Talk:%s

%s

I've found this shortcut very useful also! I always type "wp [...]" in my firefox URL and get the search immediately, though usually I just type "wp" to get directed to the main home page. We should keep it here! It's not doing any harm ... Vecter 01:51, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

"wp" is a quick search by default in Firefox that takes you to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s, where %s is your search term. It defaults to just "%s" if no keyword is specified. The default behaviour for this should be to redirect to the main page, since that's probably what users expect, and we don't really have any useful article to put here. It's useful behaviour. taion 00:29, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• Yes - this is a totally useless step - typing it in without a parameter used to just take you to the main page - what I wanted and found useful, but now we have this naff article! Hooray! Tompagenet 21:17, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Interesting, since I was using the "wp" quick search well before it came with Firefox. Exact same name too :-) DemonThing 03:20, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Man you guys are geniuses! Before you changed this, I just always entered %s, got a no-page error, and then clicked the main page link. I never thought of redirecting this page. Thanks! --Jacobolus 07:20, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• Is it possible to customize the "wp" shortcut? The Russian version of Firefox takes me to the Russian Wikipedia, which is mostly useless. - Sikon 04:54, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Sure, it's a general firefox feature that works anywhere. Go to the wikipedia version you want, right-click the search box and choose 'Add a Keyword for this search', and put wp in the 'keyword' field. (make sure there's no duplicate in your bookmarks somewhere) --Scarfboy 06:25, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Some consider this a bug in Firefox. See bug 298697, which asks for Firefox to automatically take you to the site's main page if you try to use a keyword bookmark without a keyword. Fixing that would save a server-side redirect for the Wikipedia case. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.27.124.98 (talk • contribs) 22:39, November 3, 2006.

We also have the problem of the javascript used on the main page - to remove the title from it - doesn't include the case where you are redirected to the main page. I've brought it up before but probably in the wrong place (main page talk) since it was ignored. Which will be fixed first: Firefox or Wikipedia? It's like an OpenSourceWar! -- drrngrvy ^tlk @ 23:55, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

uhm

The second part is just trivial information about a program, and doesn't really have a place in an encyclopedia. The first part... does this really need a definition? Shouldn't it redirect to the main page? porges 08:31, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)

I'm changing this back to a redirect to the main page and splitting off %s (printf). Mcpusc 03:14, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Shouldn't the %s article just be a redirect to printf ? I'm pretty sure, that's the relevant article a user is looking for, if they type %s. --Mysidia (talk) 02:54, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

If that's what the user was actually searching for, and didn't not enter a search term -- see the above discussion for why this goes to the main page. IceKarmaॐ 03:01, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

It seems to not really make sense for this article to go to the main page... Typing no search term and hitting enter, of course does even not go to the main page, it goes to the search page, and one minor browser's special feature used by some users really seems no good reason to divert a name like %s with a well-known other meaning, to a page other than the article that explains what it means to say %s. --Mysidia (talk) 03:13, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Last year I created a page %s (printf) to address the issue; at that page users felt that %s did not warrant its own page. I agree with that sentiment, as %s is part of the printf syntax, not something deserving of its own page. Mcpusc 23:45, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

This is the defalt term for a bookmarklet that comes with firefox. See above.--michael180 21:45, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

%s is a string placeholder in a printf format string. It's not the name of a bookmarklet; it's simply an artifact of the programming language used to implement quicksearches in FireFox. Mcpusc 22:14, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

In fact, it's no bookmarklet, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%s is NOT a valid URL; the article can really only be reached by actually searching for the text "%s". --Mysidia (talk) 06:37, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

It is a Quick search, though. Open Firefox, type "wp" (without the quotes) into the Location Bar, and press Enter. Guess where you end up. Notice the message "redirected from %s". --Zarel 03:30, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Mysidia, yours is the only active dissenting opinion on this subject, and your redirection of this article has been reverted again. Please do not act in opposition to the public opinion in making changes. In an effort to dissuade further discord on this subject, a request for comment may be placed; but I don't believe that necessary at this point. — THOR ^=/\= 07:59, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Indeed. -Falcorian 08:15, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I have listed %s on RFD; hopefully, that should draw sufficient attention to the problem as to settle the issue. Most importantly; convenience of a few editors doesn't trump usability for readers, encyclopedic merit, etc, there are a few reasons this redirect is harmful.. it's counterintuitive, obscures searches, and makes no sense, i.e. such as redirecting Pink elephants painting daisies to love., the example used for redirects that should be deleted. And Wikipedia is not a democracy. --Mysidia (talk) 02:39, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Most people coming to this page expect a rediret to the mainpage, I know I do. I firmly vote for this page to redirect to the mainpage. --Brian Sisco 02:55, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Make your voice heard here, that's where this battle has moved now. — THOR ^=/\= 06:13, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

rfd

Pending RFD I've moved the template below the redir to allow it to wrok! Rich Farmbrough

The RFD page explicitly says, in the fourth paragraph starting with a bold first that a bug causes any text below redirs to be discarded and hence to place the tag above the redirect, so I've moved it back. ThomasHarte 23:45, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Results of RFD - 2005

The following is a closed discussion 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 proposal was Keep

• %s → Main page -- this redirect in its current form is at best confusing and does not have encyclopedic basis; the title is related to a programming topic, and should be or point to an article related to its title, like %d, for instance: these are format specifiers which are ubiquitous in the subject of computer programming, it is senseless to redirect readers who attempt to lookup these subjects to the Main page, please see Talk:%s.. --Mysidia (talk) 02:41, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. As pointed out (to you!) on the Talk page, this redirect is useful to many users. How many people do you think are interested in a placeholder sometimes used in a C function? Why wouldn't they just go to printf? Twinxor t 03:05, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
    • As pointed out demonstrated earlier with the link, this supposed bookmarlet doesn't even work in Firefox -- not that the existence of the browser feature makes an otherwise bad redirect into a legitimate one, I personally investigated this browser keyword-based shortcut, and all I get are Bad Request pages, when providing no keyword -- results are not as advertised. %s and other format codes are so ubiquitous, that they sometimes appears in software configuration options visible to non-programmers (for instance, in Xchat) people may very well find the importance of %s without having any idea what printf is, and it's quite plausible that readers sometimes type %s into the searchbox -- the result of doing so should be something reasonable, even a disambiguation page between printf and other things that use %s if need-be. --Mysidia (talk) 03:29, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
      • By default, it's accessed by typing "wp" into the Firefox URL field. I don't know what the issue was with your test, but I doubt all the people who actually use it are hallucinating. It is inelegant, so maybe I'll file a Firefox bug to have the default search string changed. For now, though, the "bad redirect" is useful enough that it ought to stay. Twinxor t 06:05, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Other browsers, not just Firefox, use this "feature". --Mcpusc 07:13, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
        • This bookmark is not a default feature of Firefox or other browsers, it is an advanced tweak/something that some visitors have manually added to their browser for their own convenience; the people that use the tweak should have no trouble finding Wikipedia's front page, even if it takes a couple more seconds. While creating bookmarks, it is trivial to setup means to access the front page, or do so with a mouse click (since the Main page is always one click away from any page on Wikipedia). Users will have no trouble finding the main page, it would at most take an extra mouse click. By contrast, having a bogus %s redirect, misleads a user searching for %s, they might not be able to find the article they really wanted out of the encyclopedia --- this is much more harmful than a few wasted seconds or another click. And there are almost certainly not millions of Firefox users who have modified their browser to support wp keyword links, I believe the vast majority of users are still utilizing Internet Explorer, by any count. --Mysidia (talk) 02:24, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
          • Again, you are incorrect that the bookmark is not a default feature of Firefox. It is a QuickSearch that comes with the browser; see [1]. Other browsers can also use the QuickSearch functionality: see [2] for an IE 5 plugin that provides this functionality. Opera also allows users this "advanced tweak" by adding a few lines to a config file; see [3] for a user's page on how it works. It is obvious that you've never used the quicksearch feature of a browser; rest assured that many wikipedia users do.--Mcpusc 03:05, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Your test was based on a wrong assumption, the bookmark for wikipedia in firefox is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s I thought this was a great idea when I first found it. I notice that google no longer searches for %s either (in certain circumstances) bjmurph _talk‽ 07:51, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
  • keep. There should be a disambiguation page or something else because %s is very impoertant. In Firefox, when you use keywords it directs to the %s page. So it is extremely helpful to keep %s. -- Elfalem
  • keep. Gah, that was a very annoying thing to do, Mysidia! I rely on this behaviour to get to wikipedia's main page quickly, and based on the comments above, so do a lot of other people. Seeing as the possible utility of %s in other contexts is very small, usability trumps so-called "sense" here. Philip ^(Respond?) 07:04, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
  • keep. The redirect page is quite useful; regardless, %s doesn't warrant its own article. It's mentioned only briefly on printf. --Mcpusc 07:13, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. Only a small part of the printf function, which has it's own article. bjmurph _talk‽ 07:51, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. I use it every day with Firefox, but just typing "wp" in the Location Bar. No disambiguation please, just a redirect to the Main page. Thanks. --Edcolins 10:14, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. Oh come on. %s clearly doesnt belong as a seperate article anyway. Are we going to list lparam? how about hwnd? I use this every day in Firefox, as far as i was concerned the argument had been discussed, the solution being decided long ago on the original talk page. CraigF 10:40, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Actually, %s really does have merit as a topic... lparam and hwnd should redirect to appropriate articles about what the Windows API is, as they are important concepts but can be discussed in the larger article -- it would be just as much a problem if they were blank articles or redirected somewhere strange such as the main page.., but these topics on the Win32 API haven't been developed yet and require a lot of work, %s/printf are far more popular, and part of more programming systems -- we have articles on ideas in mathematics, we can certainly have some articles on the popular memes in programming, and %s is a popular one used even by scripting languages such as perl, awk python (and there's no printf in python, either, but part of the % operator). By contrast, it's obvious that a popular bookmarklet has caused the subject to be frequented by readers who have no interest in the subject by its title ---- the very existence of this quirk is practically an illustration of %s' importance of %s for computer users. There's a much simpler way to get to the main page than to search for %s -- make a bookmark, and click on it. --Mysidia (talk) 14:16, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
      • I could concede that %s is obviously an important term used in many languages, and that yes, its purely a bookmarking function. But you fail to take into account that when the argument was first made, %s was moved to %s (printf), which has since been redirected to printf anyway. So the argument here is if %s AND when people type "wp" into their address bar in Firefox AND when people click the bookmark in Firefox get sent to printf. I vote no and would recommend that people vote similarly. CraigF 15:45, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep - for the reaons stated above particularly by Mcpusc, Twinxor and Elfalem. ThomasHarte 13:55, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep! A Wikipedian stated that an article on %s as a programming term wasn't thought necessary. In the light of that, the redirect should remain as it enhances usability. Otherwise, it's going to end up either getting deleted altogether or changed to another redirect - though since %s is used in myriad of computer-related subjects, quite where this alternate redirect should lead is not at all clear. --Sanguinus 14:34, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep! I use this "feature" very often. Stop trying to remove this redirect. It is useful to many of us. --Jcmaco 15:38, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep for the reasons enumerated above by others. Grumpy Troll ^Talk 16:49, 22 November 2005 (UTC).
  • KEEP!! - Are you guys kidding me? I use this all day long. Every time I want to go to the Main Page, I hit wp in my Firefox browser. I bet there are millions of others like me! User:Drange_net
  • Keep. For reasons stated by Elfalem. -Falcorian 17:39, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. Even though I agree it's a pretty ugly hack, I do use it all the time. I do not find it likely that amount of people who search for the format string "%s" (and expecting printf) is greater than that of those who write "wp" in firefox's location bar (expecting the main page). -Gustavb 17:42, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep Got a bit of a fright when it didn't redirect to the Wikipedia homepage today :-p. Don't forget, new Firefox users (when checking out the "quick searches" under the bookmarks menu) may click on the "Wikipedia Quicksearch", which takes them to this page. --219.88.89.235 00:41, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep Its useful when doing a blank search from link
  • Keep As already said by many, this redirect is very useful and deleting it would be a disservice to many users. -- Brian Sisco 02:25, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep It's a very useful feature if you want to get to the Wikipedia frontpage in FireFox
  • Keep and please stop discussing it, so we can go back to using the redirect from Firefox. Leaving the page in discussion like this helps nobody. Ben Andrews, 68.65.113.117 03:44, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep as it appears to be used quite often by Firefox users. Furthermore, %s is very rarely, if ever, encountered out of context. If I'm given a snippet of C code, I'm not going to see %s randomly scattered throughout the code fragment without context; I'm going to see it associated with printf, sprintf, fprintf, etc. And I would look up the associated function rather than %s, because, seriously, who in their right mind would look up a function's parameters on Wiki? --Arabani 10:50, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment I have removed the {{rfd}} tag, given the clear consensus. For the record, I don’t use the shortcut myself.

um...guys?

• • Keep! I use this "feature" very often. Stop trying to remove this redirect. It is useful to many of us.Eudoxius 14:39, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. Kevin Baas^talk 15:34, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
• This isn't the current discussion, this closed out in November 2005; you're looking for the discussion at the bottom of the page ... which isn't a keep or delete discussion. Just FYI. — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 16:37, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. 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.

Default no longer

This feature (typing wp [search term] in the address bar, and then Firefox will search Wikipedia for [search term]) is no longer default. I had a fair bit of difficulty re-adding this feature to my browser, since it continues to redirect to the Main Page without a warning. 203.87.119.103 01:57, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, you don't need to get to %s to institute a search, only right-click within the Wikipedia search field and click on "Add a Keyword for this search ...". Secondly, I've found that the latest version of Firefox still includes this search by default, perhaps they changed the search term though? — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 04:40, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

compromise

{{editprotected}}

new text:

:'''''%s''' leads to a copy of the [[main page]] for technical reasons. See also [[printf]].''
{{:Main Page}}

What's everyone think? --Random832 01:32, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

N Not done This change is too controversial for editprotected (see above), and besides, printf is not the only use (it should probably go to a disambiguation page). If you want this change made, suggest it at WP:RFD. --ais523 12:50, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I think it would meet with the same overwhelming opposition that redirecting did in the first place. I oppose at least. --Falcorian ^(talk) 13:03, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

{{rfd}}

--Random832 00:23, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Done. Picaroon (Talk) 02:36, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

What is the push to get this article deleted or redirected? I like being able to simply type 'wp' in Firefox and be redirected to the mainpage. Looking at the talk page, I'm apparently not the only one who does this. Deleting the page will only create controversy and confusion to those who already use this feature in Firefox. Remember that wikipedia policies aren't 'set in stone' and there can be exceptions to policies. I see no reason why this article shouldn't be an exception, especially since it has been for several years now. --Android Mouse 03:00, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, wow. I end up here instead of the main page because somebody decided that maybe what I really want is to know more about string variables in C. --AceMyth 03:51, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Eh... Wouldn't it be easier if string variable stuff is located to an article, say, %s (C). It will, however, have only marginal use compared to technical redirection to Main Page. -- Xepheid 10:40, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

The idiot that did this just did not think it through and should be lampooned on thedailywtf. 1 in 10 users have a pre-installed bookmark to wp which references this page. Until they have discussed this with the developers of that/those products they should maintain the link to the main page.82.18.245.66 11:59, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Nice job. --88.193.241.224 15:32, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

RFD Notice - 2007

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Although it breaks the redirect, I believe the RFD notice should be put back. In my opinion, without the notice, the whole process is hidden from the users which really defeats the purpose of putting it up for discussion. User:Phil Sandifer has declined to put it back, but I think it's necessary. Other opinions? --Falcorian ^(talk) 04:59, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Right, except virtually everybody who'll discover the discussion via the %s page are people who were trying to shortcut into the main page via their firefox bookmark and are irked that suddenly it's not working anymore. Which is hardly ideal for understandable reasons. Trying to draw attention to this in other ways (e.g. appealing to editors who might be interested in this via their talk pages) would probably be better for everybody involved. --AceMyth 05:22, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't see this as a problem as they make up the vast majority of users who will be using the page that's being discussed, and should have their say. Further I can't support hiding the 'inner workings' of wiki in any form, as that's really the whole point, the open access. And lastly, what sort of consensus can we claim if we've obscured the process so that only certain individuals are aware of it? --Falcorian ^(talk) 07:13, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

So you're saying, sure, the vast majority of people entering the discussion are all going to weigh on one side of the issue, and that's all right, because that would reflect consensus. But let's have a discussion because discussions are fun. I believe this line of argument falls right under the proverbial snowball clause. --AceMyth 11:53, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Here is the basic problem - the RfD is a very technical matter of interest to only a handful of active contributors - it was, frankly, a weird choice to RfD it instead of taking it to the talk page, since it's not actually a deletion nomination. It is not OK to leave a non-functional page that is highly confusing to casual browsers in place here. The problem is that users go "Oh, Wikipedia must be broken" and wander off. The inner workings of the encyclopedia need to be accessible when possible - that doesn't mean they need to be, in every case, shouted to the rooftops. This is a case where convenience, another major goal of the project, needs to trump. Phil Sandifer 13:47, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I support Phil's decision to remove the RfD notice and not put it back. The fact that the RfD was flooded with FireFox users who had stumbled upon it tells us that FireFox users were stumbling upon it. In droves. The RfD discussion was much more technical and esoteric than most people can understand, so there was little benefit in having them be able to see it. Kla'quot 06:05, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Printf

I find it a nussance that the page now says "The main page appears below for technical reasons. For information about %s, see printf." This will cause confusion to those with less technical knowledge, since they will wonder how they ended up with a page titled %s when they intended to simply go to the main page (when using the wp shortcut in firefox). For everyone else it will just be an annoyance and seve no useful purpose. Anyone with the technical knowledge to want to know about %s would know that it is a part of printf and would look there first. Plus all the printf article says about %s is, "s : Print a character string.", not really notable or worthy of the notice, especially since there are no redirect pages or articles for the other parts of printf, %i, %d, %c, etc... --Android Mouse 12:48, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

While I agree, this would have been an excellent point to bring up in the RFD we just had on the subject, and is probably a little late now. Although I suppose it is quite possible you didn't know it was going on if this talk page wasn't on your watch list, as the notice was only up for a short time. --Falcorian ^(talk) 13:10, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Is there any communication with the Mozilla Dev? I made a search term for youtube and get redirected to url.com/%s . It would be nice to have it go to a homepage when there isn't a search term. --x1987x^(talk) 01:52, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Protected edit

{{editprotected}}

Can we have the disambiguation notice set as a class that people can hide if they want (using monobook.css)? Will ^{(is it can be time for messages now plz?)} 15:38, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Y Done (it's called .page-percents-disambig). --ais523 15:40, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

• It's a bit odd, but I guess it's a solution of sorts. --h2g2bob (talk) 16:12, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I normally get onto wiki by "%s"ing all the time, so the notice is a bit throwing off to me. Thanks anyway :) Will ^{(is it can be time for messages now plz?)} 16:38, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Hiding the new changes

If you'd like to hide some of the new changes to this page, simply add the code below to your monobook.css page.

/* Don't display some stuff on the %s page */
body.page-_s #t-cite,
body.page-_s #lastmod, 
body.page-_s #siteSub, 
body.page-_s #contentSub, 
body.page-_s h1.firstHeading {
 display: none !important;
}

.page-percents-disambig{
 display: none;
}

Be sure to purge your cache afterward to see the changes. The tabs at the top will still apply to the %s page, but the main header and the notice will be gone. Cheers. --MZMcBride 22:14, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Nice! Now I can pretend it doens't exist. ;) --Falcorian ^(talk) 22:49, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Yet more changes

Personally, I find the new changes (ie. the removal of the automagical redirect) irritating. There was extensive discussion on this and the decision was to keep it as it was before the last edit. It'd be nice if there was some sort of system of getting 'votes of approval' before being able to make these sort of edits. Since that's not realistic atm, being bold is fair enough, but I vote in favour of reverting. Fast. :) -- drrngrvy ^tlk @ 17:37, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I feel exactly the same way, I described a little bit farther up this talk page why it is unreasonable to have this page redirect to printf yet we don't have redirects for %s, %c, %i, etc. I also don't feel a clear consensus was reached for these changes. Numerous times people have suggested changes but every single time the consesus is to leave it as is, simply an unaltered redirect to the main page. I'd like this problem actually fixed not some CSS hack posted. --Android Mouse 17:49, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm in favor of having a notice: a mere redirect would be a more convenient route, but that's less "accurate" in a way, less precise, less exacting, less stimulating. Is the following fine?

<div class="dablink">'''%s''' is used with the [[printf]] [[Subroutine|function]] in programming. In [[Mozilla Firefox]], it is the default value of a search, which means that searching for "wp" leads to this Wikipedia article, instead of the [[Main Page]] (shown below).</div>

{{:Main Page}}

%s is used with the printf function in programming. In Mozilla Firefox, it is the default value of a search, which means that searching for "wp" leads to this Wikipedia article, instead of the Main Page (shown below).

It's not so different from self-reference on AFD, and somewhere between #REDIRECT Printf and #REDIRECT Main Page. IT's an awkward solution, but this is an awkward problem. Gracenotes^T § 18:44, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I still don't see what makes %s so much more notable than any of the other values printf uses. When you go to the articles for any of the others, etc %i, you find the article is nonexistant. Let's at least be consistent, if we are going to redirect for %s let's add redirects for all the others, %i, %d, %u, %f, %e, %g, %x, %o, %c, %p, %n and %%. While were at it we might as well add redirects for the flags too, +, -, #, and 0. Ofcourse doing that would be silly, same as adding the notice to this article in the first place. --Android Mouse 20:59, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

This was the logic brought up in some of the previous discussions. People tended to agree that %s wasn't notable enough to warrant its own article. Very few people seem to expect a search for %s to lead to printf anyway, given the tiny amount of criticism the silent redirect has. Having any redirect text there at all is a pain, IMHO. -- drrngrvy ^tlk @ 00:11, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

My point is not convenience but precision, making it understandably unpopular. Yes, we are a web site, but we're also an encyclopedia. Why sloppily circumvent a bug when the end user could actually learn something, and the Main Page can still be displayed via transclusion? Gracenotes^T § 00:28, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

If a user wanted to learn about programming or other technical topics they will go to it themselves. There is no reason to advertise another article when they weren't intentionally looking for it. --Android Mouse 01:39, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

It's only advertising in the same sense that Moon is advertising Moon (disambiguation). In terms of content (and not, say, this) we shouldn't have to pay for Firefox's faults with this (minute, but still palpable) quantity of imprecision. I have no problems with creation of the other redirects. Gracenotes^T § 02:31, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

The moon page displaying the disambig link isn't an accurate comparison. With %s, I'd say more than 99.99% of the people viewing it didn't intend on really looking for an article titled %s, but for the main page. With the moon article, it much more likely that the user could have wanted to find information on the many other meanings of the word. You also bring up us having to pay for firefox's faults, I don't see how anyone is paying. No one is hurt or inconviencined by a simple redirect on a page that would otherwise be nonexistant, although the contrary is true when if this would change as it has. Plus, wikipedia aims for usability, there are guidelines to restrict article sizes for the sake of catering to older browsers who can't support them. If anything that would be more of an incovience than this redirect, yet it is tolerated nonetheless. --Android Mouse 03:52, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

How does transcluding the Main Page reduce usability? The same content would exist on the Main Page would also exist here. Gracenotes^T § 22:14, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

It hurts usability to those who don't intend on and have no intention to looking up '%s'. It is an unneeded advertisment that adds clutter while wasting precious screen space. I've also not any reason why '%s' is notable enough for this notice. Someone else pointed out that the page visits to '%s' far outweigh those to printf, reflecting the relative lack of interest to it compared to the main page. --Android Mouse 00:24, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Eh, I must take issue with your use of the word "advertisement". Believe me, I have no personal affiliation with printf! To use an example: if the Wikipedian community suddenly disappeared and Wikipedia only continued to exist as a pile of revisions (and the former group is a means to the latter), the utility of this page would not make sense. The reason we may want to include a note about %s is because it's complete; because people should expect it of an encyclopedia to be a compendium of human knowledge worth knowing, rather than a quick look-up service or just another website. My far-fetched ideals, though, may need to take a backseat to reality, consensus, and vaguely immediatist utility ;) Perhaps Firefox 2.5 shall take care of this bug. Gracenotes^T § 01:01, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not using the word advertise as you are interpreting it. I am using it synonymously with 'to give notice'. If the wikipedian community suddenly disappered tomorrow and all that was left were the revisions then the future readers could easily see this talk page and easily figure out what the page was for. Although I'd have to say, that is a far fetched thing to plan for. --Android Mouse 04:07, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I assumed no other definition of "advertising" than the common one, so thanks for the clarification. By all that's left are the revisions, I mean just that: a database of wikitext, lacking the context of a website, a browser, maintenance, growth. But yes, a surreal fantasy. Gracenotes^T § 04:16, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Then the question is, how would they arrive at the revisions of the %s articles in the first place? Perhaps they too would be using buggy software that would bring up %s when quering the database for the Main Page revisions ;-) --Android Mouse 04:31, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

They would undoubtedly arrive at it from wanting to know about %s :) Well, I suppose we can redirect for now, although let's see what happens when the bug is fixed, agreed? Gracenotes^T § 20:36, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I brought up the same point in the RFD. I was tempted to make a stupidly long -r page, but I figured it wouldn't violate WP:point over something like this. ;-) --Falcorian ^(talk) 02:02, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

According to statistics, %s is the 993rd most visited page this month, on a par with World Trade Center and Hydrogen. This is above printf, and relates to a not insignificant amount of traffic. Redirects are there for convenience (eg: misspellings, different capitalisations, etc), so we should use what is convenient. --h2g2bob (talk) 04:05, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Look, no one cares about printf, just like the comment above pointed out.. seriously, step over this crap. It's NOT BROKEN, so don't fix it.. --88.193.241.224 12:41, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Vote - 2007

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

If you're a Firefox user and you're wondering what this is about and where the page titled %s came from: When you type "wp foobar" into the address bar, firefox tries to use its automated search function to search Wikipedia for foobar. When you simply type "wp" it searches for "%s" as a placeholder. So far %s has been a silent redirect to the main page, but now there's a discussion going on about whether that's the best solution or not, because on the one hand "%s" is also used to refer to string parameters/variables (most famously in the C function, printf), and on the other the "wp" shortcut is extremely convenient for many users and "%s" is arguably not important/notable enough a concept to trump that. --AceMyth 12:08, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Due to the inherent oddness of this page, many people probably did not see the Redirects for discussion that started May 4 and ended with a decision to "transclude" this page. A vote has been opened below and a notice has been placed on the article page to try to fairly come to a solution. There are two options: the first option is to "transclude" the main page, which is what is currently being done; the second option is to switch the article to be a standard redirect to the main page, as it was previously. In order to keep the voting fair, please do not use any method of vote-stacking, including canvassing or sockpuppetry. --MZMcBride 16:10, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Please vote in the appropriate section using # '''Transclude'''. --~~~~ or # '''Redirect'''. --~~~~; lengthy diatribes should be placed in the "Discussion" section.

The result of the debate was Redirect. The final vote was 26-2 in favor of restoring the previous system that used a redirect rather than transclusion. --MZMcBride 20:15, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Transclude

(display Main Page underneath a comment at the top about printf or whatever else "%s" may refer to.)

1. This "vote" is absolutely blatant forum-shopping. --Random832 00:13, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
   • I moved the replies to this post into the discussion section as they were becoming long. — flamingspinach | (talk) 16:32, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
2. Transclude. I personally would find the redirect more convenient, since I use it often. But the transclusion is not too obtrusive, so I think it is a reasonable compromise. Redirecting would be a convenience for Firefox users but massively confusing to people looking up %s. --Sho Uemura 20:03, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Just a note, that no one has came here and clamed they were looking for information on %s. Even searching for this page on google or the wikipedia search feature turns no results to this page: [4]. The only way someone would arrive here (without the bug in firefox) is to literally type in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%25s. Typing in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%s generates a bad request. If the user knew how to look up percent encoding and ecnode the url themselves, they would most certainly be able to figure out what happened when they get redirected to the main page. --Android Mouse 01:01, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

You can type %s into the search, and click "go". Google treats % as some sort of "generic symbol", and gives bad results. Yahoo ignores the % and gives same results as search for "s". Google may have ranked this page low because it is new, because it largely duplicates content, or because "%s" only appears once on the page. --h2g2bob (talk) 16:54, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Just the same, it is much harder to find this page than it would be to find any other normal page on wikipedia. --Android Mouse 19:26, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Redirect

(simply redirect to Main Page.)

1. Redirect. --h2g2bob (talk) 16:15, 13 May 2007 (UTC);
2. Redirect. I've stated my reasons for this in several sections above. --Android Mouse 16:21, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
3. Redirect. The number of firefox users clearly outweighs the number of people interested in "%s" as a topic. --Chardish 16:44, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
4. Redirect - %s is not notable enough to get a mention of printf in the transclude my mind. How many other arguments from printf are we going to create (%i, %d, %u, %f, %e, %g, %x, %o, %c, %p, %n and %%)? No one seems particularly interested in them for some reason, why is %s different? And how many arguments for other programs are we going to insist on? Unix command line programs for example could have dozens of disambiguous pages if we were to follow this logic. --Falcorian ^(talk) 17:00, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
5. Redirect, per Chardish. --Edcolins 17:29, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
6. Redirect for the sake of the vast majority who get here via a Firefox bookmark and who would never in their lives think of typing %s into a search field. Kla'quot 22:30, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
7. Redirect. "%s" is included within an article somewhere, right? And this is ridiculously convenient for Firefox users. Mike.lifeguard 00:02, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
8. Redirect. Like Mike.lifeguard --//Mac Lover ^Talk_C 00:38, 14 May 2007 (UTC) 00:37, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
9. Redirect Per above. Gizza^{Chat ©} 04:39, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
10. Redirect I type wp. I get to the main page. That is what I want to happen. Personally, if there are 25 people that actually search for %s and will reply directly beneath this that they do so, I will concede my vote. It should go to the main page, nothing more. wp as a bookmark triggers this behavior, and it should go to the main page because a blank search term should produce the main page. ’nuff said. Mike Trausch ^{Fd0man•Talk to me} 07:02, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
11. Redirect per Falcorian. --mcpusc 07:33, 14 May 2007 (UTC);
12. Redirect per all of the above. I use Firefox, and I'm sure that it causes a lot more confusion when users type the wikipedia shortcut and have a big nonsensical "%s" heading at the top of the main page, than when a hypothetical person decides to search for %s for some reason and gets the main page instead. In a choice between breaking the Main Page and breaking an obscure page called "%s" which probably could never be encyclopedic in its own right anyway, what sane person would choose to break the Main Page? Jibjibjib 08:08, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
13. Redirect per everyone, the outcome of this vote seems quite unilateral.. --88.193.241.224 09:49, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
14. Redirect per common sense. Accuracy is not the issue here: it's intent. '%s' means nothing by itself; anyone using it is doing so within a function. Looking up the function is probably what everyone will do. -- drrngrvy ^tlk @ 10:40, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
15. Redirect per above. The one person who will actually look up "%s" during the next millennium will be puzzled over getting to the main page, shrug and Google it. I believe the Wikipedia community would be willing to make that sacrifice. --AceMyth 11:55, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
16. Redirect. I don't think anyone is fool enough to presume that %s, the token in printf, will have its own article, and the resulting notice and transclusion is just a waste of processing power on the part of the servers, and more disturbingly, a rather concrete difference between what the user wants (Main Page) and what the user gets (a page that contains what's on Main Page but is markedly not Main Page). — flamingspinach | (talk) 15:54, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
17. Redirect please! CoolGuy 17:04, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
18. Redirect, for many of the reasons above. The current look of the page is ugly and without need; %s is not notable enough for an article (and therefore doesn't have one - only printf), much less to cause this nuisance. IDX 18:50, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
19. Redirect. It's not hard to figure out what %s means with just code. (By the way, "inner workings" shouldn't be hypenated.) — SheeEttin {T/C} 20:33, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
20. Redirect Λυδαcιτγ 20:52, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
21. Redirect. The number of people who have typed %s and been so confused at the result that they can't find their way to the printf article without a link is very likely to be 0. Putting a note there is disorienting for 99.9% of the people who use this redirect. There's no need to be so pedantic. Get rid of it, please. -- bcasterline • talk 00:36, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
22. Redirect. —Mr. Strong Bad/_talk 02:36, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
23. Redirect - the number of keyword searchers are likely more than the searchers looking for printf. Will ^{(We're flying the flag all over the world)} 03:22, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
24. Redirect, per above. Emc² • contact me 20:44, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
25. Redirect --valepert 20:47, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
26. Redirect. I find the transclusion particularly intrusive because what used to be a link to Talk:Main Page now points to Talk:%s. A silent redirect astonishes the user much less than an unnecessary clarification regarding printf. -- Brhaspati\^talk/_contribs 00:43, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

Please define "transclude" in the introduction for this voting process. I'm not familiar with the term, and wasn't sure exactly what it meant in this context, even after looking it up: Transclusion--Dbolton 20:01, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Transclusion really just means to use a template and have the template substitute information on the page. Currently, the %s article transcludes the main page by pretending it's a template (using the code {{:Main Page}}, thus allowing everything from the main page to be included in the %s article. A transclude vote is identical to a keep vote in this situation. Hope that clarifies. --MZMcBride 20:18, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

I added some comments above, hope that helps. — flamingspinach | (talk) 15:54, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks--Dbolton 19:04, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I've continued discussion above, if okay. Gracenotes^T § 23:32, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

...which appears to have been substituted. Gracenotes^T § 00:14, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I responded to your comment. Plus no one said this poll is going to determine anything. It is a good way to get the opinions of others. Yet I haven't seen a single person claim they came here with the intention of finding more information about printf. --Android Mouse 00:27, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

The latter claim seems suspiciously anecdotal to me :) Not to mention that those previously coming here looking for %s would be rather confused (mainpage has no #contentSub). Gracenotes^T § 01:03, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

That's not anecdotal, that's inductive. --AceMyth 18:33, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

And a strong induction at that. --Android Mouse 18:44, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

note: "Transclude" is the status quo. This is what the current revision of the page, right now (00:13, 15 May 2007 (UTC)), does. If you really have a problem with what you see when you type "wp" or click the "article" tab up there, please explain why you are voting against it, since just as in the RFD, many people initially seem to think that if they don't vote "redirect" they won't see the main page when they type "wp". --Random832 00:13, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I protest Random832's characterization of this debate in his vote for transclusion above. The vast number of people who are speaking out against this transclusion have almost certainly been drawn by the transclusion itself, which, until it was decided upon and implemented, was nearly invisible to anyone who frequented %s. That large numbers of people are now seeing the transcluded and not redirected version, being irked enough to check the talk page, and caring enough to vote in this supposed "blatant forum-shopping", is an indication that demonstrates precisely how much this decision needed another look after all. — flamingspinach | (talk) 06:34, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

There was already an RFD, and the RFD notice was placed on the page, while not for the entire discussion (since someone made a bad decision to remove it), for at least part of it. The voting there was also initially overwhelmingly in favor of leaving the redirect, and now this is basically having another vote so an entirely DIFFERENT group of people now have to be convinced. Rinse and repeat until we get the result whoever started this discussion wants. --Random832 12:08, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

That strikes me as more than a little peculiar. If the previous RFD overwhelmingly supported redirection (as it had been for at least a couple of years), why is it now a transclusion? — flamingspinach | (talk) 16:22, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I would say the RFD supported Transclusion (by a slim margin, but still). However, I think the topic is in need of another debate (this one) as the RFD was purposefully hidden from the users (I'm not asserting malice, simply a fact, you can read up on it a few sections up) and as such can't be considered a truly valid representation of the will of the editors. --Falcorian ^(talk) 16:34, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

To those voting "redirect" above

Please answer these two questions --Random832 00:08, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Why _not_ transclude?

How does what's there right now (go on, click "Article", this talkpage will still be here when you come back) reduce your convenience in using firefox? _i_ use the shortcut feature, and I'm the one who proposed this! It's generous to allow this to exist at all, putting the main page under the title %s is indisputably unencyclopedic. --Random832 00:08, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Usability is important. (In fact, isn't the improvement of usability one of the main goals of redirects?) The note is very likely annoying to very many people (at least it is for me) and helpful to very few. -- bcasterline • talk 00:43, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

One means to achieve usability is redirection. Another is transclusion. At some point where the difference of usability between the two is beyond subjective irritation, content should take precedence over function. Gracenotes^T § 01:23, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

It is inconvient because I have to look at the unappealing notice everytime I use the shortcut. It also pushes the page down even farther, so those of us that often have to use computers with low resolutions get more screen clutter than necessary and the main page is already poorly designed and cluttery as is. Plus, no one has given me any reason why '%s' is notable enough for a redirect. If there was no firefox bug to support this article, it would have been deleted along time ago under the {{db-redirtypo}} criteria. The amount of people that will benefit from transclusion is greatly outnumbed by the number of people who will be inconvienced. --Android Mouse 01:03, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

It's annoying, and it's added clutter, it's unnecessary, and it's not clear that it's needed (nor that printf is the only such page to include in a note). --Falcorian ^(talk) 01:36, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Alas, mini-meatball:ForestFires! Notability is discussed in the section below. Gracenotes^T § 02:14, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Didn't someone provide css code you can put in your monobook to hide it and make it look exactly like the main page, if you really care so much? --Random832 03:12, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

That's besides the point. I mean, if we REALLY wanted to, we could just fork the whole encyclopedia over this issue. Why not transclude? Because, as I stated above in my redirect vote, a transcluded Main Page is nonetheless not the main page. Simple as that. Oops, forgot to sign this. — flamingspinach | (talk) 16:00, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

The fact that the "discussion" link for the page goes to Talk:%s (here) instead of Talk:Main page is also a bit of a problem. - Chardish 04:28, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

How is %s not notable?

If %s weren't used every damn place (not just printf) to substitute a string argument, none of us would be here. This redirect wouldn't exist, because firefox wouldn't do what it's doing. Maybe printf isn't the best solution and it should have its own article. But, seriously. We've all _noted_ that %s is used for numerous purposes, clearly not just printf per se. That makes it _notable_. In a way that the other ones (except perhaps %d), or -flags to commands, etc, aren't. --Random832 00:08, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Please cite some references of its notablity above the other flags. --Android Mouse 01:04, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Multiple, independent, reliable third-party sources on the topic of "X" make "X" notable, not anything else. We have objective criteria for notability. - Chardish 14:48, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

The very fact to most of the flags don't have redirects suggests %s doesn't need one either. If people were flocking en mass to %s looking for printf, one would expect them to also head to the other flags with equal frequency. They don't. I can see no reason why %s is any different from other flags or programing arguments. --Falcorian ^(talk) 01:39, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I suppose that this discussion is actually one of basic wikiphilosophy: is our goal to make an encyclopedia, or is our goal to make a website? Both, clearly, but the balance is seldom more delicate than for %s. Gracenotes^T § 02:26, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the dispute is as grand as that. The goal of making an encyclopedia includes the goal of making it accessible and generally user-friendly. In this case, it means making a usable website. You rightly point out above that the debate is between two different methods of improving usability: redirect vs. transclusion. I think it's pretty clear that a redirection is most convenient.

Most people seem to agree. I've only recently noticed this debate, so I wonder: has anyone ever complained that they were completely lost and unable to locate the page they were looking for after they searched "%s" and ended up on the main page without any other guidance? It seems the opposite problem is far more common: people are irritated that they aren't simply being redirected. -- bcasterline • talk 02:37, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

As far as I have seen no one on this talk page hasc laimed they came to the article looking for %s, and no one I have seen has complained elsewhere to not being able to find %s. If anyone has complained of this before please post the occurance here, I'd be interested in what they were searching for and if they eventually found what they were trying to find. --Android Mouse 03:22, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

"The goal of making an encyclopedia includes the goal of making it accessible and generally user-friendly" -- pretty sure that relates more to the goal of presenting an encyclopedia, and in this case, to presenting an encyclopedia on the web. As I commented above, perhaps we'll see what happens when the bug is fixed. Gracenotes^T § 21:26, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think the goal of presenting an encylopedia is implicit in the goal of writing one. The point of writing an encylopedia is to store knowledge that can be accessed: if we just wanted to store knowledge we wouldn't need many (any?) of our style guidelines. I'm just not seeing usability as an obstruction to Wikipedia's overall goals. -- bcasterline • talk 04:00, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

%s is not notable for the same reason that, as someone earlier pointed out, say, hwnd is not notable. You raise a cute point about how %s, typed in firefox, wouldn't even redirect here unless the characters "%s" were notable, but I'm afraid that's a bit specious - there are countless other examples of computer- or programming-related symbolic strings that are not covered by this encyclopedia, and should not be. I'd like to see some precedent or policy citations before you claim that %s is notable simply by its widespread usage. Note how, for example, we have Indent style but not [[{]] or [[}]].

%s is covered in the encyclopedia. Not notable enough for its own article, though. We don't have "{" and "}" because of technical restrictions. Gracenotes^T § 21:26, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd also like to point out that many of those who voted "redirect", such as myself, already stated their reasons in the proper place, and that this little Q&A session down below is a little unfairly and counterintuitively placing the "burden of proof", as it were, on the majority of the consensus. — flamingspinach | (talk) 06:29, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

The redirect was changed on 11th May. It's position this month, from page views, was 993 on 13 May; and has now risen to 399, between iraq war and Bill Clinton. There are a lot of people using this feature: many, many, many more than would need information on printf. --h2g2bob (talk) 14:06, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I think I need to start a band, name it %s, and win many major awards. That'll establish the notability of %s. ;) - Chardish 06:33, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I say you should call your first album "Main Page". --AceMyth 11:39, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

If something notable called "Main Page" was actually created, would that mean we'd need a disambiguation link to it at the top of the main page? That would really suck. Jibjibjib 00:33, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Changed to redirect

MZMcBride (talk · contribs) has changed this back to a redirect, which I think matches the concensus here. --h2g2bob (talk) 01:13, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

There is no argument that doesn't match consensus :) Gracenotes^T § 01:23, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I think it should go back to what was decided in the RfD. — The Storm Surfer 06:43, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Pointless debate

Why do we need 64 kilobytes of debate about one small thing like %s? I will keep out of the debate (although I side with the redirect people), but isn't 64KB just excessive? This, that and the other 10:50, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Because people care about where the page is pointed. --Falcorian ^(talk) 15:11, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Because Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, democracy, or anarachy, it's an idiocracy; on high-profile pages, nothing productive can be accomplished in less than 3 year's time — TheBilly^(Talk) 02:46, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

No longer a silent redirect

Why was the redirect changed to a non-silent redirect, and why was this done without establishing consensus anywhere? - Chardish (talk) 17:31, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

There was a change made to MediaWiki:Monobook.css following discussion here. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:46, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

the search for %s

i got the following results... from an actual search for %s (specifically done after several "requests" here)

   * Race and ethnicity in the United States Census
     13 KB (1880 words) - 03:44, 26 March 2008
   * 1980s
     67 KB (9999 words) - 23:33, 26 March 2008
   * 1990s
     103 KB (14579 words) - 00:00, 27 March 2008
   * 1960s
     41 KB (5784 words) - 15:57, 26 March 2008
   * 1970s
     45 KB (6830 words) - 14:39, 26 March 2008
   * U.S. state
     47 KB (6787 words) - 19:44, 24 March 2008
   * 1950s
     40 KB (5811 words) - 14:35, 26 March 2008
   * 1930s
     15 KB (2007 words) - 18:10, 26 March 2008
   * 1920s
     14 KB (1885 words) - 05:24, 26 March 2008
   * 1940s
     13 KB (1749 words) - 20:05, 26 March 2008
   * Georgia (U.S. state)
     77 KB (10601 words) - 20:23, 26 March 2008
   * People's Republic of China
     92 KB (12744 words) - 20:54, 26 March 2008
   * McDonald's
     25 KB (3681 words) - 16:48, 26 March 2008
   * Master's degree
     9 KB (1228 words) - 19:42, 26 March 2008
   * 2000s
     8 KB (1156 words) - 23:19, 24 March 2008
   * Bachelor's degree
     43 KB (6592 words) - 21:00, 26 March 2008
   * United States
     164 KB (23300 words) - 17:56, 26 March 2008
   * Harry S. Truman
     117 KB (17295 words) - 23:15, 26 March 2008
   * Macy's
     39 KB (5721 words) - 01:25, 26 March 2008
   * Ulysses S. Grant
     79 KB (11946 words) - 18:52, 26 March 2008

85.149.120.16 (talk) 00:06, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

This is the same as a search for "s" - the "%" is ignored when searching (this is the case for both mediawiki search and google searches). --h2g2bob (talk) 00:15, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

?

When I type "wp" into the URL for my Firefox browser, it takes me to http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=wp , not any Wikipedia search page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.108.64.207 (talk) 01:38, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

You need to manually add the keyword. ffm 19:41, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I will miss this page :P

Oh no, Firefox 3 beta 5 no longer takes me to the main page. Merzul (talk) 17:20, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, very inconvient. --Falcorian ^(talk) 19:01, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Internet Explorer

Does this work on IE? C Teng 13:58, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I doubt it, unless you set it up yourself. Shamess (talk) 03:05, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Google

Sorry, but typing anything not formated like a URL into the Firefox URL bar searches Google. "wp" leads to http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=wp

%d

And. guys, this is why disambigs EXIST! ✏✎✍✌✉✈✇✆✃✄Ⓠ‽ (talk) 17:28, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd settle for transclusion. One line saying "The main page appears below for technical reasons. For information about %s, see printf." would not hinder anyone looking for the Main Page, and would help those looking for %s. Seriously, what's wrong with transcluding it‽ ✏✎✍✌✉✈✇✆✃✄Ⓠ‽ (talk) 18:02, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Wrong? Nothing, I suppose, but at the time of the above vote (see Talk:%s#Vote) there was a clear consensus for redirection as opposed to transclusion. — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 18:34, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, it's ALL been discussed, multiple times. --Falcorian ^(talk) 21:18, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

the way I see it, no matter what we do, the main page is only 1 click away. But someone looking for information on %s has no way to get information, as Google would ignore the %. This is (was) a glitch with Firefox, and nobody should expect the main page when no page is entered anyway. This is irrelevant anyway, because the "wp" function no longer works. I repeat: transclusion can only help. How is one supposed to research %s‽ This is very unencyclopedic. I repeat: all this does is save people looking for the homepage a single mouseclick, and makes it impossible for anyone to research %s, because search engines ignore the %. ✏✎✍✌✉✈✇✆✃✄Ⓠ‽ (talk) 18:57, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

While we're on the subject of repeating... This is just repeating the above discussions. --Falcorian ^(talk) 20:06, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Stats for June. 488,933 views – I imagine a very, very tiny percentage of those were trying to find more information about %s. FF2 had this 'bug,' FF3 doesn't. When more people have adopted FF3, we can reconsider what to do with %s; until then, it will stay a redirect to the Main Page. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:36, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

As a compairison, %d has ~5 people a day. --Falcorian ^(talk) 21:43, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Redirect no longer useful

Since current versions of Firefox no longer have this odd behavior, smart keywords no longer point lack of an argument to '%s', and have not since August of last year, I believe this redirect no longer serves any suitable function and should now be either deleted or pointed back to printf like %d is. We can observe from statistics the drop off after 200808:

• %s statistics %s 200808
• %s statistics %s 200809
• %s statistics %s 200810
• %s statistics %s 200811
• %s statistics %s 200812
• printf statistics printf 200808
• printf statistics printf 200809

The two patterns that emerge, traffic to %s dropped dramatically according to this, fewer than 10 hits a month, in general, printf with 20k hits a month is clearly no small, minor, or unpopular topic. This shows that %s is no longer a navigational aid for editors, or if it is, it is only so for one or two people who use it very infrequently, they may also be people trying to get to the printf article. --Mysidia (talk)

While it is probably time to reevaluate the redirect, I doubt the statitics. You don't go from half a million to six views in the span of one day. There is some systematic error not being accounted for. --Falcorian ^(talk) 00:32, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Statistics available from hitslink.com show the proportion of Firefox 2.0 users dropped from 11% to 5% between August1 and September 1st. These stats pages aren't showing a drop from half a million a day to zero, they're showing a drop from about 20k a day to 0 at the end of August. It might be that there's an error in the stats, but I have no indication of that. It is also possible that the Firefox team released an update to FF2, such as 2.0.0.16 which may have effected smart keywords handling, since users of FF generally auto-update, they may have gotten the fix to expand the smartkeyword to an empty search, I don't know the answer to that. --Mysidia (talk)

I don't see anyway you can account for the step function on the firefox side. It's got to be either that Wikipedia changed the way the redirect was handled, or the stats are off. --Falcorian ^(talk) 02:18, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

You're right, the results seem anomolous [5]. My conjecture is the number of hits for %s are a bit higher than expected, so there are probably a couple thousand FF2 users still effected by the %s bug. A security oversight on their part, but it should do WP no major harm to leave the bad/unencyclopedic redirect in place another 36 months or so, for the FF2 users to move to FF3 or something not EOL'ed... --Mysidia (talk)

The graphs are incorrect. Looking at the raw data for that period shows no drop off in use. For example, pagecounts-20080901-140001 shows over 1000 hits to %25s that hour. It's possible the graphs are inconsistent in how they count redirects. --Schwern (talk) 23:00, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Edit request

{{editprotected}} Please add {{rfd}} per nomination at wp:rfd. Letsdrinktea (talk) 02:40, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Done. --- RockMFR 22:43, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Does anyone use FF2 anymore?

I doubt this is still useful, and the last discussion about this was three years ago. --74.105.184.165 (talk) 06:47, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Have to agree. This is just an archive of discussion and not of great value. It may be of historical record in the future, but as Wiki is not an archive or repository for potential historical records it looks like it's Ta Ta Time. It is a pity as a great deal of info regarding the burgeoning history if I.T. is being lost at a speed that is growing exponentially. Media-Hound 'D 3rd P^) (talk) 11:17, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Retarget to printf and put a hat note saying "Due to a bug in older versions of Firefox, a \search for Wikipedia sometimes redirects here. You may be looking for the main page" D O N D E groovily Talk to me 19:14, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, something like that. The page should be unprotected so that the normal wiki processes can function properly. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:38, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Done. — Edokter (talk) — 19:55, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Cool, thanks.

Does anyone object to turning %s into a redirect to printf? Speak now or forever hold your peace. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 22:00, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

From a July dump, I found it mostly used to describe printf and 99%s. However, I've converted the page to a disambiguation page to included a note of the old redirect as a few people use %s as a (manual) short cut for the main page. — Dispenser 17:03, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Apparently I still relied on the redirect. The Delicious FF plugin does not have the %s fix. Using a FF15 search with no term sends me to the search page, not the main page. I'll find a way around it, but just my $0.02. --Schwern (talk) 02:38, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

It should have redirected to Special:Search to be consistent with newer versions of Firefox search. — Dispenser 19:54, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

I use it daily to access the main page. I think that we can assume that its use for this purpose still grossly exceeds its use for accessing printf and scanf, given that those pages only receive less than 1/10 of the traffic to this page on its own: see traffic for %s vs traffic for printf and scanf, as well as for %d. I personally would prefer that it be changed back to that. Is there a way for this to be done? Phsource (talk) 04:29, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

While %s is the shortest redirect and only possible one using just your left hand, it still requires submitting via the Enter key or clicking. If you're searching use the right hand equivalent MP: (or mp:); the site's keyboard shortcut Alt+⇧ Shift+Z; add Main Page to your bookmark bar, right-click, properties, delete the bookmark's name, "Save", then you'll be left with a Wikipedia icon on your bookmark bar. — Dispenser 19:54, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

While I agree there may be better ways to do it, what matters is what people are actually doing. Posting on a talk page ain't gonna make a dent in that. But we're not typing in "%s" (I'm not anyway) its what many search shortcuts do if you search for nothing. If Phsource's data is correct, I agree with their argument, %s is still in much heavier use, by an order of magnitude, than printf indicating it's still used primarily as a redirect. What is peculiar to me is why traffic went from almost nothing in Sept 2012 to 3000 per day on Oct 1, 2012 two weeks before the redirect was changed. I suspect this is an artifact of how Wikipedia scores redirects and not true information. What's the real data? --Schwern (talk) 22:18, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

I grabbed the raw page count files and "%25s" gets a fairly consistent 150-200 page views an hour before and after the redirect was changed, so the October 2012 graph is correct. Previous month's graphs were not counting it. Printf gets 5 to 10 an hour. Scanf gets 2 or 3. Neither Printf_format_string nor Scanf_format_string, linked to from %s, show a jump in traffic after the redirect change. The flat use of %s before and after the redirect change and the lack of change to the pages linked from %s all point to an answer to the original question: yes, %s is still used as a redirect much moreso than as a legit search. However, given that traffic on printf_format_string and scanf_format_string approaches the amount of traffic on %s, that might indicate %s would be used as a legit search if users realized it was no longer a redirect. On the third hand, there's no indication that %d is searched for or its redirect used which indicates %s isn't going to be used either. That's the data, and it would seem to support the %s redirect being more useful to users now and in the near future than a disambiguation page. --Schwern (talk) 22:52, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Digging around in the data some more, one thing that is true is the use of %25s has dropped over the years. in Sept 2008 it was over 1000 hits an hour across all languages. Now it's about 200-300. On the other hand, the graphs displayed in Talk:%s#Redirect_no_longer_useful are incorrect, there was no sharp drop off in use at that time. In general, don't rely on the graphs for %s. --Schwern (talk) 23:05, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Put the redirect back & establish a sunset

The decision to remove the redirect was based on assumptions which turn out to not be true. The idea that nobody uses it any more is based on flawed data, the graphs showing there was no activity on %s when the raw data shows ~3600 hits per day as I and Phsource outlined above. The idea that the need for the %s redirect is because of a Firefox 2 bug is also incorrect, more utilities have the same issue where a blank search generates a search for %s.

Furthermore, no evidence has been presented that %s needs its own page. Evidence against is the lack of searches for %d.

And no vote was taken on removing the redirect, despite it being a known contentious issue.

Therefore, I propose putting the redirect back, BUT with a provision to remove it in the future based on the traffic data.

I propose we agree on a minimum number of hits per month to %s where we decide there's no longer enough users to support the redirect, rather than somebody coming along and just deciding to change it. Rather than picking an arbitrary number, I propose that when %s (remember to use the raw data as the graphs often get it wrong) gets less traffic than either scanf_format_string or printf_format_string we conclude that there's no longer enough users making use of the redirect to support its special case. Based on how fast %s is dropping off this will probably be in a couple years.

Then we don't have to have a fight about this every few months. How's that?

--Schwern (talk) 21:11, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Could we at least redirect it to Special:Search to make it consistent? — Dispenser 22:11, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

The redirect is for people who use a search keyword with no search as a shortcut to the main page. Redirecting it to the search page defeats the point. --Schwern (talk) 01:32, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

A blank search from the site search box or Firefox 16's search box shows Special:Search. This is intentional as users may want to select namespaces or avoid redirects. And due to some weird quirk, it's the only way a search like "User: Dabfinder" will work. — Dispenser 05:28, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, your argument is that since a normal blank search goes to Special:Search then the %s blank search should also go to Special:Search to be consistent, yes? This comes down to what the user expects. Expecting a blank search to go to the main page is a quirk, but its a quirk that's been around for years and a subset of users (those whose search widgets produce a %s) have gotten used to. Unfortunately I can't say how many of the 3600 hits per day represent users who prefer that behavior and how many are annoyed at it. Given that there wasn't a huge backlash this time when %s was changed, there might not be many left. Your argument makes sense and I cannot refute it with data. At this point I think I will drop the torch. Personally I've adapted by adding a keyword specifically for the front page. --Schwern (talk) 19:20, 19 October 2012 (UTC)