Red link – Page moved. I edited the first definition to make this a little more obvious, and someone with a little more code-fu than I (S Marshall?) probably ought to submit a bug request. – NW (Talk) 19:39, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
Red link (talk`\|`edit`\|`history`\|`logs`\|`links`\|`watch) (restore) Unprotect, don't restore; move Red link (disambiguation) there; see further comments here. The protecting admin decided not to routinely grant my unprotection requiest without broader discussion, because the page was deleted many times for various CSD/db reasons and discussed at WP:DRV, so I am posting the request here, per WP:SALT. Lothar Klaic (talk) 04:43, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] Support proposal. Seems sensible.. and I don't think the disambig page idea has been tried before with this page. -- œ ^™ 05:02, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] Comment can't see it myself, it looks to me to be rather contrived. At least two of the destinations seem significantly different that I can't imagine you'd go to "red link" looking for them. The final variant the article mentions the term "red link" once, has no discussion on the term etc. and in context easily could have been something like "links from red nodes", again can't imagine anyone going to "red link" looking for it as it doesn't appear to be a ~~real~~ separate concept. As such we are left back with wikilink... --82.19.4.7 (talk) 07:50, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] Well, there are people for which a company and a breed of chicken are ~~real~~ separate concepts and who cannot care less about wikilinks. Lothar Klaic (talk) 15:22, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] Well picking on the comment about the final link and trying to apply it to the other seems a bit silly to me. The chickens - Red Sex Link - there seems no suggestion that anyone calls them Red link (that article actually says they are also called Red Stars), so it's not a disambiguation for that. The communications company is perhaps a better suggestion (particularly given the web address of the company in question). However that's still that company and wikilinks, we wouldn't put up a disambiguation page for two. Perhaps a better answer to this is have "Red Link" redirect to the communications company, and minor disambig from there may then be appropriate.--82.19.4.7 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:38, 22 September 2011 (UTC).[reply] Well not understanding what you actually wrote is even sillier: your "at least two" and "left back with wikilink" parts made me to defend the whole non-wikilink part. Anyway, I did see them called "red link" as a professional abbreviated parlance (hence it is a valid disambig entry), as well as an adjective "red-linked". By the way, the fact that "red link" 'could have been something like "links from red nodes"' is precisely the purpose of disambiguation. Lothar Klaic (talk) 15:56, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] What I said is "The final variant..." i.e. that part of the comment applied to the final variant. Back to just wikilink was that none of them seemed particular good disambiguation but that one (I've changed my mind somewhat on the communications company). All I can see on the chickens is that the article we have makes no suggestion that they get called red link and it does rather specifically mention an alternate name. Regarding your final comment, that is nothing to do with the point in disambiguation. The whole point is that the term used there as "red link" is merely the way it happened to be written, it isn't a specific concept that someone is going to come and look for. --82.19.4.7 (talk) 16:13, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] Yor opinions are noted and disagreed: you cannot speak for each and every "someone <who> is going <or not going> to come and look for". A red link in the red-black tree is of same relative importance of subjects as a Chair leg vs. chair in "Leg (disambiguation)". Lothar Klaic (talk) 17:48, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] Your opinions are also noted and disagreed by common practice and WP:DISAMBIGUATION. We don't find random words in wikipedia articles to form disambiguations, we don't just pick every article which contains the word leg in it and it to your other mentioned disambiguation page, because it wouldn't help anyone find what they are looking for. Likewise red link in the context of that article, this is not me speaking for everyone (a school yard argument at it's finest) it's me looking to the available evidence and making an evaluation of it, in this case there is no evidence that "red link" is a common term to mean links from the red nodes in a red-black tree. --82.19.4.7 (talk) 22:21, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] re: "There is no evidence". Once again, please be careful what you write. Probably you wanted to write "I failed to find an evidence". Well, here are 4,000 cases of of evidence. Enjoy a trip to red-blackwood forests :-). Yes, for an average non-scientific American a "red link" is probably a kind of bratwurst. But for those 0.0000....2% of Earth population who talk RB-trees a "red link" does mean something else as well, especially if they were perusing a certain chapter from the Introduction to Algorithms yesterday. Also, it seems we have differing experience of and opinions about a "common practice". Lothar Klaic (talk) 03:28, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] I've come across this before and I've always been puzzled by it. I've never understood why "red link" has to be a redlink. I mean, it's mildly pleasing that when you type red link it comes up red, but that's easily achieved with wikimarkup if you want to do it. But a new editor wanting to understand what a red link on Wikipedia is, will naturally type "red link" in the search box. There are times when it's appropriate to cross namespaces, and this is one of them. Unsalt.—S Marshall T/C 14:39, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] FWIW if they did just that and typed it into the search box, the second result I get is Red Link (Wikipedia) - though that seems to have been created post the last DRV on this. Really this is getting messy, if that's ok, then it should probably be at Red link, though previous consensus seems to be against it so too probably shouldn't exist. I don't really see the argument that this is an exceptional case for a cross name space redirect, put any wikipedia terminology in the same context and you'd come to the same argument. --82.19.4.7 (talk) 15:04, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] Thinking on this a little further, maybe this is something the usability project could contemplate. It would seem useful/sensible to have project space and help space pages which are an exact match for search criteria presented for standard searches in a prominent position - perhaps a separate section, but certainly easily accessible from a basic search. --82.19.4.7 (talk) 15:51, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] We also should consider the large amount of project space pages that use red link as an instructional example. We would have to go through many of these and reformat using wikimarkup, as mentioned above. -- œ ^™ 15:34, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] I am afraid you are mistaken: vast majority of them are AfD pages, it which (like this one) turning red links blue makes perfect sense. The same holds for many remaining ones; e.g., it is nod good for a red link be red inWikipedia:Vandalism: this is a policy page hence no fancy please. Lothar Klaic (talk) 16:01, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] Whether it's on AfD pages or whereever, turning those red links blue will not make much sense when they're being used as examples of what a red link looks like, or for other instructional purposes which require the link to be red, and which is actually a less "fancy" way to do it than wrapping the text in wikimarkup. -- œ ^™ 04:42, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] Since the disambig page already exists and there's nothing at the un-disambiguated title, it would seem to make sense to unsalt and move the dab page to the simpler title. Alzarian16 (talk) 18:55, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] It "already exists" less than an hour now, because I was rather retarded last 2-3 months. Lothar Klaic (talk) 20:11, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] Keep deleted We need a red link to use as an example of a red link, and I see no reason for this to not be it. Jclemens (talk) 20:56, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] Just a minor point, but ~~wasn't it brought up the last time we went over this that~~ like this one is also a red link, can be used just as easily without breaking textual flow, and is already preferred on policy pages? Hell, WP:REDLINK uses it. lifebaka++ 00:24, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] In reply to my above, no it wasn't brought up last time, but the rest of my point still stands. The last DRV here was closed as keep deleted on a redirect to dead link, not a disambiguation page. I see no reason, either historical or simply because it works, that we shouldn't do this. "It's always worked" isn't a terribly good reason to object to the disambig. Move Red link (disambiguation) to Red link, since we've still got options to make links red, and it's a reasonable search term. lifebaka++ 01:12, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] Allow disambiguation page. I don't think the example thing is all that important and the page does seem useful. Hobit (talk) 02:49, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] Allow disambiguation page but stick to real disambiguations. I removed Red sex link chicken because I can't find any evindence that these chickens are ever referred to as "Red links". Unless you can show me otherwise it should not be on that disambiguation page. I am also rather dubious about the inclusion of red Link (The Legend of Zelda), which seems to be included purely to buff up the page size, rather than being a serious search target. Yoenit (talk) 08:13, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] I am not sure whether you are aware or not that 40% of wikipedia is Pokemon and Zelda, 30% is pornstars, 20% is biographies of minor politicians and professors, and 10% is serious stuff. Also run "Red Link"+Zelda google search to check whether it is a serious search target or not. Lothar Klaic (talk) 17:15, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] Nonsense, we have 140 zelda articles and some 340 Pokemon articles. I have no idea why you making up bullshit like that. Red Link or Blue link or Purple link are still just Link (The Legend of Zelda), only with a different color suit. Anybody looking for them will just look for "Link". We can test this though, just create purple Link as a redirect and see how many hits it gets over a month. Yoenit (talk) 11:01, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] Is there any oldtimer who remembers the link to the image with a diagram which is a bit more detailed than my tabulation, but essentially says the same? ? Yoenit, please look up the page "irony" and the read this comment further. <wait><wait> < Did you look it up yet? > <wait><wait> So?... OK, whatever. My comment that insulted your intelligence was a ~~slightly~~ (OK, OK, waaaaay too much) exaggerated remark that wikipedia is not restricted to serious stuff. People who want to look up Zek, Yuri Suvarov, etc. are just as deserving as those who are fond of Crataegus fontanesiana. By the way your idea about hit counting is interesting. Please explain how can I do it. I'd really like to compare the numbers of hits, e.g., for Yuri Suvarov and Phocodontia. 02:52, 28 September 2011 (UTC) Keep deleted - This topic is about ripe for a WP:PERENNIAL listing. Various XfDs (RfD and other venues have handy search boxes, I'm not going to link to all the old discussion) have discussed various ideas of what to do with the famous red link, and consensus has been fairly clear that it should not exist, should not redirect, should not disambig into anything. Tarc (talk) 19:52, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] The argument is invalid since the premise is false. Consensus may change. As User:OlEnglish pointed out, the option of disambig page was not discussed before. Lothar Klaic (talk) 20:28, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] Stop whining, it is not invalid. Bringing up the same topic again and again and again in order to force a different result is considered tendentious and disruptive. Tarc (talk) 13:13, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] WHOA!!! <cringe><cringe><cringe><plonk> Lothar Klaic (talk) 02:54, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] Allow move Whether the existence of a disambiguation page for Red Link terms is needed or not is a separate question, but as long as we have one I don't see why it shouldn't be located at Red link. Mark Arsten (talk) 13:27, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] Keep Deleted. "Red link" has no real world meaning. Red link has no incoming links from mainspace, but a huge number from elsewhere. The non-mainspace incoming links were surely written with the expectation that "Red link" will forever be red. Is someone offering to re-colour all those incoming links? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:30, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] Sure, I will. (This doesn't mean I'll manually copy/paste the code into the >500 pages involved. It means that I'll submit the bot request. It's a trivial job for a bot.) On your other point, the argument for creating this page has nothing to do with its real world meaning. It's about helping new editors, who will naturally try to learn about red links by typing "red link" into the search box. Basically, we want to do with red link what we already do with redirect.—S Marshall T/C 14:16, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] You're talking about a cross space redirect from mainspace here. We are normally loath to allow these. Any new editor should quickly learn about project space, and to not search for editorial support in mainspace. Mainspace is for readers. Any new editor searching for "red link" will quickly discover Wikipedia:Red link. Redirect exists because it does have a general real-world meaning. It is not a cross-space redirect. It does have a hat note pointing to WP:Redirect, which we are more amendable to. Red link (disambiguation) is best left where it is because none of the entries have a reasonable claim to a mainspace at Red link. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:14, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] Do you feel that the amount of support and help we give to new editors is appropriate? I don't. I think we filter out at least three quarters of them because our bizarre and inaccessible Wikimarkup and syntax, our makeshift and slipshod procedures with its bewildering variety of discussion pages each with their own population and culture, and our huge morass of mutually contradictory and incomprehensible policies and guidelines written by committees and repeatedly revised ad hoc in response to special situations. We can safely assume that most people who look up "red link" on Wikipedia are at least potential wannabee Wikipedians, and we can do more to help them than provide a blank page.—S Marshall T/C 07:40, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] I do feel that new users are given a lot a support, especially when they ask or when they make a visible mistake. I do not feel that making Red link go blue will increase the net support. I think that it would decrease it. I think that it is informative, when pointed to the red link, for the newcomer to be shown the logs for a deleted page. It was for me. Soon after that, I discovered what it looks like when the page had never existed (it produces quite a nice simple editing page ready to save and go live immediately). I think that learning is easier and more effective with the demonstration, and less with being taken to a disambiguation page from where you can follow a link to Wikilink#Hyperlinks_in_wikis, a section in which I only found the answer by using the browser search function, which describes a “red link” without demonstration. re:"Without demonstration?" Since May 13 2011 it demonstrates two common appearances of undefined links. Lothar Klaic (talk) 03:15, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] I agree with you about markup. I don’t think I am alone in wishing for the ability to edit directly, not through an edit window, but much like how I edit in Microsoft word. I am quite sure that I disagree that a series of links to the sentence “If an internal wikilink leads to a page that does not exist, it usually have a distinct visual appearance. For example, in Wikipedia they are commonly displayed in red color, like this, and therefore they are called red links in Wikipedia.^[3]” is better than an immediate demonstration. When you say “… look up "red link" on Wikipedia … provide a blank page”, it makes me think you have not recently clicked on a red link. Whether page has a log or has never existed, the page is not blank and is actually quite informative. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:46, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] I'd say that the page wikipedia:Red link is much less useless than the "red link" one. Sometimes you need just an example, sometimes you need a pointer to a guideline, and sometimes you just type [[redlink]], just as you type [[America]]n and cannot care less. And I see the latter case is 90% of the backlinks to Red link, and fixing them all (as suggested somewhere above) is just as pointless as fixing all 1000+ backlinks to "America". Lothar Klaic (talk) 02:52, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply] Comment It suddenly comes to my mind that my English is weak enough and I don't know any other succinct technical term for "an intrawiki link that leads to a page that does not exist". And don't insult me with the suggestion that they are called dead links. Yes. In sloppy parlance. Any other usage? Lothar Klaic (talk) 03:15, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.

Red link – Page moved. I edited the first definition to make this a little more obvious, and someone with a little more code-fu than I (S Marshall?) probably ought to submit a bug request. – NW (Talk) 19:39, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.

Unprotect, don't restore; move Red link (disambiguation) there; see further comments here.

The protecting admin decided not to routinely grant my unprotection requiest without broader discussion, because the page was deleted many times for various CSD/db reasons and discussed at WP:DRV, so I am posting the request here, per WP:SALT. Lothar Klaic (talk) 04:43, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support proposal. Seems sensible.. and I don't think the disambig page idea has been tried before with this page. -- œ ^™ 05:02, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment can't see it myself, it looks to me to be rather contrived. At least two of the destinations seem significantly different that I can't imagine you'd go to "red link" looking for them. The final variant the article mentions the term "red link" once, has no discussion on the term etc. and in context easily could have been something like "links from red nodes", again can't imagine anyone going to "red link" looking for it as it doesn't appear to be a ~~real~~ separate concept. As such we are left back with wikilink... --82.19.4.7 (talk) 07:50, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, there are people for which a company and a breed of chicken are ~~real~~ separate concepts and who cannot care less about wikilinks. Lothar Klaic (talk) 15:22, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Well picking on the comment about the final link and trying to apply it to the other seems a bit silly to me. The chickens - Red Sex Link - there seems no suggestion that anyone calls them Red link (that article actually says they are also called Red Stars), so it's not a disambiguation for that. The communications company is perhaps a better suggestion (particularly given the web address of the company in question). However that's still that company and wikilinks, we wouldn't put up a disambiguation page for two. Perhaps a better answer to this is have "Red Link" redirect to the communications company, and minor disambig from there may then be appropriate.--82.19.4.7 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:38, 22 September 2011 (UTC).[reply]
  Well not understanding what you actually wrote is even sillier: your "at least two" and "left back with wikilink" parts made me to defend the whole non-wikilink part. Anyway, I did see them called "red link" as a professional abbreviated parlance (hence it is a valid disambig entry), as well as an adjective "red-linked". By the way, the fact that "red link" 'could have been something like "links from red nodes"' is precisely the purpose of disambiguation. Lothar Klaic (talk) 15:56, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  What I said is "The final variant..." i.e. that part of the comment applied to the final variant. Back to just wikilink was that none of them seemed particular good disambiguation but that one (I've changed my mind somewhat on the communications company). All I can see on the chickens is that the article we have makes no suggestion that they get called red link and it does rather specifically mention an alternate name. Regarding your final comment, that is nothing to do with the point in disambiguation. The whole point is that the term used there as "red link" is merely the way it happened to be written, it isn't a specific concept that someone is going to come and look for. --82.19.4.7 (talk) 16:13, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  Yor opinions are noted and disagreed: you cannot speak for each and every "someone <who> is going <or not going> to come and look for". A red link in the red-black tree is of same relative importance of subjects as a Chair leg vs. chair in "Leg (disambiguation)". Lothar Klaic (talk) 17:48, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  Your opinions are also noted and disagreed by common practice and WP:DISAMBIGUATION. We don't find random words in wikipedia articles to form disambiguations, we don't just pick every article which contains the word leg in it and it to your other mentioned disambiguation page, because it wouldn't help anyone find what they are looking for. Likewise red link in the context of that article, this is not me speaking for everyone (a school yard argument at it's finest) it's me looking to the available evidence and making an evaluation of it, in this case there is no evidence that "red link" is a common term to mean links from the red nodes in a red-black tree. --82.19.4.7 (talk) 22:21, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  re: "There is no evidence". Once again, please be careful what you write. Probably you wanted to write "I failed to find an evidence". Well, here are 4,000 cases of of evidence. Enjoy a trip to red-blackwood forests :-). Yes, for an average non-scientific American a "red link" is probably a kind of bratwurst. But for those 0.0000....2% of Earth population who talk RB-trees a "red link" does mean something else as well, especially if they were perusing a certain chapter from the Introduction to Algorithms yesterday. Also, it seems we have differing experience of and opinions about a "common practice". Lothar Klaic (talk) 03:28, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've come across this before and I've always been puzzled by it. I've never understood why "red link" has to be a redlink. I mean, it's mildly pleasing that when you type red link it comes up red, but that's easily achieved with wikimarkup if you want to do it. But a new editor wanting to understand what a red link on Wikipedia is, will naturally type "red link" in the search box. There are times when it's appropriate to cross namespaces, and this is one of them. Unsalt.—S Marshall T/C 14:39, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW if they did just that and typed it into the search box, the second result I get is Red Link (Wikipedia) - though that seems to have been created post the last DRV on this. Really this is getting messy, if that's ok, then it should probably be at Red link, though previous consensus seems to be against it so too probably shouldn't exist. I don't really see the argument that this is an exceptional case for a cross name space redirect, put any wikipedia terminology in the same context and you'd come to the same argument. --82.19.4.7 (talk) 15:04, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thinking on this a little further, maybe this is something the usability project could contemplate. It would seem useful/sensible to have project space and help space pages which are an exact match for search criteria presented for standard searches in a prominent position - perhaps a separate section, but certainly easily accessible from a basic search. --82.19.4.7 (talk) 15:51, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We also should consider the large amount of project space pages that use red link as an instructional example. We would have to go through many of these and reformat using wikimarkup, as mentioned above. -- œ ^™ 15:34, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I am afraid you are mistaken: vast majority of them are AfD pages, it which (like this one) turning red links blue makes perfect sense. The same holds for many remaining ones; e.g., it is nod good for a red link be red inWikipedia:Vandalism: this is a policy page hence no fancy please. Lothar Klaic (talk) 16:01, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Whether it's on AfD pages or whereever, turning those red links blue will not make much sense when they're being used as examples of what a red link looks like, or for other instructional purposes which require the link to be red, and which is actually a less "fancy" way to do it than wrapping the text in wikimarkup. -- œ ^™ 04:42, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Since the disambig page already exists and there's nothing at the un-disambiguated title, it would seem to make sense to unsalt and move the dab page to the simpler title. Alzarian16 (talk) 18:55, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It "already exists" less than an hour now, because I was rather retarded last 2-3 months. Lothar Klaic (talk) 20:11, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep deleted We need a red link to use as an example of a red link, and I see no reason for this to not be it. Jclemens (talk) 20:56, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just a minor point, but ~~wasn't it brought up the last time we went over this that~~ like this one is also a red link, can be used just as easily without breaking textual flow, and is already preferred on policy pages? Hell, WP:REDLINK uses it. lifebaka++ 00:24, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In reply to my above, no it wasn't brought up last time, but the rest of my point still stands. The last DRV here was closed as keep deleted on a redirect to dead link, not a disambiguation page. I see no reason, either historical or simply because it works, that we shouldn't do this. "It's always worked" isn't a terribly good reason to object to the disambig. Move Red link (disambiguation) to Red link, since we've still got options to make links red, and it's a reasonable search term. lifebaka++ 01:12, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Allow disambiguation page. I don't think the example thing is all that important and the page does seem useful. Hobit (talk) 02:49, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Allow disambiguation page but stick to real disambiguations. I removed Red sex link chicken because I can't find any evindence that these chickens are ever referred to as "Red links". Unless you can show me otherwise it should not be on that disambiguation page. I am also rather dubious about the inclusion of red Link (The Legend of Zelda), which seems to be included purely to buff up the page size, rather than being a serious search target. Yoenit (talk) 08:13, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- I am not sure whether you are aware or not that 40% of wikipedia is Pokemon and Zelda, 30% is pornstars, 20% is biographies of minor politicians and professors, and 10% is serious stuff. Also run "Red Link"+Zelda google search to check whether it is a serious search target or not. Lothar Klaic (talk) 17:15, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  - Nonsense, we have 140 zelda articles and some 340 Pokemon articles. I have no idea why you making up bullshit like that. Red Link or Blue link or Purple link are still just Link (The Legend of Zelda), only with a different color suit. Anybody looking for them will just look for "Link". We can test this though, just create purple Link as a redirect and see how many hits it gets over a month. Yoenit (talk) 11:01, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    - Is there any oldtimer who remembers the link to the image with a diagram which is a bit more detailed than my tabulation, but essentially says the same? ? Yoenit, please look up the page "irony" and the read this comment further. <wait><wait> < Did you look it up yet? > <wait><wait> So?... OK, whatever. My comment that insulted your intelligence was a ~~slightly~~ (OK, OK, waaaaay too much) exaggerated remark that wikipedia is not restricted to serious stuff. People who want to look up Zek, Yuri Suvarov, etc. are just as deserving as those who are fond of Crataegus fontanesiana. By the way your idea about hit counting is interesting. Please explain how can I do it. I'd really like to compare the numbers of hits, e.g., for Yuri Suvarov and Phocodontia. 02:52, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
Keep deleted - This topic is about ripe for a WP:PERENNIAL listing. Various XfDs (RfD and other venues have handy search boxes, I'm not going to link to all the old discussion) have discussed various ideas of what to do with the famous red link, and consensus has been fairly clear that it should not exist, should not redirect, should not disambig into anything. Tarc (talk) 19:52, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The argument is invalid since the premise is false. Consensus may change. As User:OlEnglish pointed out, the option of disambig page was not discussed before. Lothar Klaic (talk) 20:28, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Stop whining, it is not invalid. Bringing up the same topic again and again and again in order to force a different result is considered tendentious and disruptive. Tarc (talk) 13:13, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
WHOA!!! <cringe><cringe><cringe><plonk> Lothar Klaic (talk) 02:54, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Allow move Whether the existence of a disambiguation page for Red Link terms is needed or not is a separate question, but as long as we have one I don't see why it shouldn't be located at Red link. Mark Arsten (talk) 13:27, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Deleted. "Red link" has no real world meaning. Red link has no incoming links from mainspace, but a huge number from elsewhere. The non-mainspace incoming links were surely written with the expectation that "Red link" will forever be red. Is someone offering to re-colour all those incoming links? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:30, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, I will. (This doesn't mean I'll manually copy/paste the code into the >500 pages involved. It means that I'll submit the bot request. It's a trivial job for a bot.) On your other point, the argument for creating this page has nothing to do with its real world meaning. It's about helping new editors, who will naturally try to learn about red links by typing "red link" into the search box. Basically, we want to do with red link what we already do with redirect.—S Marshall T/C 14:16, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You're talking about a cross space redirect from mainspace here. We are normally loath to allow these. Any new editor should quickly learn about project space, and to not search for editorial support in mainspace. Mainspace is for readers. Any new editor searching for "red link" will quickly discover Wikipedia:Red link. Redirect exists because it does have a general real-world meaning. It is not a cross-space redirect. It does have a hat note pointing to WP:Redirect, which we are more amendable to. Red link (disambiguation) is best left where it is because none of the entries have a reasonable claim to a mainspace at Red link. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:14, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Do you feel that the amount of support and help we give to new editors is appropriate? I don't. I think we filter out at least three quarters of them because our bizarre and inaccessible Wikimarkup and syntax, our makeshift and slipshod procedures with its bewildering variety of discussion pages each with their own population and culture, and our huge morass of mutually contradictory and incomprehensible policies and guidelines written by committees and repeatedly revised ad hoc in response to special situations.
We can safely assume that most people who look up "red link" on Wikipedia are at least potential wannabee Wikipedians, and we can do more to help them than provide a blank page.—S Marshall T/C 07:40, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I do feel that new users are given a lot a support, especially when they ask or when they make a visible mistake. I do not feel that making Red link go blue will increase the net support. I think that it would decrease it. I think that it is informative, when pointed to the red link, for the newcomer to be shown the logs for a deleted page. It was for me. Soon after that, I discovered what it looks like when the page had never existed (it produces quite a nice simple editing page ready to save and go live immediately). I think that learning is easier and more effective with the demonstration, and less with being taken to a disambiguation page from where you can follow a link to Wikilink#Hyperlinks_in_wikis, a section in which I only found the answer by using the browser search function, which describes a “red link” without demonstration.
re:"Without demonstration?" Since May 13 2011 it demonstrates two common appearances of undefined links. Lothar Klaic (talk) 03:15, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you about markup. I don’t think I am alone in wishing for the ability to edit directly, not through an edit window, but much like how I edit in Microsoft word.
I am quite sure that I disagree that a series of links to the sentence “If an internal wikilink leads to a page that does not exist, it usually have a distinct visual appearance. For example, in Wikipedia they are commonly displayed in red color, like this, and therefore they are called red links in Wikipedia.^[3]” is better than an immediate demonstration. When you say “… look up "red link" on Wikipedia … provide a blank page”, it makes me think you have not recently clicked on a red link. Whether page has a log or has never existed, the page is not blank and is actually quite informative. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:46, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- I'd say that the page wikipedia:Red link is much less useless than the "red link" one. Sometimes you need just an example, sometimes you need a pointer to a guideline, and sometimes you just type [[redlink]], just as you type [[America]]n and cannot care less. And I see the latter case is 90% of the backlinks to Red link, and fixing them all (as suggested somewhere above) is just as pointless as fixing all 1000+ backlinks to "America". Lothar Klaic (talk) 02:52, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment It suddenly comes to my mind that my English is weak enough and I don't know any other succinct technical term for "an intrawiki link that leads to a page that does not exist". And don't insult me with the suggestion that they are called dead links. Yes. In sloppy parlance. Any other usage? Lothar Klaic (talk) 03:15, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.