How to rename Wikipedia pages

Wikipedia serves as an incredible online source of information, but sometimes the name of a page needs to be changed because it might be incorrect or outdated. Let’s find out together how you can rename a Wikipedia page yourself.

You’re probably aware of the existence of Wikipedia. Everytime you looked up something on your browser, there’s a huge possibility that you encountered this name, because it is usually in the top three results you’ll get.

With its 55 million articles in 285 languages, Wikipedia acquired the title of the biggest multilingual open-collaborative online encyclopedia on the Web. Launched by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger in 2001, the website’s articles attract on average 1,7 billion visitors per month. The encyclopedia is not-for-profit and managed by a community of volunteer editors, who write and publish their articles using a wiki-based editing system. And since Wikipedia is free-for-all, it is open to everyone for modification purposes.

Even you could create, update and edit Wikipedia pages, however, the site’s administrators protect some pages from direct editing if they believe they are regularly subjected to “vandalism” – such as use of abusive language or false info. Wikipedia is self-policing and relies on its community of volunteer editors to improve the quality and accuracy of the pages over time. Writers are encouraged to back up factual statements with verifiable references and authoritative sources as often as possible.

If you desire to become join Wikipedia’s team of collaborators, you’ll first have to set up your account: this will allow you to edit articles, create your own pages and upload content.

Change the name of a Wikipedia page

Now, moving on to the gist of this article, how can you rename a Wikipedia page? Before renaming – or moving – Wikipedia pages, you have to access your Wikipedia account.

When you edit the page name, the page is moved to a new target name. By doing so, the page’s edit history is preserved. Keep in mind that your account has to be at least 4 days old and you had to make more than 10 edits for you to be able to move a page;

• access your Wikipedia account and go to the page you want to move

• move your cursor over More and select Move

• now, this screen will appear

• here you can choose the page’s new title

• and you have to indicate the reason for the move

• finally, the procedure will be completed

The old page name will automatically become a redirect to the new page. However, if you think the move could be controversial, you should request it on the talk page using the Wikipedia:Requested moves process. Even though the move is uncontroversial, if the desired target page name already exists and is other than a redirect with only one edit, you will need an administrator to move the page for you, which can be requested at Wikipedia’s technical requests section.