Help:How to move a page
From IT frameworks
Moving a page means giving the page another name. The page history is then attached to a new name. Another page with the old name is created and automatically redirects to the new name.
There are several reasons why you might wish to rename a page:
- The title has been misspelled.
- The title does not follow the wiki's naming conventions
- The scope of the article has been reduced, extended or otherwise changed.
- A Talk page may be moved as one of the methods of archiving discussion
Pages in the image or category namespace cannot be moved. To change the name of an image, one needs to upload it again, and copy the image description. To change the name of a category, one needs to change all category tags, and copy the editable part.
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How to
Note that you have to be logged in to move pages.
With the correct page displayed, click on the "Move" tab near the top of the page (in default Monobook skin). You'll be asked for a new name for the page, and given the option to also move the page's talk page. NOTE: Unless you know what you're doing, it's safest to say yes. The reason for the move can be given, like an edit summary.
Click the move button and the page will be renamed to the new title. The old title will become a redirect page, so any links to the old title will still go to the new page. However, note that double redirects (pages that redirect to the original page), will not automatically follow to the new page, so you will have to refer them manually.
- after a successful page move, a page looking like this will be shown: MediaWiki:Movepage-moved;
- Open the what-links-here for that page (there may be a shortcut link on the page-moved summary screen to let you do this, but the what-links-here link will in any case be in the toolbox, which is near the bottom of the sidebar unless you've customized your skin away from the default Monobook);
- Open all redirect pages that are indented in the list, and make them redirect to the page you moved to (that is, without intermediate step);
- If there are more than 50 pages listed on the "what links here" page, don't forget to navigate to all parts of the list using the "next 50" or other links available.
Page histories
The "move page" function keeps the entire edit history of the page before and after the move in one place, as if the page had always been named that way.
The move itself is recorded in the edit histories of both pages. This feature was introduced in MediaWiki 1.5 and does not work retroactively: older moves are only recorded indirectly, in the page history of the old page name.
You should never just move a page by cutting all the text out of one page, and pasting it into a new one; old revisions, notes, and attributions are much harder to keep track of if you do that. (But you may have to if, for instance, you're splitting a page into multiple topics. If you do, please include a note in the new pages's edit summary and talk page stating where you took the text from.)
Moving redirect pages
A page that is a redirect can be moved like any other page. This is however not advised while it has the same detrimental effect on page history as copy-pasting content to a new page, and making the old page a redirect: when moving a redirect page to a new page name, the redirect on the old page (now directing to the new redirect page) will have to be changed in order to avoid double redirects. So the content of the old page will no longer redirect to the page containing the history of that old page. The only effect is that the whereabouts of the page history of the old page (now seemingly a "recently created page") are a bit trickier to find, while on the other hand the new page has a history attached to it not clarifying why it would need to be a redirect page.
If a redirect page does not redirect to the page it would need to be redirecting to, the only viable strategy that respects page histories, is to adapt the redirect on that page, without moving the page.
Moving over a redirect
If the new title already exists but is just a redirect to the old title, with just one line in the page history, the creation of the redirect, then you can rename the page. The most common case in which this applies is that of re-renaming a page back to its original name. As mentioned, this works only if the redirect that was automatically created in the first renaming, has not been edited.
The information about the former creation of the redirect over which the move takes place is lost. If it was the result of an earlier move of the page that is now moved back, that information is still available in the history of that page.
More moves back and forth are possible, and always the page history of the current title shows all moves, and that of the other title only contains the edit line of the latest move.
As mentioned, recording a page move in the edit history of the page itself is a feature introduced in MediaWiki 1.5 which does not work retroactively: therefore of older moves back and forth only the latest is recorded.
Earlier there was a bug, which has been fixed but not retroactively, as follows:
- However, if the page is moved back, the edit history of the page with the intermediate title shows the latest move only, with the corresponding user name, but with the date and time of the first move(!). Accordingly, the name of the user who moved the page the first time and the date and time of the second move are lost (except that they appear in the Recent Changes).
Moving over an existing page
Administrators can move a page, deleting an existing page with a name equal to the new name of the moved page, in one step.
If the new title already exists and isn't just a redirect to the old title, with no history, and you are not an administrator, the wiki will tell you that you can't rename the page. You'll either have to manually merge the two pages, or if there's no real content in the page ask an Administrator to have it deleted or list it on your project's "votes for deletion" page in order to make room for moving the page.
Move-protected pages
Administrators can protect pages from moves. If a page is protected from moves only, the "Move this page" link will not be available. In this case, you can ask that an administrator move it for you, or you can manually move the page, by copying the contents to the new page and redirecting the old page to the new page. However, this is generally not recommended, and users are asked to request the moves instead.
Pages that are protected from editing are automatically protected from moves.
