Talk:Issa al Qaida guest house, Faisalabad

Double Redirects

There are currently a number of double-redirects having to do with Al Qaeda safehouses. Realizing the usefullness of redirects with possibilities, that is still no reason to maintain double (or, in this case, triple) redirects. This article "ends up", redirect-wise, at Al Qaida safe house. Until there actually are articles here in these RWPs, all the redirects should go to actual articles, not other redirects. - (Nuggetboy) (talk) (contribs) 23:34, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Is there any reason why you couldn't have stated your opinion, and waited for a response before taking the, in my opinion, inappropriatedly bold step of reverting the efforts I made yesterday?

I know there is a guideline encouraging newbies to be bold. But, you are not a newbie, are you? There is also the policy wikipedia is not a battleground.

Maybe it is not obvious to you that I am in the process of creating articles about the individual safehouse/guesthouses in question. I suggest that if you had asked me what I was doing, you could have reached a more informed opinion as to whether you should reverse the efforts I was making.

User:PurpleRain collapsed those redirects earlier this week, while using a robot and collapsing some hundreds of redirects. So, when I recreated them, I did so attempting to sufficiently document what I was doing that, IMO, a reasonable person, who had questions about what I was doing, would contact me, and discuss their concerns with me, first, before taking the rash decision of undoing hours of work.

Nuggetboy, I am very disappointed that you chose to be so rash. I am going to encourage you to give more thought as to how to conduct yourself on the wikipedia without triggering unnecessary negative feelings in others. Of course people are going to make mistakes, and be disappointed when those mistakes are pointed out to them. But, let's establish that a mistake was actually committed first, OK? -- Geo Swan 12:57, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

This was not being WP:BOLD. This was cleaning up the wiki. Do you understand why double redirects are bad? Let me quote from the DR article: "These pages are undesirable, since Wikipedia's MediaWiki software will not follow the second redirect, in order to prevent infinite loops. These situations create slow, unpleasant experiences for the reader, waste server resources, and make the navigational structure of the site confusing." Like I said above, I understand the advantage of WP:RWP. By pointing these directly to the end article, you are not losing the functionality you wish to gain. You will still be able to have these articles there, ready for expansion, when the time arrives.

While your hard work is admirable, it does not cover up the fact that WP:2R is undesirable. With this type of edit, it is not warranted to "contact you and discuss their concerns" first. I'm troubled with your response here; it indicates that you feel you WP:OWN these articles. - (Nuggetboy) (talk) (contribs) 16:53, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

1. Do I understand why unnecessary redirection is undesirable? I think so. Let me ask you if you are sure you understand what an infinite loop is?
   • If the [[al Qaida safe house]] merely said #redirect [[al Qaida guest house]];
   • and [[al Qaida guest house]] said #redirect [[al Qaida safe house]]

   That would be an infinite loop -- obviously undesirable -- however, if you look at the wikipedia policy and procedures, you will see it stated, in many places, that redirection is cheap. I am going to repeat this. Redirection is cheap.

   • Now, if these redirections I created were useless, they would still be undesirable. But they aren't useless.
2. When I was newer to the wikipedia I collapsed some redirections, as you did hear. I thought they were "double redirects", and I therefore assumed they were undesirable, because the page you get when you learn how to rename a page gives such a dire warning about them.
   • However, another wikipedia contributor put me on the spot, asked me what I thought I was doing. And when I said I was fixing double redirects he told me I was mistaken, that the redirections that were a problem, while called "double redirection", should more properly be called "circular redirection", or "infinite-loop redirection". He pointed me to some of the places where it was stated that redirection was cheap. He was very convincing.
   • Now maybe your interpretation is correct, his is incorrect, and I should have been more skeptical, and never let him convince me to join him in his interpretation of double redirect. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, this is the case. I think you lapsed from the collegiality and cooperation other wikipedians have a right to expect of you. If I made an honest mistake, and created redirections that were counter to policy, in good faith, I believe you had an obligation to tell me so, so I could figure out another way to do what I was doing, and recover my work, prior to these allegedly problematic redirections being collapsed.
3. You state: "By pointing these directely to the end article, you are not losing the functionality you wish to gain."
   • Now why am I always the last to learn these things?
   • You didn't ask why I created the multiple levels of redirection. I believe this assertion of yours is misplaced.
   • Now maybe there is a better way for me to keep track of which detainees were associated with which safe houses and guest houses. But this is the way that occurred to me. And your collapsing of the levels obsures the conenctions. Now, if my use of redirection is in violation of policy obviously it should be changed. But, let me suggest that collegiality of cooperation suggests the collapsing should have been delayed (1) until you had established your interpretation was the correct one; (2) until you had waited a reasonable amount of time for me to figure out another way to track the associations I need to start those articles.
4. Why should you have discussed your concerns before taking action?
   • You suggested I was violating WP:OWN. I read a comment about WP:AGF. The commentor observed that, in his experience, many of those who are quick to instruct others to assume good faith, are often those who really need to try harder to observe that policy themselves. So, I am not going to turn around and challenge whether you violated WP:OWN. I will suggest, however, that you might consider dropping the tone of god-like certainty. Do you really have such a complete mastery of the wikipedia policies and procedures that you can act without any discussion.

Cheers! -- Geo Swan 08:32, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

In WP:2R, double redirects are called "undesirable". In WP:R, users are specifically instructed, "Don't make double redirects (a redirect that points to another redirect); they don't work, create slow, unpleasant experiences for the reader, and make the navigational structure of the site confusing." Please explain how using them for your personal organization trumps this? - (Nuggetboy) (talk) (contribs) 14:51, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Nuggetboy, I have already responded, in some detail. In particular, I did explain how I found what I did useful. Now I would be happy to explain it in more detail, if I had confidence you would do me the courtesy of reading my reply. Is there some reason you chose to respond without responding to any of the points I was trying to make. You realize that this gives the appearance you didn't respect the effort I put into replying enough to read it?

Since I wrote my note to you I created Al Qaida safe house, Karachi. I was able to do so after reversing your collapsing of the redirections I said were useful. Because I reversed your collapsing of the links I was able to find the articles that referenced -Karachi- safe houses.

Are there other ways to keep track of which articles reference which safe houses? Sure. I could create a category for each safe house. Now:

• that would be a lot more work for anyone who works on these articles.
• I anticipate those who try to ride herd on category proliferation may object to creating dozens of outwardly similar categories.

As I wrote above, I am willing to find another way of connecting the articles that reference the various safe houses and guest houses. But, given that is a lot of work, I would rather wait until you make a greater effort to explain your objections.

If it is open-season on all but the simplest redirections, could you please explain the need for {{R with possibilities}}?

I am having a lot of difficulty understanding the grave burden you keep insisting the redirections I made impose on wikipedia readers

I am having a lot of difficulty understanding the grave burden you keep insisting the redirections I made impose on the wikimedia hardware. Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion#The guiding principles of RfD says:

• The purpose of a good redirect is to eliminate the possibility that an average user will wind up staring blankly at a "Search results 1-10 out of 378" search page instead of the article they were looking for. If someone could plausibly type in the redirect's name when searching for the target article, it's a good redirect.
• Redirects are cheap. Redirects take up minimal disk space and use very little bandwidth. Thus, it doesn't really hurt things much if there are a few of them scattered around.

Note also Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion#When should we delete a redirect?:

• Hint: If someone says they find a redirect useful, they probably do. You might not find it useful — this is not because the other person is a liar, but because you browse Wikipedia in different ways.

You do realize that the edit summaries of pages you create in your user space are readable? As are the pages themselves. I find it very odd that you seem willing to spend so much more energy on your private page than you are willing to spend engaging in civil dialogue.

I was planning on making al Qaida safe house, Faisalabad the next article to expand from a redirect. But since you seem so disturbed about the Nibras guest house maybe I should make it the next one? -- Geo Swan 17:47, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

You realize that if you had asked me for a list of all the articles I would happily have told you? Category:Alleged al Qaida safe house. -- Geo Swan 17:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I have read everything you've had to say here. I will happily address each of your points, but just to save us both some time (me writing and you reading), please understand the following:

• I am not arguing the validity of redirects in general. I am saying that double redirects are bad and need to be re-pointed to an actual article. (See WP:2R and WP:R, specifically, "Don't make double redirects (a redirect that points to another redirect); they don't work, create slow, unpleasant experiences for the reader, and make the navigational structure of the site confusing.")
• No one is trying to delete your redirects. I agree with each of your points about the "cheapness" of redirects.
• Even when redirects are "collapsed", as you put it, you can always check to see what articles reference your redirects by using "What links here" (e.g. Special:Whatlinkshere/Al Ansar guest house, Pakistan). I don't think you'll get what you want with categorization.
• Not to put too fine a point on it, assuming 2R is bad, your convenience is not reason enough to continue using them.

Are you still convinced that the double redirects that you have created and are maintaining are proper? If not, I'll gladly elaborate on each of your points. - (Nuggetboy) (talk) (contribs) 21:57, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I think I already acknowledged that, in two of my replies, that if my recent use of redirection is counter-policy was really contrary to the policies and procedures, my convenience would not be a sufficient justification to continue using them, in contravention of procedure. However:

• If, for the sake of argument, my use of redirection was in error, then surely I am entitled to have others assume it is an honest mistake? And, then surely I should be entitled to a modest grace period, to figure out another way to set out tie together the information that is currently embedded in the redirection?
• I understand you think that using the "what links here" button would provide me with the info I need, even if the links were collapsed. But, it doesn't. It might have, if I had made different choices earlier.
  • When I first started starting these articles I made some choices I now regret. Well over half of these articles mention the Kalashnikov rifle. But, surprisingly, US military officers can't spell Kalashnikov consistently. Up until a couple of months ago I always used a piped link Kalashnikov, or however they had spelled it. I know think this was a big mistake. Anyone using "what links here" on AK-47 will get a false sense of the frequency of the different variants. A couple of months ago I decided it was better to just spell the wikilink however the word or phrase was spelled in the original, and create a new redirection, if there wasn't one already, for every inconsistent spelling.
  • Another mistake I made was to merely wikify each instance of safehouse, safe house, guesthouse, or guest house. Eventually I realized that the intelligence analysts had conflated the concept of a safehouse, with a guesthouse. Of course a guesthouse is not much different from a bed and breakfast, and, in underdeveloped areas, where there are no hotels, every visitor who doesn't have friends or relatives to stay with stays in a guesthouse. So, I started going back, to make the links more meaningful.
  • When rewriting those links I didn't naively expand the link to include whatever adjectives surrounded the house. I created piped links, that specified the geographic location, if the context provided that info, the sponsoring organization that ran the house, if the context provided that info, and the approximate date, if the context provided that. Inconsistency on the part of the Guantanamo intelligence analysts means that the same guesthouses have different descriptions. The uncollapsed links convey information to me that pressing the "what links here' on the collapsed links doesn't.

• • I think I need to repeat that, if this use of redirection is really contrary to policies and procedures I will be happy to shift over to some other approach.

• • Can't I figure out, now, which safehouses, or reasonable equivalent, really merit an article? Can't I collapse the rest, now? No. I don't think so. Depending on how thorough the coverage is going to be. I didn't know until yesterday, when I uncollapsed the links, and started al Qaida guest house, Faisalabad, that the "Crescent Mills guest house" was the same as the Salafi University foreign students dormitory.

I still have questions about which kinds of redirections are proscribed. As I said, I collapsed some links, and the convincing guy challenged me on it, and convinced me that my original understanding of the term "double redirect" -- which I suspect is basically the same as your current understanding of the term, didn't make sense, was a misunderstanding.

Logically, what you describe as a "2R", just does not represent a meaningful performance hit, unless, A redirects to B, and B, in turn, redirects to A. I think you have acknowledged this, haven't you?

Logically, if what you describe as a "2R" is proscribed, then why is there a {{R with possibilities}}? Why isn't it proscribed? I think I asked you this before.

I am sorry if you got the impression I was saying I thought you wanted to delete these redirects. I quoted those passages solely because I believed they supported my use of redirection.

Am I certain that my interpretation is correct? Nope. Am I convinced your interpretation is correct? Nope. Your interpretation, which I once shared, may be a common interpretation. But, when examined in detail, it isn't really internally consistent. I think you have acknowledged some of the internal inconsistencies of this interpretation.

So, am I willing to comply with an interpretation that is internally inconcsistent -- doesn't really make sense? Yes, in principle, I will comply with an internally inconsistent, and, IMO, poorly advised, interpretation of policy -- if it has the inertia of being overwhelmingly popularly accepted. Is this interpretation overwhelmingly accepted? I don't know. You have acknowledged, I think, acknowledged that it is an internally inconsistent interpretation, and that dire warnings associated with this interpretation are specious. I hope you don't resent me noting these acknowledgements.

Cheers! -- Geo Swan 18:02, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• "If, for the sake of argument, my use of redirection was in error, then surely I am entitled to have others assume it is an honest mistake?"

Geo Swan, perhaps you are operating under the misconception that I think your edits have been malicious. Let me assure you that I am convinced your edits so far have been in total good faith. Yes, it's my opinion that you made a mistake. But an honest mistake with nothing but the intent to make the encyclopedia better.

• "And, then surely I should be entitled to a modest grace period, to figure out another way to set out tie together the information that is currently embedded in the redirection?"

That's a different story, though. It is my understanding that when an editor finds something in the encyclopedia that s/he feels is out of order, it is his or her duty to fix it, right then. I am aware of no "grace period" to allow the original editor to correct any alleged errors.

• Kalashnikov / AK-47

I am a little confused as to why the piped link you mention (Kalashnikov) was, you felt later, a mistake. If, in your article, the link actually referred to the AK-47, this link was correct. Now, if there is some nuanced difference between "Kalashnikov" the rifle and AK-47, you should create a new article for this breed, or link to a section within the AK-47 article (e.g. AK-47#Variants) if the information exists there. The plain Kalashnikov article is simply a disambiguation article and, except in exceptional circumstances where the link REALLY needs to go to the disambiguation, the link should be re-pointed to the intended subject, in this case AK-47. Please tell me if I'm missing something here in your intent for Kalashnikov versus Kalashnikov.

• Your part about your organization.

I get frustrated when I don't understand something, especially after reading it a few times. And I gotta say I'm pretty frustrated here because I simply don't get what you're trying to do.

One thing I picked out, though, is this: "The uncollapsed links convey information to me that pressing the 'what links here' on the collapsed links doesn't." I think what you're saying is that when the links are collapsed, you don't get the "chain" of links. My question then to you is why do you need the chain? Why is it important that you know:

Al Ansar guest house, Pakistan → Suspect guest house → Al Qaida guest house → Al Qaida safe house

• The "convincing guy"

I'd really like to see those diffs and see what this person had to say on the subject. Perhaps he'll persuade me too.

• "Logically, what you describe as a '2R', just does not represent a meaningful performance hit, unless, A redirects to B, and B, in turn, redirects to A. I think you have acknowledged this, haven't you?"

I don't work for the Wikimedia foundation and I do not develop the software, so I can't say what extra load it puts on the machines. All I can tell you is what it says at WP:2R: "These situations create slow, unpleasant experiences for the reader, waste server resources, and make the navigational structure of the site confusing."

Beyond that, I think that "[they] create slow, unpleasant experiences" and "make the navigational structure of the site confusing" is really what's important here. If a user clicks on the Al Ansar guest house, Pakistan article link from Abdullah Khan, they then have to click again to get to an actual article. We need to make sure that the user is not inconvenienced or confused and I'd argue this is both inconvenient and confusing.

• "Logically, if what you describe as a '2R' is proscribed, then why is there a {{R with possibilities}}? Why isn't it proscribed? I think I asked you this before."

Apples and oranges. No one is saying that any of the source articles (e.g., Abdullah Khan) you are maintaining should have their safehouse/guesthouse links redirected to the "end" article. Quite the contrary; if you are planning the expand each of these guesthouse/safehouse articles, these links should be to the most specific article. Redirects, on the other hand, should point directly to an article with content, not another redirect. If that means skipping over a more detailed redirect, so be it.

• "You have acknowledged, I think, acknowledged that it is an internally inconsistent interpretation, and that dire warnings associated with this interpretation are specious. I hope you don't resent me noting these acknowledgements."

Looking back, perhaps even to my initial creation of this talk page, I realize that I am probably being misunderstood. And perhaps it is even my own misunderstanding, but I think that WP:2R is not even policy, per se, but just a kind of universal "truth" in the wiki. There's nothing to "interpret"; you just don't create double redirects. And if you find them, you fix them, no questions asked. It's kind of like taking a sledge hammer to a car that you own; it's not illegal, but you just don't do it. (Then again, I was never very good at analogies.)

I'm going to be soliciting input from one of the contributors to the WP:2R article to either back me up or to prove that—GASP!—I could also be wrong here.

- (Nuggetboy) (talk) (contribs) 05:05, 7 December 2006 (UTC)