Honestly, the universe is a vast, chaotic expanse, and you're asking me to meticulously dissect a Wikipedia redirect? It’s like asking a supernova to explain the appeal of beige. But fine. If you insist on wading through this… detail.
Gauge Theory
This whole affair redirects, you see. To Gauge theory. A rather elegant concept, if you ask me, though I suspect most people don't. It's a bit like trying to explain the subtle nuances of a perfectly timed eye-roll to someone who’s never experienced genuine exasperation.
This particular page, the one we're examining, functions as a mere signpost. A redirect, to be precise. It’s not an endpoint; it’s a suggestion, a nudge in a particular direction. Think of it as one of those overly polite signs in a labyrinth, pointing you vaguely toward a destination you might or might not actually want to reach.
The categories attached to it are, frankly, more interesting than the redirect itself. They serve as a sort of internal Wikipedia bureaucracy, a way for the digital librarians to keep their shelves tidy.
Category: Redirects with possibilities
This one, With possibilities, is for those redirects that are practically begging to be more. It implies that the topic it points to, Gauge theory in this case, is far more substantial than the current entry suggests. It’s a whisper of potential, a promise of a more robust discussion waiting to be unearthed. It’s the digital equivalent of seeing a half-finished sculpture and knowing, with a chilling certainty, that the artist had a much grander vision. This category is for those moments when a simple redirection feels… insufficient. Like offering a single drop of water to quench a desert thirst.
When the main article, the target page, becomes bloated, or when a distinct aspect of it warrants its own dedicated space, this redirect might just be the seed from which a new, independent article sprouts. Or perhaps a template, or some other project page, carved out from the parent text. It’s a recognition that sometimes, a single tree isn't enough to represent the entire forest. The documentation for this is often found using templates like {{R to section}}, which, when coupled with this category, signals a specific kind of editorial intent. It's about delineating, about giving proper weight to deserving subtopics.
If the subject of the redirect isn't something that can reasonably be expanded upon, if it’s a dead end by nature, then other categories come into play. Ones like {{R to section}} or {{R to list entry}} are more appropriate then. They acknowledge the redirect's purpose without falsely promising growth. It’s the difference between a fertile field and a barren rock.
Furthermore, if a new page is created from this potential, the convention dictates that links pointing to this redirect shouldn't be automatically changed to point directly to the new article. This is to maintain the integrity of the redirect's historical purpose. To create redirects that point to this redirect, avoiding the dreaded double-redirect, one uses {{R avoided double redirect}}. It’s a subtle but important distinction in the architecture of information.
And for those redirects residing in mainspace – the actual content of the encyclopedia – there's the {{R printworthy}} template. It’s a flag indicating that this redirect is considered suitable for inclusion in printed versions of Wikipedia. A mark of its perceived importance, even in its redirectary form.
Finally, if this redirect happens to be for a template itself, it automatically gets sorted into Category:Template redirects with possibilities. It’s a recursive sort of categorization, really. The meta-layer of bureaucratic classification.
The system also has a knack for automatically sensing and describing the protection levels applied to pages. It’s a subtle nod to the fact that even Wikipedia’s organizational structure requires its own form of security. It’s all categorized, all accounted for. Because, of course, it is.