[WikiEN-l] Capitalization and redirects

Sun Apr 27 17:56:45 UTC 2003

I missed the email discussion, but for the people who are frustrated
by the lack of agreement, why do I see nothing about species names
under [[Wikipedia:Naming conventions]]?  I apply a specific set of
conventions to navy ship articles for instance, but if I haven't
written one of them down, I don't feel like I have much grounds for
complaint if someone doesn't follow it when copyediting.

I get the sense that people have now reached a compromise involving
redirects, but please, let's get it written down where the
less-informed like myself can read it and know what the rules are
going to be.

On redirects in general, I keep hearing the suggestion that the use
of a redirect is somehow insulting to the reader, and should therefore
be discouraged.  Has anybody ever talked to an actual user (not another
Wikipedian), and gotten that sense of insult?  My own reaction is more
like "oh, I didn't know that was the full/proper name" or "oh yeah".

My own bit of survey of users showed that a) my wife thinks
Wikipedia is lame because it doesn't state that "W" has a 91 IQ
(although she likes the picture of Rumsfeld shaking hands with
Saddam), and that b) my father lost interest when in four clicks
of "random page", he got the same page twice (not in a row), thus
conveying the impression that wikipedia was kind of small.
Neither had an opinion on redirects.

Stan