Wiki:Redirecting

This page is an official policy of the Soulbound Wiki. It describes when and how to create redirects. Follow it when naming or moving pages. Propose changes on the talk page first.

Redirecting is how the Soulbound Wiki keeps one canonical page per subject while still letting readers reach that page by any reasonable spelling. A redirect is a short page that sends the reader straight on to the canonical article. This policy expands on Manual of Style § Page titles.

The rule in one line: pick the exact in-game name as the single canonical title, then create a redirect from every other plausible spelling of it.

Why one canonical page

If the same subject exists at two titles, edits split between them, categories double up, and search results compete. The wiki currently carries at least 35 groups of variant titles for the same subject — the fix for every one of them is to choose the in-game name and redirect the rest to it, never to keep two articles.

How to create a redirect

Create (or blank and replace) the variant title with a single line:

#REDIRECT [[Canonical page title]]

If the redirect points at a specific section, target it directly:

#REDIRECT [[Canonical page title#Section name]]

Tag the redirect so it can be maintained, using the appropriate template on the line below the redirect:

#REDIRECT [[A Pirate's Life for Me]]
{{Redirect category|alternative spelling}}

Nothing else goes on a redirect page.

What must be redirected

Create a redirect to the canonical page from every variant a reader or another editor might type or link:

Apostrophe variants — straight versus curly: A Pirate's Life for Me and A Pirate’s Life for Me.
Case variants — Iron dagger, Iron Dagger. (MediaWiki already treats the very first letter as case-insensitive; create redirects for any later-word case differences.)
Spelling variants and common misspellings — including American spellings that point at the British canonical title: Iron armor → Iron armour.
Plurals and singulars — Health potions → Health potion.
Abbreviations and nicknames the community actually uses — MoS → Wiki:Manual of Style.
Old or renamed titles — the previous in-game name of a renamed subject redirects to the current one.
Punctuation and spacing variants — hyphen versus space, "and" versus "&".

What must not be redirected

No cross-namespace redirects. A main-namespace title must not redirect into the Wiki:, Template: or Help: namespaces, and vice versa. (Common abbreviations of a policy page may redirect within the project namespace.)
Do not redirect a name with three or more distinct meanings to any one of them. Point it at a disambiguation page instead.
Do not create a redirect that would need its own article. If the variant is really a distinct subject, write the article; do not redirect it away.
Avoid double redirects — a redirect pointing at another redirect. Always point straight at the final canonical page. If you move a page, fix the redirects that now chain through it (see Special:DoubleRedirects).

Worked examples

A renamed quest with four titles

The quest is named A Pirate's Life for Me in the current game (straight apostrophe, in-game capitalisation). Four titles exist on the old wiki. Resolve them:

Title	Action
`A Pirate's Life for Me`	Canonical article (exact in-game name).
`A Pirate’s Life for Me`	`#REDIRECT A Pirate's Life for Me` — curly-apostrophe variant.
`A Pirates Life For Me`	`#REDIRECT A Pirate's Life for Me` — missing apostrophe, wrong case.
`Pirate's Life for Me`	`#REDIRECT A Pirate's Life for Me` — dropped leading "A".

An item with British spelling

Canonical title: Iron platebody.

Iron Platebody → redirect (case).
Iron plate body → redirect (spacing).
Iron platebodies → redirect (plural).

There is no American-spelling case here, but for an item whose canonical title uses armour, colour or defence, create the armor / color / defense spelling as a redirect.

A name shared by three subjects

If Ember is a quest, an NPC and an item, do not redirect Ember to any one of them. Make Ember a disambiguation page listing all three, and title the articles Ember (quest), Ember (NPC) and Ember (item). See Wiki:Disambiguation.