Template:R to disambiguation page is permanently protected from editing because it is a heavily used or highly visible template. Substantial changes should first be proposed and discussed here on this page. If the proposal is uncontroversial or has been discussed and is supported by consensus, editors may use ((edit template-protected)) to notify an administrator or template editor to make the requested edit. Usually, any contributor may edit the template's documentation to add usage notes or categories. Any contributor may edit the template's sandbox. This template does not have a testcases subpage. You can create the testcases subpage here.

Disambiguation

This template is within the scope of WikiProject Disambiguation, an attempt to structure and organize all disambiguation pages on Wikipedia. If you wish to help, you can edit the page attached to this talk page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project or contribute to the discussion.DisambiguationWikipedia:WikiProject DisambiguationTemplate:WikiProject DisambiguationDisambiguation articles

Redirect Template‑class

This page is within the scope of WikiProject Redirect, a collaborative effort to improve the standard of redirects and their categorization on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks. Note: This banner should be placed on the talk pages of project, template and category pages that exist and operate to maintain redirects. This banner is not designed to be placed on the talk pages of most redirects and almost never on the talk pages of mainspace redirects. For more information see the template documentation.RedirectWikipedia:WikiProject RedirectTemplate:WikiProject Redirectredirect pages Template This template does not require a rating on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.

This template was considered for deletion on August 2005. The result of the discussion was "keep".

Note: Any changes made to this template's content needs to be checked as workable in the tables on the references which include it directly: Wikipedia:Template messages/Redirect pages Wikipedia:Redirect

• Is it used that much anyway? 67.81.33.18 21:02, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • On second thought, 200+ articles use it. 67.81.33.18 21:03, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not a fan of this particular template, because I hold that the need for it points to a deeper structural problem in Wikipedia. However,

I would like to report a problem with this template, because it does not perform as intended. This problem affects the hundreds of redirect pages that include this template.

The ((R to disambiguation page)) template clearly intends to display an informative message on any (disambiguation) page where it is used. The message is necessary and helpful, because it indicates to possible editors that things are a little more complicated than they might appear.

To see the text that this template intends to show, just follow the link ((R to disambiguation page)). I'll also quote it here, as it exists today. (It probably needs to be edited for clarity as well.)

This is a redirect to a disambiguation page. This redirect is used by links that should always point to the disambiguation page, rather than be disambiguated. Therefore, this template generally should only appear on pages that have "(disambiguation)" in the title.

For more information, follow the category link.

When you follow a link to a page containing this template, obviously it doesn't make any difference, because you get redirected. For example, follow Table (disambiguation), and you end up viewing the retrieved contents of Table, a disambiguation page.

But, near the top of that redirected page, there is a little link to show the "actual" redirect page at "Table (disambiguation)", with redirection turned off. That link goes here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Table_%28disambiguation%29&redirect=no. Notice that the text is NOT displayed.

Now, if you start editing "Table (disambiguation)", and click on "Show preview" with edits or no edits at all (no need to Save the experiment), the helpful text shows up. The template actually does what it is supposed to, under this unlikely circumstance. The problem is, the message does not show under other circumstances when it is needed, namely simple viewing of the page.

I tried editing "Table (disambiguation)", but I could not make the template work properly. The text showed in Preview, but would not show in the Saved page.

When the ((R to disambiguation page)) tag appears after the #REDIRECT link, REDIRECT works (viewing with redirects enabled), but the message text is NOT displayed (viewing with redirects disabled). It is as if parsing stops as soon as the #REDIRECT link is processed.

However, when the ((R to disambiguation page)) tag appears BEFORE the #REDIRECT link, the message text IS displayed (viewing with redirects enabled) but then the REDIRECT is broken (viewing with redirects disabled).

I could not get the message to display and the redirect to both function in the same version of the page. (See futile series of attempts at [1].) (I was sure my first attempt would fix it -- If I try again, I'll remember to use the Sandbox.) Note, the template message usually displays while previewing edits, but then is gone when actually viewing the revised page.

Possible solutions include: 1) Repair the processing of #REDIRECT or ((R to disambiguation page)) so that the helpful message actually appears.

Note, the redirect page "Table (disambiguation)" is referenced by the EXAMPLE at Wikipedia->Disambiguation->Disambiguation pages->Page naming conventions->Generic topic.

Debugging templates is a little beyond me. I looked and I didn't see any possibility of a problem within ((R to disambiguation page)). It might be a software problem inside MediaWiki, something none of us editors has control over. (Well, I could learn PHP and then start browsing the Open Source of this Free Software (deep voodoo), but then how to test or incorporate the patch?)

(I'm posting here for now, because I don't know where to post this kind of problem such that it might get attention from some able to actually do anything about it.) -Whiner01 (talk) 07:12, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The template wording is just plain wrong. Pages can be intentionally redirecting to dab pages, but have incoming links which need cleaning up. Furthermore, these often do not have "disambiguation" in the title. Example: Will power-->willpower.

I think it's actually a misunderstanding of what Category:Redirects to disambiguation pages is for. It's to help when cleaning up links to dab pages. --Kingbotk (talk) 13:14, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the current wording (as last revised by Kingbotk) reflects a misunderstanding. Most links to disambiguation pages are erroneous (because they are ambiguous), and need to be cleaned up, as stated above. However, sometimes there is a need for a link to the disambiguation page as such—for example, some other article discusses the fact that the word "French" can refer to a nationality, an ethnic group, or a language; that link should point to the disambiguation page, not to one of the specific disambiguated meanings. This template, to be used (in the example) on French (disambiguation), is to identify the fact that the link to the disambiguation page is intentional, not mistaken, and should not be "fixed" by other users. --Russ (talk) 19:45, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

((editprotected)) Please restore " <!-- this is Template:R to disambiguation page --> " to the end of the template. I know it looks useless, but it actually does have a purpose. If an editor uses subst: on the template (which they shouldn't do, but you know some of them will), this helps other editors track down where the big mess of formatted text on the page came from. --Russ (talk) 19:42, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, done. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 22:18, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

((Edit protected)) Please add ((Documentation)) to the template so I can add ((Twinkle standard installation)) to it. (Note: Friendly is now part of Twinkle.) – Allen4names 18:13, 13 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

 Done  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 19:56, 13 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. – Allen4names 02:39, 14 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

((Edit protected)) The template currently displays on Talk pages where it is added as: "This is a redirect to a disambiguation page. This redirect is intended for use in links from other articles that need to refer to the disambiguation page, rather than be disambiguated. Therefore, this template generally should only appear on pages that have "(disambiguation)" in the title."

Note, the last sentence is a parenthetical type comment, which should not be part of the main message of the template. It seems silly, as if the purpose of the template is to state where the template should not be used.

Please change to make that side comment an explicit parenthetical mention (and i suggest also italicizing for further dissociation from the main message: "This is a redirect to a disambiguation page. This redirect is intended for use in links from other articles that need to refer to the disambiguation page, rather than be disambiguated. (Therefore, this template generally should only appear on pages that have "(disambiguation)" in the title.)"

--doncram 16:56, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have no problem with the requested edit, but I note that there is a false premise in the request: "The template currently displays on Talk pages where it is added as:" -- this statement contains two errors. First, the template is intended for use on redirect pages in the article namespace, not on Talk pages; second, when it is used correctly on a redirect page, it does not display at all. The only way to see the actual content of the template message is here on the template page. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 20:16, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And if I may humbly add, on the diff pages.  — Paine Ellsworth ( CLIMAX )  18:23, 21 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Please remove the categories from the end by editing the ending to look like the following:

[[Category:Unprintworthy redirects]]<!-- This type of redirect wouldn't be useful in a paper Wikipedia.-->
</includeonly><noinclude>
((Documentation))
</noinclude>
<!-- this is Template:R to disambiguation page -->

Those categories have been transferred to the /doc page, but are inactive. As soon as this edit has been made, I shall activate the categories on the /doc page. – Paine Ellsworth ( CLIMAX )  22:08, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

 Done R'n'B (call me Russ) 23:55, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much, R'n'B! The cats have been activated. You'll notice that I had the "noinclude" tag directly following the "/includeonly" tag on the same line, and I noticed that part of the edit was not done. Isn't it true that if this isn't done there will be extra whitespace at the bottom of the template? – Paine Ellsworth ( CLIMAX )  00:37, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's pretty much a moot point, because the template content does not actually appear on redirect pages, which is the only place this template is supposed to be used. And even previewing the template on a non-redirect page just for testing purposes, I don't see any extra whitespace. Do you? --R'n'B (call me Russ) 01:03, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. In this case it's not all that. Thank you again! – Paine Ellsworth ( CLIMAX )  04:36, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why doesn't the text that begins, "This is a redirect to a disambiguation page..." appear on the redirect pages that include this template? Pseudonymous Rex (talk) 00:21, 1 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

To editor Pseudonymous Rex: that has been worked on for a long, long time. See T16323 and T44642. – Paine Ellsworth ^CLIMAX! 09:20, 23 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

To editor RainCity471: They're workin' on it boss – see Wikipedia talk:VisualEditor/TemplateData/Tutorial#Description. – Paine Ellsworth ^CLIMAX! 03:17, 23 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, ok. Thanks!! RainCity471 (talk) 20:28, 27 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Pleasure! – Paine Ellsworth ^CLIMAX! 14:35, 28 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The docs contain the statement, "Therefore, this template should only appear on a redirect page that has "(disambiguation)" in its title." However, there are plenty of disambiguation pages which do not have "(disambiguation)" in their title. I suggest that this statement be changed to something similar to "Therefore, this template should only appear on a redirect which redirects to a page containing a ((disambiguation)) template or one of its Variants or Aliases."

I came here in the course of trying to get a problem with the Haiyan County page fixed. That page was initially a redirect to a disambiguation page titled Hayan, but was changed by User:EmausBot to (mis)redirect to the Typhoon Haiyan page instead -- probably because the bot didn't recognize it as a redirect to a disambiguation page. I'm reverting the bot's change to the the Haiyan County page, and I'm adding an instance of this template there in hopes that the categorization to Category:Redirects to disambiguation pages done by this template will allow the bot to recognize it and avoid changing it. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:32, 22 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

But segregating only such redirects is precisely the purpose of this template. There are other templates that may be more appropriate for the Haiyan County example you mention, such as ((R from ambiguous page)). older ≠ wiser 01:16, 23 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the current documentation is misleading. As I understood it, the original purpose of the Rcat ((R to disambiguation)) was to indicate that the redirect deliberately points to a disambiguation page, regardless of if the target page has "(disambiguation)" in its title or not. Thereby editors and bots know that a link doesn't point to a disambiguation page by accident, so that they don't try to "fix a link to a disambiguation page" that cannot reasonably be fixed.

(There is not much point to have an Rcat indicate that the target page has "(disambiguation)" in its title, because everyone can readily see that from the title of the link.)

Based on the misleading documentation, we now even have editors who remove the ((R to disambiguation)) from redirects pointing to disambiguation pages just because the target pages don't contain "(disambiguation)". Thereby they are destroying valueable semantic information about the network of links which cannot be (re)generated automatically.

For this, it is important to revise the text, as not all disambiguation pages contain "(disambiguation)" in their title.

Often, disambiguation pages with "(disambiguation)" in their title redirect to a disambiguation page of the same title but without the "(disambiguation)". In this case, linking the redirect to the disambiguation page with "(disambiguation)" in its title would create a double-redirect, which must be avoided by WP:HOWTODAB and other guidelines. This can only be fixed by letting the redirect point directly to the disambiguation page without the "(disambiguation)".

Example: C.K.S. redirects to CKS, a disambiguation page, and therefore should carry the ((R to disambiguation)) Rcat.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 19:18, 16 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to have misread the documentation. It does not say the template is intended to "indicate that the target page has '(disambiguation)' in its title"; it says that the template is intended to be used when "(disambiguation)" is in the title of the redirect. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 21:34, 16 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly right Russ. This template marks any links made to the redirect as being deliberate links to the disambiguation page. For example, a link to CKS (disambiguation) would (hopefully) not be made accidentally. Editors examining What links here for CKS could then ignore any links to CKS (disambiguation). However, a link to either C.K.S. or CKS could easily be made in error and these links should be corrected. older ≠ wiser 00:11, 17 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, from a semantical point of view, what's the difference between C.K.S. being a redirect pointing to a disambiguation page (CKS) and CKS (disambiguation) being a redirect pointing to (the same) disambiguation page? We don't have a pressing need to indicate that a link to CKS (disambiguation) was made deliberately, because the redirect obviousy carries "(disambiguation)" in its title already (which is easy to read by humans and bots), and, as you said, such links are therefore unlikely to have been made by accident. I'm not against adding them to some kind of category for administrative purposes, however, it's hardly needed in this case. What IS needed, however, is an Rcat for redirects, which have semantically the same function as CKS (disambiguation), but do NOT carry the "(disambiguation)" in their title. As you correctly pointed out, links to such redirects are easy to be made in error, so it makes sense to put them in some category so that they can be checked routinely for incoming links which could be disambiguated. What I stated is that this is the original purpose of the Rcat ((R to disambiguation)) (quite literally as the title of the Rcat suggests), and that it is wrong for the template to NOW state that it should be used ONLY in redirects which have "(disambiguation)" in their title. It's there for some while, but it wasn't there originally, and we should remove that bit again, as it is misleading. Alternatively, we should rename the Rcat, because if it does not indicate a redirect to a disambiguation page (or only certain kinds of such redirects), it should say so in its name to avoid any misconception in the first place, like ((R from (disambiguation) to disambiguation)). In fact, for CKS (disambiguation) pointing to CKS I would intuitively have used ((R from disambiguation)) rather than ((R to disambiguation)).

Either way, this wouldn't have been the first Rcat, which was semantically changed in the recent past (((R to anchor)) and ((R to section)) is another example), and I can adjust to whatever the community prefers now, but what should be used on C.K.S. instead now? ((R from ambiguous page)) comes to mind, but its documentation states, that links to it should always be resolved ("These redirects are pointed to by links that should always be disambiguated."), which is the exact opposite of what should happen with a link if someone, who (by the presense of a suitable Rcat) is fully aware of the fact that C.K.S. points to a disambiguation page, deliberately links to it. Of course, he could create C.K.S. (disambiguation) as another redirect pointing to CKS. ;-)

Either way, reading some of the comments further above, it becomes clear, that people read different things into these Rcats, indicating that something should be improved. As I see it, either the names of the Rcats or their documentation are misleading. Suggestions? --Matthiaspaul (talk) 08:59, 17 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

IMO, a link to C.K.S. should always be resolved to some other link. If the link to the disambiguation page was in fact intentional, then CKS (disambiguation) should be used, or as you suggest, C.K.S. (disambiguation) could be created as another redirect. older ≠ wiser 10:35, 17 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Does this, in your opinion, imply we should put ((R from ambiguous page)) on the C.K.S. redirect page? --Matthiaspaul (talk) 21:22, 17 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and perhaps ((r from alternate punctuation)). older ≠ wiser 23:24, 17 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

I think the part about this template only being added to redirect pages with " (disambiguation)" is ridiculous, as we also have redirects to dab pages that don't have " (disambiguation)", such as Liberal Republican. Therefore, I request that all of the coding for "this template must be used for redirects that end in " (disambiguation)" and the like be removed entirely. ToThAc (talk) 15:22, 26 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the ((edit template-protected)) template. See the discussion immediately above — I think you've misunderstood the purpose of this redirect template. —RP88 ^(talk) 15:42, 26 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Paine Ellsworth, on 10 March 2014 you changed the documentation for this:

• was
  Use this Rcat template on mainspace redirects only.
• now
  Use this rcat template in any namespace.

On 28 August 2019 you reverted me with the rationale, NOT to a dab page, this is to a dab TALK page, which makes me question the change to "any" namespace. Should it say any non-talk namespace?

Currently there are just over 160 transclusions of this from talk pages, so fixing this shouldn't be difficult. – wbm1058 (talk) 21:34, 3 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

To editor ­wbm1058: for several years now, editors have been seeking me out with questions about redirect categorization. One question back in 2014 was why this rcat was only used on mainspace redirects. I had never questioned it and had always accepted the creators' original designs as meaningful. So couldn't really give an answer to that question. When asked to open it up, since there are a few project, portal and other-namespace dab redirects, I made the change to "any" namespace. That was never meant for talk page redirects, however, since talk pages never redirect to dab pages, they only redirect to other talk pages, and a talk page is never a disambiguation page. I've made a change to the documentation's Usage notes, "Place this rcat on a redirect page (never on a talk page redirect) in the following manner:", so hopefully that will dissuade incorrect targeting in the future. And yes, if you could use a bot to fix the 160 talk page transclusions, that would be great! P. I. Ellsworth, ed. ^put'r there 06:10, 4 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

 Working  Partly done – P. I. Ellsworth, ed. ^put'r there 10:39, 4 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

 Done P. I. Ellsworth, ed. ^put'r there 15:22, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Paine Ellsworth: please stop doing this until discussion has been concluded. You can see from Wbm1058 comments above that this is contentious. Although your rationale for removing "r to disambiguation page" may be legitimate, inserting "unnecessary disambiguation" on Talk page redirects is not appropriate. Either way, do not make mass changes without consensus. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 11:22, 4 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, Amakuru, but the long-term consensus is that both the subject pages and the talk pages are considered to be Redirects from unnecessary disambiguation, because they both have the unnecessary "(disambiguation)" along with their page titles. The subtle difference is that the subject pages are also Redirects to disambiguation pages, which is a subcategory of the unnecessary disambiguation category. Nothing contentious here that I know of. And there are only a few (27) left to do. However, I'll stop for now pending further discussion and confirmation. P. I. Ellsworth, ed. ^put'r there 11:35, 4 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A more general question is whether there's a need to categorise talk page redirects at all. Does that really serve any purpose? – Uanfala (talk) 12:10, 4 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Tracking, these categories are used to track all redirects that belong in them. If a talk page is a page title with unnecessary disambiguation, then it should be tracked along with all other Wikipedia redirect pages with unnecessary disambiguation. If a talk page is a shortcut, such as WT:MOS, then it should populate Category:Redirects from shortcuts. Talk pages should be tracked by redirect categories right along with subject pages. Been doing that for more than ten years, so my question would be, why wouldn't talk pages be tracked along with everything else that's sorted and tracked? Any particular reason why you think they should be omitted? P. I. Ellsworth, ed. ^put'r there 12:25, 4 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

We categorise mainspace redirects because this aids the search engine, and it adds information about the purpose of the redirect which might not be otherwise obvious. We don't have either of these things for talk pages: as far as I can see, any information carried by a talk page's rcat is already present in the corresponding article's rcat. – Uanfala (talk) 12:48, 4 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Why do they need to be tracked? A reason not to track them is the undue maintenance burden (ensuring that they are properly tracked, and finding the untracked ones and adding them to tracking). ((R from move)) actually serves a purpose beyond tracking, which is to detect talk pages which are not in sync with their articles (sometimes because someone moved the article without also moving the talk). – wbm1058 (talk) 12:52, 4 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

As another aside to this, a "Foo (disambiguation)" redirect to a "Foo" disambiguation page, placed at the base name title, is not unnecessary at all, in fact they are mandatory per WP:HOWTODAB. The text "(disambiguation)" which appears on a dab page is not in itself a disambiguator, as the dab page is not a regular article page. Thus categorisation of New York (disambiguation) as Category:Redirects from unnecessary disambiguation is simply incorrect, as is the categorising of the associated talk page as such. This parent cat was seemingly added in 2011, but I don't see any associated rationale or discussion leading up to it. As for whether they talk page redirects be placed in any other category, I don't know - like Uanfala I struggle to see exactly what use there is in such. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 12:54, 4 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Paine Ellsworth, long-term consensus is that both the subject pages and the talk pages are considered to be Redirects from unnecessary disambiguation, because they both have the unnecessary "(disambiguation)" along with their page titles -- I'm sorry but where is this long-term consensus at? My understanding is that there is an important distinction between a redirect from unnecessary disambiguation and a redirect to a disambiguation page. These should NOT be conflated. With regards to the talk page redirects, IMO these really do not need categorization, but if they are going to be categorized then it should match the mainspace redirect page. older ≠ wiser

Hi older ≠ wiser – I've had very little involvement with the original functional intentions of rcats and their maintenance categories. Mine has been more of gnomish application of them, improving them and their documentation pages, and sprucing up the indexes, so I've considered the "long-term consensus" to be "implicit". It's just the way we've (there are many editors involved with redirect categorization these days) handled it for many years. Don't really care much about whether or not talk pages are categorized; however, there are some things to think about. Like for example, decisions will be needed as to which cats are suitable and which are not. Will an RfC (assuming that's in the future) decide to just stop sorting talk pages to certain cats? or will that also include the removal of talk pages from those certain cats? (There are a s-load of talk pages that are presently categorized.) And there are probably other aspects that I haven't thought of, as well. Open a can of worms and you need a bigger can.

Nobody is conflating anything here, or at least shouldn't be. There is indeed an important distinction between R to dab and R undis. R to dab goes only on dab subject page redirects with "(disambiguation)" qualifiers. R to dabs are sorted to a subcat of R undis's cat. The more general R undis has been used to sort all redirects (except R to dabs) that have any kind of disambiguation that is currently unnecessary regardless of namespace, to the undis category.

This is not the only case where talk pages are catted differently than their subject pages. Many redirects are tagged with ((R to project namespace)) and their talk pages are not. That applies to all the namespace rcats. A subject page redirect might be sorted to Category:Redirects to plurals while its talk page populates Category:Redirects from modifications. And there are several other rcats like ((R to plural)) that are only used in mainspace and not in any other namespace including talkspace. There has never been any concern about matching the catting of talk pages to their subject pages. Hope this helps! P. I. Ellsworth, ed. ^put'r there 18:14, 4 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I see I've made it sound as if there are never any matching cats on talk pages, and there are of course many instances of matching. Many rcats can be used in all namespaces, so they've been applied to both subject and talk pages. And I see I'm quickly approaching tl;dr, so shutting up now!>) P. I. Ellsworth, ed. ^put'r there 18:52, 4 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Disclosure: I boldly changed templates on these redirects, figuring that as there were only ~100 of them, it would be easy enough to reverse this if necessary. These were detected shortly after I added an error-check to ((R from unnecessary disambiguation)) after I noticed this template was transcluded on Talk:CBD (disambiguation) (there is an open RM on Talk:CBD, which is due for closure). The fact that there were less than 100 uses of ((R from unnecessary disambiguation)) on redirects with "(disambiguation)" in their titles – in both mainspace and talk combined – speaks to how this has been allowed to go for several years after its bold implementation. Either nobody noticed, or nobody who noticed was bothered enough to raise the issue – until now. Paine did not revert my error check until just after I finished clearing out Category:Pages with incorrectly transcluded disambiguation templates. Though it took some time for the category to populate after I added the error check (job queue processing), I'm pretty sure the category had been fully populated, and cleared, before the error check was reverted. wbm1058 (talk) 13:29, 4 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It is pleasing that questions like this draw the attention of interested editors as shown above. There has been no further discussion since 4 September, and there still does not appear to be a firm conclusion to the main question: are talk pages valid uses for the ((R to disambiguation page)) template?
The way it has been done for more than ten years may be wrong, or it may be correct, with valid arguments being raised above. For example, why track talk pages? The project tracks pages because we want to know how many pages are of a certain type. The project is also concerned that redirect pages are targeting correctly. The fact that a page is in the Talk: namespace is inconsequential when it comes to knowing things like quantity and correct targeting plus whatever else the project learns by tracking redirect pages. For example, if a page redirects to a modified title, and ((R from modification)) should be used, what difference does it make that the redirect is in the Talk: namespace? Isn't it still a modification?
The initial question about the validity of using this template on talk pages has been answered over time in the following manner, and whether or not this is the correct answer is the main subject of contention here. This template, ((R to disambiguation page)), is used only on redirects that are "subject" pages and that have "(disambiguation)" in their titles. So this template should never be used on "talk" pages, but only on "subject" pages. The terms "subject" and "talk" are used here as they are used with ((SUBJECTPAGENAME)) and ((TALKPAGENAME)) on the Help:Magic words page. A talk page that is formatted "Talk:Title (qualifier)" only very rarely redirects to a subject page and nearly always redirects to another "talk" page. And a talk page is never a disambiguation page. If the "(qualifier)" happens to be "(disambiguation)", and the talk page redirects to the exact talkspace title without the qualifier, then why would it be anything else but ((R from unnecessary disambiguation))? The historical, long-term answer has been that the unnecessary disambiguation rcat does apply to such talk pages. Right or wrong, this should be settled as soon as practicable. P. I. Ellsworth, ed. ^put'r there 10:18, 27 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• I know I'm like 2.5 years late to the party (and I'm shocked I didn't recognize this in the template until now), but as far as I know, the only rcat templates that should apply to talk pages are ones like ((R from move)), ((R from subpage)), ((R to subpage)), possibly in rare occasions ((R with history)), and various other rcat templates that refer to cross-namespace. There's no "unnecessary disambiguation" in a talk page redirect title since all it does is redirect to wherever the talk page content moved in most cases. It just goes where it goes. I've WP:BOLD-ly removed that wording since I don't agree with it, and it doesn't look as though there was consensus for it anyways. Steel1943 (talk) 22:56, 8 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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This template also counts as currently unnecessary disambiguation. Can you change the template to:
((R to disambiguation page))((R from unnecessary disambiguation|cat=no)) Faster than Thunder (talk) 02:37, 11 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done: please make your requested changes to the template's sandbox first; see WP:TESTCASES. Also, please don't use those templates directly in discussions, if you need to demonstrate them, set up a Template:R to disambiguation page/testcases page. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:18, 11 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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Wanted to suggest that the superfluous italics be removed from this template, and that "may" be replaced with "should". It currently reads:

This redirect is intended for use in links from other articles that need to refer to the disambiguation page, rather than be disambiguated. Therefore, '''this template should ''only'' appear on a redirect page ''that has "(disambiguation)" at the end of its title'''''. Ambiguous titles that do not have page names ending with "(disambiguation)" may use ((tl|R from ambiguous term)) ((em|instead)). For disambiguations that later prove to still be ambiguous (e.g. "(painter)" when there are multiple notable painters by the same name) and which redirect to disambiguation pages, then ((tl|R from incomplete disambiguation)) is the appropriate template. :* Any [[Help:Talk pages|talk page]] redirect that has "(disambiguation)" in its title targets another talk page, not a disambiguation page, and should be tagged with ((tl|R from unnecessary disambiguation)) ''instead'' of this template.

I'd like to suggest that instead it read thus:

This redirect is intended for use in links from other articles that need to refer to the disambiguation page, rather than be disambiguated. Therefore, '''this template should only appear on a redirect page that has "(disambiguation)" at the end of its title'''. Ambiguous titles that do not have page names ending with "(disambiguation)" should use ((tl|R from ambiguous term)) instead. For disambiguations that later prove to still be ambiguous (e.g. "(painter)" when there are multiple notable painters by the same name) and which redirect to disambiguation pages, then ((tl|R from incomplete disambiguation)) is the appropriate template. :* Any [[Help:Talk pages|talk page]] redirect that has "(disambiguation)" in its title targets another talk page, not a disambiguation page, and should be tagged with ((tl|R from unnecessary disambiguation)) instead of this template.

Thank you for considering the request. A loose necktie (talk) 17:53, 3 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

 Done. P.I. Ellsworth - ed. ^put'r there 18:25, 3 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]