The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the discussion was: Keep (Speedy Deleted of any as requested by their user page owners) Valid arguments for limited tests of things in userspace have been persented. — xaosflux Talk 01:42, 28 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Userspace circular redirects[edit]

Double redirects are a navigational hazard where a redirect points to another redirect. These are primarily fixed by bots.

Circular redirects are redirect loops that never end with a page. Circular redirects are unhelpful because you will forever be redirected to a redirect. Furthermore, they clutter the Special:DoubleRedirects log unnecessarily and offer no benefit. There already are examples of it in Wikipedia namespace (for whatever the reason):

-- A Certain White Cat chi? 18:35, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

User:Amalthea/rd1 forms a permanent double redirect because of its page protection. Bots cannot edit it. Its page history demonstrates multiple fix attempts by different users that were reverted. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 18:51, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
  • I'll delete the pages within your userspace. Thanks for taking the time to comment. Nick (talk) 19:25, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • @とある白い猫: I don't even see why you put [[Special:PrefixIndex/User:Cubedev2539/sandbox/TestingPages/Bounce|User:Cubedev2539/sandbox/TestingPages/Bounce*)) into the list. Those are sandboxes, you know... That is a 100% keep for those pages. ∞😃 Target360YT 😃∞ (talk · contribs) 03:19, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Target360YT: They cluter the log. The problem is not isolated to the userspace. Detection of double redirects is a computationally heavy process which is why it is run infrequently. Sandbox is not the litterbox. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 11:42, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Don't run the double redirect detection process. Problem solved. I understand the mainspace double redirects are looked after and fixed in another way, and that in all other cases redirects are so cheap that this maintenance is unjustified. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:50, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • @SmokeyJoe: As explained above, they are not cheap. We get 300-700 of them per cycle (probably a day). If you multiply that by 365.25, you get 109,575-255,675 redirects that are affected each year. How do you suggest such pages are handled if we turn off the detection? I do not run the detection mind you, that is done at the WMF server backend. Bear in mind that current log is capped at 5,000 entries so if bots aren't run frequently enough, in about 2 weeks the log would be full of entries. I find it quite distressing how you are trying to make the issue of double redirects, THE most routine maintenance task even global bots are automatically authorized, controversial. I honestly find that disruptive. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 20:31, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
@Godsy: I am unsure if circular redirects would qualify as such since they do not actually redirect to a target. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 22:14, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
Me too. RfD is supposed to deal with things with trivial or negligible material in the page history, and this nomination is requesting deletion of others' archives. It is an old practice, used by some users, to archive old usersubpage by converting to a redirect. There are various reasons why this might make sense, although I am not aware of any reason to archive as a set of circular redirects. The most normal redirect-archive is done by either redirecting to the user's main userpage, or to the related mainspace article. The only reason I can think of for creating circular redirects is to test what happens. I could destroy Wikipedia or even the internet! See Logic bomb, Fork bomb, ExplosiveOverclocking. (it doesn't).
MfD-ing these pages was overkill. Deletion is fine if the user agrees. A better solution is to break the redirects. Blank them. Convert them to soft redirects. Add a note. Write an essay on the evil consequences of userspace circular redirects and put a point to it on the redirect page. All will solve the alleged problem without deletion of anyone's records. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:53, 25 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@SmokeyJoe: This is trivial. It has always been routine maintenance just like how broken redirects are speedy deleted. Circular redirects never serve a purpose this encyclopedia needs. Our policy on deletions does not require the consent of the user. Circular redirects can be speedy deleted under WP:CSD#G8 actually, which includes any redirect that does not point to a page. The purpose of this nomination was to form consensus on the specific matter. You have disrupted that with your irrational claims. Aside from the LOUD you, views above are pretty clear to me. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 08:50, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.


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