[WikiEN-l] Redlinks or redirects?

Thu Jun 29 14:32:52 UTC 2006

On Jun 29, 2006, at 7:47 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:

> On 6/29/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
>> A redlink might just be a mistake, so briefly search for an existing
>> article. If it seems it could be a viable article it should be left
>> alone. I think it should continue to be a redlink until someone is
>> ready to write an article rather than being made into a stub.
>>
>
> But if someone is looking for information on a book, is it not more
> useful to make that book a redirect to the author, where at least the
> one liner "John Foo is best known for his brilliant book, Foo Strikes
> Again, which is all about ...." is better than nothing.
>
> I firmly believe that Wikipedia's mission is to answer the question
> "What the hell is X?" to whatever extent it can, rather than just give
> up and say "no, we don't know either". Even if all we have time to
> write is "It's a book, check out these three urls".
>
> Steve

In the case of a book on which there is no article a redirect to the  
author is appropriate. I don't think there are very many books which  
will support a decent article, but then I don't think the average  
episode of South Park does either. We need to have a discussion on  
which books ought to have articles. Some criteria regarding notability.

Fred