Wikipedia:Navigation pages
 | The following is a proposed Wikipedia policy, guideline, or process. The proposal may still be in development, under discussion, or in the process of gathering consensus for adoption. |
In early 2025, the phrase navigation page (as well as navpage) was used to refer to a proposed type of page that had been introduced in early 2025 as an alternative to redirects in cases where the presence of information on a non-notable subject would have made it difficult to decide on a redirect target for a given page.
Navpages were also argued to serve as common targets for multiple redirects, which would otherwise be tedious to attempt to decide on targets for and thus could have been deleted altogether. For example, after Nick Fuentes, Donald Trump, and Kanye West meeting was recreated as a navigation page, it had become a common target for Fuentes-Trump-West dinner, Fuentes-Trump-West meeting, Trump-West-Fuentes meeting, Trump-West-Fuentes dinner, Nick Fuentes, Donald Trump and Kanye West meeting, and Trump-Fuentes-West meeting before it became a redirect.
History
[edit]Prior uses of the nomenclature
[edit]The phrase navigation page has been used as far back as early 2003 to colloquially refer to lists. Since then, the term would be used to describe disambiguation pages, category pages, and set index articles.
In early 2008, the user Wikid77 began to use the term navpage to refer to template pages for navigational boxes—specifically, large navigational boxes with links to more than 100 articles, such as Template:Google LLC and Template:Artiodactyla. In August 2009, the template {{navpages}} was created with such pages in mind, although it saw very few transclusions and was deleted on 13 August 2010 as it was considered unnecessary for handling navboxes and inconvenient for readers. Along with {{navpage}}, that template is not to be confused with Template:WP nav pages (header bar), which was created in February 2007 and now redirects to {{Header navbar community}}.
Initial proposal
[edit]The concept of navigation pages in the modern sense was first introduced by MrPersonHumanGuy at the village pump on 18 March 2025:
For topics which may not yet meet Wikipedia's inclusion criteria for articles, but for which relevant information is present across multiple articles (such that an editor may have difficulty deciding which page to redirect to), there should be a type of mainspace page dedicated to listing articles in which readers can find information on a given topic. A page of that type would be distinct from a disambiguation page in that, while disambig pages list different topics that share the same name, a navigation page (or navpage) would include a list of articles or sections that all contain information on the exact same topic. In situations where a non-notable topic is covered in more than one article, and readers wish to find information on that particular topic, and that topic can't be confused with anything else (making disambiguation unnecessary), and there turns out to be two or more equally sensible redirect targets for their search terms, then a navpage may be helpful.
Premature implementation
[edit]Within a month, the {{Navigation page}} template was created on 14 April and was first used on Turtle Islands Heritage Protected Area, which had been a disambiguation page at the time. Category:Navigation pages was created later that day, and the template was edited to automatically place pages tagged with it into that category.
That same day, Poor people's rights, which redirected to Equality, became the first redirect to be suggested for conversion into a navigation page. However, the RfD discussion would drag on for well over a month before it was closed in favor of the redirect's deletion. A few other redirects would be temporarily converted into navigation pages.
On 15 April, the first !vote to "navify" an ordinary article was cast in a deletion discussion for the stub article Mohamed Sy Savané, and some contributors began to consider that type of outcome as an alternative to deletion for biographical stub articles on sportspeople.
On 18 April, Armand Biniakounou became the first article to be "navified" as an outcome of its corresponding AfD discussion. The aforementioned AfD discussion on Mohamed Sy Savané was also closed in favor of the same outcome on 22 April, even though no consensus had been reached with regards to navigation pages at the time. Although navify !votes have been cast in a few more AfD discussions, no more AfD discussions have been closed in favor of navification since then.
Navigation pages would continue to be a thing until 7 May, when Nick Fuentes, Donald Trump, and Kanye West meeting (which had previously been an article before being deleted) was retargeted to a section in the article on Nick Fuentes. By then, most other navigation pages had also been converted into redirects, owing to the fact that navigation pages had been conceptualized as a replacement for redirects in certain cases.
| Date | Target page | Prior state | Action | Rationale | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 April 2025 | Infinite Frameworks | Redirect to Film industry § Indonesia | Retargeted to Film industry § Indonesia | Restored revision 1272884875 by MrPersonHumanGuy (talk): Lgv | link |
| 17 April 2025 | Adolf Uunona | Deleted | Deleted | G4: Recreation of a page that was deleted per a deletion discussion: a "nav page" does not address concerns of notability/BLP from previous AFD Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Adolf Uunona. Search will find the articles just fine. | link |
| 18 April 2025 | Ethiopia in World War II | Set index article | Retargeted to History of Ethiopia § Italian occupation (1936–1941) | Redirect to existing history article (this section because it's easier to scroll down than scroll up) | link |
| 18 April 2025 | Goldie (TV series) | Not yet created | Converted into an ordinary article | convert to stub. | link |
| 19 April 2025 | Skillsville | Not yet created | Retargeted to List of programs broadcast by PBS Kids § Original programming | all the entries are about the same topic (via redirect-helper) | link |
| 29 April 2025 | Amari McCoy | Not yet created | Converted into an ordinary article | Transforming into a sourced stub; this is much more informative and virtually not that different | link |
| 1 May 2025 | School uniforms in the United Kingdom | Article | Retargeted to School uniforms by country § United Kingdom | even assuming nav pages are proper, this one is unnecessary since all of this is in a single section with a hatnote to the england page. (via redirect-helper) | link |
| 2 May 2025 | Mohamed Sy Savané | Article | Retargeted to Amadou Sy Savané § Personal life | managed to incorporate a lot of information on him at his younger brother's page, hopefully without running into DUE issues. AfD didn't discuss this option, and it's different enough that we'd likely need a new discussion... really just did the merge to prevent the unsourced BLP issues we were having here and to explain why his name kept changing between articles | link |
| 2 May 2025 | Turtle Islands Heritage Protected Area | Disambiguation page | Retargeted to Transboundary protected area § Turtle Islands Heritage Protected Area | I've added a substantial amount of content not in either of the two smaller articles at Transboundary protected area#Turtle Islands Heritage Protected Area. This probably passes NOPAGE but I'm a bit too tired to try that today | link |
| 2 May 2025 | Armand Biniakounou | Article | Retargeted to Republic of the Congo at the 1988 Summer Olympics § Athletics | navpage to redirect | link |
| 5 May 2025 | Team Cherry (developer) | Redirect to Hollow Knight | Retargeted to Hollow Knight | Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Team Cherry (developer) (2nd nomination) closed as redirect (XFDcloser) | link |
| 7 May 2025 | Glove and Boots | Redirect to Bento Box Entertainment § Short form series | Retargeted to Bento Box Entertainment § Short form series | Redirect better than a navpage here | link |
| 8 May 2025 | Nick Fuentes, Donald Trump, and Kanye West meeting | Deleted | Retargeted to Nick Fuentes § Dinner with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago | figured out the best page to redirect this to | link |
| 22 May 2025 | Aquaveo | Deleted | Deleted | out of process deletion; User:GZWDer, Navigation pages haven't been officially approved by RFC; as it stands, their existence is up for debate and you shouldn't be creating new navigation article until there is clear consensus that they should exist. This topic is especially since controversial there has been a ArbCom case about it and an AFD with a delete consensus. I'd recommend waiting for consensus especially before recreating this page. | link |
Overview
[edit]Distinction from other page types
[edit]"Navigation pages" differed from disambiguation pages and set index articles:
- A disambiguation page lists articles that primarily focus on different items, which may be of different types.
- A set index article lists articles that primarily focus on different items, all of which are of the same type.
- A navigation page would focus on one item without not offer substantial information about it; instead listing articles and/or sections where such information could be found.
Flowchart for determining whether a page could be a navigation page
[edit]- How many things are known by this name?
- Just one ↴
Does this thing meet the general notability guideline?- Maybe ↴
Ordinary article, stand-alone list, or broad-concept article - Not really ↴
Can you decide on a redirect target for the page?
- Maybe ↴
- Two or more ↴
Are all these things of the same type as each other?- Yes ↴
Set index article - Probably not ↴
Disambiguation page
- Yes ↴
- Just one ↴
Page style
[edit]Each navigation page would comprise a list (or multiple lists) of links to articles and/or sections containing information on a particular topic.
- Typical introductory sentence:
- The following articles deal with Subject name here:
- Each bulleted entry was to have a navigable (blue) link as the entry itself.
- If linking to a section, use {{section link}}. For example, the wikitext
{{section link|Example|Section}}will appear as Example § Section.
- If linking to a section, use {{section link}}. For example, the wikitext
What was not to be included
[edit]Related subjects
[edit]Articles were to generally only be included if they actually contained content pertinent to the navigation page's subject.
Articles with only trivial mentions
[edit]Articles were to generally only be included as list entries if they contained content that described the navigation page's subject in detail. If the only articles in which a subject was mentioned merely mentioned that subject without providing detailed information, then a navigation page would not have been justified without consensus. If a subject was mentioned in multiple articles, but one article described the subject in more detail than the others, it may have been better for that subject's page to simply redirect to that one article in particular.
For example, after the article on the Namibian politician Adolf Uunona was deleted, it was later recreated as a navigation page that listed Oshipumbu and Ompundja Constituency, but it was soon speedied under criterion G4 and subsequently recreated again, but this time as a redirect to the article about the Ompundja Constituency, which contained more information about Uunona than the one about the village of Oshipumbu.
References
[edit]When navigation pages were introduced in April 2025, a few of the early navigation pages that were being created contained references, which some editors deemed inappropriate for a page of this nature, as the inclusion of references would make a navigation page look more like a stub. If enough references are found to support an article on a subject, then an article should be created instead of a navpage. An example of this is Goldie (TV series).
Construction
[edit]Using the source editor, a navigation page could be created via the following wikitext:
- The following articles deal with '''Subject name here''':
* [[Article that mentions topic]]
* {{section link|Another article|Subject}}
{{navigation page}}
The resulting page was to look something like this:
The following articles deal with Subject name here:
 Wikipedia currently does not have a standalone article about Subject name here. This navigation page lists articles containing information on Subject name here.
|
Navigation links
[edit]Navigation links could be included via the wikitext {{navigation page|navlinks}}, resulting in this:
You can also:
Wikipedia currently does not have a standalone article about Subject name here. This navigation page lists articles containing information on Subject name here.
|
If it was undesirable for readers to see the "Start the Subject name here article" link, nostart=yes could be added alongside navlinks to hide it. This was especially recommended for navigation pages with the same title as an article that has been deleted.
Deletion and denavification
[edit]Navigation pages can be listed for discussion at Articles for deletion, or tagged for speedy deletion if they meet one or more of the criteria for speedy deletion. For uncontroversial cases, the simpler process of Proposed deletion is also an option. Navigation pages with no bluelinked entries can be summarily deleted using speedy deletion criterion A3. A navigation page can simply be turned into a redirect if one particular target appears more suitable than any other potential targets.