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A soft redirect is a replacement for the usual "hard" redirect and is used where the destination is a Wikimedia sister project (see Wikipedia:Wikimedia sister projects § Soft redirects from Wikipedia to a sister project), another language Wikimedia site, or in rare cases another website (e.g. meatball: targets). They may also be used for local targets in some cases (e.g. WP:AN/K). Soft redirects differ in that they leave the reader on the redirect page, requiring them to click through to the redirected link as opposed to automatically taking them there.
Unlike normal redirects, a soft redirect does not use special code or functionality of the wiki software. All they consist of is a notification to users, showing the destination to another site to obtain the information they were seeking.
The technique is particularly likely to be used when redirecting users across Wikimedia sister projects—for example Wikipedia:Gather is a soft redirect to mw:Gather. Normal redirects would be undesirable in these circumstances, and hard interwiki redirects are disabled per these reasons that they could not be easily edited without hand-crafting the correct URL, since clicking on a link to the redirect page would take you straight to the redirect's target and there would be no "Redirected from foo" message to click, so it would be difficult to return to the redirect page itself; there would also be infinite-loop security considerations.
Another situation where soft redirects are used is when the intended target is a special page, and the system automatically "softens" attempted hard redirects to special pages. For example, Wikipedia:List of tags redirects to Special:Tags.
Soft redirects to non-English language editions of Wikipedia should be avoided because they are generally unhelpful to English-language readers. Instead, editors should link to the alternate language Wikipedia directly with one of various forms of interlanguage links.
Soft redirects are intended mostly for external use, where hard redirects will not function. For internal use in general, hard redirects should be used instead.
Category soft redirects
In English Wikipedia, categories with the {{Category redirect}} template are also called "soft redirects", due to their similarity to interwiki soft redirects. See Wikipedia:Categories for discussion#Redirecting categories for the policy.
Do not put redirect categorization templates on soft redirects ({{R category with possibilities}} and {{Wikidata redirect}} are exceptions).
Templates
The following templates are used to create a soft redirect link:
- {{Soft redirect}} for all soft redirects except those below:
- {{Category redirect}} for category redirects
- {{Portal soft redirect}} for soft redirects from the portal namespace
- {{Commons redirect}} for Commons redirects
- {{Wikibooks redirect}} for Wikibooks redirects
- {{Wikidata redirect}} for Wikidata redirects
- {{Wikiquote redirect}} for Wikiquote redirects
- {{Wikisource redirect}} for Wikisource redirects
- {{Wikispecies redirect}} for Wikispecies redirects
- {{Wikivoyage redirect}} for Wikivoyage redirects
- {{Wiktionary redirect}} for Wiktionary redirects
Categories to add for cross-namespace soft redirects
Soft redirects to targets outside Wikipedia (e.g. to meta.wikimedia.org) do not require any categories to be added manually.
For soft redirects that go from Wikipedia's mainspace to targets outside Wikipedia or to targets in any other Wikipedia namespace, add Category:Unprintworthy redirects to mark them unsuitable for any printable version of Wikipedia.
For any soft redirect that goes from one Wikipedia namespace to another Wikipedia namespace, add the relevant category placing it within the appropriate sub-category of Category:Cross-namespace redirects, i.e. describing it by the target namespace:
- Category:Redirects to user namespace, for a soft redirect to a user space page (but not to a user talk page). Note: by its name, template {{R to user namespace}} would seem appropriate to use, and indeed that template would apply the "Redirects to user namespace" category, but that template's instructions indicate it should not be used for soft redirects (at least in part because it would display inappropriate/confusing information for editors/readers following the soft redirect), so manually apply the category, instead.
- Category:Redirects to talk pages, for a soft redirect to any talk page, whether the talk page is that of a user, or of a category, or of a template, or of a mainspace article, etc. Note: Likewise, {{R to talk page}} would seem appropriate, but that template is also not be used on soft redirects.
- Category:Redirects to category space
- Category:Redirects to help namespace
- Category:Redirects to the main namespace
- Category:Redirects to portal namespace
- Category:Redirects to project namespace
- Category:Redirects to template namespace
Deletion
For purposes of administration, particularly deletion, soft redirects are subject to the same administration processes as regular redirects, and should not be handled by processes that are intended for articles. For deletion this means that soft redirects are subject to R2 – R4 speedy deletion criteria, and are not subject to A1 – A10 speedy deletion criteria. For more deliberative deletion, soft redirects should be handled through Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion, and are not subject to either Wikipedia:Proposed deletion or Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. They are also specifically subject to G8 deletion if their target does not exist, as this has replaced the old R1 criterion.
See also
- Help:InterWikimedia links list of possible redirect targets
- m:Soft redirect the equivalent metawiki page about soft redirects
- Wikipedia:Redirect for hard redirects
- {{Redirect with possibilities}}
- Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Other projects, where a soft redirect is considered an alternative to deletion
- m:Help:Transwiki, for instructions for using the Transwiki: namespace when moving entries between Wikipedia and Wiktionary