily, certain pages may not show up on the list. In fact that is already the case for other reasons, and every category listing automatically has a sentence stating that the list may not be up-to-date and linking to an FAQ which says why not. Information about redirects can be added to that FAQ.
- If you need to see what pages are in the redirected category waiting for bot treatment, that can still be done, using redirect=no (slightly less convenient, but hardly a common occurrence).
- Additionally, the HotCat tool recognizes and handles hard redirects, but not soft ones.
Please discuss this proposal on the talk page.
See also previous discussion at WT:CFD#Dashes in category names and possible impacts.