Wikipedia:Soft redirect
 | This page documents an English Wikipedia editing guideline. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. |
A soft redirect is a replacement for the usual "hard" redirect and is used where the destination is a Wikimedia sister project (see Wikipedia:Wikimedia sister projects § Soft redirects from Wikipedia to a sister project), another language Wikimedia site, or in rare cases another website (e.g. meatball: targets). Another situation where soft redirects are used is when the intended target is a special page, because the system automatically "softens" attempted hard redirects to special pages (e.g. Wikipedia:List of tags redirects to Special:Tags). They may also be used for local targets in some cases (e.g. WP:AN/K). However, plain soft redirects are intended mostly for external use, where hard redirects will not function (i.e. the plain {{soft redirect}} template is not used in the mainspace). For internal use in general, hard redirects should be used instead. Soft redirects to non-English language editions of Wikipedia are also taboo in the mainspace because they are generally unhelpful to English-language readers. Instead, editors linking to an alternate language Wikipedia on a page should do so directly with one of various forms of interlanguage links. Finally, do not put redirect categorization templates on soft redirects ({{R category with possibilities}} and {{Wikidata redirect}} are exceptions).
Soft redirects differ in that they leave the reader on the redirect page, requiring them to click through to the redirected link as opposed to automatically taking them there. Unlike normal redirects, a soft redirect does not use special code or functionality of the wiki software. All they consist of is a notification to users, showing the destination to another site to obtain the information they were seeking. The technique is particularly likely to be used when redirecting users across Wikimedia sister projects—for example Wikipedia:Gather is a soft redirect to mw:Gather. Normal redirects would be undesirable in these circumstances, and hard interwiki redirects are disabled per these reasons. They could not be easily edited without hand-crafting the correct URL, since clicking on a link to the redirect page would take you straight to the redirect's target and there would be no "Redirected from foo" message to click, so it would be difficult to return to the redirect page itself; there would also be infinite-loop security considerations.
Category soft redirects
In English Wikipedia, categories with the {{Category redirect}} template are also called "soft redirects", due to their similarity to interwiki soft redirects. See Wikipedia:Categorization § Redirecting categories for the policy.
Templates
The following templates are used to create a soft redirect link:
- {{Soft redirect}} for all soft redirects except those below:
- {{Category redirect}} for category redirects
- {{Portal soft redirect}} for soft redirects from the portal namespace
- {{Wikibooks redirect}} for Wikibooks redirects
- {{Wikiquote redirect}} for Wikiquote redirects
- {{Wikisource redirect}} for Wikisource redirects
- {{Wikispecies redirect}} for Wikispecies redirects
- {{Wiktionary redirect}} for Wiktionary redirects
- {{Wikivoyage redirect}} for Wikivoyage redirects
- {{Commons redirect}} for Wikimedia Commons redirects
- {{Soft redirect with Wikidata item}}, a redirect category for Wikidata redirects
Categories to add for cross-namespace soft redirects
Soft redirects to targets outside Wikipedia (e.g. to meta.wikimedia.org) do not require any categories to be added manually. For soft redirects that go from Wikipedia's mainspace to targets outside Wikipedia or to targets in any other Wikipedia namespace, add Category:Unprintworthy redirects to mark them unsuitable for any printable version of Wikipedia.
For any soft redirect that goes from one Wikipedia namespace to another Wikipedia namespace, add the relevant category placing it within the appropriate sub-category of Category:Cross-namespace redirects, i.e. describing it by the target namespace:
- Category:Redirects to user namespace, for a soft redirect to a user space page (but not to a user talk page). Note: by its name, template {{R to user namespace}} would seem appropriate to use, and indeed that template would apply the "Redirects to user namespace" category, but that template's instructions indicate it should not be used for soft redirects (at least in part because it would display inappropriate/confusing information for editors/readers following the soft redirect), so manually apply the category, instead.
- Category:Redirects to talk pages, for a soft redirect to any talk page, whether the talk page is that of a user, or of a category, or of a template, or of a mainspace article, etc. Note: Likewise, {{R to talk page}} would seem appropriate, but that template is also not be used on soft redirects.
- Category:Redirects to category space
- Category:Redirects to help namespace
- Category:Redirects to the main namespace
- Category:Redirects to portal namespace
- Category:Redirects to project namespace
- Category:Redirects to template namespace
Deletion
For purposes of administration, particularly deletion, soft redirects are subject to the same administration processes as regular redirects, and should not be handled by processes that are intended for articles. For deletion this means that soft redirects are subject to the R2 – R4 speedy deletion criteria, and are not subject to A1 – A11 speedy deletion criteria. They are also specifically subject to G8 deletion if their target does not exist, as this has replaced the old R1 criterion. For more deliberative deletion, soft redirects should be handled through RfD, and are not subject to either proposed deletion or AfD.
See also
- Help:InterWikimedia links list of possible redirect targets
- Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Other projects, where a soft redirect is considered an alternative to deletion
- m:Soft redirect the equivalent metawiki page about soft redirects
- m:Help:Transwiki, for instructions for using the Transwiki: namespace when moving entries between Wikipedia and Wiktionary
- {{Redirect with possibilities}}