Commons talk:File renaming

Incomprehensible wording

About file-redirects it says, "Policy never requires you to suppress the redirect, suppression of redirects is entirely optional" and then just below it, "Suppression of redirects is only allowed in the following cases". Can't we have a better wording? _Regards, Aafi ^(talk) 07:17, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Aafi, this wording confused me at the beginning and makes no sense at all if you read the rest of the section carefully. "Policy never requires you to suppress the redirect, suppression of redirects is entirely optional" should simply be removed. A redirect should always be left and the redirection should only be suppressed for the three points mentioned. Redirects also don’t take up a lot of storage space. In other words, on other Commons help page is mentionend "redirects are cheap and don't take up a lot of web space", but I can't currently tell you where I read that. איז「Ysa」 • For love letters and other notes 10:26, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

@Ysabella, yes redirects are cheap but everything doesn't usually need a redirect, particularly when the previous name is vandalism/ or if it would never ever be used again (orphaned redirect?). However, if we say leaving a redirect is optional, we cannot mandate "three must-only places" beneath it. Perhaps better to say, redirects should usually be kept, unless they're blatant typos/vandalism/or meet any CSD criteria. _Regards, Aafi ^(talk) 10:50, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Great! Hahahah, cool you found it, thank you. Then I was wrong and it wasn't here but in the English language Wikipedia. This sentence would definitely be a useful addition at the beginning to this section. Your new suggestion for the description sounds also good for me. איז「Ysa」 • For love letters and other notes 11:27, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

@Aafi: I agree with you on this.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 11:27, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

@Ysabella: I think your interpretation is correct. I think the first half of the sentence is fine, "Policy never requires you to suppress the redirect." I think the second half of the sentence is re-stating the same thing but it seems that it's ambiguous so I'd be quite happy to lose "suppression of redirects is entirely optional". --bjh21 (talk) 12:58, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Correct, in the end this sentence seems to lead to some file movers generally suppressing a redirect if the image is not used in a project and others, like me, always creating a redirect. I don't think that adjusting the sentence will therefore cause a major change, those who want to suppress a redirect will continue to do so. איז「Ysa」 • For love letters and other notes 20:23, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I'd like to point out a use case for suppressredirect where its usage could or should be required or even be mandatory, in opposition to what the policy currently says: COM:FR#FR3 cases, at least concerning biological species names. There, leaving a redirect may even be harmful for other people who can be lead to believe that an old filename is a synonym for the correct one. I'd would be wise for our project to incur the small risk of breaking some external links (who are in the editorial responsibility of the external party anyway) instead of propagating false knowledge (or, sardonically, alternative facts). This could be an example for my reasoning. N.b., I did not blindly trust the requester there, but checked the circumstances of the request before I processed it (through the edit history of the requester to gauge his proficiency in entomology and the Anthrenus (subgenus) Wikipedia entry), being ready to disapprove it should need be. Here, the reasoning seemed valid and plausible, so I went on and approved the renaming. Of course, this makes for a thorough but slow working style, but as we renamers shoulder an important part of enhancing Commons' quality, we should IMHO accept this fact. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 02:57, 15 December 2024 (UTC)