Wikipedia talk:Redirects to nowhere
Redirects to nowhere, ex-nihilo variants
editI wasn't sure whether to add this as a post-script to my Redirects to nowhere essay; perhaps I'll just leave this here, as a curious coda:
I just tried to look up one George Beebe, whose name I'd encountered. On Wikipedia, George Beebe currently redirects to George M. Beebe, a US Representative of limited historical interest, who's been dead for almost a hundred years. This was not the political droid I was looking for. This time the googles however did do something, and duly turned up a brief bio, which made it clear to me that the currently-living Beebe was the person I was looking for. But the contemporary Beebe does not have a Wikipedia article, and apparently never did.
One might be tempted here to add a disambiguation page, or a {{hatnote}} on the George M. Beebe article, and thus in one way or another redirect readers looking for just George Beebe (sans M.) to the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, where according to the above bio, he's called a "Director of Grand Strategy" (whatever that means, and however well that pays). If I did that though, I would probably not only raise the ire of self-appointed gatekeepers who might accuse me of sneaking in a vanity article about a non-notable person through the back door, but I'd also effectively be creating the very thing I just so bitterly complained about: A redirect to nowhere. Because even if I tried to work this bleeping Beebe into the article, that edit probably wouldn't stick, so whether one were to use a hatnote at George M. Beebe or a disambiguation page at, or redirect from George Beebe, the result would be the same: People looking for the latter Beebe would be redirected to the Quincy Institute, where they would find NONE of the expected information, in other words, it would effectively just be another redirect to nowhere, crafted from whole cloth. Is there a cure for this disease? Is there some way to Do the Right Thing that does not result in clickable cul-de-sacs and repeated reader aggravation? I dunno. You tell me. —ReadOnlyAccount (talk) 07:14, 18 December 2023 (UTC)