Last modified: 2011-03-13 17:45:58 UTC
Previously, if you had Template:A that redirected to Template:B, uses of {{A}} would show up in Special:Whatlinkshere/A and on the page it's used on as a use of A. Now it only shows up on Special:Whatlinkshere/B. This makes it alot harder to tell if a redirect has been orphaned. This behavior has changes within the last couple of months and seems limited to template redirects only.
Upping to high priority. This is making maintenance tasks quite difficult. We should be able to see whether any page is linking to a redirect or using it as an inclusion - just the same as we can now see for normal templates.
Closing WORKSFORME. Steps to reproduce: 1) Create page '4428' containing {{A}} 2) Create Template:A containing #redirect [[Template:B]] 3) Create Template:B containing some plaintext At this point shows: Templates used on 4428: A Whatlinkshere for A: 4428 (inclusion) Whatlinkshere for B: Template:A (redirect page) ..4428 (inclusion) 4) Edit 4428 again, adding some random plaintext. This updates the link tables. Now shows: Templates used on 4428: A B Whatlinkshere for A: 4428 (inclusion) Whatlinkshere for B: 4428 (inclusion) Template:A (redirect page) ..4428 (inclusion)
Netoholic, it would be useful if you found an couple examples. Edit one and see if it will correctly index the link. It does not appear to be a software issue. See Bug 4549. If it is any consolation, the issue will not get any worse on its own. As Brion has shown, there is no bug.
It works for me now. I'll reopen if I see it pop up again. Thanks.
Reopening AHA - I spoke too soon. Now, while we are now seeing links between pages and template redirects, we're also seeing duplicate entries to both the redirect and the target template. [[Baton Rouge, Louisiana]] calls [[Template:US City infobox]], which has since been renamed to [[Template:Infobox U.S. City]]. [[Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Infobox U.S. City]] shows a link between the Baton Rouge article to both the redirect -and- the target template.
Ideally, we'd rather see only links to the redirect, not to the target of the redirect.
The behaviour described is the intended behaviour. You need links to the target so that the cache is cleared when the target is changed.
It may be intended by the developers, but I can say that this is not desireable to editors. (Remember, the issue changed and I'm referring to the 2006-01-16 06:33 UTC reply above.) Isn't this (traversing redirects to find pages which need caches cleared) something the software could just do internally? Alternatively, just set it up so that links to template redirect targets aren't displayed. They visibly clutter Whatlinkshere and the edit form, and add confusion factor. Maintenances of the Template namespace is slowed because of this, both with bots and manually, because Whatlinkshere shows this doubling. [[Baton Rouge, Louisiana]] does not include or link to [[Template:Infobox U.S. City]], and so should not show up in [[Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Infobox U.S. City]].
The tables include everything that's used on the page, by design.
Brion's comment is exactly why the behavior is unexpected. [[Template:Infobox U.S. City]] is not used on [[Baton Rouge, Louisiana]] - a redirect is used instead. Why should an editor see links to the redirect target when it's not being directly used? Normal pages don't work that way, and neither should templates. It doesn't matter (to me) what's being stored in the templatelinks table... all I care about is that the extraneous ones don't show up on Whatlinkshere or on the edit page in the "templates used on this page" section. All I want to see is the redirect, not its target.
The resource is included in the page. This is the same as the page links, image links, etc...
It is not the same as page links. If [[A]] contains link [[Foo]] which is a redirect to [[Bar]], Special:Whatlinkshere/Bar does NOT show [[A]] directly linking to it... it shows A linking to Foo. Templates work differently in that A would be show linking to both the Bar and Foo. This is confusing and redundant, and is not the way this function used to work. Fix it please.
They show the use of resources. Resources used in the page are included in the links tables. That includes resources used via templates.
Whatever rationale you want to give, editors and template maintainers do not want to see this duplication. It did not previously exist. If a page uses a redirect, we only want to see that in the list of links, not the target of the redirect.
Changing all WONTFIX high priority bugs to lowest priority (no mail should be generated since I turned it off for this.)
