User talk:Daniel Quinlan/redirects2
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Hi, Daniel. Why all those redirects? I mean, how did you arrive at that very long list in the first place? And why is the inclusion of a middle name better than its exclusion, and in a different case the other way round? --KF 16:36, 6 Nov 2003 (UTC)
- The redirects help because some pages use a middle name, some use a middle initial, and some use nothing. I think it's best to name the page what is most commonly used for and by that person. For example, were there an article about President Kennedy, it should be named John F. Kennedy, not Jack Kennedy, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, or JFK. Inevitably, each name ends up being used and the redirects help fix broken links in articles (easier than changing every article that refers to JFK). Beyond that issue, redirects like these help users find articles.
- The list itself was generated by a quick bit of Perl programming. Brion sent me a list of articles and broken links, the program compared the real articles (as opposed to images and redirects), and found potential matches. It so happens that most of the broken links are cases where the middle initial or name was left out, but there are a fair number of reversed cases too. Daniel Quinlan 20:30, Nov 6, 2003 (UTC)
Many thanks for your answer. I may be slow on the uptake, but now I fully understand. So keep up the good work, and all the best, --KF 21:05, 6 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Is this the new wikipedia:defective redirects? Martin 22:42, 8 Nov 2003 (UTC)
- Not really. It's more like a page to turn broken links into redirects. Working on articles, I noticed that a large number of personal names were broken links because of variation in how middle names are rendered. I wrote a script to find possible matches between broken links and existing articles and the match rate has been pretty high so far. I still have to write up a script to match middle names to middle initials (this just matches in both directions between "first last" to "first m. last" and "first middle last"). I might also post some more complicated matching based on longest common substring and approximate string matching, but those are bit more complicated so I'm still working on it. Daniel Quinlan 23:11, Nov 8, 2003 (UTC)
The format for adding "Junior" or "Senior" to a name is also often a source for broken links. e.g. there could be first m. last Sr first m. last, Sr first m. last, Sr. first m. last Sr., and often the same for the Jr. Most of them show up on User:Daniel_Quinlan/redirects6a/b/c/d etc. -- User:Docu
[edit] Red Cedar R. -> Red Cedar R. (Mich.)
Hi. You'll see I've moved Red Cedar River to Red Cedar River (Michigan), as there is also (at least) a Red Cedar River (Wisconsin). Tomer TALK 03:57, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Magic Christian
Hi Daniel, I found the link in your page and just wanted to let you know I am redirecting all film links to "Magic Christian", to "Magic Christian (1969 film)", whereas another user is working on the novel entry, which will soon be created under "Magic Christian (book)". As soon as this happens, I will redirect all novel links to it. Hoverfish 09:27, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
