Talk:Pretorian guard

From VfD:

• Delete. spelling, all links moved to Praetorian guard Philip Baird Shearer 21:30, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. Redirects aren't for article linkage, they're for searches, and likely spelling errors should be kept as redirs. Niteowlneils 22:01, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. Just like encyclopaedia/encyclopedia. Wetman 22:05, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • as I understand it encyclopaedia is to encyclopedia as theatre is to theater. Is Pretorian a correct American English spelling? Philip Baird Shearer
• Completely invalid VfD candidate. The article was a redirect before Phillip blanked it and put the VfD notice there. Should only have been posted to WP:RFD. Keep and retain as redirects - these would be considered very common misspellings [1]. -- Netoholic @ 22:33, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • does that mean that a redirect from lazer to laser should be kept? Philip Baird Shearer
    • Probably... -Sean Curtin 23:18, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)
    • Yes, assuming that it already exists - we don't create new redirects just in case someone might misspell it but once the redirect exists, we keep it until it's in the way of something else. Please stop nominating these. Keep harmless redirect. Rossami 23:20, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. And read Wikipedia:redirects . Mikkalai 23:30, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Keep, actually rollback to version by User: Adam Bishop. The redirect was appropriate. -- PFHLai 23:38, 2004 Sep 8 (UTC)

The choice of "lazer" was deliberate, it is not a spelling mistake because laser is an acronym. However spelling mistakes are not harmless:

• If the main page is moved then one can get redirects to redirects and it is always better to incrementally maintain the database than have to make many changes all at once.
• Spelling mistakes in redirects should not be encouraged because the redirects name will be usually be wrong on the page from which the link originates. This is bad for several reasons:
  • It is reasonable to assume that if a word exists as a page name that the spelling of that name is correct particularly if it a specialist word or proper noun which is not in a standard dictionary eg Perl with a link from Parl because it may be that one would not know which is correct. Following each link just to check the spelling is silly.
  • It annoys many people who can spell and tends to make them trust the text less -- not a good thing for Wikipedia.
  • children read these pages and if they copy the wrong spelling they loose marks at school.
    • wrong spelling are only in redirect articles. Usually we clean these from article bodies. Besides, this argument is independent of redirect issue, isn't it?. Mikkalai 05:06, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No they are linked because wrong spellings in articles tend to be the reason that redirected pages are created in the first place. See what I wrote above: It is reasonable to assume that if a word exists as a page name Philip Baird Shearer 23:19, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• • it makes searching the data base more difficult not less. If I am searching for all the Emperors who were murdered by the praetorian guard it does not help if there are half a dozen different spelling of "praetorian" (or is it "petorian" or "pratorian" or "pretorian" or "preaterian" etc?) on different pages.
    • It is often a painstaking job to replace one spelling by another in multitude of articles produced by hundreds of people, each wityh his own preferences, starting fom English vs. American. From time to time we (well, e.g., I) browse for some nasty misspelling and kill it. But we cannot prevent from someone else entering it somewhere else. You ave to try and imagine the sheer volume of the project. I think in future there will be tools to maintain consistency, but so far it works as it is now. Thank you for your concern. Mikkalai 05:06, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Which is why it should be done incrementally, which was my reason for this request to delete, because I had been fixing praetorian. Neither "Theater" or "Theatre" is wrong and a redirect is useful. But a redirect from "Therter" to "Theater" is IMHO harmful for the credibility of Wikipedia because it encourages people to link to spelling mistakes. Philip Baird Shearer 23:19, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

So I see no good reason for keeping misspelt stale (no longer used in this case because I altered the pages which linked to these) redirects. As the majority of people who have voted, judging by the tone of their postings, must have pondered these and other points for much longer than I have and come to a different conclusion, I shall bow to their superior wisdom and say no more. Philip Baird Shearer 13:59, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Philip - Take a look at Wikipedia:Redirects for deletion. If you want to pursue this, you should do it there. But for now, do we have your permission to remove these requests from this VfD page? -- Netoholic @ 00:20, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yes. But please allow 12-24 hours for people to read what I have just postedPhilip Baird Shearer 13:59, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

end moved discussion