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Should speedy deletion criterion R3 be revised to better address redirects in a language other than English?  — Scott • talk 16:46, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Since 2011, the list of possible reasons for deletion given by our guideline on redirects has said:

If the redirect is a novel or very obscure synonym for an article name that is not mentioned in the target, it is unlikely to be useful. In particular, redirects in a language other than English to a page whose subject is unrelated to that language (or a culture that speaks that language) should generally not be created.

CSD R3, governing unlikely and malformed redirects, is nearly 20 years old, and has grown by accretion over that period. Despite this extended opportunity to provide guidance, it remains poorly-defined, and its unresolved ambiguities and gaps have lead to a large amount of wasted editing time. In particular, it inadequately addresses this issue of redirects in languages other than English, which typically exist for multiple years in total obscurity before being uncontroversially deleted at RfD.

This document presents the history of CSD R3, accompanied by case histories of how such redirects have been addressed by community practice in deletion discussions. It proposes revisions to the criterion for improved clarity, including the extraction of conditions relating to non-English redirects into a new, refined criterion requiring the presence of the redirected term in the target article.

 Note: A similar proposal was briefly discussed in March 2024 but did not attract much participation. This document goes into much greater detail and has been tagged to gain a broader range of community feedback.

Current text

R3. Recently created, implausible typos

This applies to recently created^[1] redirects from implausible typos or misnomers. However, redirects from common misspellings or misnomers are generally useful, as are some redirects in other languages. This criterion does not apply to redirects created as a result of a page move,^[2] unless nothing was at the title until recently. It also does not apply to articles and stubs that have been converted into redirects, including redirects created by merges,^[3] or to redirects ending with "(disambiguation)" that point to a disambiguation page.

• ((Db-r3)), ((Db-redirtypo))
• Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as implausible redirects

• 1. The definition of recent is intentionally flexible since some pages may receive more notice than others. Pages older than about 3–6 weeks are unlikely to be considered recently created; pages older than about 3–4 months almost never are. Higher-profile pages are considered recently created for shorter periods than those with a lower profile.
• 2. Page moves are excluded because of a history of improper deletions of these redirects. A move creates a redirect to ensure that any external links that point to Wikipedia remain valid; should such links exist, deleting these redirects will break them. Such redirects must be discussed at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion before deletion. However, redirects that were obviously made in error can be deleted as G6, technical deletions.
• 3. See Wikipedia:Merge and delete for an explanation as to why redirects created by merges cannot be deleted in most cases.

History

R3. Recently created, implausible typos

This applies to redirects from implausible typos or misnomers which are a maximum of 2 months old, as opposed to redirects from common misspellings or misnomers, which are are generally useful. It does not apply to redirects which:

• were created by moving pages that are more than 2 months old;
• used to be articles;
• were created by merges;^[1]
• have names ending with "(disambiguation)" and point to a disambiguation page; or
• are in other languages (see criterion R5).

• ((Db-r3)), ((Db-redirtypo))
• Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as implausible redirects

• 1. See Wikipedia:Merge and delete for an explanation as to why redirects created by merges cannot be deleted in most cases.

R5. Redirects in languages unrelated to target article

Further information: Wikipedia:Redirects in languages other than English

This applies to redirects from languages other than English to articles which do not mention the redirected term. Redirects from alternative languages are useful when the target article demonstrates a connection to the language of the redirect, or culture associated with that language. Before deleting, consider whether the needs of readers would be better met by including the redirected term in the article, or converting the redirect to a disambiguation page if there are sufficient search results for it to merit one.

This criterion does not apply to redirects which:

• used to be articles;
• were created by merges; or
• are to templates.

• ((Db-r5)), ((Db-relote))
• Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as unlinked redirects in other languages

Uncontroversial deletion of old redirects in other languages is accepted practice

The following is a non-exhaustive list of examples of redirects in other languages which were deleted uncontroversially after a long time between 2022 and the present date. It clearly illustrates the extended periods which such redirects typically survive for, with an average age of 11.68 years. Several RfDs in that period also took place for non-English redirects younger than a year.

Inspection of older RfD archives will reveal an extensive amount of historic precedent for similar deletions. One of the items featured in the examples of common RfD outcomes is Страдание, which was created in 2009 and deleted in 2014.

The lack of a formal definition of relevance results in original research

Rationales for both deletion and retention frequently involve comments along the line of "As far as I can tell...". As Wikipedia:Redirects in languages other than English wisely notes, "The only language we can rely on our editors speaking is English. Often it requires a strong working knowledge of a language to evaluate and understand redirects".

Where keep outcomes have occurred, they have often resulted from flimsy speculative or implausible (e.g. 1, 2, 3) arguments, which this proposed criterion eliminates in favor of an unambiguous requirement for inclusion in the target.

The weak formulation of R3 leads to inconsistent outcomes

Here are some recent examples of how the existing R3 criterion's failure to adequately address foreign-language redirects has resulted in unpredictability and excessive use of editors' valuable time:

Deleting such redirects is harmless

A reader being routed to an article which doesn't contain the word that they were looking for is a recipe for astonishment. Deleting a redirect because its title is not present at the target eliminates that risk and provides an avenue directly to potentially useful search results. Visitors from other sites landing at the former location of the redirect receive the unambiguous message "Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. Please search for The term in question in Wikipedia to check for alternative titles or spellings."

As a speedy deletion, it would also present no prejudice against the later creation of either a new redirect targeted to an appropriate article containing the term, the same article again if the term had been added to it in the meantime, or a disambiguation page.

The four guidelines for new CSDs are:

Support

• Support, as the author of this proposal.  — Scott • talk 16:46, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Support although this was discussed at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 87#R3: redirects from foreign this proposal contains more detail so its worth another consideration. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:27, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Support, although this would've benefited from more discussion before going straight to RfC. Queen of Hearts ^talk 15:34, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

• Oppose as written and send back to the drawing board (i.e. we should discuss the wording before !voting). On R3, I would replace "used to be articles" and "were created by merges" with "contain article revisions in their history". Note that "used to be articles" is ambiguous since it could be interpreted to include the case where the page was moved (which would conflict with the first exception since it doesn't have a 2-month grace period). On R5, I'm afraid "do not mention the redirected term" is overly broad. Maybe this is a valid reason to argue for deletion at RfD, but CSDs need to be uncontestable, and the examples in "The weak formulation of R3 leads to inconsistent outcomes" show that it is not. That is, R5 would cover situations where an RfD failed to find consensus, and adding a new CSD to address the "existing R3 criterion's failure to adequately address foreign-language redirects" would be the tail wagging the dog here. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 18:35, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. This imposes arbitrary hard limits on things that need discussion - the inconsistent outcomes demonstrate this perfectly: some redirects get deleted, some get kept, some get retargetted. RfD is not overloaded, and redirects to foreign languages make up only a small proportion of redirects discussed there. In short I see no benefit and a lot of potential harm from this proposal. Thryduulf (talk) 18:38, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  To expand on this slightly, this fails WP:NEWCSD points 2 and 3. It fails point 2 (uncontestable) because it would cover redirects that have been kept or retargetted (per the proposer's own evidence). It fails point 3 (frequent) - there is no evidence that these take up a disproportionate amount of time at RfD with most days not seeing any such redirects nominated (the number handled by existing criteria is irrelevant because an expanded criterion would not change that). Thryduulf (talk) 15:51, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. I agree with King of Hearts that the changes to R3 need more workshopping for improvement and clarity. As for R5, I'd rather scrap the criterion entirely than make it a new and less bounded CSD. Eluchil404 (talk) 03:48, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose any CSD including language like "target page does not mention redirect", as that can be easily changed in either direction by editing the target page. Whether the target page should mention the redirect (and whether and how precisely it should) is a totally different question better suited for discussion than for speedy deletion. —Kusma (talk) 13:33, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose Prior discussion on A10, which also uses the recent-creation rule, agreed that there should not be a hard cutoff. I don't have a problem with R3's foreign-language clause, but it should be clarified that it should also be plausible in the foreign language — an example would be redirecting Le Hexagon (instead of the correct L'Hexagone) to Metropolitan France — perhaps by rewriting it in terms of a language being obviously impertinent to the topic, such as Мексиканцы (in Russian) to Mexicans. I also agree that there should have been prior negotiations over the proposal. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 12:35, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Just a quick response to say that proposals don't need "prior negotiations". The community is literally discussing the proposal right here in these comments, which may lead to modifications and resubmission for consideration, or total abandonment, as consensus sees fit.  — Scott • talk 12:48, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Proposals don't need prior discussion, but they very often benefit from it. Thryduulf (talk) 13:08, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

• It seems good to keep the discussion phase for non-English redirects, as there might be a connection to the subject of the article in some way the would-be deleter doesn't realize. This is covered under WP:RFD#DELETE number 8, so that's probably fine as-is without creating R5. Tightening up the definition of "recently created" in R3 might be helpful. I'd err on the low side, and also define it in terms of days so there's less ambiguity in edge cases. Maybe 30 days? At worst a bad redirect will just get deleted after no one comments on the nomination. I would keep the footnotes except for the one giving the vague definition of "recently created". -- Beland (talk) 18:26, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]