Wikipedia talk:Shortcut index

Discussions before 2006

About Wikipedia:Shortcuts (edit talk links history)

Making this page

Thank you Patrick for making this page. I was wondering if were some I didn't know about. I moved it from WP:WP as that is officially in the article namespace. I think it's ok to have redirects in that namespace, but as this was an actual article, I thought it should go in the Wikipedia namespace. Angela 20:57, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Yes, you are right. Thanks. - Patrick 19:35, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I like these shortcuts, I think I will start a WT:WT list for some of the most used Wikipedia talk pages. Dori | Talk 17:51, Dec 15, 2003 (UTC)

RfA takes you to Requests for Adminiship too. Why not put that even shorter shorthand there instead? - Mark 04:13, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

I think the reason only WP: ones are listed is because they was supposed to be part of a pseudo namespace, whereas things like RfA are in the main namespace, and generally discouraged. Unfortunately, there was opposition to making [[WP:]] pages automatically redirect to [[Wikipedia:]] ones as it was thought to be too Wikipedia-specific to go into MediaWiki. Angela. 22:04, May 13, 2004 (UTC)

I don't understand. I don't know much about MediaWiki, but isn't it offered in a "patch" form? That is to say, should a security fix be released for the software, shouldn't it be possible to just replace those parts of the code that are vulnerable to the patch? The way I see it, this could easily be implemented just on Wikipedia. From what I've seen, there are other modifications to Wikipedia when it's compared to other wikis based on the software - to start with, the logo at the top-left of every page, and the fact that it says "edit this page" at the top of each page rather than just "edit" as in most wikis (like Wikibooks).

Shortcut template

See the discussion at Template_talk:Shortcut.

WP:~~~~~

Is WP:~~~~~ another shortcut? ~~~~~ gives the system time see here: 21:43, 2004 Oct 26 (UTC). Regards Gangleri 21:43, 2004 Oct 26 (UTC)

That's automatic conversion of wikitext, not a shortcut. Angela. 15:52, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks Angela! ~~~ expands to the signature Gangleri | T | Th is also automatic conversion of wikitext. Regards Gangleri | T | Th 01:55, 2004 Nov 11 (UTC)

Category:WP Shortcut

Now that Categories exist, why not attach [[Category:WP Shortcut]] to shortcuts and let the Category system list/arrange the shortcuts? (SEWilco 08:13, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC))

A category wouldn't show where the shortcut goes to, so it wouldn't be very useful. Goplat 16:00, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Fix links, Question for Update

I fixed the links for Guide to Deletion. Should the links and redirects for VfD be updated for AfD? Psy guy ^(talk) 18:08, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Reorganization

Its good to see these working out so well, but I'd like to see these reorganized to weed out redundancies - particularly the multiple links to WP:BJAODN, etc. Something like: Wikipedia:Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense - WP:BJAODN || WP:-) Sound like a good idea or no? -Ste|vertigo 10:31, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

About half done - all the basic sections are there. Stuff needs to be sorted from the various section to the specific sections where they belong. Shouldnt be too much ambiguity - if there is, leave it under various. I used Vim in a vertical split (side by side) editing of the same article, which allows for easier handling of large articles. -Ste|vertigo 11:55, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Looks great! I'm currently trying to move the WP:1000 and WP:Top1000 to the same line, as they link to the same place, but I don't seem to be able to get through to the server... -Falcorian 18:57, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I've started a major reorganization. Sadly, I don't have time to finish now, but I'll be done ASAP (probably in two days). What I'm first doing is placing the name of the page before the redirect. The reasons for this are:

1. Easier alphabetization—otherwise, as there are multiple redirects for each page, we'd have multiple entries for each page.
2. Easier to find page.
3. Easier to eliminate duplicates.

I'm then going to delete duplicates and put everything in the right section (there's a few more that need to be created as well). I'm really sorry that I can't finish now what with Christmas Eve and all, but it'll be done in the next few days, I promise. Blackcap (talk) 23:02, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

I've finished moving the pages before the redirects. I'll be alphabetizing, deleting duplicates, and checking the redirects in the next few days. Blackcap (talk) 19:50, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

I've finished! The section that needs the most work now is #General information, help, and tutorials, and just needs to be split up a bit more. Other than that, I think it's all right. Blackcap (talk) 05:17, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Great job Blackcap. The only niggle I have is I think 'Redirects to page' should just be 'Redirect(s)'. -Ste|vertigo 09:06, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

That sounds fine. I don't have time to do so right now myself, but please go right ahead and change it if you so please. Blackcap (talk) 07:12, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Linking to page and not to shortcut

It doesn't make sense to, when showing a shortcut such as WP:CSD, have the link pipe to the actual page (in this example, Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion). Since that's how this is being done, there's two links directly to the page and no links to the shortcut, even under the shortcut header. I'm changing that so that there's one to each in the logical places—please revert me and accept my apologies if this has already been discussed and deemed stupid for some reason. Blackcap (talk) 19:47, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Done! Blackcap (talk) 19:53, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Portal shortcuts

Now that portals have their own namespace, is there any reason not to create portal shortcuts with only "P:" (like P:Trains) instead of "WP:" (WP:Trains)? I was tempted to just go ahead and add the shortcut for the Trains portal, but I don't see anyone else doing that with other portals yet. Slambo (Speak) 01:34, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I think that that sounds like a good idea. Why not go ahead and try it? Redirects are cheap, anyhow, and if there's a reason we should stop then they can always be re-redirected or deleted. Blackcap (talk) 07:16, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Should subst: be used with this?

I've been getting conflicting feedback on when to use subst: and when not to. Is this a case where it should?--◀Puck^talk▶ 22:07, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean? Use subst with what? If you just need general info on substing, see Wikipedia:Template substitution. Blackcap (talk) 15:11, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Don't panic

There is a new page Wikipedia:Don't panic. It is suggested for policy, but not yet accepted. Its shortcuts are WP:PANIC and WP:DON'T. Where should it god? Daniel (☎) 13:33, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

WikiProjects

Should Shortcuts to Wikiprojects be added; why not right? I dont know if this hasa already been decided though. --Jared ^[T]/_[+] 22:53, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

WP:GF

Hi all, User:Omniplex changed the link to WP:GF to Wikipedia:Grapefruit. I changed it back explaining the link to WP:AGF was much more valuable. He reverted saying my edit was vandalism. Notwithstanding the fact that he doesn't know the definition of vandalism, and reverting without justifying his position is fairly rude, I do believe the link to WP:AGF is more valuable. Thoughts? - Taxman ^Talk 11:24, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I changed it after it was added here (not by me) claiming to stand for Wikipedia:Grapefruit as confirmed on that page, but actually leading to the unrelated WP:AGF. The GF page is no nonsense, I've never edited it and didn't know it before. A shortcut should certainly work as expected if it's listed here. WP:AGF already has two shortcuts, it has no business to grab a third. -- Omniplex 13:12, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

For whatever reason, I never thought to check here before changing the redirect to something more useful. The link here should be changed to and so should anything else pointing to WP:GF. WP:AGF is obviously much more valuable to link to as it is a very important core guideline, and Wikipedia:Grapefruit is just an essay that isn't linked to from many things. On a wider note, please substantiate your edits and don't call things vandalism that aren't. - Taxman ^Talk 13:23, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not planning to use WP:GF often, reading it once is fine but also enough, and I probably won't use the shortcut in discussions. The same is true for WP:AGF and WP:FAITH.

The page I'm really interested in, as visible in the edit history and the (failed) nomination as featured list, is WP:WP - I try to make sure that the nonsense doesn't get out of hand, and that added shortcuts actually work as promised. That wasn't the case for WP:GF, because somebody stole it for an unrelated page. Therefore I fixed it. Determining the "value" of pages by the number of their shortcuts is a dubious idea, but if you insist on it just create an unused third shortcut for WP:AGF, don't steal WP:GF. Maybe WP:ASGOOD is free (?). -- Omniplex 14:08, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Working as promised can simply be covered by fixing what it links to here. It was not stolen, it was changed to link to the more important page. The issue isn't getting more links to AGF, it is getting shortcuts to link to the most important, logical thing someone would be looking for. Grapefruit is not it. You have done nothing to justify the link to Grapefruit, so I'm changing it back and I'll fix all the links and references to it. - Taxman ^Talk 14:22, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Just checking the links to AGF I found several redirects from the main namespace to it, plus a third shortcut WP:ASG. The fourth shortcut WP:AFG. I've added them. The Wikipedia:Grapefruit page still says WP:GF, maybe you're not yet ready with fixing all links via WP:GF (?). -- Omniplex 13:07, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Changing shortcuts

Technically that's easy, click on the shortcut whereever it is, on the page it leads to (a shortcut is a redirect) click on the "redirected from" link (forcing &redirect=no), edit the target #REDIRECT [[Wikipedia:Whatever]], add {{R from shortcut}} if necessary, ready. But there are some potential traps and pitfalls:

1. If it's already listed on WP:WP or a similar list like WT:WT please update that entry showing the new target page.
2. If the old target page mentions its shortcut that also has to be updated, often in a {{Shortcut|[[WP:WOTTA]]}} template.
3. Above all check the shortcut backlinks with "what links here", changing a shortcut used elsewhere can be highly disruptive.
4. If it has no backlink folks might still use it directly with search forms, if you're not 100% sure that the old target is unused maybe ask on its talk page.
5. For controversial cases there is a "redirects for deletion" procedure WP:RFD.

-- Omniplex 13:50, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

New policy?

Hi; I've drafted a new proposal to make shortcuts easier on readers: Wikipedia:Full policy links. Let me know what you think. Tlogmer ( talk / contributions ) 22:50, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Move to Wikipedia:List of Shortcuts?

This article is a listing of shortcuts, Wikipedia:Shortcut is a description of what shortcuts actually are. Wouldn't it be less confusing to move them to less similar names? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 07:35, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• Strongly agree - I came to the talk page to propose the exact same thing. Lists should always be titled as such - Jack (talk) 09:46, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
• Agree - Sounds like a good idea to me too. It would help avoid confusion. delldot | talk 23:37, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
• Requested move (rather than just doing it myself, as WP: articles tend to be controversial) - Jack (talk) 13:35, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was PAGE MOVED per discussion below. -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:54, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

---

Wikipedia:Shortcuts → Wikipedia:List of Shortcuts — This article is a listing of shortcuts, Wikipedia:Shortcut is a description of what shortcuts actually are. Wouldn't it be less confusing to move them to less similar names? - Jack (talk) 13:35, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Survey

Add  # '''Support'''  or  # '''Oppose'''  on a new line in the appropriate section followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~. Please remember that this survey is not a vote, and please provide an explanation for your recommendation.

Survey - in support of the move

1. Support definitely. Wikipedia:Shortcuts and Wikipedia:Shortcut are much the same, this surely causes confusion. "List of Shortcuts" "List of shortcuts" is a more accurate name. Please move. Update: Yeah! I failed to notice the capital letter → support version with shortcuts in lower case. Cheers! – PeaceNT 05:53, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
2. Support sure. --Yath 14:15, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
3. Support Seems fine to me. -- Ned Scott 19:17, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
4. Support a move to Wikipedia:List of shortcuts. There is no reason to capitalize "shortcuts", as per WP:NC and WP:MOS. Prolog 12:13, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
5. Support with lowercase letter s. --WikidSmaht (talk) 08:45, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
6. Support. Little s. Let's do it. delldot | talk 01:32, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Survey - in opposition to the move

Discussion

Add any additional comments:

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

m:

What is m: , wikt: , and so on ? Where can I see a help, manual or similar page about them ?. Regards. --193.144.127.248 12:40, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Hey. I believe you're looking for Wikipedia:Interwikimedia link. Prolog 12:46, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

CNR

I brought up this request on Category talk:Wikipedia articles needing copy edit a while ago and haven't heard anything from anyone, so I figured I'd bring it here. I'd like to make a shortcut to Category:Wikipedia articles needing copy edit, something like CAT:COPY, CAT:CE, WP:CEDIT, or WP:COPYED. They would be cross namespece redirects, but I'd find any of them useful (I can never remember that thing's name). Any objections to me making them? Thanks, delldot | talk 01:38, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, apparently no one is violently opposed, so I'm going to go ahead. Let me know if there's any problem. delldot | talk 06:46, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Nice table formatting

Whoever did the graphical improvements to the list, really did a good job. The tables are easy to read and to reference. Kudos. The Transhumanist 13:49, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Some changes that need to be made

I don't know how to properly edit the table. WP:V and WP:NOR have been replaced by WP:A, this ought to be reflected in this article. --Xyzzyplugh 01:59, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the two "old pages" and added Wikipedia:Attribution. WP:V, WP:OR etc are put as the shorcuts of that page. I think it's fixed now. PeaceNT 14:51, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

proposal to delete all policy redirects

Where would I make the proposal to delete all policy redirects (or propose a policy that dictates to mark them up as text, at least on article talk pages), because I believe capitalized letters are thrown around far too often (as in the rather uncivil one-word response "WP:CIVIL") or the apparently bad-faithed WP:AGF) and frequently add to the escalation of content disputes? —KNcyu38 (talk • contribs) 05:37, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Your best bet would be to go to Wikipedia:Bots and try to get a bot approved for searching and replacing shortcuts with their full pagenames. The bot would need to skip Wikipedia's directories (which display shortcuts), and skip the Wikipedia:List of shortcuts. Shortcuts are a part of Wikipedia culture, and using them helps others memorize them, so it is unlikely you'll be allowed to replace them. Good luck though. The Transhumanist (talk) 06:59, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

We should at least try to limit them, though. I mean, shortcuts may be useful for the search box and for the quicker typing of messages in talk pages (and very much so indeed), but is it not beyond their purpose to include them in the policy pages themselves? In my opinion, one ought to be able to make sense from a link to a policy or guideline page, if not from the text, then by hovering over the link. A cryptic shortcut is not at all helpful, and not everyone has Internet speeds sufficiently high to allow them to click on every single unknown shortcut. Newcomers are especially affected by this, as it is often hard for them to understand pages that they really need to. I say that, at least the official pages of Wikipedia should be somehow cleaned up and ridden of shortcuts. Waltham, The Duke of 13:07, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

New Shortcut Prefix Proposal

Let me know what you guys and gals think at WP:VPT#New Shortcut Prefix Proposal. Jmfangio| ►Chat  09:40, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Userfication

I'd like to add a link on this page to Wikipedia:Userfication, which I wrote about a year and a half ago (with some input from others in the community) on Userfication. The shortcuts are WP:UFY and WP:USERFY. However, the piece has not been established as official policy or an official guideline. Can it be included here, and if so, where should it be? Cheers! bd2412 T 03:15, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Hello? Anyone watching this page? bd2412 T 00:55, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I am not an expert on this part of Wikipedia, but I have looked over Wikipedia:List of shortcuts, and it seems to me to be acceptable to add it under "Other" under "Miscellany". -- Wavelength 05:14, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Hearing no objection, it is done. Cheers! bd2412 T 20:31, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

mass-delete of shortcuts?

Did someone AFD a tun of shortcuts or is it just a temporary glitch? I can't get around anymore :( MURGH ^disc. 20:19, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I looked at the RfD logs for the entire month of November, and no shortcuts whatsoever were deleted during that time period. A couple of them were retargeted, and for one or two there was no consensus. And that's it. I do not know whether any deletions took place earlier, but, personally, I have not noticed any perceptible difference. Waltham, The Duke of 20:28, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

That is surprising. Am I the only one who sees this list, Wikipedia:List of shortcuts, nearly all-red? Thanks for checking. MURGH ^disc. 20:44, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

It looks OK to me - the only redlink I see is WP:Z, which is as yet unallocated. Maybe it was a server hiccup? ZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 20:50, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

That's what I see too, now. Weird and embarrassing. Server hiccup huh? Sorry for causing the ruckus folks ;^) MURGH ^disc. 21:22, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh, never mind about that. Every message I write raises my edit count by one, so I am happy to help. (evil grin) Waltham, The Duke of 16:11, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Why do you think I replied? ^_^ No worries. ZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 16:18, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Instructions

I have started a cleanup in this page, but I am not exactly sure how to process it (as I haven't worked on redirects before and there are no instructions or guidelines here). My basic questions are:

1. Are we supposed to list every single shortcut for a page? I am mostly asking this because there are some shortcuts for pages with one-word names; in many of these cases, the only benefit a shortcut offers to editors is the ability to type eight letters less ("ikipedia").
2. What order ought the shortcuts to be sorted in? Alphabetical? Length?
3. How exactly do we treat pages that have been renamed (moved), merged, or deleted (and their shortcuts redirected)? The current situation in the page is almost as complex as England's local government system, and I am not exactly certain about what I should or should not do to the pages' entries.

Please advise. Waltham, The Duke of 09:25, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Anybody? Waltham, The Duke of 10:33, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Seriously? Waltham, The Duke of 02:17, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

0: Well, first of all I think the lists should be sorted by pagename.

2: Then what order the shortcuts for each page is sorted in doesn't matter since it is just a handful of shortcuts per page. For instance when I inserted Wikipedia:Line break handling then I did put WP:NOWRAP before WP:NOBR since WP:NOWRAP is the shortcut I recommend and that is the shortcut shown in the shortcut box on the page itself.

1 and 3: I don't think we should completely list all shortcuts for all pages. I think it is up to the ones who take care of each page to decide which shortcuts they want to advertise here (and in the shortcut boxes on the actual pages). You know, I am thinking of adding some extra shortcuts to Wikipedia:Line break handling just in case, as a service to the users. But I don't really want those extra shortcuts to be used since they are less clear so I don't want to advertise them anywhere.

4: Also, some pages have shortcuts to some of their page sections, like WP:NBSP which is a shortcut to a section in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) = WP:MOSNUM. And WP:NBSP is of course not listed in that page's entry here, since that would be confusing since it is not a shortcut to the page itself but just to a section.

--David Göthberg (talk) 15:30, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Now, that was enlightening. Thank you very much, Mr Göthberg.

Clarification on point 3: you mentioned shortcuts for sections, but, as far as shortcuts for proper pages are concerned, should we use those pages' proper names at all times? It is the most sensible thing to do, as I see it, but there are so many relics of old names that it makes one suspect this could be intentional (at some level). Waltham, The Duke of 18:57, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Disclaimer: I am fairly new to this shortcut stuff, so all I say here is of course just my personal views. Although I have been editing Wikipedia for years.

3: Yes, I agree, the left column should show the full name of the pages and redirects should not be shown in the left column. That is, "full pagename" redirects should not be listed at all.

2: I just realised one more reason to put the recommend shortcut as the first shortcut: When we make those tables sortable (just like at Wikipedia:Shortcuts to talk pages) then the right column will sort on the recommended shortcut names if they come first. --David Göthberg (talk) 21:40, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, this is exactly why I put MOSCO before WPMoS for WikiProject Manual of Style in the talk page list: it would bring it right below the Manual of Style itself.

Anyway, thank you for your insight. And, personal views or not, these will probably stick, not only because they actually make sense, but also because they are the only aid to the random editor trying to understand the workings of this page. There is no documentation, you see; all they have is this talk page, and there aren't any detailed instructions here, either. Waltham, The Duke of 01:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

A late comment about shortcuts to sections: I prefer to make shortcuts to sections on a page by using name anchors off of one shortcut for the whole page. That way we don't proliferate our redirect pages. For example, by using one redirect page for the Editor's index (WP:EIW), John Broughton and I were able to make links to multiple entries throughout the index, such as WP:EIW#Main, WP:EIW#Learn, etc. To put the anchors into the Editor's index page, we use span tags. The WP:NOT page uses the same method, which is where I saw it originally. The idea with the Editor's index is to display the shortcuts with the {{shortcut}} template, thus making it easy to copy shortcuts for entries that would otherwise be difficult to refer to, so we can paste the shortcuts into links in our answers to questions on the Help desk, and other discussions elsewhere. Anyway, if everyone followed the method of making one redirect page to serve as a master shortcut per page, and then making section-specific shortcuts off that, then we wouldn't have so much proliferation of section-specific shortcuts as separate redirect pages. Of course I don't expect everyone to follow that method. --Teratornis (talk) 05:23, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Misdirecting shortcut

Currently WP:TALK redirects to Wikipedia:Talk page, not Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines, as this list suggests it should. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 08:04, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

As you rectified this error a week ago, I fail to see the point of this message (unless either your account or your body was temporarily taken over by some other entity at the time, in which case your amnesia is fully justified). There are, of course, mistakes in the page, but there is an ongoing attempt to correct them—as with the rest of Wikipedia. It is mostly a matter of updates (or the lack thereof), rather than anything else. Pages and their shortcuts tend to move around more often than Hogwarts's suits of armour, you know. Waltham, The Duke of 09:48, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

My bad -- I previously redirected WP:TALK, and then got confused when I typed in wp:talk and it took me to Wikipedia:Talk page, making me think that something had gone wrong in my previous redirect (case sensitivity in article titles strikes again). Should wp:talk likewise be redirected to Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines, or left where it is? Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 10:08, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I... have absolutely no idea. I am quite unfamiliar with the practices here myself. I do not know whether these small-caps shortcuts are a relic of the past meant to be deleted, or are still considered to be a useful aid that ought to be documented here. (I know there are some shortcuts still in the mainspace, for special cases (like 3RR), but these seem to be rare). I should say that, for the time, it might be better to leave the shortcut as it is. Waltham, The Duke of 10:22, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I think you two already understand this, but many others that will read your comments might wonder, so here is a little explanation from me:

Well, MediaWiki is partially case sensitive. It works like this:

The namespace prefixes "wp:" and "WP:" is automatically translated to "Wikipedia:" and then the first character after that is made upper case. So the shortcut "wp:talk" really means "Wikipedia:Talk" and that page has been manually redirected somewhere since it is used as a shortcut. And the shortcut "WP:TALK" is translated to "Wikipedia:TALK" and then that page has also been manually redirected somewhere since it is used as a shortcut.

The problem here is that the lower case shortcuts are likely to get name collisions with possible real page names. That is, it is somewhat likely that someone one day wants to make a page named "Wikipedia:Talk" but not as likely that he wants to make a page named "Wikipedia:TALK".

My conclusion is that the risk of name collisions is the reason why shortcuts should always be in upper-case. To avoid "hogging" good page names.

For a number of other technical reasons it is not accepted to just invent other new prefixes for shortcuts. See WP:SHORT#List of prefixes for a list of accepted prefixes and what they are used for.

And another thing worth noting is that one should not change where an existing shortcut points to, since usually it has already been used on lots of talk pages and it will cause confusion when the shortcut later on points somewhere else.

--David Göthberg (talk) 02:55, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

At least these can be rectified, even if not always easily. What about the poor edit summaries? These cannot be changed in any way. (I thought an extra argument would be useful.) Waltham, The Duke of 04:44, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Problems with WP:BLP1E shortcut

Please look at this discussion about what to do with a messy shortcut problem: Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)#Shortcut WP:BLP1E should not link here Editors should know this to avoid confusion, and I suspect a lot of miscommunication has been caused by it. Three months ago (Dec. 11), the WP:BLP1E link was changed from a section of WP:BLP to WP:BIO. Editors who have thought about WP shortcuts could probably contribute something valuable to the discussion, so please take a look. Noroton (talk) 00:30, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Moving Manual of Style shortcuts into their own section and table

Would anyone object if I made a subsection of Wikipedia:Shortcut index#Guidelines specifically for Manual of Style pages and their shortcuts? I ask because the current list of Manual of Style pages and their shortcuts in the table appears to be incomplete. Compare the numbers of MOS pages and shortcuts:

• Special:Prefixindex/Wikipedia:Manual of Style - Manual of Style page and its subpages
• Special:Prefixindex/MOS: - shortcuts

I would like to add the missing MOS pages and shortcuts to the table, while also adding new shortcuts for the MOS pages that don't have shortcuts now. I think this would be easier to do if the Guidelines section had a separate subsection for MOS pages. Otherwise, the large and growing number of MOS page entries might overwhelm the rest of the table if we list them along with the other guideline pages. This is not a burning need, it would just be more convenient I think, so if anybody has a solid reason for not doing it, that's fine with me. --Teratornis (talk) 05:07, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

It sounds interesting and reasonable. My personal opinion is "go ahead"; if people are not happy we can always change the page back. (If, of course, you should prefer to avoid the risk of doing work which could be undone, you can always post the blueprints here, although I do not find it necessary myself.) Waltham, The Duke of 19:01, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Automatic list

I compiled User:b_jonas/Pages with shortcuts. It's not perfect, but it may still help. – b_jonas 18:50, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:B_jonas/Pages_with_shortcuts Rikyprayogo (talk) 05:56, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

How many?

Does anyone know roughly how many shortcuts there actually are? Steven Walling 05:33, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Good question. So lets do an estimate. Here's some numbers for you:

• {{shortcut}} is transcluded on 11,928 pages. About 1000 of them is in user space, most of the user space ones are faulty usage so doesn't count.
• {{shortcut-l}} is transcluded on 10 pages.
• {{policy shortcut}} is transcluded on 171 pages.
• {{ombox/Shortcut}} is transcluded on 1707 pages.

So the we have about 11,928-1000+10+171+1707 = 12,816 uses of the shortcut boxes. I checked a handful of cases randomly, and it seems that about half of the shortcut box transclusions are faulty usage, usually boxes used to show links to another page instead of to the page itself. But of the ones that were correct many contained two or three shortcuts. So this hints that there might be about 12,000 shortcuts, give or take some thousands.

The good news is that when checking the shortcuts in the shortcut boxes I noticed that almost all of the shortcuts were tagged with {{R from shortcut}}. That template adds the shortcuts to Category:Redirects from shortcuts, which has 11,555 pages. Since almost all the shortcuts I randomly checked had the template it seems that number seems trustworthy. So that also indicates about 12,000 shortcuts.

Of course, we have no idea how many shortcuts there are that are not marked with {{R from shortcut}} AND not shown in a shortcut box. Such shortcuts are probably only known by and used by a small number of users. We can only hope that the number of such shortcuts are low.

There are also a number redirects that are fairly short forms of the page name, but not upper-case, so they are kind of in-between normal redirects and shortcuts.

--David Göthberg (talk) 14:01, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you so much for parsing all that. You rock! Steven Walling 20:16, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Seconded e^xtra999 (talk) 07:24, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Mainspace

Is there a reason why an article (or perhaps its talk page) in mainspace should not have a shortcut? Ben MacDui 17:26, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Expansion of Portal Shortcuts?

This is a very limited number of Portals and an eclectic collection. Would it be frowned upon to expand this to create new shortcuts for other Portals? I'm not arguing to be comprehensive and cover all Portals, just a few of the more active ones. What do you think? Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 14:59, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Shortcut alphabet

The section Wikipedia:Shortcut index#Shortcut alphabet has a table of all one-letter shortcuts along with their targets and a brief description. The problem is that some of those targets have changed (like WP:L, which was retargeted in 2015), while for others the descriptions are no longer true (for example, Wikipedia:Mediation is not a policy). Maybe we could try to go through the entries and update them, but I'm wondering what need is there to list their targets in the first place. Such presentation makes sense for most of the index above: there the shortcuts are grouped by topic, so the targets obviously need to be specified. But here, the shortcuts are grouped solely by form, and they don't have anything in common with one another apart from their length. And they aren't even all significant – apart from obvious staples like WP:V, there are plenty of mid-usage essays, and some like WP:J probably rank among the least commonly used shortcuts. Wouldn't it be better if the shortcuts here were presented in a flat list, as is done in the sections below? – Uanfala (talk) 01:44, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

New Columns

Suggestion is to add columns for plain language description, type (policy, guideline), Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 16:41, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

CAT decapitalized

Couldn't the cat: (CAT:) without all caps work? In es.wikipedia and commons.wikimedia it works. Also, since {{tp}} exists, couldn't tp:/TP: also work? ISO 639:tp doesn't exist yet so it's harmless. Web-julio (talk) 05:56, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Oh I just noticed, none of these work actually, these shortcuts are not automatic, they are redirects manually created, totally different from es:cat: or c:cat, which work for every category. Web-julio (talk) 06:00, 19 October 2024 (UTC)