defaulting to no consensus across the board. Editors have raised valid concerns about two distinct subsets of the listed redirects, I don't see a way for this to have any sort of clean resolution, other than perhaps keep all, if this discussion were to be relisted. signed, Rosguill talk 20:46, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
Per the outcome of Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 April 2#Redirects indicating "®" status, and the community consensus expressed there regarding the application of Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Trademarks, we should not have redirects purporting to represent the trademark registration status of words. BD2412 T 04:32, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
- Delete: I also can't imagine they're used frequently. I can't even recall the code offhand. Sure there's probably an insert but that doesn't quite help the browser address bar or the search bar, it's just more steps using whatever field like this and then copy and pasted. Just feels more complicated CreecregofLife (talk) 05:21, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
Delete useless redirects that seem to have only been created for the sake of being created. Nobody is going to type "®" or (for example) type "Windows® Vista" in order to get to Windows Vista. There's not even a "®" character on any keyboard and whole point of a redirect is so someone can type something in the search bar as a shortcut to an article (especially if it's got a very long title or if the redirect is an acronym). I say delete all redirects that got "®" in it. —Mythdon (talk • contribs) 05:28, 15 April 2022 (UTC) - changed to keep (see below)
- :For that matter, are there redirects with the copyright symbol in them? If yes, throw them in. If no, all the more reason to get rid of the Registereds CreecregofLife (talk) 05:53, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
- :: {{re|CreecregofLife}} That's my next list. I have to sort through them to make sure there are none that actually should be kept (for example, in this group, I took out A Patch, a Modem, and a Zantac®, because that is the actual name of a work, and not a claim of trademark registration). BD2412 T 06:11, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
- Big Delete Energy – remove all of these as useless because the symbol is not easily typed. Binksternet (talk) 05:31, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
- :On your computer, maybe? It's easy on mine – as easy as characters like å ß ç and ∂ and easier than characters like á, ü and ñ. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:35, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
- Delete as completely pointless; no-one's going to type a longer form in as a short cut anyway. ® SN54129 05:43, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
- Delete all - we have a policy of not using trademark symbols in article name (except, as mentioned above, where the symbol is actually part of the name, like the Big Bang Theory episode), and no-one's going to type one of these by accident. — The Anome (talk) 06:55, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
- Keep all where the ® is following the name without space, delete only those few where a space has been inserted in front of the ® sign (like "Dr. SETI ®"). Some of the comments above show that some editors have an invalidly narrow view on the purposes and uses of redirects per our guidelines and a lack of understanding of semantic web and data mining technologies and how Wikipedia is an important part of it (for the benefit of our readers). The relevant part of MOS:TMRULES, the guideline (not policy), BD2412 most probably was refering to in his nomination, is specifically about article text and citations, not redirects.
: While I do not particularly advocate for the creation of such redirects in the first place, they are in line with several of the listed purposes for why we create redirects per our relevant guideline WP:RPURPOSE, and I think that the editors who created these redirects had valid reasons to create them based on existing guidelines - and we should respect this rather than destroying their contributions and harming some applications (and indirectly ourselves).
: While it is, also in my opinion, unlikely that someone deliberately types the ® in the search box, the symbol might easily be part of a copy & paste action into the search box, as most operating systems include the ® as part of the preceding word when marking words for copying (and while it is possible to avoid this, someone with accessibility issues might have problems doing so).
: The same might happen with automatic lookup/linking tools so it is quite possible that someone ends up with the ® included as part of the resulting link when the original external text happens to include the symbol. It also makes external linking easier (and thereby also aids to address accidental linking), in particular in cases where more label text is following the link text (such as with "Intel® Atom"). Yeah, there are ways to work around this, but one deliberate purpose of redirects is to make it as easy as possible to access our contents, not to make it harder. Also, a redirect like "Speed® Square" will help reverse lookup, as someone may find some other (possibly more specific) contents in external search boxes using "Speed® Square" than using "speed square". This will not only help our readers but also our editors to improve our articles.
: There are external AI & machine reading applications which harvest our redirect system to detect synonyms and other relations between words and contents, and without a redirect pointing one to the other it is more difficult to recognize that "Intel" and "Intel®" are the same, and consequently external contents firming under an "Intel®" label might not be automatically associated as being closely related to contents firming under an "Intel" label. Our redirects help to improve the quality of external contents and external search systems.
: In some cases the symbol can help disambiguation in cases such as "Apple®".
: Some people mentioned that trademarks can change over time. That's true, and that's one of the reason why we do not normally use these symbols in article titles (and prose) because they might not be considered neutral. However, redirects are not articles, and our rules are much relaxed for them (see WP:RNEUTRAL). As an encyclopedia, we are time-agnostic, and by including a ® in a redirect we do not claim that the trademark is currently associated with the term, only that it once was.
: Going through our catalog of valid deletion reasons (WP:RDELETE), I see none of those 10 reasons applying here. Instead, many of the reasons to keep existing redirects (per WP:RKEEP) apply, namely #4 ("risk of breaking incoming links"), #5 ("someone finds them useful"), #6 ("closely related word form"), and to a lesser extent also #2 ("aid accidental linking") and #3 ("aid searches").
: Therefore, there is zero point in deleting these redirects. It would not improve Wikipedia in any way, only harm it. Unless someone points out, on an individual basis, where a particular redirect is hindering us to further improve the quality of our contents (which however is very unlikely in this case), our guidelines indicate keep. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 09:19, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
- Keep per the well-reasoned argument by Matthiaspaul. These were created to aid navigation, not to make any particular statement about trademarks or registration. Nothing is gained in deletion. –xenotalk 09:34, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
- Delete all. Absolutely no good reason to include trademarks in titles as that is not what readers are looking for when researching topics. Ajf773 (talk) 10:17, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
- I can only comment on the one I created (the LOL redirect) and assume it was a redlink at somepoint. No issue with that being deleted along with the rest. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 11:05, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
:Delete all. These are not helpful redirects. The character needed to type these is not found on standard keyboards and requires either knowing how to produce this or special virtual keyboards. Without all that trouble, the same search term without the symbol can produce the same result and will also show up before, making this redirect moot. Also per the former RfD. Gonnym (talk) 11:31, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
- Comment: I originally thought "delete all", but then I found a figurative monkey wrench regarding some of these redirects: Some of the redirects with the word "Microsoft" in them are tagged with {{Tl|R from EXIF}}, meaning the links are basically hard coded in uploaded files in the "File:" namespace, and we have no way to bypass those links. Also, these links do not show up on their respective redirect's "What links here" list, making these links rather difficult to locate. {{Ping|Meno25}} I see you have tagged some of these nominated redirects with {{Tl|R from EXIF}}. Could you provide examples of pages in the "File:" namespace that include the redirects of yours that are nominated here? Steel1943 (talk) 13:06, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
- Delete all. The copyright and registered trademark symbols are useless decorations in these cases. JIP | Talk 13:08, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
- Might as well make it official: Delete all (per nom and the referenced RFD discussion) EXCEPT {{No redirect|Microsoft® Publisher 2016}}, {{No redirect|Microsoft® Word 2010}}, and {{No redirect|Microsoft® Office Word 2007}} which are all tagged with {{Tl|R from EXIF}}, and thus could potentially have incoming links in the "File:" namespace that cannot be bypassed, thus having a technical navigational need to exist. At the least, these three may need to have a separate discussion after this one to determine/find any incoming links to validate their {{Tl|R from EXIF}} tags if none are provided during the course of this discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 13:31, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
- Keep This proposed deletion is predicated upon a legal argument. That legal argument is unsupported and nom has still not provided support for it or evidence that this scenario is really occurring – even after I and Edcolins (perhaps others) asked for such in the previous deletion. This should be done by User:WMF Legal and not by us. (Remember also that redirects are commonly used for incorrect spellings and similar. Existence of a redirect proves nothing.) Invasive Spices (talk) 15 April 2022 (UTC)
- Keep Apparently I created one of these. I believe I created it because I copied and pasted from somewhere else into Wikipedia and it didn't "work" correctly. Unless it's doing harm by being there, I don't see why we wouldn't keep it. Faceless Enemy (talk) 18:17, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
- Keep the few where the ® performs disambiguation and is not superfluous (e.g. Apple®, Subway®, and Target® go to different targets than Apple, Subway, and Target). Also keep MTV® and MTV ®; that's their actual branding. Neutral on the rest. HotdogPi 19:39, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
- Keep With a strong keep where the ® is in the middle, e.g. Intel® Atom. These redirects allow copy-pasting into the search box. Removing them reduces accessibility. —Pengo 20:30, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
- Keep those with no space, per Matthiaspaul. I honestly came here expecting to say delete, on the basis given by those advocating deletion. But I'm surprised to find that I have had to change my mind, based on the arguments put forward by Matthiaspaul. I'm not seeing a persuasive rebuttal to the keep arguments, just repetitions of the rationales that I myself originally thought before being persuaded to change my mind. I think it's clear that keeping the non-spaced ones will aid some readers in finding what they are looking for, and will hinder no one. Hindering readers from finding what they want would have been a valid concern, but saying that they could try a second time, or arguing for cleaning things up, or for taking a stand against commercialism, are all arguments that should take a back seat to what will help readers. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:42, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
- Comment Some of the, such as Chicago®, are potentially ambiguous; these may need to be addressed separately. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 01:43, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
- Delete all Per WP:PANDORA. The existence of these encourages people to create these sorts of redirects for everything that is a registered trademark, because it implies all trademarked things require such redirects which is certainly not the case. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 04:58, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
- Changing to Keep (striking my original delete argument above) per the rationale provided by Matthiaspaul. While my [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2022_April_15&diff=prev&oldid=1082800414 initial concerns] that nobody will type "®" still stand, Matthiaspaul's rationale is a convincing one, that deleting these templates will end up causing more problems.—Mythdon (talk • contribs) 05:37, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
- Keep. Deleting harmless redirects doesn't help anyone. The goal of RFD isn't, and shouldn't be, to spend time, attention, and effort on removing functional redirects that I wouldn't have recommended creating. RFD exists to solve real problems. The existence of a ® symbol in a redirect is not a real problem. Also, I find the arguments expressed in Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 April 2#Redirects indicating "®" status to be incredibly weak (e.g., an outdated name or outdated trademark status in a redirect is not "deceiving our readers"). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:44, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
- Keep, as I expressed in Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 April 2#Redirects indicating "®" status already. --Edcolins (talk) 19:35, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
- Delete all. I see little point in these redirect pages, which are cluttering the search box. As others have noted, there are likely to be very few searching or redirecting with an ® symbol, etc. VistaSunset (talk) 02:45, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
:The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page.