Scratchpad:Shortcut

A shortcut is a specialized type of redirect page that provides an abbreviated wikilink to a project page or one of its sections, usually from the namespace (i.e., the Project namespace). They are commonly used on community pages and talk pages rather than in articles themselves. If there is a shortcut for a page or section, it is usually displayed in an information box labelled shortcuts:, as can be seen at the top of this page.

Shortcuts are created for the convenience of editors. It is possible to create a shortcut for any page at all.

The existence of a shortcut does not imply or prove that the linked page is a policy or guideline.

How to use a shortcut
A shortcut can be entered into the  search box to quickly bring you to a project page. For example, you can type SP:SC into the search box and then press the enter key (or click the magnifying glass icon), to get to the Shortcut page (this page), instead of having to type in the complete phrase. Alternatively, you can use a shortcut in the URL in your browser's address bar. For example, you are currently viewing the Wikipedia:Shortcut page. The URL for this page is. You could then get from here to the Wikipedia:Redirect page by replacing Wikipedia:Shortcut with WP:R in the address bar, followed by pressing the enter key. (If your browser has relative URL entry, simply prefix the shortcut with ./ instead of having to edit the existing URL.)

Shortcuts are presented in all capital letters (ALL CAPS); however, the search box is case-insensitive. For example, in the search box, you can type wp:r, instead of WP:R. However, when using the URL method (or when making links) it is generally necessary to match the capitalization of the shortcut itself.

Readability
Shortcuts are often used on talk pages in their abbreviated form, without any piped links, decreasing readability for the general reader. For example, some editors are familiar with the bulk of the Wikipedia namespace shortcuts, even recognizing what they stand for on sight; however, others are faced with pages full of incomprehensible jargon, the meanings of which are not immediately decipherable, if the reader happens to be offline.

While shortcuts can help with linking, it is best, when referring to a project page, to be mindful of the general reader and not use the shortcuts as a title, without piping their links. For example, the piped link: shortcuts, gives readers an idea of the subject of the target page, while just using the abbreviation WP:SHC is unintelligible to those unfamiliar with the term. For this reason, many shortcuts are also created as common English words that are easily identifiable and memorable.

Link boxes
Small link boxes, listing the names of the page's shortcuts, appear at the top of many pages, especially those on policies and guidelines. A shortcut link box can be added to a page, by placing the template  at the top of the page's text, while editing.

The point of these template boxes is not to list every single redirect for any given page (indeed, that's what Special:Whatlinkshere is for); instead, they generally should list only one or two common and easily remembered redirects.

Guideline pages with shortcuts pointing to them typically use ' or the subcat guideline template, such as on this page, instead of the shortcut template '. Another frequently used template is: .

To learn more about the different shortcut box templates and their functions, see documentation at shortcut. Among other things, there are templates for making boxes flow to the left and now, anchors are automatically added, making it much simpler to link to a page section.

How to create a shortcut
The abbreviations "WP:" and "wp:" for the namespace "Wikipedia:" are automatically translated by the Wikipedia servers, so they work anyway regardless of redirects. Similarly "WT:" and "wt:" are automatically translated to the namespace "Wikipedia talk:". Thus WP:TS = TS.

Note: The following is an example, the shortcut WP:TS already exists.

Say you want to create the shortcut WP:TS to an existing page like Template standardisation. Then create the desired new TS page with a single line:


 *  #REDIRECT Template standardisation 

Many shortcuts are acronyms, others are abbreviations, quite a lot are simply WP:BAD, but technically they are redirections.

Please note, when creating a shortcut for a category, it is necessary to insert an additional colon (":") at the beginning of the link, as follows:


 *  #REDIRECT Category:Redirects from shortcut 

Procedures
Shortcut class redirects should be tagged with R from shortcut so they will auto-categorize in Category:Redirects from shortcuts. Like this:


 *  #REDIRECT Pagename 

Changing shortcuts
Technically that's easy. All it takes is to click on the shortcut wherever it is, on the page it leads to (a shortcut is a redirect) click on the "redirected from" link (forcing &amp;redirect=no), edit the target #REDIRECT [&#91;Wikipedia:Whatever&#93;], then add if that expression doesn't already appear. But there are some potential traps and pitfalls:
 * 1) If the shortcut is already listed on List of shortcuts or a similar list like Shortcuts to talk pages, please update that entry showing the new target page.
 * 2) If the old target page mentions its shortcut, then that also should be updated, typically in or similar Wikipedia header templates.
 * 3) If you wish to usurp an existing shortcut that's already in use, you should take into account how active its target page is. For example, if you just created a WikiProject, and want a specific shortcut for it, but the one you want is already in use by another WikiProject, it's generally recommended to post a message on that project's talk page asking the members if you may usurp their shortcut link, even if the project is tagged as inactive.
 * 4) Above all check the shortcut backlinks with "what links here"; changing a shortcut used elsewhere can be highly disruptive. If you do change a shortcut under these circumstances, you should be sure to change it in the pages that linked to it as well, so that they link to the old target. If they were used in any closed deletion discussions, it is not a good idea then to change the redirect because these discussion cannot be edited.
 * 5) 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; so ask about it on the shortcut's talk page.
 * 6) For controversial cases, go to Requests for comment.

List of shortcuts
An incomplete list of shortcuts can be found at List of shortcuts, and as expected this page has itself various shortcuts like WP:WP, WP:CUTS.

Other shortcuts for shortcut lists are WP:WPR for List of shortcuts/Project shortcuts and WT:WT for Shortcuts to talk pages. Obviously many shortcuts are (ab)used to make a WP:POINT and best described by WP:WOTTA.

On Meta shortcuts start with WM:, the list is at m:WM:WM. As shown, links to shortcuts on other projects work as expected, but redirects (incl. shortcuts) to pages on other projects won't work—this former feature was abused and hence it has been disabled.

Use special pages to find uncategorized or unlisted pages starting with a given prefix, e.g. Special:Prefixindex/CAT: for some category shortcuts.

List of prefixes
The following abbreviations (namespace aliases) are automatically translated by the Wikipedia servers. They are case-insensitive (so wp: or wP: or Wp: have the same meaning as WP:).

Commonly used pseudo-namespaces include the following.

The following pseudo-namespaces are less commonly used, for a variety of reasons:

Note: The links in the table go to a page where the term prefix is not used in the meaning as it has in this section. Rather the term prefix there means, as it does for the search parameter, the beginning string of characters in a title, whether that string ends before, during or after the colon character in a page name.