MarioWiki:Redirects
With the sheer magnitude of subjects relating to the Mario series, no one could possibly remember every name of every page on the wiki, and for this reason we have redirects. These pages have names that are slightly different than the actual articles, and if someone searches for that name, the redirect sends them straight to the article they were looking for. Similarly, anyone who clicks on a link to the redirect page goes to the article. When pages are moved, their former namespace becomes a redirect, so that people will automatically be able to get to the article even if the links are not updated. In both cases, the links themselves will ideally be corrected or updated before long, and any redirects leading to the new redirect of the moved pages (known as "double-redirects") should be diverted to the moved page itself immediately. When navigation templates or infoboxes are moved, the links must also be updated immediately: template redirects are not allowed, nor are category redirects. There are also limits to what mistakes actually merit redirects when it comes to mainspace articles: the wiki should be easy to use, yet not bogged down with unnecessary redirects. How to make redirects is explained on Help:Redirect, and what should or should not be made into redirects is explained here.
Possible Errors
The easiest way to communicate what redirects are acceptable and which are not is best illustrated with examples. Mario Kart: Double Dash!! will be the main example, although other subjects will be used for situations that are not applicable to this game.
Punctuation
The example title includes punctuation marks, which are one the largest stumbling blocks for searchers. In this case, they can forget the colon and/or one or both of the exclamation marks. For that reason, we have the redirects "Mario Kart Double Dash", "Mario Kart Double Dash!", "Mario Kart Double Dash!!", "Mario Kart: Double Dash", and "Mario Kart: Double Dash!".
Sometimes, punctuation may be accidentally added, such as "Mario Kart: Double-Dash!! (which, by extension could lead to "Mario Kart Double-Dash", "Mario Kart Double-Dash!", "Mario Kart Double-Dash!!", "Mario Kart: Double-Dash" and "Mario Kart: Double-Dash!" if the hyphen is added but some or all of the other punctuation marks are forgotten). However, compensating for this mistake with redirects is going too far: rather than merely forgetting something, anyone searching for these terms is actively adding erroneous punctuation, and forcing them to realize this mistake is doing them a greater service than enabling it. If someone does search for the hyphenated "Double-Dash" they will merely come to a search results page, in which the desired game article is the first match the wiki made, meaning the searcher still gets to where they wanted to go.
Another possible mistake is substituting one punctuation mark for another. Instead of using a colon, someone could search for "Mario Kart - Double Dash!!" (and any other combination of punctuation errors in addition to the dash), but like the hyphen use, this does not merit a redirect. Searching for the name with a dash instead of a colon will still bring the reader to the game page by way of the search results, and that additional click might help them remember the proper spelling in the future. However, there are exceptions to the dash rule, such as with "Yoshi no Cookie: Kuruppon Oven de Cookie". The game is very rare and was never given an English release (there is more on non-English redirect conventions in a later section), and so no known official material actually uses a colon to separate the two halves of the name (the Japanese text is separated by a line break in all available screenshots). Many people who have written about the game elsewhere on the Internet use a hyphen to separate the names, but to fit with our usual naming conventions, the Super Mario Wiki now uses a colon. However, we retain the dash spelling as a redirect, as many people are likely to use it in their searches and since it is not quite a mistake that needs to be re-educated, convenience is the only factor in play.
Symbols
Like punctuation marks, symbols often get mixed up. Pluses ("+"), ampersands ("&") and "and"s are all used in Mario titles, so if someone forgets when "+"s and "&"s are used and defaults to "and", that is reasonable. For example, "Mario and Luigi" is an acceptable substitution of "Mario & Luigi". In some cases, such as other two-person duos, an ampersand can be substituted for "and", such as writing "Kat & Ana" instead of "Kat and Ana", but in most situations, it would be inappropriate. Substituting "+"s for "&"s and vice-versa is not allowed either, for the same reason as the substitution of punctuation marks.
Spelling and Other Languages
English spelling mistakes should never be turned into redirects, with the exception of commonly used and confused compounds, British vs. American spellings, and titles that contain special characters (i.e. "Pokémon" vs. "Pokemon"). Leaving out apostrophes in contractions or in the possessive case (i.e. "Marios" instead of "Mario's") is considered an unacceptable spelling mistake.
While many common species names include non-hyphenated compound words (i.e. Koopa Paratroopa, Paragoomba and Parabuzzy), there are also a number of names like Para-Beetle or Mecha-Koopa, which can confuse people both ways: they could easily end up searching for "Parabeetle" (incorrectly joined), "Para-Buzzy" (an incorrectly hyphenated compound) or "Mecha Koopa" (incorrectly separated). Users may use their discretion to make redirects for mistakes like these if they feel they will occur on a regular basis. However, such redirects should still be kept to a bare minimum, and as discussed with the "Double-Dash" example in the Punctuation section, incorrect hyphenation or joining of words that are not compounds (such as writing Hammer Bro. as "Hammer-Bro." or "HammerBro.") should not get redirects.
Both British and American spellings are valid on this Wiki, and so redirects can be made for words that differ between the two, such as "Game Boy Colour" linking to the Game Boy Color. (However, as "Game Boy Color" is a proper name, only the "Color" spelling should be used when writing about or linking to the handheld on the wiki.).
Special characters, including dicritics (accented letters) and ligatures (joined letters such as "œ"), don't always appear on keyboards and can be easily forgotten. The special character rule also applies to non-English languages that still use Latin characters, such as the German Club Nintendo comics, or the romanization of Japanese.
Japanese names with no English equivalent are given more leeway as they can be romanized various different ways, and many people have trouble with spelling on top of that. For example Tenderling's name 「ジューシー」 Jūshī can also be romanized as Jūshi, Jushī, Jushi, Zyūsī, Jyūshī, Zūsī, Juushii, Zyuusii, Jyuushii and Zuusii when including older transcription systems, common spelling mistakes and dropped macrons (as mentioned earlier, dropping special characters like macrons is allowed in redirects). The direct translation "Juicy" was also given a redirect in this case, although this is not recommended as translations are usually unofficial; in this case, 「ジューシー」 was known to be a transliteration of the English word "Juicy". The aforementioned "Yoshi no Cookie: Kuruppon Oven de Cookie" is an example of what should and shouldn't be translated like this: 「ヨッシーのクッキー クルッポンオーブンでクッキー」 is romanized as Yosshī no Kukkī: Kuruppon Ōbun de Kukkī but it is known that "Yosshī ", "Ōbun" and "Kukkī " were "Yoshi", "Oven" and "Cookie", respectively, and so they are written as such, however the Japanese itself is left alone (i.e. "Yoshi no Cookie" isn't changed to "Yoshi's Cookie").
However, unlike Yoshi no Cookie, Tenderling now has an English name. Before Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story was released in English, Jūshī was the article and the eleven other names redirected there, but now we can simply use "Tenderling". In these situations, once an English translation is established, the Japanese redirects become redundant (as this is an English wiki) and can slowly be phased-out - starting with the more obscure romanizations. This applies to all subjects and all languages: redirects for anything besides the English titles are unnecessary, as are their corresponding English translations, and neither should be made. Links will never be made in other languages and if anyone searches using a non-English title or its translation, they will still find the article via a search results page, since all known non-English names and their meanings are listed on the articles in the {{Foreignname}} template. Therefore, in Tenderling's case, searching for "Jūshī " (or the Japanese text itself, which should never be made into redirects even for subjects with no English equivalents) will still bring readers to Tenderling's page by way of the search results page, although the other variations of romaji will not work. The only exception to this non-English redirect rule is if a major subject is popularly known by a non-English name or its translation, such as Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, which was known as "Mario & Luigi RPG 3!!!" for months, before it was released outside of Japan. The translated Japanese title is still popular among English speakers, and so the redirect remains for now.
Abbreviations
As with all games, there are many possible abbreviations searchers may use for "Mario Kart: Double Dash!!", including "MKDD", "MKDD!", "MKDD!!", "MK:DD", "MK:DD!", "MK:DD!!", "MK DD", "MK DD!", "MK DD!!", "MK: DD", "MK: DD!" and "MK: DD!!". All of these are valid redirects, however many other short-forms aren't. Players may call the game "Double Dash" in conversation to save on time, but they should know better than to type that in on the search bar to look for the game. The point of the wiki is to be a user-friendly database, but redirects for "Double Dash", "Double Dash!!", ""DD", "DD!!" and even the unlikely "Kart: Double Dash!!" (as well as its punctuation derivatives, like "Kart Double Dash", "Kart Double Dash!!" and "Kart: Double Dash") would be unnecessary.
Alternative Titles and Nicknames
In addition to abbreviations are alternate titles, though this is more applicable to people, places and things, rather than games like Mario Kart: Double Dash!!. In most cases, any official name Nintendo has provided should become a redirect, which is why "Peach", "Princess Peach Toadstool", "Princess Toadstool" and "Toadstool" all redirect to Princess Peach - they're all valid names.
However, it gets difficult when nicknames are involved. "Weegee" is a famous and widely-used nickname of Luigi's and is therefore used as a redirect, but the vast majority of nicknames are obscure and used only once (such as "M" for Mario in Mario is Missing!, or "Butterball" for Bowser in Super Paper Mario) and should not get redirects. As with the obscure abbreviations, readers should know better than to search for the characters using these names.
Pluralization
While Pluralizations are proper spellings and are commonly used, they should not be made into redirects, except in the case of major subjects which are likely to be searched for or linked to in their plural forms on a regular basis.
This is particularly true when pluralization merely consists of the singular word plus an "s", as this can easily be avoided when writing articles by placing the "s" outside the closing square brackets, like this: [[word]]s. When a user starts typing in the search bar, the wiki provides prompts, and the singular word for what they are looking for should come up before they have the opportunity to add an "s", thus heading them off before they get to the point of needing a pluralization redirect. However, there is a possibility that they will not pay attention to the prompts when searching for well-known subjects, and despite the ease with which they can be avoided, many pluralized links are found around the wiki. It is for these reasons that major subjects (such as Bullet Bills or Coins) are allowed to retain their pluralized redirects; if they were to be deleted, users unfamiliar with the policy would inevitably re-create them anyway, when they find their links red or their simple search ending in a results page and not an article.
Some words require the singular form to be altered when pluralizing it, in which case, avoiding the redirect is done like this: [[vocabulary|vocabularies]]. While this is relatively straightforward, the occasional use of the plural form alone is likely, and if a user is unfamiliar with the singular spelling and only knows the plural, they may want to search for that regardless of the wiki's prompts. Therefore, the creation of these sorts of pluralizations is not as stringently disallowed as simple "-s" redirects, but users are still highly discouraged from creating them for low-profile subjects that aren't likely to be searched for or linked to frequently. For example, Bumpties are well-known, common enemies that appear in many games, and it is quite conceivable that new users may try to use the plural form of the link or search for the pluralized name. On the other hand, Bopping Toadies are relatively obscure, and it is highly unlikely that a pluralization redirect would ever be needed for them.
Capitalization
Errors in capitalization should never be given redirects since the wiki's search function can still recognize "mario kart: double dash!!" as meaning "Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and go straight to the desired page without a redirect being necessary. Incorrectly capitalized links will not function, however the links themselves should be fixed, as with any other errors occurring within the articles of the Super Mario Wiki.
Summarizing List
The following chart summarizes what should and shouldn't be redirects for Mario Kart: Double Dash!!.
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Most subjects will not have as many possible redirects as Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, although it is a good example of why a line must be drawn against the extensive creation of redirects. This list is not even complete: if every single combination of punctuation, spacing and capitalization was shown, including for the "Double Dash" and "Kart: Double Dash" short forms, as well as all the non-English versions of the name, there would be well over 100 redirects leading to Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, and it is almost guaranteed that most of those will never be used.
