Vero - Wikipedia:Soft redirect

A soft redirect is a replacement for the usual "hard" redirect. They 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.

Soft redirects are intended mostly for external use, where hard redirects will not function. For internal use in general, hard redirects should be used instead. Soft redirects are used when the destination is:

• a Wikimedia sister project, see Template:Section link; 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 that 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.
• a special page, where the system would automatically "soften" attempted hard redirects, such as Wikipedia:List of tags which redirects to Special:Tags;
• on a non-English language editions of Wikipedia. These soft redirects should be avoided because they are generally unhelpful to English-language readers. Instead, editors should link to the alternate language Wikipedia directly with one of various forms of interlanguage links;
• in some cases, an internal target, such as WP:AN/K, a cross-namespace redirect;
• in rare cases, another website, such as meatball: targets.

Category soft redirects

In English Wikipedia, categories with the Template:Tl template are also called "soft redirects", due to their similarity to interwiki soft redirects. See Template:Section link for the policy. Do not put redirect categorization templates on soft redirects (Template:Tl and Template:Tl are exceptions).

Templates

{{#invoke:Shortcut|main}} Template:See also The following templates are used to create a soft redirect link:

• Template:Tl for all soft redirects except those below:
• Template:Tl for category redirects
• Template:Tl for soft redirects from the portal namespace
• Template:Tl for Wikibooks redirects
• Template:Tl for Wikinews redirects
• Template:Tl for Wikiquote redirects
• Template:Tl for Wikisource redirects
• Template:Tl for Wikispecies redirects
• Template:Tl for Wiktionary redirects
• Template:Tl for Wikivoyage redirects
• Template:Tl for Wikimedia Commons redirects
• Template:Tl, 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 Template:Tl 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, Template:Tl 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

Administration

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 and G8 speedy deletion criteria and are not subject to the A1–A10 speedy deletion criteria. For more deliberative deletion, they should be handled through RfD and are not subject to proposed deletion and AfD. In AfD discussions, soft redirects are considered an alternative to deletion.

See also

• Help:InterWikimedia links list of possible redirect targets
• m:Soft redirect the equivalent metawiki page about soft redirects
• Wikipedia:Redirect for hard redirects
• m:Help:Transwiki, for instructions for using the Transwiki: namespace when moving entries between Wikipedia and Wiktionary