Wikipedia:Tip of the day/May 15

Redirects

A redirect is a page that has the sole purpose to automatically redirect readers to a differently named page; to take the reader where they really wanted to go. Redirects allow a topic to have more than one title. Redirects are used for synonyms, abbreviations (initialisms), acronyms, accented terms (diacritics), misspellings, typos, nicknames (pseudonyms), scientific names, etc.

To create a redirect for the term "Oof":

  1. Type Oof in the search box, press ↵ Enter
  2. Click on the redlink for Oof that it presents
  3. In the edit window that appears, type #REDIRECT [[Foo]] on the first line to make it lead to the article Foo
  4. Redirects should be organized in to categories too. Each redirect can have up to seven redirect categories. Categories go on the third line of the redirect. (Note: Plant has a subcategory within the category of scientific name; enter plant after a pipe).

Here are two examples of a redirect category using a category template:

  • {{R from birth name}}
  • {{R from scientific name|plant}}

Preview your new redirect before saving it. Make sure:

  1. There is a big right-facing arrow to the left of the bolded name of your target page name.
  2. That your target page is bolded in blue (if it is red, go back and double check your target name in the edit window).
  3. That your redirect category has rendered properly and that the boilerplate it presents makes sense.