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Following from the above, I propose that we establish that linking in infoboxes and tables should be treated completely differently, in that linking to what are otherwise common terms but used for identification or classification, and/or repeating what is stated in prose, should be considered appropriate.
Once in prose, that all changes, but if we start with the establishment that it is nearly impossible to consider overlinking in infoboxes and tables, that's a start to something. -- MASEM ( t) 17:58, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
But I see nothing in the proposal that supports the proposition that, consequently, we should link more in the infobox than we do in the article. In fact, precisely the opposite is the case.
As the guideline states:
Some editors feel that the lead section is a special case. On the one hand it might be desirable to have fewer links in the lead section than in the body of the text; while some links make it easier to scan a longer lead by highlighting key terms, too many make it harder. On the other hand, in technical articles that use many uncommon terms in the introduction, a higher-than-usual link density in the lead section may be necessary to facilitate understanding; but, if possible, try giving an informal explanation in the lead, avoiding using too many technical terms until later in the article: see point 5 of WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, textbook, or scientific journal, and WP:Make technical articles accessible.
My take-away from that is that is as follows. As with the lead, the purpose the purpose of the infobox is to provide a stand-alone summary of the article. Consequently, as with the lead, the above guidance should provide. In the infobox we should generally have fewer links than would appear in the text of most article. And in the case of technical articles, we should seek to have more informal language in the infobox (which of course would require fewer links than formal language would require).
I therefore have a counter-proposal --that the guidance be modified to change, in the above block quote, "the lead section" in each instance to "the lead section and the infobox", with corresponding grammatical revisions.-- Epeefleche ( talk) 04:02, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Strong support as far as infoboxes are concerned. Tables are a different matter, but infoboxes have a de facto second role as a kind of navigation boxes. If we deny them this second role, we are not going to get less infoboxes (something that I would support, but unfortunately very unlikely), but we are going to get more navboxes. Hans Adler 17:24, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
The current section gives plenty of examples when linking to a date or year is not recommended. Is there any situation in which it would be appropriate to do so (besides articles in the Wikipedia namespace like Wikipedia:Linking ) ? V ( talk) 15:05, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm still working on trying a better formalization of the previous idea I had about linking (that is: we should offer links like a tourist agency offers directs to local and distance locals), and another nebulous idea came to me.
Basically, we can likely classify links in prose among two categories:
Bi-directional links are good. I cannot see a case where, as long as the prose in either article is not forced to include the return link, such a link should be discouraged (save for cases of common place names). In my tourist agency scheme above, the "near"/local links are more than likely to be more bi-directional.
Uni-directional links are not necessary bad, but they are ones that need to have high value and context to take the reader off the path for a good intended reason. This would be about equivalent to my "far" links, though I would argue most poor links on WP are these uni-directional links that are only "intermediate", linking to common english terms that really don't need to be linked.
Again, how to formalize and use all this, I don't know yet. But, I am throwing it out there to brainstorm. -- MASEM ( t) 23:33, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Not to make a big deal of this, but I think we should take heed of ArbCom's view, recently reiterated, that the stability of styleguide pages and the maintenance of harmony on their talk pages are a serious consideration. I include myself in this respect. Tony (talk) 09:10, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
There's some cleanup I can see in the language given that right now, we do mention the geographical linking in the first section but it seems like the black sheep there. I suggest we can formalize the idea into a "Special case" which would be something like:
Not perfect language, but starting points for an addition. -- MASEM ( t) 13:46, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: page moved. Arbitrarily0 ( talk) 00:52, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Linking → Wikipedia:Manual of Style (linking) — Consolidating naming per Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Poll Gnevin ( talk) 16:23, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Uncertain: While a persuasive case could be made that this is more of an editing guideline, the main MoS page has long had a section devoted to links that naturally connects to this more detailed treatment of the topic. On the other hand, our Wikipedia:List of guidelines indeed lists this as an editing guideline. I believe more opinion should be solicited.— DCGeist ( talk) 22:37, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Reading quickly, I don't see any prohibition against appending a number after a linked word or acronym; the current article I'm copyediting has " Nakajima A1N2 fighters" (a specific version of the A1N fighter). Is the language on this page? Should it be? (The problem here is that the Mediawiki softerware automatically makes any letters that are appended outside a link appear to be part of the link, but not numbers.) - Dank ( push to talk) 22:26, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
[[Nakajima A1N fighter|Nakajima A1N2 fighters]]
.
Si Trew (
talk) 14:22, 12 July 2010 (UTC)Somehow I got the idea that a wikipedia article is not supposed to link to itself. I recently came across an article in which the lead contained several links to various sections of the article below the lead. Is this ok? Thanks, Xtzou ( Talk) 22:29, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
I have restored what was the guideline, but was replaced with no discussion here. Briefly, the reason for linking in each row of a table is that we should not expect readers to go hunting around the table for the spot where the term is linked. That is the same regardless of whether it is "very long" or sortable. In very short tables with only a few rows, it may well be appropriate to only link once, but that is more a case of ignoring all rules and using common sense than a justification for turning the policy on its head. - Rrius ( talk) 02:01, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
This is disappointing. The page itself is being changed in ways that clearly do not have consensus. It is a sensitive issue, and needs to be discussed here before any change is made. I'd have thought that was obvious. Discussion by edit summary is not an acceptable way to push and pull the style-guide page, which should remain stable where there is no consensus to change it. If an editor wants to propose a change that is sensitive, please raise it here first. Tony (talk) 17:51, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
to read as"avoid cluttering the page with obvious, redundant and useless links"
This edit makes no change as to the substance and intent of the guideline, but removes the highly opinionated terms "cluttering" and "useless" that do not fit with the professional style used throughout our guidelines and policies. Furthermore, the change itself should be self-evident, not "sensitive"; we have agreed on avoiding this type of loaded language on the guideline talk page, so it should be even less acceptable in the actual guideline. -- Ckatz chat spy 18:55, 21 June 2010 (UTC)"avoid adding obvious or redundant links"
I agree that the edit seems more professional. I think the only remaining issue is whether the edit materially changes the message. Tony, do you think it does? If you think it does, let’s discuss and arrive at an all-hands consensus as to whether there really is a change in meaning and how to go forward from there. Greg L ( talk) 20:42, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
Hi there, just a suggestion here to include information on intra-article links, so that editors will be better informed on this kind of linking. These links send readers from one part of an article to another part. If you want a reply from me, just ring me up at my talk page. Regards, AngChenrui Talk 03:35, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Friends, it is with disappointment that I announce that His Grace the Duke of Waltham is no longer able to judge the monthly awards. However, we are in luck: Ceoil has kindly agreed to take over. Please see the announcement here. Tony (talk) 05:43, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
I've had a look through the page and can't see anything specific on linking book and programme titles within an article. Would it be the case that they can only link to an article on those books/programmes? An example would be the Keith Floyd article where there are numerous links throughout the individual titles. Thanks. Jack 1314 ( talk) 11:39, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
The article encourages us to use red links to link future articles if they are relevant to the content. Let's say I want to put a link to the 1848 revolution in Germany, but there is an article only about the 1484 revolution not the former. (Hypothetical) Should I prefer the red link or the less detailed valid link ?
Sincerely NikitaUtiu talk contributions 08:21, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
After having seen many helpful "See also" and "External links" sections deleted by well intended editors, attempting to "tidy up" articles, I personally have often been frustrated by this. Often in lengthy articles, these sections are life-savers (well actually huge time-savers) for me and I don't understand the need to delete them in so many articles, or to bar links found above from being repeated in them. To me, the logic of keeping these sections and allowing them to have doubled links in them seems to weigh heavily in favor of this, rather than the apparent logic that we might possibly consume too many gigabytes for this, or possibly make an article 'look' overly long.
As such, I've gone ahead and added this exception for "doubled links" to the list of "Repeated links exceptions". Any comments on this new exception would be much appreciated. Thanks,
Scott P. ( talk) 12:59, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
So far this looks like I lose. One for, one neutral, and three opposed. Argh! Apparently I'm in a small minority on this. My wife says I must have OCD, because I always like to have things in the same places where I can easily find them. Perhaps she is right. Now where were those slippers again???? Scott P. ( talk) 23:00, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
I would like to see a clear listing of pros and cons of repeated links in see also sections, since the discussion above got a bit astray. I'll try to provide some below from the statements above and my own opinions. Please add more if I missed anything.
Also, I would like to point out some arguments from past discussions which I think describe well the need for discussing this exception:
These points, and the fact that the current rules are indeed being applied my many as hard-and-fast principles (and yes, made their way to AWB), make it clear, imo, that a specific exception is in order for cases where the benefit exceeds the drawbacks. -- Waldir talk 13:41, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
I like see also sections. They are useful, irrespective of what links appear in the rest of the article and should be independent of it. -- Michael C. Price talk 19:18, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
The metrics make sense to me too, Michael. There is a clear trend among all the different-language Wikipedias to reduce the links in articles to just those required to enhance the readers’ understanding of the subject matter. After rising to absurd proportions, the proportion of words linked in articles has declined on en.Wikipedia by one-third in the last four years. The downward trend has been consistent as editors all across the project realized we had created articles that looked seas of blue turds. These statistics apparently don’t please you. As they say in the military: “So sad – Too bad.” Greg L ( talk) 16:55, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
The guideline says "Provide links that aid navigation and understanding, but avoid adding obvious or redundant links", which seems a desirable objective.
However, I think some mention in the guideline should be given to who the potential readership is. For someone who is a native speaker of English, immersed in the western way of life, reasonably knowledgeable, reasonably well-educated, and immersed in a culture where the Abrahamic religions, or one of them, predominate, many "obvious" things may not be so for someone from an oriental or African background, maybe still in school, maybe never having visited a large town, with limited English and no connection to the Abrahamic religions. I don't know if the assumed readership of English Wikipedia is discussed everywhere, but it would seem (particularly with the de-facto status of English as a major international language) that English Wikipedia should cater for anybody who might want to try to use it, but requiring some modest proficiency with the English language - Wikipedia isn't a language school. The golden rule can perhaps be adapted ("do unto other as you would have them do unto you" ==> "write for others as clearly as you'd expect them to write for you"): link things that are part of your lifestyle in the same way as you'd hope others would clarify that in their context Sunday is just a day of the week like any other, that killing anything alive (e.g., flies) is considered sinful, that using or wasting water implies a long walk to get more.
My particular opinion of the readership we are writing to may not be the consensus position, but we do need to know who we are writing for (whatever group this is) when deciding what to link.
Pol098 ( talk) 13:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
←Linking "Georgetown" might be fine, but not "Guyana" straight after it, as though an address on an envelope. That would be a chain-link. Tony (talk) 05:51, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Are there any special rules for linking in quotations (quoted passages)? Should they be avoided altogether? I give here a random example. In an article about, let's say, "Christian morals" would the links to sin and death in the following quotation be OK? "For everyone belongs to me, the parent as well as the child—both alike belong to me. The one who sins is the one who will die.—Ezek. 18:1-4, TNIV" - Mycomp ( talk) 23:34, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
Our judge, Ceoil, will soon announce the winners of the awards for August, July and May 2010, and at the end of this month will announce the winner for September.
He has agreed that we might then change the focus of the competition from individual wikilinks and small groups of wikilinks to whole articles that are badly overlinked. Inevitably, those valuable editors who perform gnoming services are confronted with overlinking throughout whole articles (particularly of "dictionary" items). In almost all cases, this has arisen earlier in WP's history, when there was no coherent strategy for maximising the utility of the wikilinking system. It's a lot of work to clean it up, and the Silliwilli awards was set up to encourage this work.
Therefore, we have decided that from October 2010 onwards the awards should be judged in terms of whole articles. Competitors will still be asked to list individual links (but expanded to six of the funniest, most useless, most inexplicable individual links in the article, as an example of the entry); however, the removal of overlinking from the whole article will be the sole determinant in the award. We expect this will reduce the number of entrants each month, which will compensate for the extra work by the judge in analysing the entries. Tony (talk) 04:07, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Why is some of the text in this article showing up as green? In utter cluelessness, your friend, GeorgeLouis ( talk) 00:24, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
I pose a politely worded query in English and am answered with some kind of odd symbol? Curiouser and curiouser. GeorgeLouis ( talk) 03:51, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: page moved. Arbitrarily0 ( talk) 00:52, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Linking → Wikipedia:Manual of Style (linking) — Consolidating naming per Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Poll Gnevin ( talk) 16:23, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Uncertain: While a persuasive case could be made that this is more of an editing guideline, the main MoS page has long had a section devoted to links that naturally connects to this more detailed treatment of the topic. On the other hand, our Wikipedia:List of guidelines indeed lists this as an editing guideline. I believe more opinion should be solicited.— DCGeist ( talk) 22:37, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Reading quickly, I don't see any prohibition against appending a number after a linked word or acronym; the current article I'm copyediting has " Nakajima A1N2 fighters" (a specific version of the A1N fighter). Is the language on this page? Should it be? (The problem here is that the Mediawiki softerware automatically makes any letters that are appended outside a link appear to be part of the link, but not numbers.) - Dank ( push to talk) 22:26, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
[[Nakajima A1N fighter|Nakajima A1N2 fighters]]
.
Si Trew (
talk) 14:22, 12 July 2010 (UTC)Somehow I got the idea that a wikipedia article is not supposed to link to itself. I recently came across an article in which the lead contained several links to various sections of the article below the lead. Is this ok? Thanks, Xtzou ( Talk) 22:29, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
I have restored what was the guideline, but was replaced with no discussion here. Briefly, the reason for linking in each row of a table is that we should not expect readers to go hunting around the table for the spot where the term is linked. That is the same regardless of whether it is "very long" or sortable. In very short tables with only a few rows, it may well be appropriate to only link once, but that is more a case of ignoring all rules and using common sense than a justification for turning the policy on its head. - Rrius ( talk) 02:01, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
This is disappointing. The page itself is being changed in ways that clearly do not have consensus. It is a sensitive issue, and needs to be discussed here before any change is made. I'd have thought that was obvious. Discussion by edit summary is not an acceptable way to push and pull the style-guide page, which should remain stable where there is no consensus to change it. If an editor wants to propose a change that is sensitive, please raise it here first. Tony (talk) 17:51, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
to read as"avoid cluttering the page with obvious, redundant and useless links"
This edit makes no change as to the substance and intent of the guideline, but removes the highly opinionated terms "cluttering" and "useless" that do not fit with the professional style used throughout our guidelines and policies. Furthermore, the change itself should be self-evident, not "sensitive"; we have agreed on avoiding this type of loaded language on the guideline talk page, so it should be even less acceptable in the actual guideline. -- Ckatz chat spy 18:55, 21 June 2010 (UTC)"avoid adding obvious or redundant links"
I agree that the edit seems more professional. I think the only remaining issue is whether the edit materially changes the message. Tony, do you think it does? If you think it does, let’s discuss and arrive at an all-hands consensus as to whether there really is a change in meaning and how to go forward from there. Greg L ( talk) 20:42, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
Hi there, just a suggestion here to include information on intra-article links, so that editors will be better informed on this kind of linking. These links send readers from one part of an article to another part. If you want a reply from me, just ring me up at my talk page. Regards, AngChenrui Talk 03:35, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Friends, it is with disappointment that I announce that His Grace the Duke of Waltham is no longer able to judge the monthly awards. However, we are in luck: Ceoil has kindly agreed to take over. Please see the announcement here. Tony (talk) 05:43, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
I've had a look through the page and can't see anything specific on linking book and programme titles within an article. Would it be the case that they can only link to an article on those books/programmes? An example would be the Keith Floyd article where there are numerous links throughout the individual titles. Thanks. Jack 1314 ( talk) 11:39, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
The article encourages us to use red links to link future articles if they are relevant to the content. Let's say I want to put a link to the 1848 revolution in Germany, but there is an article only about the 1484 revolution not the former. (Hypothetical) Should I prefer the red link or the less detailed valid link ?
Sincerely NikitaUtiu talk contributions 08:21, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
The guideline says "Provide links that aid navigation and understanding, but avoid adding obvious or redundant links", which seems a desirable objective.
However, I think some mention in the guideline should be given to who the potential readership is. For someone who is a native speaker of English, immersed in the western way of life, reasonably knowledgeable, reasonably well-educated, and immersed in a culture where the Abrahamic religions, or one of them, predominate, many "obvious" things may not be so for someone from an oriental or African background, maybe still in school, maybe never having visited a large town, with limited English and no connection to the Abrahamic religions. I don't know if the assumed readership of English Wikipedia is discussed everywhere, but it would seem (particularly with the de-facto status of English as a major international language) that English Wikipedia should cater for anybody who might want to try to use it, but requiring some modest proficiency with the English language - Wikipedia isn't a language school. The golden rule can perhaps be adapted ("do unto other as you would have them do unto you" ==> "write for others as clearly as you'd expect them to write for you"): link things that are part of your lifestyle in the same way as you'd hope others would clarify that in their context Sunday is just a day of the week like any other, that killing anything alive (e.g., flies) is considered sinful, that using or wasting water implies a long walk to get more.
My particular opinion of the readership we are writing to may not be the consensus position, but we do need to know who we are writing for (whatever group this is) when deciding what to link.
Pol098 ( talk) 13:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
←Linking "Georgetown" might be fine, but not "Guyana" straight after it, as though an address on an envelope. That would be a chain-link. Tony (talk) 05:51, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Our judge, Ceoil, will soon announce the winners of the awards for August, July and May 2010, and at the end of this month will announce the winner for September.
He has agreed that we might then change the focus of the competition from individual wikilinks and small groups of wikilinks to whole articles that are badly overlinked. Inevitably, those valuable editors who perform gnoming services are confronted with overlinking throughout whole articles (particularly of "dictionary" items). In almost all cases, this has arisen earlier in WP's history, when there was no coherent strategy for maximising the utility of the wikilinking system. It's a lot of work to clean it up, and the Silliwilli awards was set up to encourage this work.
Therefore, we have decided that from October 2010 onwards the awards should be judged in terms of whole articles. Competitors will still be asked to list individual links (but expanded to six of the funniest, most useless, most inexplicable individual links in the article, as an example of the entry); however, the removal of overlinking from the whole article will be the sole determinant in the award. We expect this will reduce the number of entrants each month, which will compensate for the extra work by the judge in analysing the entries. Tony (talk) 04:07, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Why is some of the text in this article showing up as green? In utter cluelessness, your friend, GeorgeLouis ( talk) 00:24, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
I pose a politely worded query in English and am answered with some kind of odd symbol? Curiouser and curiouser. GeorgeLouis ( talk) 03:51, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Whoa, someone's mucked this up really badly. It's completely absurd to suggest that people should not link languages and geographical names, etc., within reason. Per WP:POLICY, Wikipedia guidelines describe actual, current, observable, consensus-based best practices on Wikipedia; they do not advance one person's or one camp's opinion of what WP best practices "should" be by proscribing common, or prescribing unusual, editor behaviors.
It is very clear, simply from looking at articles and infoboxes, that the vast majority of WP editors believe, and our readers expect, country, city and other geographical names, language names, and other proper nouns, to be linked at first occurrence the vast majority of the time. WP:MOSNUM, the controlling guideline on numerics, strongly suggests always linking first occurrences of currencies, units, etc., in any case where confusion could possibly occur at all, and does not suggest that more common usages shouldn't be linked (a common but not universal practice – i.e., one about which there is not solid consensus – and one that this guideline is not in a position to attack without a clear showing, e.g. in an RfC on the topic, that a preponderance of editors support a ban on such links). I am therefore making significant edits to the "Overlinking and underlinking" section to correct this problem and several others, including direct conflict with WP:MOSNUM and WP:SELFREF, among other issues, including bad list style, redundancy, etc., etc. MOS-watchers need to keep a much better eye on this page, as it has clearly been PoV-pushed in a reader-unhelpful, anti-linking direction.
— SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 01:37, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
[outdent] To respond to all of the above at once (using "you" generically):
1. WP:BRD exists for a reason. There really is no such thing as "too bold", per WP:BOLD and more importantly WP:IAR. This is a wiki. Being bold does not do damage, and criticizing editors for being "too bold" is rather nonsensical.
2. As I've mentioned on my own talk page in response to Tony1, for the first time in several years I am invoking IAR, and ignoring the dafter parts of this section of the guideline, because they do not represent consensus at all, only what Tony describes as an "uneasy balance" between argumentative factions on this talk page. I will continue to link, sensibly, as I have done during my entire editing history and as most other experienced editors do, regardless what the perennially disputed section says, because that's actual de facto standard WP practice and has been for years, since before I was even an editor here. And I see precisely zero evidence that consensus has changed, only that certain parties here are tenacious, and through long, bitter dispute have worn down more sensible stances to agree to a compromise position that doesn't actually satisfy anyone. The section gets in the way of my ability to improve the encyclopedia, and that is precisely the circumstance for which the IAR policy was codified.
3. I'm not going to pitch a fit about being reverted (I expected it) so long as the "D" in WP:BRD is engaged in here. You can't have the "R" without the "D". My edits were well-explained, based in policy and much more widely accepted guidelines than this one. The responses thus far have been a) personal opinion not rooted in any such bases, b) just "don't rock the boat" conservatism, and c) musings and statements that are non-responsive to most if not all of the issues I raised. None of these reactions makes for a strong position, alone or combined.
4. I don't care if the wording there was no accident. It is still awful. The fact that something boneheaded, confusing and user-hostile was the product of a sausage-making committee full of people who don't agree with each other on much of anything is neither surprising nor any excuse. The section conflicts with WP:POLICY, WP:MOS, WP:MOSNUM, WP:BIAS, WP:CONSENSUS and WP:SELFREF (at least – I'm probably forgetting some) on a large number of points, is longwinded and in parts redundant, is invasive of MOSNUM's scope, has poor grammar in parts, is palimpsestuous and hard to parse, is clearly biased and prescriptive/proscriptive, and does not represent the actual practice of the majority of experienced, good faith, intelligent editors, among other issues.
5. I agree that there is too much linking going on. I unlink stuff all the time. It's one of my most common types of mainspace edit, in fact. Believing that overlinking is at play on WP does not equate to a mandate to introduce ridiculously vague and over-broad advice on (against, really) linking that contravenes very long-standing and very well accepted actual practice by the vast majority of editors. It would be much better to properly identify ( WP:RFC, anyone?) what most editors do actually feel should not be linked. With that in mind, I introduced a handful of clear examples, each of which was selected because I have actually found them linked for no reason and delinked them, and had a good laugh; they were ones that stuck in my memory.
6. The "linking first occurrence of everything = a sewer" argument is a total straw man fallacy, since neither I nor any one else since the pre-Web days of the Xanadu Project has suggested doing so, that I know of. So, please don't be exaggeratory and melodramatic. In actual fact, I was quite explicit about what should be linked at first occurrence and gave, also, clear examples of what not to link at all. A reasonable person could argue that my take was perfect or too exclusive or too broad. Worth discussion. The interesting part here to me is that the language as it stood, and stands again since I was reverted, actually commits the "sin" you point out, in the inverse: It effectively suggests that nothing should ever be linked at first or any occurrence except under very restrictive conditions, that do not at all match how Wikipedia has operated from day one to the present (nor virtually all wikis of this "informational, researched articles" format, such as Memory Alpha, Battlestar Wiki, etc., etc.).
7. If you won't "delv[e]...deeply into [my] argument", and we don't disagree that there is too much linking going on, your comment about not delving but feeling there's overlinking going on is basically meaningless, since my edits do not suggest that too much linking isn't going on (in fact, I clarified how it is going on), and you don't present any argument against the specifics I changed. Unexplicated "me too" one-liners like that do not help build consensus, one way or the other, be they in formal !votes like WP:AFD, where they are mostly ignored by closing admins, or in informal discussions like this one.
8. If my changes resulted in a redundancy with other wording in the guideline (which I did not set out to edit from top to bottom, only uni-sectionally), this is not an indication that the change was bad, only that further editing needs to happen outside and/or inside this section, since the change simply made the document agree with itself better, instead of going off on a wild tangent trying to ban links that most editors consider completely normal. This is actually precisely what I would expect, given that much of this document has been stable for years, but this section is a frakfest of agenda-pushing and emotive argumentation, with layers upon layers of barely- to totally-incompatible edits, with greatly varying degrees of common sense applied. If moderating the extreme pre- and proscriptions in the contentious section makes it come more into line with the stable rest of the document, this is a very, very strong indication that the section in question has been badly off-kilter and getting worse.
9. It's not important whether or not you find a link to " American" useful or not, understand why it is there or why someone else might appreciate it, or would ever click it yourself. This encyclopedia isn't written specially for you. It's written for everyone who can understand some English, anywhere in the world. This includes people in censorious and propagandistic countries like China (P.R. of), where actual facts about the United States and Americans are often generally unavailable or distorted, except for those who have figured out ways around the censorship and gotten here to get sourced facts. Another way of looking at it: A lead section intro like "Ndele P. Mbebe is a Botswanan professor of physics teaching at Rutgers University since 1998..." is what I would guesstimate 95% of experienced WP editors would write. Someone from Botswana might not see any point to that first link and would never click it, since they already know all about Botswana. A physicist might feel likewise about the 2nd link, and so on. Most other people would not have such an "I don't give a hoot" reaction to such links, and see WP:BIAS for why making the US some magically special case is not acceptable. Taken to its logical conclusion, some might use this position to suggest that linking to Iraq shouldn't be done except where Iraq is really, really important to the topic at hand, because Iraq is all over the news all day long, and we all already know about Iraq. But I saw poll results in an Associated Press story about a year or so ago that reported that only a tiny percentage (less than 10%, maybe less that 5%, I forget) of Americans could even correctly identify Iraq on a map that showed borders but no country names. The point being, there are also sorts of reasons in favor of linking to articles on significant topics that provide context to an article subject - being a Russian and being Maori produce completely different worldviews; A Galician writer and a Castillian ("Spanish language") writer, both from Spain, will produce literature with a different "flavor", audience, social impact, etc. And so on.
10. The usual practice is certainly not to link every occurrence of countries and such. It's a common new editor mistake that experienced editors like you and me correct on sight. Please do not confuse experienced Wikipedian standard practice (codified or otherwise) with unhelpful noob editing behavior that happens to be frequent (and frequently undone). It takes virtually all editors (including me back in my wide-eyed time, and surely you in yours) some time to fully grok when and when not to link and how to do it in ways that aren't misleading, confusing, distracting, leading or otherwise unhelpful. When I refer to common, consensus-accepted, observable best practices I'm obviously referring to the former kind of editing practice, not the latter, and actually added noob-helpful information on what not to link.
11. PS: A side point I must stress, and I have to do this in multiple forums from time to time: Infoboxes are entirely dependent upon and subordinate to articles' main prose but (important here!) they are severable, distinct entities. All information that appears in an infobox should also appear in the prose, in one form or another (usually more developed, instead of summary form), and be sourced in the prose, even if sources are also in the infobox (which is usually unnecessary). I realize that, especially in biographies, this ideal is often not attainted, at least not until GA or FA review. But it must be goal for a very simple reason: WP content can be repurposed in any way (within the bounds of the license) via any means for any purpose. This includes recycling but filtering the wikicode to re-present the prose in other non-MediaWiki-wiki, blog, e-book, etc. marked up formats that may preserve styles and links, but strip all infoboxes, navboxes and other adjunct template content! D'oh! The upshot of this is, of course, that we cannot at all guarantee that a link in an infobox will remain "the first occurrence" on the page as it is reused elsewhere. Because users (here) often read only the infobox when skimming for quick information, first occurrence in an infobox of something worth linking should be linked. But because many users ignore infoboxes as "noise", and are here to read an in-depth article and already know the summary details of the topic they are researching, the same is true of the main prose - link the first occurrence in the article proper. I've been writing/editing articles this way for 5 years (linking in main prose and in infoboxes as if they were separate entities with a parent-child relationship, which <gasp!> is actually the case). I cannot remember one single case of anyone reverting me on this practice. Not one. It's self-evidently the only sensible way to do it, if and when one understands and considers WP's broader, off-site userbase, many of whom don't even know they are looking at content ultimately from WP – and without infoboxes and the like – unless they read the fine-print attribution. Infoboxes and navboxes (which also link to things that may already be linked in main prose) are tools – mini-pages, if you will – that are separate from, even if subordinate to, the main article prose. Personally, I think that the "no subpages" policy should be modified to always put infoboxes in a /infbox subpage. This would help remind people of the nature of an infobox and its relationship to the parent article, but I guess that's neither here nor there.
That's all I can think of for now. Apologies for the length but I want to be as plain and explicit on all aspects of this as possible, to minimize the amount of time people argue past one another and don't understand where the other side(s) is/are coming from. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 08:44, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
There is no escaping the fact that the tide has been turning against overlinking the last few years, the wording you made a colossal change to was the product of vigorous debate and compromise by many editors over a protracted period of time, and that wording truly represents the best consensus to date (notwithstanding that you oddly cited WP:CONSENSUS in an attempt to justify your unilateral, undiscussed, colossal change to the guideline). It doesn’t matter if you think “it is still awful.” It appears that four of us (GeorgeLouis, Greg L, HWV258, and Tony1) are in one camp and only three are in the other camp (you, your links, and your flotilla-like posts). Stealing a stunt of yours, that is WP:CONSENSUS. And that consensus is to keep the existing wording for the moment.
Now, you may keep discussing the matter here if you like. I suggest you keep your arguments shorter because we are all volunteers here and time is limited. If you have an idea that makes sense and gains traction with others, great. If not, then as they say in the military: “So sad – too bad.” There is no politically correct requirement that others admire your ideas and edits as much as you do, nor should eventually tuning you out be construed as an invitation to you to wade back in and do as you please with a flame thrower. Greg L ( talk) 15:59, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
[Outdent] There has not been "wide input", nor is there any "4:1 majority"; the more controversial changes are largely the result of the personal preferences of a handful of editors who doggedly pursue this goal. Furthermore, the statement "you just changed something all by your lonesome" is particularly troublesome given that the reason we are here today is due to someone completely changing the focus of this part of the guideline two years ago, "all by their lonesome". There has to be room for compromise, as requested numerous times in discussions on this page and elsewhere. Guidelines cannot be used as a means of imposing an individual vision on the project. -- Ckatz chat spy 09:00, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
Oh, my goodness, what a lot of words! From what I can make out, somebody wants to simplify the MOS. So, why don't you post your suggested MOS change in your own sandbox, with a link here — then people who agree with you can have a look at it to get it ready for posting as a change to the MOS? In short, I have no idea what is proposed, and I don't intend to wade through all the above to find out. Sincerely, your very good friend, GeorgeLouis ( talk) 21:46, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
The suggested MOS change is the last 4 edits by SMcCandlish, which were largely reverted by Tony1. The main controversy is whether to scale back this:
SMcCandish's proposed change would eviscerate our clear, prudent guidance. It is entirely unacceptable.— DCGeist ( talk) 04:40, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
I am fine with the current wording of the guideline. I am not fine with people who believe that unless they are particularly relevant to the topic of the article, avoid linking means 'never, ever link anywhere'. A. di M. ( talk) 09:10, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
The proposal is a bad idea because it outright invites linking totally extraneous garbage, such as if there was an article on “Scientific goofs”, this sentence: American scientists in the 1960s thought they had invented polywater. …would have three needless things linked when all it needs is one link: polywater.
There is always a losing side to these contentious issues. However, “contentious” does not equate to “chronically reoccurs like genital herpes.” The current wording is simple and couldn’t be clearer. The tip-off that it is a thoughtful guideline is it begins with these, oh-so-logical words: Unless they are particularly relevant to the topic of the article… and then isn’t immediately followed up with caveats designed to undermine that very principle.
There is no stomach for revisiting the issue, let alone actually changing the current guideline. Greg L ( talk) 23:51, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't understand why notions of "hostility" and "friction" have arisen. Another way of looking at it is: healthy debate. I have tried to respond to issues, and I believe most other editors have done the same. No harm; no foul.
Here's an
example of what a healthy application of the guideline produces. Four months ago, with that edit, I removed links to six common terms and a country name—links that did nothing to deepen the understanding of the topic. There have been no reversions of my edit (indicating community support), and the article scans better without the links. It's not just the delinking of words such as "lipstick" and "piano" in that article for which the hard-working editors involved in this issue strive, it is also a change of culture that will hopefully deter editors from wanting to make such nebulous links (or at least to have editors think carefully about the relevance of links, as opposed to the scatter-gun approach to linking).
HWV258
. 07:05, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
Tony has asked me a question, which I have responded to which is relevant to this discussion. Must dash. -- Michael C. Price talk 10:25, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
I have posted a query at the village pump, on the question of what is the best (long-term) way to handle redundancies among related articles. Since this pages discusses wikilinking, I thought some of you might have something to say. Cheers! AGradman / underlying article as I saw it / talk 03:40, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Should acronyms in parentheses be included in links or not? For example, National Football League (NFL) or National Football League (NFL)? – CWenger ( talk) 16:22, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Further to the most recent blow up of this on the Queen (band) page, I thought I’d spend a bit of time putting together some questions and actually get some answers. The general ones are mostly - with some additions - on points that I and others have raised on many occasions, but that I have never seen properly addressed. The more specific ones are just a couple of examples I’ve dug out from a couple of scans of recent changes, which either highlight some of general issues, or which raise their own, more specific questions. Without wishing to dictate how others format their responses on a talk page, perhaps it would be easiest for people to add any comments under each individual question/point -
OK, essay/questionnaire done. N-HH talk/ edits 11:01, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
Again, only a sample. N-HH talk/ edits 19:10, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
Comment I find it very frustrating to repeatedly see claims tossed about that myself, N-HH and others want to "link everything" (or words to that effect). The notion that I, or N-HH, or probably anyone else who's objected to the hard-line delinking is in favour of "linking everything" is nothing more than fiction, pure and simple. I've made that clear, and so has N-HH; it is simply a diversionary tactic from a small group who are pushing the delinking effort far beyond what many average users would consider a reasonable point. That group has drawn the line for what should and should not be linked based on their personal preferences, and it has begun to detract from the core functionality of the site. If you review the discussion to date, it becomes clear that we are not disagreeing about basic concepts (such as not linking simple words), nor the idea that we don't need to link every single time the word "Canada" appears in an article. The critical difference lies in the attitude that we should almost never link terms such as "Canada" or "New York", even in articles directly related to those terms. I've seen the delinking script used to strip away all links to the US in an article about its closest neighbour and largest trading partner, links to WWII in articles about battles in that same war, and so on. That is unreasonable, and - more to the point - there has never been a consensus to do such work. Why won't Tony and the others address repeated questions regarding why the list of "common terms" is hidden away in the depths of a script, rather than out in the open for debate and change by all Wikipedians? Why are personal opinions regarding the process - "sea of blue" and "smart linking" to name a few - being presented as if they were policy in explanations to editors who are unfamiliar with our guidleines? For that matter, why do we abide the continuous use of a loaded term as "sea of blue" when (often as not) we are really disagreeing over a handful of links amidst hundreds or thousands of words? -- Ckatz chat spy 18:57, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
comment. I checked random edits by Tony1 and cannot justify most of them. What's curious, he arbitrary delinks some "common" names and leaves others, no less "common", linked which results in a particularly sloppy look [3]. Is there any reason to treat Hong Kong (delinked) and Thailand (left linked) differently? Whether it was a random slip, or some private judgement over who are "common" and who are not, is irrelevant; this arbitrary mosaic delinking must stop. East of Borschov ( talk) 05:12, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
←"The" is relevant to the article on Champagne, too. Why not link it? "France" is sooooo general, and sooooo well-known, why don't you find a section link or a more focused daughter article ("Agriculture in France", if it exists?)—then your only problem would be that "France" as a pipe would be deceptive, and still no one would bother clicking it. "France" is adjacent to the more specific location, which links to France itself, if anyone would need to know even from that article. You are caught up in this concept of linking as auto-browsing: a magic blue carpet to anywhere vaguely relevant to the topic, just in case someone wanted to click it. They almost never do, I'm afraid, and your constant pushing for the linking of common geographical terms is further diluting the likelihood that readers will use the system. You think you're improving it, but you're degrading it. Good faith, but faulty reasoning, IMO. But taking this to ANI was in extremely bad faith—a political stunt to smear me. It is disreputable. Similarly, your use of political language is transparent—now my posts on users' talk pages are "raids"—oh give me a break. And as someone else pointed out above, the use of emotive words such as "stripping" rather than "unlinking" does your case no good at all. People see through the spin. You are not speech-writing for a politician or inventing language for TV ads.
And no, you don't write "total drivel"—you write well (just too much). This is why it's such a pity you've chosen to fight tooth-and-nail efforts to improve the readability and appearance of our text, not to mention the dilution of high-value wikilinks, and thus the utility of the whole wikilinking system. That is what we are trying to protect. Linking needs to be selective to be of real assistance to the readers. Linking "France" is not only useless: it insults the intelligence of the readers, even the eight-year-old. Tony (talk) 04:12, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
OK, since we don't get answers above, and we don't get answers at the (second) ANI thread, let's start again, and keep it simple - 1) where is the consensus to delink common terms/countries in every instance, regardless of context; and 2) where is the consensus as to which terms/countries fall within the definition of "common"? Links to those discussions please. Then we can perhaps look at how to maybe move forward with an RfC. N-HH talk/ edits 19:23, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
I think it'd be helpful if we had an RfC on delinking, so we can trash out an actual consensus on what the principles are, and if/how any auto/semi-auto delinking should proceed. One thing that's needed is for those who are delinking to present what exact scripts and rules they are using in deciding what links to remove, and on what basis that decision was made. I think we all agree on the general idea that there is overlinking, and nobody wants to "link everything", but there is a grey area involved certain "common terms". A clear example is Champagne (wine): Tony wants to remove France from the lead arguing that it adds no value; I suspect many editors would think a link to France in the lead of a drink that is so strongly associated with France would be a good idea. The same edit did remove extraneous links like Prime Minister next to Tony Blair, though I'd argue that Co-operative is handy when mentioning wine co-ops. So the delinking here is open to debate. I think the RfC needs to decide 1. What is actually is considered to be overlinking. 2. Whether automated processes are the right way to approach delinking. Can we write an RfC wording that says this neutrally and succinctly? Fences& Windows 21:25, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
The whole article on "France" is of little use to anyone but a reader who wants to wander through the most general links; "France" is now relinked right after "the Champagne region". The guideline says, "Always link to the article on the most specific topic appropriate to the context from which you link: it will generally contain more focused information, as well as links to more general topics." It also says, "Provide links that aid navigation and understanding, but avoid cluttering the page with obvious, redundant and useless links." and "can make it harder for the reader to identify and follow those links which are likely to be of value". and "Ask yourself, "How likely is it that the reader will also want to read that other article?" There are more than 100 links in the article text, and nine in the vicinity of the reinserted link to "France". So the guideline is telling us to be selective, in my reading of it. What is the value of the whole article on France at that particular point? Who doesn't know what France is? Nothing is stopping someone going to the article; but it seems just to dilute as an additional link at the top. Wouldn't a more specific link than the whole of France be more useful to the reader? ("Agriculture in France"?), wound into the article smoothly?
The same applies to "Prime Minister", which is already prominently linked from the top of the far more specific "Tony Blair" article: here, it bunches together with "Prime Minister", against this guideline: "When possible, avoid placing links next to each other so that they look like a single link".
These guidelines have evolved over years, and everyone was here when User:Kotniski led a conflation of two other pages into this one. Which parts of the guideline are at issue? Tony (talk) 03:03, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Let me make two suggestions to start this:
Having read this entire thread, can I make a few points to narrow things down? (They're not really related)
Just a few suggestions on how we might limit the discussion to what I see, as an interested but somewhat passive observer, to what are the main points. Si Trew ( talk) 14:10, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
As an aside, looking back over the archives, I see mention of previous RfCs. Can anyone provide pointers for them - just so we don't reinvent the wheel? -- Michael C. Price talk 03:02, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 5 | ← | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 | Archive 11 | → | Archive 15 |
Following from the above, I propose that we establish that linking in infoboxes and tables should be treated completely differently, in that linking to what are otherwise common terms but used for identification or classification, and/or repeating what is stated in prose, should be considered appropriate.
Once in prose, that all changes, but if we start with the establishment that it is nearly impossible to consider overlinking in infoboxes and tables, that's a start to something. -- MASEM ( t) 17:58, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
But I see nothing in the proposal that supports the proposition that, consequently, we should link more in the infobox than we do in the article. In fact, precisely the opposite is the case.
As the guideline states:
Some editors feel that the lead section is a special case. On the one hand it might be desirable to have fewer links in the lead section than in the body of the text; while some links make it easier to scan a longer lead by highlighting key terms, too many make it harder. On the other hand, in technical articles that use many uncommon terms in the introduction, a higher-than-usual link density in the lead section may be necessary to facilitate understanding; but, if possible, try giving an informal explanation in the lead, avoiding using too many technical terms until later in the article: see point 5 of WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, textbook, or scientific journal, and WP:Make technical articles accessible.
My take-away from that is that is as follows. As with the lead, the purpose the purpose of the infobox is to provide a stand-alone summary of the article. Consequently, as with the lead, the above guidance should provide. In the infobox we should generally have fewer links than would appear in the text of most article. And in the case of technical articles, we should seek to have more informal language in the infobox (which of course would require fewer links than formal language would require).
I therefore have a counter-proposal --that the guidance be modified to change, in the above block quote, "the lead section" in each instance to "the lead section and the infobox", with corresponding grammatical revisions.-- Epeefleche ( talk) 04:02, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Strong support as far as infoboxes are concerned. Tables are a different matter, but infoboxes have a de facto second role as a kind of navigation boxes. If we deny them this second role, we are not going to get less infoboxes (something that I would support, but unfortunately very unlikely), but we are going to get more navboxes. Hans Adler 17:24, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
The current section gives plenty of examples when linking to a date or year is not recommended. Is there any situation in which it would be appropriate to do so (besides articles in the Wikipedia namespace like Wikipedia:Linking ) ? V ( talk) 15:05, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm still working on trying a better formalization of the previous idea I had about linking (that is: we should offer links like a tourist agency offers directs to local and distance locals), and another nebulous idea came to me.
Basically, we can likely classify links in prose among two categories:
Bi-directional links are good. I cannot see a case where, as long as the prose in either article is not forced to include the return link, such a link should be discouraged (save for cases of common place names). In my tourist agency scheme above, the "near"/local links are more than likely to be more bi-directional.
Uni-directional links are not necessary bad, but they are ones that need to have high value and context to take the reader off the path for a good intended reason. This would be about equivalent to my "far" links, though I would argue most poor links on WP are these uni-directional links that are only "intermediate", linking to common english terms that really don't need to be linked.
Again, how to formalize and use all this, I don't know yet. But, I am throwing it out there to brainstorm. -- MASEM ( t) 23:33, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Not to make a big deal of this, but I think we should take heed of ArbCom's view, recently reiterated, that the stability of styleguide pages and the maintenance of harmony on their talk pages are a serious consideration. I include myself in this respect. Tony (talk) 09:10, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
There's some cleanup I can see in the language given that right now, we do mention the geographical linking in the first section but it seems like the black sheep there. I suggest we can formalize the idea into a "Special case" which would be something like:
Not perfect language, but starting points for an addition. -- MASEM ( t) 13:46, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: page moved. Arbitrarily0 ( talk) 00:52, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Linking → Wikipedia:Manual of Style (linking) — Consolidating naming per Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Poll Gnevin ( talk) 16:23, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Uncertain: While a persuasive case could be made that this is more of an editing guideline, the main MoS page has long had a section devoted to links that naturally connects to this more detailed treatment of the topic. On the other hand, our Wikipedia:List of guidelines indeed lists this as an editing guideline. I believe more opinion should be solicited.— DCGeist ( talk) 22:37, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Reading quickly, I don't see any prohibition against appending a number after a linked word or acronym; the current article I'm copyediting has " Nakajima A1N2 fighters" (a specific version of the A1N fighter). Is the language on this page? Should it be? (The problem here is that the Mediawiki softerware automatically makes any letters that are appended outside a link appear to be part of the link, but not numbers.) - Dank ( push to talk) 22:26, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
[[Nakajima A1N fighter|Nakajima A1N2 fighters]]
.
Si Trew (
talk) 14:22, 12 July 2010 (UTC)Somehow I got the idea that a wikipedia article is not supposed to link to itself. I recently came across an article in which the lead contained several links to various sections of the article below the lead. Is this ok? Thanks, Xtzou ( Talk) 22:29, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
I have restored what was the guideline, but was replaced with no discussion here. Briefly, the reason for linking in each row of a table is that we should not expect readers to go hunting around the table for the spot where the term is linked. That is the same regardless of whether it is "very long" or sortable. In very short tables with only a few rows, it may well be appropriate to only link once, but that is more a case of ignoring all rules and using common sense than a justification for turning the policy on its head. - Rrius ( talk) 02:01, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
This is disappointing. The page itself is being changed in ways that clearly do not have consensus. It is a sensitive issue, and needs to be discussed here before any change is made. I'd have thought that was obvious. Discussion by edit summary is not an acceptable way to push and pull the style-guide page, which should remain stable where there is no consensus to change it. If an editor wants to propose a change that is sensitive, please raise it here first. Tony (talk) 17:51, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
to read as"avoid cluttering the page with obvious, redundant and useless links"
This edit makes no change as to the substance and intent of the guideline, but removes the highly opinionated terms "cluttering" and "useless" that do not fit with the professional style used throughout our guidelines and policies. Furthermore, the change itself should be self-evident, not "sensitive"; we have agreed on avoiding this type of loaded language on the guideline talk page, so it should be even less acceptable in the actual guideline. -- Ckatz chat spy 18:55, 21 June 2010 (UTC)"avoid adding obvious or redundant links"
I agree that the edit seems more professional. I think the only remaining issue is whether the edit materially changes the message. Tony, do you think it does? If you think it does, let’s discuss and arrive at an all-hands consensus as to whether there really is a change in meaning and how to go forward from there. Greg L ( talk) 20:42, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
Hi there, just a suggestion here to include information on intra-article links, so that editors will be better informed on this kind of linking. These links send readers from one part of an article to another part. If you want a reply from me, just ring me up at my talk page. Regards, AngChenrui Talk 03:35, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Friends, it is with disappointment that I announce that His Grace the Duke of Waltham is no longer able to judge the monthly awards. However, we are in luck: Ceoil has kindly agreed to take over. Please see the announcement here. Tony (talk) 05:43, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
I've had a look through the page and can't see anything specific on linking book and programme titles within an article. Would it be the case that they can only link to an article on those books/programmes? An example would be the Keith Floyd article where there are numerous links throughout the individual titles. Thanks. Jack 1314 ( talk) 11:39, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
The article encourages us to use red links to link future articles if they are relevant to the content. Let's say I want to put a link to the 1848 revolution in Germany, but there is an article only about the 1484 revolution not the former. (Hypothetical) Should I prefer the red link or the less detailed valid link ?
Sincerely NikitaUtiu talk contributions 08:21, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
After having seen many helpful "See also" and "External links" sections deleted by well intended editors, attempting to "tidy up" articles, I personally have often been frustrated by this. Often in lengthy articles, these sections are life-savers (well actually huge time-savers) for me and I don't understand the need to delete them in so many articles, or to bar links found above from being repeated in them. To me, the logic of keeping these sections and allowing them to have doubled links in them seems to weigh heavily in favor of this, rather than the apparent logic that we might possibly consume too many gigabytes for this, or possibly make an article 'look' overly long.
As such, I've gone ahead and added this exception for "doubled links" to the list of "Repeated links exceptions". Any comments on this new exception would be much appreciated. Thanks,
Scott P. ( talk) 12:59, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
So far this looks like I lose. One for, one neutral, and three opposed. Argh! Apparently I'm in a small minority on this. My wife says I must have OCD, because I always like to have things in the same places where I can easily find them. Perhaps she is right. Now where were those slippers again???? Scott P. ( talk) 23:00, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
I would like to see a clear listing of pros and cons of repeated links in see also sections, since the discussion above got a bit astray. I'll try to provide some below from the statements above and my own opinions. Please add more if I missed anything.
Also, I would like to point out some arguments from past discussions which I think describe well the need for discussing this exception:
These points, and the fact that the current rules are indeed being applied my many as hard-and-fast principles (and yes, made their way to AWB), make it clear, imo, that a specific exception is in order for cases where the benefit exceeds the drawbacks. -- Waldir talk 13:41, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
I like see also sections. They are useful, irrespective of what links appear in the rest of the article and should be independent of it. -- Michael C. Price talk 19:18, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
The metrics make sense to me too, Michael. There is a clear trend among all the different-language Wikipedias to reduce the links in articles to just those required to enhance the readers’ understanding of the subject matter. After rising to absurd proportions, the proportion of words linked in articles has declined on en.Wikipedia by one-third in the last four years. The downward trend has been consistent as editors all across the project realized we had created articles that looked seas of blue turds. These statistics apparently don’t please you. As they say in the military: “So sad – Too bad.” Greg L ( talk) 16:55, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
The guideline says "Provide links that aid navigation and understanding, but avoid adding obvious or redundant links", which seems a desirable objective.
However, I think some mention in the guideline should be given to who the potential readership is. For someone who is a native speaker of English, immersed in the western way of life, reasonably knowledgeable, reasonably well-educated, and immersed in a culture where the Abrahamic religions, or one of them, predominate, many "obvious" things may not be so for someone from an oriental or African background, maybe still in school, maybe never having visited a large town, with limited English and no connection to the Abrahamic religions. I don't know if the assumed readership of English Wikipedia is discussed everywhere, but it would seem (particularly with the de-facto status of English as a major international language) that English Wikipedia should cater for anybody who might want to try to use it, but requiring some modest proficiency with the English language - Wikipedia isn't a language school. The golden rule can perhaps be adapted ("do unto other as you would have them do unto you" ==> "write for others as clearly as you'd expect them to write for you"): link things that are part of your lifestyle in the same way as you'd hope others would clarify that in their context Sunday is just a day of the week like any other, that killing anything alive (e.g., flies) is considered sinful, that using or wasting water implies a long walk to get more.
My particular opinion of the readership we are writing to may not be the consensus position, but we do need to know who we are writing for (whatever group this is) when deciding what to link.
Pol098 ( talk) 13:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
←Linking "Georgetown" might be fine, but not "Guyana" straight after it, as though an address on an envelope. That would be a chain-link. Tony (talk) 05:51, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Are there any special rules for linking in quotations (quoted passages)? Should they be avoided altogether? I give here a random example. In an article about, let's say, "Christian morals" would the links to sin and death in the following quotation be OK? "For everyone belongs to me, the parent as well as the child—both alike belong to me. The one who sins is the one who will die.—Ezek. 18:1-4, TNIV" - Mycomp ( talk) 23:34, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
Our judge, Ceoil, will soon announce the winners of the awards for August, July and May 2010, and at the end of this month will announce the winner for September.
He has agreed that we might then change the focus of the competition from individual wikilinks and small groups of wikilinks to whole articles that are badly overlinked. Inevitably, those valuable editors who perform gnoming services are confronted with overlinking throughout whole articles (particularly of "dictionary" items). In almost all cases, this has arisen earlier in WP's history, when there was no coherent strategy for maximising the utility of the wikilinking system. It's a lot of work to clean it up, and the Silliwilli awards was set up to encourage this work.
Therefore, we have decided that from October 2010 onwards the awards should be judged in terms of whole articles. Competitors will still be asked to list individual links (but expanded to six of the funniest, most useless, most inexplicable individual links in the article, as an example of the entry); however, the removal of overlinking from the whole article will be the sole determinant in the award. We expect this will reduce the number of entrants each month, which will compensate for the extra work by the judge in analysing the entries. Tony (talk) 04:07, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Why is some of the text in this article showing up as green? In utter cluelessness, your friend, GeorgeLouis ( talk) 00:24, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
I pose a politely worded query in English and am answered with some kind of odd symbol? Curiouser and curiouser. GeorgeLouis ( talk) 03:51, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: page moved. Arbitrarily0 ( talk) 00:52, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Linking → Wikipedia:Manual of Style (linking) — Consolidating naming per Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Poll Gnevin ( talk) 16:23, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Uncertain: While a persuasive case could be made that this is more of an editing guideline, the main MoS page has long had a section devoted to links that naturally connects to this more detailed treatment of the topic. On the other hand, our Wikipedia:List of guidelines indeed lists this as an editing guideline. I believe more opinion should be solicited.— DCGeist ( talk) 22:37, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Reading quickly, I don't see any prohibition against appending a number after a linked word or acronym; the current article I'm copyediting has " Nakajima A1N2 fighters" (a specific version of the A1N fighter). Is the language on this page? Should it be? (The problem here is that the Mediawiki softerware automatically makes any letters that are appended outside a link appear to be part of the link, but not numbers.) - Dank ( push to talk) 22:26, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
[[Nakajima A1N fighter|Nakajima A1N2 fighters]]
.
Si Trew (
talk) 14:22, 12 July 2010 (UTC)Somehow I got the idea that a wikipedia article is not supposed to link to itself. I recently came across an article in which the lead contained several links to various sections of the article below the lead. Is this ok? Thanks, Xtzou ( Talk) 22:29, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
I have restored what was the guideline, but was replaced with no discussion here. Briefly, the reason for linking in each row of a table is that we should not expect readers to go hunting around the table for the spot where the term is linked. That is the same regardless of whether it is "very long" or sortable. In very short tables with only a few rows, it may well be appropriate to only link once, but that is more a case of ignoring all rules and using common sense than a justification for turning the policy on its head. - Rrius ( talk) 02:01, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
This is disappointing. The page itself is being changed in ways that clearly do not have consensus. It is a sensitive issue, and needs to be discussed here before any change is made. I'd have thought that was obvious. Discussion by edit summary is not an acceptable way to push and pull the style-guide page, which should remain stable where there is no consensus to change it. If an editor wants to propose a change that is sensitive, please raise it here first. Tony (talk) 17:51, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
to read as"avoid cluttering the page with obvious, redundant and useless links"
This edit makes no change as to the substance and intent of the guideline, but removes the highly opinionated terms "cluttering" and "useless" that do not fit with the professional style used throughout our guidelines and policies. Furthermore, the change itself should be self-evident, not "sensitive"; we have agreed on avoiding this type of loaded language on the guideline talk page, so it should be even less acceptable in the actual guideline. -- Ckatz chat spy 18:55, 21 June 2010 (UTC)"avoid adding obvious or redundant links"
I agree that the edit seems more professional. I think the only remaining issue is whether the edit materially changes the message. Tony, do you think it does? If you think it does, let’s discuss and arrive at an all-hands consensus as to whether there really is a change in meaning and how to go forward from there. Greg L ( talk) 20:42, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
Hi there, just a suggestion here to include information on intra-article links, so that editors will be better informed on this kind of linking. These links send readers from one part of an article to another part. If you want a reply from me, just ring me up at my talk page. Regards, AngChenrui Talk 03:35, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Friends, it is with disappointment that I announce that His Grace the Duke of Waltham is no longer able to judge the monthly awards. However, we are in luck: Ceoil has kindly agreed to take over. Please see the announcement here. Tony (talk) 05:43, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
I've had a look through the page and can't see anything specific on linking book and programme titles within an article. Would it be the case that they can only link to an article on those books/programmes? An example would be the Keith Floyd article where there are numerous links throughout the individual titles. Thanks. Jack 1314 ( talk) 11:39, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
The article encourages us to use red links to link future articles if they are relevant to the content. Let's say I want to put a link to the 1848 revolution in Germany, but there is an article only about the 1484 revolution not the former. (Hypothetical) Should I prefer the red link or the less detailed valid link ?
Sincerely NikitaUtiu talk contributions 08:21, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
The guideline says "Provide links that aid navigation and understanding, but avoid adding obvious or redundant links", which seems a desirable objective.
However, I think some mention in the guideline should be given to who the potential readership is. For someone who is a native speaker of English, immersed in the western way of life, reasonably knowledgeable, reasonably well-educated, and immersed in a culture where the Abrahamic religions, or one of them, predominate, many "obvious" things may not be so for someone from an oriental or African background, maybe still in school, maybe never having visited a large town, with limited English and no connection to the Abrahamic religions. I don't know if the assumed readership of English Wikipedia is discussed everywhere, but it would seem (particularly with the de-facto status of English as a major international language) that English Wikipedia should cater for anybody who might want to try to use it, but requiring some modest proficiency with the English language - Wikipedia isn't a language school. The golden rule can perhaps be adapted ("do unto other as you would have them do unto you" ==> "write for others as clearly as you'd expect them to write for you"): link things that are part of your lifestyle in the same way as you'd hope others would clarify that in their context Sunday is just a day of the week like any other, that killing anything alive (e.g., flies) is considered sinful, that using or wasting water implies a long walk to get more.
My particular opinion of the readership we are writing to may not be the consensus position, but we do need to know who we are writing for (whatever group this is) when deciding what to link.
Pol098 ( talk) 13:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
←Linking "Georgetown" might be fine, but not "Guyana" straight after it, as though an address on an envelope. That would be a chain-link. Tony (talk) 05:51, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Our judge, Ceoil, will soon announce the winners of the awards for August, July and May 2010, and at the end of this month will announce the winner for September.
He has agreed that we might then change the focus of the competition from individual wikilinks and small groups of wikilinks to whole articles that are badly overlinked. Inevitably, those valuable editors who perform gnoming services are confronted with overlinking throughout whole articles (particularly of "dictionary" items). In almost all cases, this has arisen earlier in WP's history, when there was no coherent strategy for maximising the utility of the wikilinking system. It's a lot of work to clean it up, and the Silliwilli awards was set up to encourage this work.
Therefore, we have decided that from October 2010 onwards the awards should be judged in terms of whole articles. Competitors will still be asked to list individual links (but expanded to six of the funniest, most useless, most inexplicable individual links in the article, as an example of the entry); however, the removal of overlinking from the whole article will be the sole determinant in the award. We expect this will reduce the number of entrants each month, which will compensate for the extra work by the judge in analysing the entries. Tony (talk) 04:07, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Why is some of the text in this article showing up as green? In utter cluelessness, your friend, GeorgeLouis ( talk) 00:24, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
I pose a politely worded query in English and am answered with some kind of odd symbol? Curiouser and curiouser. GeorgeLouis ( talk) 03:51, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Whoa, someone's mucked this up really badly. It's completely absurd to suggest that people should not link languages and geographical names, etc., within reason. Per WP:POLICY, Wikipedia guidelines describe actual, current, observable, consensus-based best practices on Wikipedia; they do not advance one person's or one camp's opinion of what WP best practices "should" be by proscribing common, or prescribing unusual, editor behaviors.
It is very clear, simply from looking at articles and infoboxes, that the vast majority of WP editors believe, and our readers expect, country, city and other geographical names, language names, and other proper nouns, to be linked at first occurrence the vast majority of the time. WP:MOSNUM, the controlling guideline on numerics, strongly suggests always linking first occurrences of currencies, units, etc., in any case where confusion could possibly occur at all, and does not suggest that more common usages shouldn't be linked (a common but not universal practice – i.e., one about which there is not solid consensus – and one that this guideline is not in a position to attack without a clear showing, e.g. in an RfC on the topic, that a preponderance of editors support a ban on such links). I am therefore making significant edits to the "Overlinking and underlinking" section to correct this problem and several others, including direct conflict with WP:MOSNUM and WP:SELFREF, among other issues, including bad list style, redundancy, etc., etc. MOS-watchers need to keep a much better eye on this page, as it has clearly been PoV-pushed in a reader-unhelpful, anti-linking direction.
— SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 01:37, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
[outdent] To respond to all of the above at once (using "you" generically):
1. WP:BRD exists for a reason. There really is no such thing as "too bold", per WP:BOLD and more importantly WP:IAR. This is a wiki. Being bold does not do damage, and criticizing editors for being "too bold" is rather nonsensical.
2. As I've mentioned on my own talk page in response to Tony1, for the first time in several years I am invoking IAR, and ignoring the dafter parts of this section of the guideline, because they do not represent consensus at all, only what Tony describes as an "uneasy balance" between argumentative factions on this talk page. I will continue to link, sensibly, as I have done during my entire editing history and as most other experienced editors do, regardless what the perennially disputed section says, because that's actual de facto standard WP practice and has been for years, since before I was even an editor here. And I see precisely zero evidence that consensus has changed, only that certain parties here are tenacious, and through long, bitter dispute have worn down more sensible stances to agree to a compromise position that doesn't actually satisfy anyone. The section gets in the way of my ability to improve the encyclopedia, and that is precisely the circumstance for which the IAR policy was codified.
3. I'm not going to pitch a fit about being reverted (I expected it) so long as the "D" in WP:BRD is engaged in here. You can't have the "R" without the "D". My edits were well-explained, based in policy and much more widely accepted guidelines than this one. The responses thus far have been a) personal opinion not rooted in any such bases, b) just "don't rock the boat" conservatism, and c) musings and statements that are non-responsive to most if not all of the issues I raised. None of these reactions makes for a strong position, alone or combined.
4. I don't care if the wording there was no accident. It is still awful. The fact that something boneheaded, confusing and user-hostile was the product of a sausage-making committee full of people who don't agree with each other on much of anything is neither surprising nor any excuse. The section conflicts with WP:POLICY, WP:MOS, WP:MOSNUM, WP:BIAS, WP:CONSENSUS and WP:SELFREF (at least – I'm probably forgetting some) on a large number of points, is longwinded and in parts redundant, is invasive of MOSNUM's scope, has poor grammar in parts, is palimpsestuous and hard to parse, is clearly biased and prescriptive/proscriptive, and does not represent the actual practice of the majority of experienced, good faith, intelligent editors, among other issues.
5. I agree that there is too much linking going on. I unlink stuff all the time. It's one of my most common types of mainspace edit, in fact. Believing that overlinking is at play on WP does not equate to a mandate to introduce ridiculously vague and over-broad advice on (against, really) linking that contravenes very long-standing and very well accepted actual practice by the vast majority of editors. It would be much better to properly identify ( WP:RFC, anyone?) what most editors do actually feel should not be linked. With that in mind, I introduced a handful of clear examples, each of which was selected because I have actually found them linked for no reason and delinked them, and had a good laugh; they were ones that stuck in my memory.
6. The "linking first occurrence of everything = a sewer" argument is a total straw man fallacy, since neither I nor any one else since the pre-Web days of the Xanadu Project has suggested doing so, that I know of. So, please don't be exaggeratory and melodramatic. In actual fact, I was quite explicit about what should be linked at first occurrence and gave, also, clear examples of what not to link at all. A reasonable person could argue that my take was perfect or too exclusive or too broad. Worth discussion. The interesting part here to me is that the language as it stood, and stands again since I was reverted, actually commits the "sin" you point out, in the inverse: It effectively suggests that nothing should ever be linked at first or any occurrence except under very restrictive conditions, that do not at all match how Wikipedia has operated from day one to the present (nor virtually all wikis of this "informational, researched articles" format, such as Memory Alpha, Battlestar Wiki, etc., etc.).
7. If you won't "delv[e]...deeply into [my] argument", and we don't disagree that there is too much linking going on, your comment about not delving but feeling there's overlinking going on is basically meaningless, since my edits do not suggest that too much linking isn't going on (in fact, I clarified how it is going on), and you don't present any argument against the specifics I changed. Unexplicated "me too" one-liners like that do not help build consensus, one way or the other, be they in formal !votes like WP:AFD, where they are mostly ignored by closing admins, or in informal discussions like this one.
8. If my changes resulted in a redundancy with other wording in the guideline (which I did not set out to edit from top to bottom, only uni-sectionally), this is not an indication that the change was bad, only that further editing needs to happen outside and/or inside this section, since the change simply made the document agree with itself better, instead of going off on a wild tangent trying to ban links that most editors consider completely normal. This is actually precisely what I would expect, given that much of this document has been stable for years, but this section is a frakfest of agenda-pushing and emotive argumentation, with layers upon layers of barely- to totally-incompatible edits, with greatly varying degrees of common sense applied. If moderating the extreme pre- and proscriptions in the contentious section makes it come more into line with the stable rest of the document, this is a very, very strong indication that the section in question has been badly off-kilter and getting worse.
9. It's not important whether or not you find a link to " American" useful or not, understand why it is there or why someone else might appreciate it, or would ever click it yourself. This encyclopedia isn't written specially for you. It's written for everyone who can understand some English, anywhere in the world. This includes people in censorious and propagandistic countries like China (P.R. of), where actual facts about the United States and Americans are often generally unavailable or distorted, except for those who have figured out ways around the censorship and gotten here to get sourced facts. Another way of looking at it: A lead section intro like "Ndele P. Mbebe is a Botswanan professor of physics teaching at Rutgers University since 1998..." is what I would guesstimate 95% of experienced WP editors would write. Someone from Botswana might not see any point to that first link and would never click it, since they already know all about Botswana. A physicist might feel likewise about the 2nd link, and so on. Most other people would not have such an "I don't give a hoot" reaction to such links, and see WP:BIAS for why making the US some magically special case is not acceptable. Taken to its logical conclusion, some might use this position to suggest that linking to Iraq shouldn't be done except where Iraq is really, really important to the topic at hand, because Iraq is all over the news all day long, and we all already know about Iraq. But I saw poll results in an Associated Press story about a year or so ago that reported that only a tiny percentage (less than 10%, maybe less that 5%, I forget) of Americans could even correctly identify Iraq on a map that showed borders but no country names. The point being, there are also sorts of reasons in favor of linking to articles on significant topics that provide context to an article subject - being a Russian and being Maori produce completely different worldviews; A Galician writer and a Castillian ("Spanish language") writer, both from Spain, will produce literature with a different "flavor", audience, social impact, etc. And so on.
10. The usual practice is certainly not to link every occurrence of countries and such. It's a common new editor mistake that experienced editors like you and me correct on sight. Please do not confuse experienced Wikipedian standard practice (codified or otherwise) with unhelpful noob editing behavior that happens to be frequent (and frequently undone). It takes virtually all editors (including me back in my wide-eyed time, and surely you in yours) some time to fully grok when and when not to link and how to do it in ways that aren't misleading, confusing, distracting, leading or otherwise unhelpful. When I refer to common, consensus-accepted, observable best practices I'm obviously referring to the former kind of editing practice, not the latter, and actually added noob-helpful information on what not to link.
11. PS: A side point I must stress, and I have to do this in multiple forums from time to time: Infoboxes are entirely dependent upon and subordinate to articles' main prose but (important here!) they are severable, distinct entities. All information that appears in an infobox should also appear in the prose, in one form or another (usually more developed, instead of summary form), and be sourced in the prose, even if sources are also in the infobox (which is usually unnecessary). I realize that, especially in biographies, this ideal is often not attainted, at least not until GA or FA review. But it must be goal for a very simple reason: WP content can be repurposed in any way (within the bounds of the license) via any means for any purpose. This includes recycling but filtering the wikicode to re-present the prose in other non-MediaWiki-wiki, blog, e-book, etc. marked up formats that may preserve styles and links, but strip all infoboxes, navboxes and other adjunct template content! D'oh! The upshot of this is, of course, that we cannot at all guarantee that a link in an infobox will remain "the first occurrence" on the page as it is reused elsewhere. Because users (here) often read only the infobox when skimming for quick information, first occurrence in an infobox of something worth linking should be linked. But because many users ignore infoboxes as "noise", and are here to read an in-depth article and already know the summary details of the topic they are researching, the same is true of the main prose - link the first occurrence in the article proper. I've been writing/editing articles this way for 5 years (linking in main prose and in infoboxes as if they were separate entities with a parent-child relationship, which <gasp!> is actually the case). I cannot remember one single case of anyone reverting me on this practice. Not one. It's self-evidently the only sensible way to do it, if and when one understands and considers WP's broader, off-site userbase, many of whom don't even know they are looking at content ultimately from WP – and without infoboxes and the like – unless they read the fine-print attribution. Infoboxes and navboxes (which also link to things that may already be linked in main prose) are tools – mini-pages, if you will – that are separate from, even if subordinate to, the main article prose. Personally, I think that the "no subpages" policy should be modified to always put infoboxes in a /infbox subpage. This would help remind people of the nature of an infobox and its relationship to the parent article, but I guess that's neither here nor there.
That's all I can think of for now. Apologies for the length but I want to be as plain and explicit on all aspects of this as possible, to minimize the amount of time people argue past one another and don't understand where the other side(s) is/are coming from. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 08:44, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
There is no escaping the fact that the tide has been turning against overlinking the last few years, the wording you made a colossal change to was the product of vigorous debate and compromise by many editors over a protracted period of time, and that wording truly represents the best consensus to date (notwithstanding that you oddly cited WP:CONSENSUS in an attempt to justify your unilateral, undiscussed, colossal change to the guideline). It doesn’t matter if you think “it is still awful.” It appears that four of us (GeorgeLouis, Greg L, HWV258, and Tony1) are in one camp and only three are in the other camp (you, your links, and your flotilla-like posts). Stealing a stunt of yours, that is WP:CONSENSUS. And that consensus is to keep the existing wording for the moment.
Now, you may keep discussing the matter here if you like. I suggest you keep your arguments shorter because we are all volunteers here and time is limited. If you have an idea that makes sense and gains traction with others, great. If not, then as they say in the military: “So sad – too bad.” There is no politically correct requirement that others admire your ideas and edits as much as you do, nor should eventually tuning you out be construed as an invitation to you to wade back in and do as you please with a flame thrower. Greg L ( talk) 15:59, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
[Outdent] There has not been "wide input", nor is there any "4:1 majority"; the more controversial changes are largely the result of the personal preferences of a handful of editors who doggedly pursue this goal. Furthermore, the statement "you just changed something all by your lonesome" is particularly troublesome given that the reason we are here today is due to someone completely changing the focus of this part of the guideline two years ago, "all by their lonesome". There has to be room for compromise, as requested numerous times in discussions on this page and elsewhere. Guidelines cannot be used as a means of imposing an individual vision on the project. -- Ckatz chat spy 09:00, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
Oh, my goodness, what a lot of words! From what I can make out, somebody wants to simplify the MOS. So, why don't you post your suggested MOS change in your own sandbox, with a link here — then people who agree with you can have a look at it to get it ready for posting as a change to the MOS? In short, I have no idea what is proposed, and I don't intend to wade through all the above to find out. Sincerely, your very good friend, GeorgeLouis ( talk) 21:46, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
The suggested MOS change is the last 4 edits by SMcCandlish, which were largely reverted by Tony1. The main controversy is whether to scale back this:
SMcCandish's proposed change would eviscerate our clear, prudent guidance. It is entirely unacceptable.— DCGeist ( talk) 04:40, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
I am fine with the current wording of the guideline. I am not fine with people who believe that unless they are particularly relevant to the topic of the article, avoid linking means 'never, ever link anywhere'. A. di M. ( talk) 09:10, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
The proposal is a bad idea because it outright invites linking totally extraneous garbage, such as if there was an article on “Scientific goofs”, this sentence: American scientists in the 1960s thought they had invented polywater. …would have three needless things linked when all it needs is one link: polywater.
There is always a losing side to these contentious issues. However, “contentious” does not equate to “chronically reoccurs like genital herpes.” The current wording is simple and couldn’t be clearer. The tip-off that it is a thoughtful guideline is it begins with these, oh-so-logical words: Unless they are particularly relevant to the topic of the article… and then isn’t immediately followed up with caveats designed to undermine that very principle.
There is no stomach for revisiting the issue, let alone actually changing the current guideline. Greg L ( talk) 23:51, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't understand why notions of "hostility" and "friction" have arisen. Another way of looking at it is: healthy debate. I have tried to respond to issues, and I believe most other editors have done the same. No harm; no foul.
Here's an
example of what a healthy application of the guideline produces. Four months ago, with that edit, I removed links to six common terms and a country name—links that did nothing to deepen the understanding of the topic. There have been no reversions of my edit (indicating community support), and the article scans better without the links. It's not just the delinking of words such as "lipstick" and "piano" in that article for which the hard-working editors involved in this issue strive, it is also a change of culture that will hopefully deter editors from wanting to make such nebulous links (or at least to have editors think carefully about the relevance of links, as opposed to the scatter-gun approach to linking).
HWV258
. 07:05, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
Tony has asked me a question, which I have responded to which is relevant to this discussion. Must dash. -- Michael C. Price talk 10:25, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
I have posted a query at the village pump, on the question of what is the best (long-term) way to handle redundancies among related articles. Since this pages discusses wikilinking, I thought some of you might have something to say. Cheers! AGradman / underlying article as I saw it / talk 03:40, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Should acronyms in parentheses be included in links or not? For example, National Football League (NFL) or National Football League (NFL)? – CWenger ( talk) 16:22, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Further to the most recent blow up of this on the Queen (band) page, I thought I’d spend a bit of time putting together some questions and actually get some answers. The general ones are mostly - with some additions - on points that I and others have raised on many occasions, but that I have never seen properly addressed. The more specific ones are just a couple of examples I’ve dug out from a couple of scans of recent changes, which either highlight some of general issues, or which raise their own, more specific questions. Without wishing to dictate how others format their responses on a talk page, perhaps it would be easiest for people to add any comments under each individual question/point -
OK, essay/questionnaire done. N-HH talk/ edits 11:01, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
Again, only a sample. N-HH talk/ edits 19:10, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
Comment I find it very frustrating to repeatedly see claims tossed about that myself, N-HH and others want to "link everything" (or words to that effect). The notion that I, or N-HH, or probably anyone else who's objected to the hard-line delinking is in favour of "linking everything" is nothing more than fiction, pure and simple. I've made that clear, and so has N-HH; it is simply a diversionary tactic from a small group who are pushing the delinking effort far beyond what many average users would consider a reasonable point. That group has drawn the line for what should and should not be linked based on their personal preferences, and it has begun to detract from the core functionality of the site. If you review the discussion to date, it becomes clear that we are not disagreeing about basic concepts (such as not linking simple words), nor the idea that we don't need to link every single time the word "Canada" appears in an article. The critical difference lies in the attitude that we should almost never link terms such as "Canada" or "New York", even in articles directly related to those terms. I've seen the delinking script used to strip away all links to the US in an article about its closest neighbour and largest trading partner, links to WWII in articles about battles in that same war, and so on. That is unreasonable, and - more to the point - there has never been a consensus to do such work. Why won't Tony and the others address repeated questions regarding why the list of "common terms" is hidden away in the depths of a script, rather than out in the open for debate and change by all Wikipedians? Why are personal opinions regarding the process - "sea of blue" and "smart linking" to name a few - being presented as if they were policy in explanations to editors who are unfamiliar with our guidleines? For that matter, why do we abide the continuous use of a loaded term as "sea of blue" when (often as not) we are really disagreeing over a handful of links amidst hundreds or thousands of words? -- Ckatz chat spy 18:57, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
comment. I checked random edits by Tony1 and cannot justify most of them. What's curious, he arbitrary delinks some "common" names and leaves others, no less "common", linked which results in a particularly sloppy look [3]. Is there any reason to treat Hong Kong (delinked) and Thailand (left linked) differently? Whether it was a random slip, or some private judgement over who are "common" and who are not, is irrelevant; this arbitrary mosaic delinking must stop. East of Borschov ( talk) 05:12, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
←"The" is relevant to the article on Champagne, too. Why not link it? "France" is sooooo general, and sooooo well-known, why don't you find a section link or a more focused daughter article ("Agriculture in France", if it exists?)—then your only problem would be that "France" as a pipe would be deceptive, and still no one would bother clicking it. "France" is adjacent to the more specific location, which links to France itself, if anyone would need to know even from that article. You are caught up in this concept of linking as auto-browsing: a magic blue carpet to anywhere vaguely relevant to the topic, just in case someone wanted to click it. They almost never do, I'm afraid, and your constant pushing for the linking of common geographical terms is further diluting the likelihood that readers will use the system. You think you're improving it, but you're degrading it. Good faith, but faulty reasoning, IMO. But taking this to ANI was in extremely bad faith—a political stunt to smear me. It is disreputable. Similarly, your use of political language is transparent—now my posts on users' talk pages are "raids"—oh give me a break. And as someone else pointed out above, the use of emotive words such as "stripping" rather than "unlinking" does your case no good at all. People see through the spin. You are not speech-writing for a politician or inventing language for TV ads.
And no, you don't write "total drivel"—you write well (just too much). This is why it's such a pity you've chosen to fight tooth-and-nail efforts to improve the readability and appearance of our text, not to mention the dilution of high-value wikilinks, and thus the utility of the whole wikilinking system. That is what we are trying to protect. Linking needs to be selective to be of real assistance to the readers. Linking "France" is not only useless: it insults the intelligence of the readers, even the eight-year-old. Tony (talk) 04:12, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
OK, since we don't get answers above, and we don't get answers at the (second) ANI thread, let's start again, and keep it simple - 1) where is the consensus to delink common terms/countries in every instance, regardless of context; and 2) where is the consensus as to which terms/countries fall within the definition of "common"? Links to those discussions please. Then we can perhaps look at how to maybe move forward with an RfC. N-HH talk/ edits 19:23, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
I think it'd be helpful if we had an RfC on delinking, so we can trash out an actual consensus on what the principles are, and if/how any auto/semi-auto delinking should proceed. One thing that's needed is for those who are delinking to present what exact scripts and rules they are using in deciding what links to remove, and on what basis that decision was made. I think we all agree on the general idea that there is overlinking, and nobody wants to "link everything", but there is a grey area involved certain "common terms". A clear example is Champagne (wine): Tony wants to remove France from the lead arguing that it adds no value; I suspect many editors would think a link to France in the lead of a drink that is so strongly associated with France would be a good idea. The same edit did remove extraneous links like Prime Minister next to Tony Blair, though I'd argue that Co-operative is handy when mentioning wine co-ops. So the delinking here is open to debate. I think the RfC needs to decide 1. What is actually is considered to be overlinking. 2. Whether automated processes are the right way to approach delinking. Can we write an RfC wording that says this neutrally and succinctly? Fences& Windows 21:25, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
The whole article on "France" is of little use to anyone but a reader who wants to wander through the most general links; "France" is now relinked right after "the Champagne region". The guideline says, "Always link to the article on the most specific topic appropriate to the context from which you link: it will generally contain more focused information, as well as links to more general topics." It also says, "Provide links that aid navigation and understanding, but avoid cluttering the page with obvious, redundant and useless links." and "can make it harder for the reader to identify and follow those links which are likely to be of value". and "Ask yourself, "How likely is it that the reader will also want to read that other article?" There are more than 100 links in the article text, and nine in the vicinity of the reinserted link to "France". So the guideline is telling us to be selective, in my reading of it. What is the value of the whole article on France at that particular point? Who doesn't know what France is? Nothing is stopping someone going to the article; but it seems just to dilute as an additional link at the top. Wouldn't a more specific link than the whole of France be more useful to the reader? ("Agriculture in France"?), wound into the article smoothly?
The same applies to "Prime Minister", which is already prominently linked from the top of the far more specific "Tony Blair" article: here, it bunches together with "Prime Minister", against this guideline: "When possible, avoid placing links next to each other so that they look like a single link".
These guidelines have evolved over years, and everyone was here when User:Kotniski led a conflation of two other pages into this one. Which parts of the guideline are at issue? Tony (talk) 03:03, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Let me make two suggestions to start this:
Having read this entire thread, can I make a few points to narrow things down? (They're not really related)
Just a few suggestions on how we might limit the discussion to what I see, as an interested but somewhat passive observer, to what are the main points. Si Trew ( talk) 14:10, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
As an aside, looking back over the archives, I see mention of previous RfCs. Can anyone provide pointers for them - just so we don't reinvent the wheel? -- Michael C. Price talk 03:02, 28 September 2010 (UTC)