Redirects are your friend...

[John Dvorak]

I think it should be noted (if there's going to be a proposal) that capitalized words are preferable when making redirects. For example, if I just make a redirect from Central intelligence(to Central Intelligence Agency), then the page Central Intelligence (note caps) would not direct you to anything. However, if one makes a redirect from Central Intelligence first, then anybody who types in "Central intelligence" is going to get a redirect. It took me a while to figure that one out, so I thought I should try and spare anyone else that little mystery.

EDIT: As it turns out, you can even search for "CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE", and it will catch the Central Intelligence redirect.

[J. Noel Chiappa]

I know you're frustrated, but I don't think people are deliberately trying to send you around the bend. 

I know that, but the point remains that time is being wasted because people won't take the time to do the redirects.

See, here's yet another one I just found: Geographic information system and
Geographic Information System. An obvious redirect, someone didn't bother to create it, someone else didn't start their new article creation with redirect creation, and as a result i) that someone else wasted a lot of their time, and ii) now some of the rest of us have to waste our time cleaning it up.

Sometimes the redirect (even an obvious one) just doesn't occur to a body at the outset, y'know?

But alternate capitalizations and hyphenations are obvious - heck, a program could do it! (Speaking of which, I should look into getting a 'bot running).

I'm wondering if 'redirect wherever possible' is current written into operating procedure anywhere, and if it's made clear that redirecting doesn't hurt anything or eat up megabytes of space and no one will be yelled at for "over-redirecting"?

Good point, and I'll check for that when I have time.

Noel

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

A redirecting bot? The mind boggles!

[Paul Wormer]

Maybe we should advise and advertise to search before starting a new article. For instance, the search string "geometric Information" gives lots of information about related articles.

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

A redirecting bot? The mind boggles!

"Urban legend" may not be quite the term for engineering problems, but "redirecting bot" reminds me of a take when JPL was experimening with self-repairing computers. In the prototype, there were rails along the front side of the cards, with a claw that could pull a card and replace it.

Unfortunately, it disagnosed a malfunction with its own processor, and pulled it.