Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2009 February 21

Also: Template:R for as of, Category:Redirects from "As of". Those redirects are deprecated since we use the new as of system. They are not linked in main, portal, category or template space any more and have very little interest for readers (and search results would be more interesting than a redirect to the year). Users link them from time to time, so deleting them would also discourage this and point to Template:as of. See precedent for as of 1996. Cenarium (talk) 23:27, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

These can all be speedy deleted per criterion G6 (housekeeping), as has been done in the past. Since this discussion has been raised, I otherwise vote delete if people wish to see the process through. – Ikara ^talk → 23:58, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I speedily deleted a lot of month links but I'd prefer to base deletions on a discussion for the year links (or wouldn't do it myself), as some may consider they extend beyond this old maintenance purpose. Cenarium (talk) 00:20, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, in that case I should also point out that using this redirect is a form of arbitrary date linking, which is now actively discouraged by MoS. They are also not very logical redirects; "as of 1990" would refer to the period up to and including 1990, not just the year itself. I say delete them all, and the template and category associated with them, not for being unnecessary but for encouraging bad editing practices – Ikara ^talk → 02:12, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Please just kill these whether as G6 or not. Wikilinks should actually link to something useful to the readers; wikilinks deliberately designed to not be of use to the readers are bad. — Gavia immer (talk) 05:00, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Baleet plz- It seems someone had no better thing to do than to make these. Letsdrinktea (talk) 17:34, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. They were part of a standard mechanism that we used to employ, until a better one came along. Please read Wikipedia:As of#Previous method ("as of" links) and learn how we came to where we are now. Wikipedia was not always the way that you currently see it. Uncle G (talk) 01:56, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ok, well it currently serves no use anyways Letsdrinktea (talk) 03:33, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete all - Just change the text to "as of year" instead of "as of year" 129.215.149.97 (talk) 13:41, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete I think that most usages of this construct are piped as [[as of 2008|currently]] but these grow stale over time. Similarly, most references such as "currently" "next week" or "last year", etc. in articles are to be avoided and getting rid of these will reduce the temptation to use such constructs. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 22:12, 24 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per nom. Versus22 _talk 08:25, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete or redirect to printf; this redirect is no longer useful as when you type wp without a search term you get sent to the search page instead of %s. Letsdrinktea (talk) 16:23, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Redirect to print I feel this would be the most useful to a reader who comes on wikipedia to look up what %s is. Letsdrinktea (talk) 03:09, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note: Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%25s?redirect=no to access the redirect itself and the talk page.

• Delete I actually tried deleting this before, but I didn't know how to access the redirect. Tavix (talk) 18:00, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Recent discussion on this at the talk page. Cenarium (talk) 22:56, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - Awkward. There is no redirect link at the top of the page (and it may be difficult for some people to find the link to the redirect page above my post. Versus22 _talk 02:07, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Retarget to printf. This was originally implemented as seen to make the formerly broken Firefox Wikipedia search do something vaguely useful - at the cost of breaking an obvious search term for a notable topic, for everyone. It was bad even when it accomplished a bug workaround, but we no longer need it for that, because our search function will now do the right thing with the old FF search. — Gavia immer (talk) 05:10, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep as is. There is an error in the stats that is causing the apparent dropoff (check other "%_" strings to see the same thing). Yes, this bug is fixed in Firefox 3, but it is not fixed in Firefox 2. --- RockMFR 22:42, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: The rfd notice is preventing the redirect. This appears to be getting 18000 hits a day. --maclean 02:21, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - I make use of this daily using a custom Firefox "wp" keyword (custom to use a secure Wikipedia link) to jump to the front page. I never even realized it was a redirect until it went away just now! --Schwern (talk) 08:07, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - I've got wikipedia bookmarked - and the link there goes through this page. (Admittedly, it would take only a few seconds longer to click "Main page") 129.215.149.96 (talk) 13:38, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Even if the bug is fixed, autocomplete still takes me to this page. 140.247.249.8 (talk) 17:55, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep I believe Firefox uses this as the default search term in their "Wikipedia Quick Search" bookmark. If you get rid of this redirect, you will end up breaking that for every Firefox download since version 3 came out. Daniel J Simanek (talk) 22:37, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Didn't you read what I said, The WP search term was fixed. Check again, and if you still get it you need to upgrade/update your Firefox. This redirect is preventing an encyclopedic article from being redirected to by a very relevant term, and is likely to become totally obsolete in the future if it hasn't already. And if you really need a shortcut to go to the front page, then maybe you should make the shortcut go directly to the front page? We can't keep this to accommodate a small fraction of firefox users. LetsdrinkTea 01:15, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • The WP search does take firefox users to the search page, but the link that the user creates to use the search does take the user to the %s page. --75.72.225.69 (talk) 04:44, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Its a built in bookmark. I am not talking about the WP search term. Daniel J Simanek (talk) 08:13, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Regardless of whether people are using an obsolete version of a browser, this page is still receiving over 18000 hits a day, as stated by maclean above. I also personally still do wp %s to take me to the Main Page quickly. Phsource (talk) 02:29, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Saw this discussion a few days ago. After Phsource pointed out the traffic figure posted, I can't help but to support the status quo. Mr.Clown (talk) 06:08, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]