On Avatar Wiki redirects (shortcuts) are used to aid navigation as well as making helping someone a lot easier. They should not be used in mainspace articles, and most of the time should be properly piped to prevent confusion (except on talk pages). It is important not to misuse them, but most policy pages should have a few-letter redirect to them.
Readability[]
Shortcuts are often used on talk pages in their abbreviated form, without any piped links, decreasing readability for the general reader. 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: AW:MOS|Manual of Style, gives readers an idea of the subject of the target page, while just using the abbreviation: AW:MOS, is unintelligible to those unfamiliar with the term.
How to create a shortcut[]
The abbreviations "AW:" and "aw:" for the namespace "Avatar Wiki:" are common when creating a redirect. Note: The following is an example
Say you want to create the shortcut AW:FAQ to an existing page like Avatar Wiki:FAQ. Then create the desired new page and insert this line:
- #REDIRECT [[Avatar Wiki:FAQ]]
Many shortcuts are acronyms, others are abbreviations, quite a lot are simply silly, but technically they are redirections.
Please note, when creating a shortcut for a category or file, it is necessary to insert an additional colon (":") at the beginning of the link, as follows:
- #REDIRECT [[:Category:Aang images]]