Author: grmwnr

Description:
Template redirects have been causing a stir recently. There are important points
in favor of them (ease-of-use mostly) and points against them (server
performance issues that might or might not be a problem, the fact that template
redirects are handled completely transparently combined with the fact that
there's some naming guidelines for templates emerging, at least at a local
level). A complete solution to this would be to substitute a redirected template
automatically with its redirect target once the page is saved (i.ed {{template
which redirects to other template}} would become {{other template}}). This is a
suggestion by Caerwine ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Caerwine ), to be
found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Redirects_for_deletion#Post-Christmas_Refactoring
, cited below:

"That said, perhaps rather than human engineering, we should be focussing our
efforts on software engineering, since the later is usually easier to
accomplish. It shouldn't be that difficult to have the software be able to
automatically substitute in the reference from a redirect instead of keeping it
when saving an edit. That would have the benefit of reducing both server load
when the template or article link is refered to in the future and in the case of
stub templates, reduce the number of undesirable examples followed by novice
stub creators. In cases where it is desirable to retain the redirects as
redirects because they are redirects with possibilities, it wouldn't be
difficult to have it differentiate this based on something such as having
#REDIRECT [[Y]] and #REDIRECT [[Template:Y]] be links that do get
auto-dereferenced while #REDIRECT [[:Y]] and #REDIRECT [[:Template:Y]] don't get
auto-dereferenced, as currently the syntax allows for either form and they seem
to be treated the same, so I don't think the change wouldn't break anything.
Caerwine Caerwhine 22:02, 26 December 2005 (UTC)"

Version: unspecified
Severity: enhancement
URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Redirects_for_deletion#Post-Christmas_Refactoring