Wikipedia talk:Red link

Inaccurate

When I tried using the red links in my draft about Piper Rockelle, the links went straight to the first page on the subject, or disambiguation links, not a red link. To try and fix the problem, I added the appropriate links on the disambiguation links, but User:MB reverted them because the links went to the main page or the disambiguation, not red links. Why does following these instructions not make a red link? Krystal Kalb (talk) 02:42, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Please provide a link to your draft and I'll try to get an idea of what you were attempting and why it did not produce redlinks. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 15:29, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Draft:Piper Rockelle Smith Krystal Kalb (talk) 01:24, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Looking at the history and I don't see any edits by User:MB. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 15:57, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

No, User:MB reverted my edits on the disambiguation pages, not the draft page. I’m sorry if I made this unclear. Krystal Kalb (talk) 22:27, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Okay, please provide the links to the disambiguation pages where the reverts took place. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 01:01, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Krystal Kalb, were you describing how the links in e.g. Draft:Piper Rockelle Smith#Discography don't show up as red links but as links to unrelated articles or disambiguation pages? If that's the case, then you'd need to pipe them to the correct titles (like this: Butterflies, I'm assuming those are songs). However, I'm not sure linking at all is a good idea to begin with: as you might have read at Wikipedia:Red link, redlinks can generally be inserted only if you expect their target to eventually be created, and articles should be created only if they're notable (for the case of songs, the notability guidelines are at WP:NSONG).

You also need to be aware that the draft you've been working on is on a topic that was previously deleted here, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Piper Rockelle. This was 9 months ago, so it's possible significant coverage of the topic may have arisen since then, so we're not bound by the outcome of that discussion. But it's still something to bear in mind.

The edits to dab pages that you mention getting reverted by MB are this (and a few similar ones). MB was correct to revert them: we shouldn't create disambiguation entries for topics that don't (yet) have coverage on Wikipedia (drafts don't count). You can see WP:DDD and especially WP:WTAF. – Uanfala (talk) 00:30, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

How to red link a person that has the same name as one listed.

I attempted to red-link a person that does not have a Wikipedia article, but instead it blue-links to someone else of the same name who does have an article. Is there a workaround? Conjunctio (talk) 19:45, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Red link#Non-unique names (or, if someone changes or deletes this heading, Wikipedia:Red link#To biographical articles). I've just created this subsection and rewritten the text, but the general content was there before. Basically, link Tom Mueller (writer) instead of Tom Mueller You can use a pipe (vertical bar) so that only the name os displayed to readers; [[Thomas Vernon Mueller (writer)|Tom Mueller]] displays as "Tom Mueller". HTH, Pol098 (talk) 21:14, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Lists of redlinked "notable people - a bad idea?

The guideline says at present "Lists of "notable people" in an article, such as the "Notable alumni" section in an article on a university, tend to accrue red links, listing people of unverifiable notability. Such red links should be removed only if it's certain the subject would not qualify for an article on Wikipedia."

I suggest that it is nearly always a bad idea to redlink names, even if notable and justifying an article, due to the significant likelihood of someone else of the same name getting an article - this quite often happens in reality, it's not a theoretical quibble. Obviously this applies much more strongly to, say, "John Smith" than "John Smith (stamp collector)". I would be minded to modify the guideline to reflect this, particularly for lists of notable people, but it's too controversial for a WP:bold edit. (I've today modified the guideline boldly to discourage redlinking names - a lot of articles simply redlink virtually all names mentioned.) Best wishes, Pol098 (talk) 21:07, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

"African eleephant" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect African eleephant, the canonical example of an extremely unlikely typo here from July 2011 to November 2019, has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 October 29 § African eleephant until a consensus is reached. —Cryptic 20:01, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

BLP rules

@Up the Walls changed the guideline to encourage the removal of red links for living people, and to add some complexity. I don't think that we actually have any pre-existing rules about BLPs (just a telephone game in which we oversimplify and misstate the rules to newer editors, so that they'll do what we want right now).

Obviously, we don't want links where an article shouldn't exist, but that's the same for "shouldn't exist because of WP:BLP1E" as it is for "just not ever going to want a separate article on WhatamIdoing's Gas Station or Right-handed blue-green widgets". WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:09, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I had no intention of changing anything. I just rewrote WP:REDBIO to make more it clear. The previous text was confusing because it said that all the rules for WP:BLP apply to redlinks, and that makes no sense. I added the qualifier in the nutshell for the red links to BLPs because that's how I understood the text to read. Do you not agree that the section WP:REDBIO discourages, but not prohibits, red links to BLPs? Up the Walls (talk) 06:35, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Not really? That is, they are just as much encouraged and discouraged as non-BLP red links.

Half of REDBIO isn't about red links at all (and probably belongs in BLP or MOS:BIO); it's about creating articles. The first half of REDBIO is about making it less likely that a new biography will correctly link to the article, because nobody pre-disambiguates Tom Mueller when there are no pre-existing articles under that name (because we have a rule against doing so), and even if someone broke that rule and did pre-dab the title, they'd be just as likely to pick Tom Mueller (author) as to pick Tom Mueller (writer). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:48, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Not disagreeing with what you wrote (other than I think you had a typo and you meant to write "The first half of REDBIO is about making it less more likely that a new biography will correctly link to the article".

However, condition #2 in WP:REDBIO says that before creating a red link to a bio of a living person we need to consider "How likely can the person meet Wikipedia's guidelines for notability? If not highly likely, it's better to err on the side of not adding a red link." To me, that reads like "err on the side of not creating a redlink. If you agree that this is the correct interpretation, we should add this as an exception to the nutshell because it's an important exception. Up the Walls (talk) 19:16, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

No, I meant less likely. The pre-disambiguation system makes it less likely that someone creating an article at its natural, non-disambiguated will be filling in redlinks. Imagine that you make a red link to Alice (expert). Later, someone creates an article about that person at the normal, natural, non-disambiguated name. Your red link will stay red, and their article will be an orphan. If you'd made the red link at the natural name, their article wouldn't be orphaned and your red link would turn blue when they create the article.

For the second point, should editors not equally consider "How likely can the non-BLP subject meet Wikipedia's guidelines for notability? If not highly likely, it's better to err on the side of not adding a red link"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:38, 17 March 2024 (UTC)