This page 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. |
I thought: "Whats the problem of linking to whatever people want?" Then i saw this example taken of war elephant, an article i started. Notice especially mounted and ancient world. Obviously guidelines are needed here! I support the guidelines. Muriel Victoria 13:12, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I guess I am confused about about what the object is to linking. I find it fascinating that someone would go through all the trouble of linking every word, so that the reader, especially if they are not an native language speaker can click on any word in the article and see what it means is the strength of the Wiki concept. Why remove links that people have put in?
Is it the fact that multiple links slow down the loading of a page? Is it the color of the links?
What is the rational? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.174.96.5 ( talk) 13:38, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
See this and tell me that we dont need strict guidelines on the matter. Muriel 16:53, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)
[ This version] of an article is, imo, a great example of linking gone wild. Unfortunately, whenever I try to clean it up, I seem to get reverted (at least, on the linking part). ONUnicorn 14:18, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Yikes. It's pretty hideous. Not only is it overlinked, but the format is terrible as well, as in bad like a headache, a hangover, a motherinlaw, a flat tire... :) MotherFunctor 22:20, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
That's a good "bad example". Maybe someone wants to translate it. 62.116.68.236 14:51, 5 May 2006 (UTC) ( de:User:TZM / commons:User:TZM).
Those are pretty good, but I just love the one that's currently on the page. I just about busted a gut, laughing! Mdotley 17:27, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Anyway, just passing by to notify those active on this talk page that something is about to change in the Dates & Numbers MoS, regarding linking of dates, please see Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#P8c, which I suppose is the proposal that's going to make it to the guideline, and might lead to an update of the first bullet of Wikipedia:Only_make_links_that_are_relevant_to_the_context#What_should_be_linked. -- Francis Schonken 09:46, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
Oh SlimVirgin, always prone to whip up situations as close to edit-warring as you can make them. Sorry, the present formulation is not compatible with the MoS. Apart that the present MoS formulation is partly "suspended" (also by you, supporting BobbleWik's block over applying the MoS - prior to successfully getting the MoS adapted in that sense), and discussed at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) in a way that makes clear that the present unammended version of the MoS is the least popular of all proposed options (P0 at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#A reworked version of Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Avoid overlinking dates), there are also these incompatibilities:
So, I'm going to find me a nice template warning against disruptive behavior, and post it on your talk page. -- Francis Schonken 13:19, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
I removed this from the project page:
The linked page shows how to link dates but provides little guidance on when to link dates. Since this project page is about the when and not the how, the link added no useful information. Nova SS 19:43, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Some thoughts: I think the bottom line throughout the encyclopedia should be consistency. Create a base and stay with it. I realize that is what a Manual of Style is supposed to create and maintain. What I see are a group of people, each with their own personal style to promote. There can and will be “chaos” in the substance of the material in the encyclopedia since it covers such a wide area of information. However, if the structure, the basic framework that is supposed to contain that information is chaotic, and changes from article to article, you have an unreadable disaster. One of the primary functions of Wikipedia (as in any encyclopedia) should be to organize this chaos.
Our brain depends a great deal on a certain amount of consistency and familiarity in our day-to-day surroundings. If the very basic elements of your life changed day to day you would soon be unable to function. But if the basic elements remain constant, you are able to deal with those elements that are different day to day. Each article in Wikipedia is a day; that basic structure should remain constant as the information changes.
Without this consistency it's like a group of architects arguing about what the basic structure of a building should be; each having their own creative concept; without considering that real people are going to have to navigate it every day. If that basic structure changed from day to day, the effect on the person trying to navigate it would be total disorientation.
Specific suggestions: Constants article to article - Presentation of Birth & Death Dates should be consistent, easily read and located in the same place (that's all the reader may be looking for); Location of Birth should be presented as close to the beginning of the body of the Article as possible (that's all the reader may be looking for); Links to other Articles should be relevant to the specific article it's keyed in. Imagine you're sitting in a library with unlimited resources; you come upon a term, name or other piece of information in the Article you're reading; would you get up, cross the room and pull out another text to look-up that reference? (I know that Pittsburgh is a city; I know it's located in Pennsylvania; is knowing more about the city of Pittsburgh going to enhance my knowledge of the specific subject I am researching at the time, or is it going to be an unnecessary sidetrack? The trunk of the tree is the primary subject you are researching; how many branches can there be before you no longer see that trunk?
I’m fairly new to Wikipedia, and am fascinated by its concept and execution. I plan to contribute as much as I can. More later… Michael David 13:12, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
It seems to me a wiki link is more analogous to a cross-reference than a footnote. Dforest 07:41, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Well the kind of aimless "encyclopedia surfing" you just described would never be found in a regular encyclopedia because an encyclopedia's mission is to provide you with the information you came for, and any other relevant information that they know would be helpful to most. With Wikipedia's liberal standards as to when wikilinking is appropriate, it seems Wikipedia's mission is not to provide the reader with relevant information, but simply to provide the reader with as much information as possible. While it is true that nobody is forcing users to follow the wikilinks, they do nurture the very short attention span of today's modern user. The temptation to read a different article than the one they "should" be reading is often too great for many users. Irrelevant wikilinks almost seem to shout, "Why read this article, when you could be reading this one. You could say that everything is relevant to everything else in some way, no matter how obscure, but this thinking reeks of an encyclopedia written by teenagers. How hard is it to determine a standard of relevance for appropriateness of wikilinks. You know the highlighted blue terms in commercial websites that when moused over, turn into advertisements? See the connection? If Wikipedia is a non-profit, why does it advertise itself? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.167.120.36 ( talk • contribs)
Anyone up for renaming this guideline Wikipedia:Keep links relevant? Short, snappy, and actually more accurate, since the guideline is really encouraging the removal, rather than just the non-creation, of irrelevant links. Stevage 16:55, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
I would suggest to add somewhere the following consideration: "It may be advisable to wikilink a term when a reasonable interest is expected in the particular place and the term is not linked in the nearby text. For example (from " pie" article): "Some of these pies are pies in name only, such as the Boston cream pie, which is a cake." (Here a reader might be interested what exactly is the difference between a pie and a cake.)
Any thoughts? `' mikka (t) 18:09, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
I have always found it ugly when in lists some items are linked, while others are not: " Alabama, Atlanta, California, Delaware, Oregon". The main arguments against overlinking is that it distracts from reading and makes links not prominent. IMO in my example both arguments are invalid. On the contrary, irregular linking in a homogeneous list actually distracts the brain: broken typographical monotony unduly catches the eye. I would suggest something like this "in homogeneous enumerations it is reasonable to link all terms in cases when otherwise only several items would be unlinked"
Any comments? `' mikka (t) 18:18, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
The debate over whether or not to include a link, based on its relevance to the context, potential to distract some readers, etc., seems to me like an artifact of the limitations of the Wiki software, which only allows a link to exist or not. If the software allowed editors to assign a relevancy weight to each link, readers could then decide which links to display based on relevance (or how to display the links, for example using colors, shading, mouseover text, etc., to indicate relevancy weight). A link on a date (which usually has very little relevance to the context) could have a low relevance weight, and a link on a jargon term essential to understanding the current article would have a high weight. Readers who find date links bothersome could easily filter most of them out, by setting their link-display relevancy threshold at some intermediate value. Editors could still argue about the exact weight to apply to a given link, but the stakes would be lower, since readers could elect to display links of any relevancy weight, down to zero---having one's pet link demoted to lower relevance would be less harsh than deleting it altogether. It stands to reason: if editors have diverse opinions about the "best" density of links, readers probably do too. We should try to avoid, if possible, the one-airline-seat-must-fit-all-passengers syndrome, since software need not have the same constraints as physical objects. We can cater to multiple reader preferences. Teratornis 17:08, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
I just gave this page a major reworking, mostly trying to move content around to be clearer (such as moving a rule from the "considerations" section to the "rules" section). I also tried to make the examples clearer. — Reinyday, 21:11, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
I am restoring the date section. If you would like to discuss its modification, please do so here. However, per the official policy outlined at Wikipedia:Editing policy which says, "avoid deleting information wherever possible..." please do not delete the section again. Please do not be rude and imply that I am pushing some agenda. I am not. I am trying to be comprehensive and clear. I work very hard to improve the Wikipedia and I don't like to be treated poorly for it. As for User:Francis Schonken's incorrect claim that my changes are "Not even correct about what was 'originally' believed," they are taken directly from this 17 February 2005 version of the page. — Reinyday, 23:33, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Hi fellow editors. I am writing to request some input regarding the dates section. Francis Schonken has referred to my edits as a "deformation" [1] which I find incredibly rude, so I was hoping some of you could step in and voice an opinion. Here are two versions of the dates section:
Because of the date preference formatting MediaWiki software feature, "how" to link and "when" to link dates can not be treated independently one from the other. Unrelated to that software issue, there is no general consensus that the habit of linking separate years (that are date indications that only consist of a "year") should be abandoned, although most Wikipedians disfavour that habit currently. Details about when and how to link years can be found in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Dates. An overview of the most frequently occuring cases:
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Because of the date preference formatting software feature, currently some dates are required to be linked, though some editors may consider the date links irrelevant to the context. For additional information about how to format dates, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Dates. An overview of the most frequently occuring cases is as follows:
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So could you please voice some opinions on which is clearer and more properly states the situation? There is additional discussion about this section above. Thanks so much. — Reinyday, 07:37, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Francis Schonken, please note that you recently reverted my changes stating that I needed to "use discussion page prior to effectuating changes. If you can't find consensus on a change at the talk page, then the change doesn't go through. Period." This is not correct. Not every change needs to be discussed, and in fact the vast majority aren't. Plesse read Wikipedia:Be bold in updating pages: "If you expect or see a disagreement with your version of the article, and you want to change or delete anything substantial in the text, it's a good idea to list your objections one by one in the talk page, reasonably quoting the disputed phrases, explaining your reasoning and providing solid references."
I didn't not expect any disagreement with my changes, but I will do my best to explain them here. Surely you don't object to me changing "*Do not link dates inside quotations" to "*Dates inside quotations should not be linked" in order to match the sentence structure of all the other bullet points. So I'm still wondering what you do object to. I've removed "'how' to link and 'when' to link dates can not be treated independently one from the other" because it isn't true. They can be treated independently and in fact are on this very page, where there is no discussion of "how" to link dates beyond an example without explanation. I've changed "there is no general consensus that the habit of linking separate years (that are date indications that only consist of a 'year') should be abandoned", which is clearly biased, to "There is no general consensus about linking date indications that only consist of a 'year'." Everything else was just diction. If you have any actual issues with what I have changed, please use exact quotations and explain them here, so that we can discuss them. But do not delete my changes (or the whole section) just because it isn't "your way".
Lastly, please read the official policies of Wikipedia:Civility and Wikipedia:Assume good faith before making any more comments to or about me or my contributions. — Reinyday, 16:51, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
In What generally should not be linked?:
Sorry, but... huh? Waitak 06:39, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
For the benefit of those reading this talk page and discussing this issue, another discussion took place at Wikipedia talk:Quotations should not contain wikilinks, the front page of which was recently redirected here. This is mentioned in the archives, but I am bringing it up here to discuss whether the talk page over there should be moved (not copied - that doesn't preserve the edit histories) to a subpage of this talk page - ideally linked to from the archives box at the top of the main talk page. Does that sound reasonable? Carcharoth 12:04, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
user:Francis Schonken recently commented out this clause from the page with the comment "Avoid making links within quotations" is, as far as I can see from prior discussion, not an agreed principle.
I have restored the clause pending discussion here. I participated in one of the prior discussions and have now reread both of them. I think that this represents the consensus opinion of the participants specifically and of community practice generally in a reasonable fashion - that such links should be discouraged but are not absolutely prohibited.
The clause was added after a fairly lengthy debate at Wikipedia talk:Quotations should not contain wikilinks. That was originally a proposal that we should establish an absolute rule against all wikilinks in quotes. There were very strong arguments made against the absolute rule. I would agree that there was no consensus for the proposal as it was originally worded. But just about every editor who commented in depth during the discussion included a disclaimer to the effect that links within quotes should be avoided in favor of a link in the nearby text whenever that was possible and convenient.
The same topic was also discussed at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 37#Wikilinks when quoting where they reached much the same conclusion. They should be discouraged but not absolutely prohibited. Rossami (talk) 00:55, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I recently found a good example where it is helpful to use links in a quotation. See Nobel_Prize_in_Physics. The short statements used by the Nobel Prize Committee to describe the reasons for giving the Prizes are notorious for being filled with precise technical terms that are often impenetrable to the layperson. Wiki-linking from the quotes is a classic casse of making them easier to understand. I still object to normal explanatory links from quotations where they disrupt the flow of a quote, preferring a gloss in the surrounding text if needed. Carcharoth 14:50, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Parts of discussion below moved from
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)
Parts of discussion below moved from
Template talk:Infobox City
I'm not sure why the wikilink
m was removed, but I've reverted the template. Please explain if the wikilink really should be taken out. --
SatyrTN (
talk |
contribs) 16:35, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree that common units don't need to be liked. Maurreen 21:33, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Can anybody suggest what would be regarded as common terms? Consider the following metric terms:
Could somebody propose suitable wording for a bullet on: What generally should not be linked? bobblewik 18:04, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
MattWright makes a very good point in saying that a grade-schooler that is reading an article may not know what is meant by m or sq mi in the infobox or in the article. I think that linking the unit symbol the first time it is used certainly wouldn't hurt. On the other hand, it should be said that over linking of common symbols for meausurements or anything for that matter certainly could hurt. I would suggest linking the symbol only once in the infobox and only once in the article. — MJCdetroit 13:43, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Discussion above moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)
What do people here think about the above discussion? bobblewik 08:20, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
I expanded on the Technical Terms theme with two more items that relate especially to non-natives. I think this is consistent with the context, and hope it is not too controversial. The geo-names linking is pretty well universal, so this is probably stating the obvious. The non-native speaker help may not be obvious to those who have not studied a foreign language. Many words have multiple meanings, and in another language, they translate to different words, each of which may have other multiple meanings. So one of the advantages of a wiki, as opposed to a flat text, is that we can make it easier for everyone to understand by using links intelligently.
Dhaluza 01:57, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
For an FA-candidate, one reviewer continues to object on the grounds that the dates on which a cited source was accessed as mentioned in the footnote/citation should be linked up. I refuse do to this, as the nominator and chief contributor to the FA-candidate because it's just ludicrous given that this is just a "guideline" and that it would violate Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context in that linking up such dates will not be relevant to the article's context or aid or facilitate in any way a reader's understanding of the article. So I ask the following:
I thank you in advance for your answers and assistance. — ExplorerCDT 18:04, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Do we have to have a "nutshell" template on this page? I think they are ugly, usually pointless and get in the way of the reader. While the current nutshell summary is an accurate statement of the page, it is redundant with the pagename. It is merely another box for the reader to have to struggle past in order to get a real understanding of the page. Rossami (talk) 21:54, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
The precept to "Only make links that are relevant to the context" can be construed narrowly as "If some part of text represents an entire phrase which has (or is explicated in) a separate article, then link to that article; don't link its individual elements (words or subphrases)".
However, in doing so, the entire wording (and also graphic content) of an article may be considered the relevant context upon which appropriate linking is to be applied. Therefore also single words, not least verbs, could be recognized as relevant and linked. Consider the example from a present article Abraham Lincoln:
" ... his Gettysburg Address rededicated the nation to freedom and democracy."
The ( mere) verb "rededicate" is even relevant enough to appear in the present Gettysburg Address itself. Indeed, a reader may expect the entire wording of every article to be appropriately linked (not even to dwell on annotations), and thus to be fully structured in its relevant components; either to visit the corresponding article, or, no less useful, to review the structuring "OnMouseOver".
Plain words may be usually subsumed. (However, note for instance Bernard's famous (albeit presently inexcusably underrepresented) " Yes and No, Minister!") Subsidiaries ought to be linked as well, to affirm that they are subsidiary.
One counter-argument which seems more debatable than, say (possibly temporary) limitation of resources or (surely user-customizable) varying preferences how fully linked text ought to appear, is the " spandrel issue" that, if only comparatively few terms are linked, they appear highlighted against the "background text" (at least with suitable user skin customization), thus allowing very efficient speed-reading of such articles. Perhaps such desired emphasis of few terms can be achieved by other means as well (say by emboldening or by Font color). However, this would necessarily interfere with the actual textual makeup of the article (which linking itself obviously does not).
In a nutshell: there is no consensus that Wikipedia:Only_make_links_that_are_relevant_to_the_context#What generally should not be linked should contain any entries other than "Individual words when a phrase has its own article". Frank W ~@) R 18:43, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
p.s. There seems to be presently no instance of the phrase "Relevant background can be found in ..." in all of Wikipedia except in the archive of this discussion and in Wikipedia:Only_make_links_that_are_relevant_to_the_context#What generally should not be linked itself. This indicates that relevant background (on any particular subject term) can be found already through a link of that term, or of text in direct context of that term. If there is no text "Relevant background can be found in ...", then the potential akwardness of having to link it doesn't arise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fwappler ( talk • contribs)
I just took the liberty of adding a reference to disambiguation pages as a place to specifically NOT link extensively, based on the style guidelines already in place for those pages. I know I didn't come in here and ask for consensus on this page first, but having just cleaned up a ton of dabs with linkorrhea, I figured that wider dissemination of the guideline had to be a Good Thing. I decided to be bold. The Monster 19:15, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I frequently see people remove links I place in a See Also section at the end of an article because they are linked somewhere in the text. This policy does not preclude repeating links in another section, especially if the first appearance was near the top. But what is the consensus? I think that it is useful to repeat links with a major connection because people don't always read the whole page, and even if they do, a prioritized list of where to go next is helpful. Is there any pre-existing guidance on this, or does it need to be addressed? Dhaluza 17:02, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
[Do not link]: "Words in a disambiguation entry other than to the disambiguation target itself. The general rule is "one link per entry"; additional links tend to confuse the reader."
I'm not keen on this section for a number of reasons:
I have begun a discussion at Template talk:NYCS. -- NE2 00:09, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Is the preferred style " Copenhagen, Denmark", " Copenhagen, Denmark", or " Copenhagen, Denmark"? – Henning Makholm 07:19, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
"[In general, do create links for ]Geographic place names, since many places have similar names, and many readers may be from a distant place. Link to the most specific available article, or create a stub or redirect if the place deserves a new article (check similar nearby places for naming conventions and category tags)."
The logic escapes me ("since") and it's very poorly worded elsewhere. I intend to remove this point unless someone can explain what it means. Tony 10:06, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Is it just me? Or do others feel the word "American" is overlinked all over Wikipedia? (This isn't an anti-American rant; I'm an American.) It almost always seems irrelevant and unhelpful. Here's an example. Seeing that Bob Dylan is an American songwriter, I might jump to the linked article wanting to learn how American songwriters are different from the other sorts. But no; this is a long article on the United States, its history, its government, its population. (Of course it is. That's what it should be.) Perhaps if I were reading about a singer from Ghana, I might wonder where Ghana is and take a moment to find out. But--I'm sorry--about the last thing that would help me understand Bob Dylan, or Johnny Cash, or Leonard Bernstein is a treatise on the United States of America. (BTW, Lenny's article links to United States twice in the first two lines!) I'm inclined to start knocking these links out, but wonder if there's a guideline or consensus I'm not aware of. Anyone? Hult041956 23:41, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
It is correct that too many links have disadvantages, but I'd like to point out that many WP users surely enjoy to surf, and I'm one of them. If I am on an article about the Geology, for example, I may click on a link pointing towards Poetry, not because it has any relevance to that, but specifically because it doesn't. Unfortunately, due to the WP:OVERLINK policy, I often end up in articles that only have links to similar articles in their context, eg a linguistics article may only contain links to a language, a linguist, and perhaps a date or two. The only way to escape from such articles (that act as deadlocks to surfing) is then to click on a date, click on a category to find something with more links, or to click on the main page or on the random article link (which isn't good for some surfers for various reasons). What we need is not to discourage 'overlinking', but to encourage or at least tolerate it while managing it to minimise its disadvantages. We need a way to distinguish between links put in for their surfing and web-building value and links that were put for their direct relationship to the article they are in. We could, for example, put all web-building links under a CSS class that round render them in a colour very similar to the surrounding text, and important links in the usual colours we use now. We could also put some preference bits to the MediaWiki software to enable users to choose whether they wish to see the web-building links or not. Another solution would be to add some functionality to MediaWiki to optionally enable (in the prefs) all words to become links automatically no matter whether there is a wikitext link or not. NerdyNSK 15:14, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Proposal for a new subsection under "Other considerations":
class="sortable"
), each row should be considered its own separate entity for linking, even when this gives the appearance of overlinking the table. This is because changing the sort order reshuffles the table and makes too hard and inconvenient to find back the single instance of a bluelink in a given column. (Example of a not-overlinked sortable table:
List of mountains in Peru.)It could probably be reworded a bit. Comments before I add it?
— Komusou talk @ 14:48, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
Recap: The only objection was by Rossami 10 days ago, answered by NE2, without counter-objections afterwards (I've added another layer of answer just for the record), so it looks like it's okay to update the guideline. Are there last-minute objections before I add "proposal C" as a new section of the guideline? — Komusou talk @ 10:01, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Please contribute to the ongoing discussion at wp:mosnum Links to common units of measurement. Lightmouse ( talk) 21:52, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
What level of wikifying is expected for a great article. If an article contains a word that is very rare would you expect the article to wikify the word so the reader could understand what it means? If further more the rare word had no article on wikipedia to explain it, what should happen? Should it be redlinked, left without being wikified or something else? SunCreator ( talk) 16:58, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Since WP:CONTEXT and WP:Build the web are tightly related, and in dynamic tension, I figure that, at the risk of falling afoul of WP:CANVASS, I should solicit opinions of people here who might have some thoughts that they'd like to contribute to this discussion, about what to do with the "Wikipedia does not use Allwiki" section.-- Aervanath's signature is boring 21:17, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
What about those who create idiosyncratic piped linques.? JeanLatore ( talk) 03:30, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
I have taken the liberty of taking the discussion to wp:mosnum. I hope nobody objects but the issue is relevant to both places and that is a more active forum. Lightmouse ( talk) 17:00, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
Metric units are not nearly as well known in the U.S. as elsewhere, so I believe that there is a legitimate need for them to be linked. I believe that it is damaging to the goal of wikipedia to remove wikilinks of metric units from scientific articles. It appears to be a type of reverse bias.— RJH ( talk) 03:38, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Response: Thanks for your comments, Aervanath and RJHall. I believe that the principle of disciplined linking that is oh-so-gradually gaining more traction on WP concerns the balancing of:
While judging which should prevail in every context often involves subjective judgement as to context, and even individual taste, there are aspects of disciplined linking that WP should probably be encouraging within an environment that still allows for the occasional functional exercise of such editorial judgement. In relation to the linking of units and the names of commonly known countries among English-speakers, the likely utility of a link to the reader should figure strongly. In the case of units, I've pointed out above my suspicion that the current unit articles are not a good way to assist readers who are unfamiliar with units to conceive of them in relation to other units (for example, pounds vs kilograms), which I think is the original reason for encouraging such links. The article on mile, for example, starts this way:
A mile is a unit of length, usually used to measure distance, in a number of different systems, including Imperial units, United States customary units and Norwegian/Swedish mil. Its size can vary from system to system, but in each is between one and ten kilometers. In contemporary English contexts, mile most commonly refers to the international mile of 5,280 feet, 1,760 yards, or exactly 1,609.344 meters. However it can also refer to either of the following for specific uses:
- the U.S. survey mile (also known as U.S. statute mile) of 5,280 survey feet which is slightly longer at approximately 1,609.347 219 meters (1 international mile is exactly 0.999 998 survey mile). [1] [2]
- the international nautical mile of exactly 1,852 meters (about 6,076 feet).
The swamp of technical and historical details is just fine for the article per se, as is the historical account further down, but the information that is likely to be sought by a reader concerns the comparison of miles with metric units and with smaller US customary units. I think you'll agree that there has to be a better way of delivering such information, and better still to make it visualisable in the reader's mind. At the moment, the article is highly diversionary and readers must work jolly hard for it to "significantly increase [their] understanding of the [current] topic", a key requirement of MOS with respect to links.
In the balance between the disadvantages and advantages of linking country-names such as the United Kingdom, India, Canada and the United States on first appearance, I think we have to ask ourselves what specific knowledge a reader is likely to be seeking through such links. As pointed out above, it's hard to second-guess this precisely, but I put it to you that WP should no longer be that our readers don't know where or what such well-known countries are. This is rather similar to the argument that kitchen and horse should generally not be linked, since this is not Wiktionary and a certain basic knowledge of the language and, indeed, the world should be assumed of our readers—even grade students. Again, hitting such links swamps the reader with information and either encourages diversionary browsing or forces a process of massive information filtering: country-articles tend to be large and comprehensive. The person who is snagging on the names of commonly known countries might instead be encouraged to read those articles first. TONY (talk) 16:46, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
Someone reinserted "This guideline is in dynamic tension with the the goal of building the web.". I though discussion here was going in the other direction—that there's little or no tension now, and that the pages might even end up being merged into MOSLINK. TONY (talk) 13:05, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
User:Lordvolton and I are in a dispute regarding possible overlinking. A few days ago the article memristor was linked in the "See Also" sections of the following articles: Programmable logic device, Electronic component, Neural network software, Biological neural network, Hodgkin-Huxley model, Action potential, resistor, Hewlett-Packard Company, and many more related articles, 23 in total. I believe this is linkspam, and reverted all edits, which was then undone. I have not reverted again and promised not to do so until a consensus is reached among people familiar with computational neuroscience, though I think anyone with an opinion should chime in. SamuelRiv ( talk) 18:31, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
This page 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. |
I thought: "Whats the problem of linking to whatever people want?" Then i saw this example taken of war elephant, an article i started. Notice especially mounted and ancient world. Obviously guidelines are needed here! I support the guidelines. Muriel Victoria 13:12, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I guess I am confused about about what the object is to linking. I find it fascinating that someone would go through all the trouble of linking every word, so that the reader, especially if they are not an native language speaker can click on any word in the article and see what it means is the strength of the Wiki concept. Why remove links that people have put in?
Is it the fact that multiple links slow down the loading of a page? Is it the color of the links?
What is the rational? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.174.96.5 ( talk) 13:38, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
See this and tell me that we dont need strict guidelines on the matter. Muriel 16:53, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)
[ This version] of an article is, imo, a great example of linking gone wild. Unfortunately, whenever I try to clean it up, I seem to get reverted (at least, on the linking part). ONUnicorn 14:18, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Yikes. It's pretty hideous. Not only is it overlinked, but the format is terrible as well, as in bad like a headache, a hangover, a motherinlaw, a flat tire... :) MotherFunctor 22:20, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
That's a good "bad example". Maybe someone wants to translate it. 62.116.68.236 14:51, 5 May 2006 (UTC) ( de:User:TZM / commons:User:TZM).
Those are pretty good, but I just love the one that's currently on the page. I just about busted a gut, laughing! Mdotley 17:27, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Anyway, just passing by to notify those active on this talk page that something is about to change in the Dates & Numbers MoS, regarding linking of dates, please see Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#P8c, which I suppose is the proposal that's going to make it to the guideline, and might lead to an update of the first bullet of Wikipedia:Only_make_links_that_are_relevant_to_the_context#What_should_be_linked. -- Francis Schonken 09:46, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
Oh SlimVirgin, always prone to whip up situations as close to edit-warring as you can make them. Sorry, the present formulation is not compatible with the MoS. Apart that the present MoS formulation is partly "suspended" (also by you, supporting BobbleWik's block over applying the MoS - prior to successfully getting the MoS adapted in that sense), and discussed at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) in a way that makes clear that the present unammended version of the MoS is the least popular of all proposed options (P0 at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#A reworked version of Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Avoid overlinking dates), there are also these incompatibilities:
So, I'm going to find me a nice template warning against disruptive behavior, and post it on your talk page. -- Francis Schonken 13:19, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
I removed this from the project page:
The linked page shows how to link dates but provides little guidance on when to link dates. Since this project page is about the when and not the how, the link added no useful information. Nova SS 19:43, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Some thoughts: I think the bottom line throughout the encyclopedia should be consistency. Create a base and stay with it. I realize that is what a Manual of Style is supposed to create and maintain. What I see are a group of people, each with their own personal style to promote. There can and will be “chaos” in the substance of the material in the encyclopedia since it covers such a wide area of information. However, if the structure, the basic framework that is supposed to contain that information is chaotic, and changes from article to article, you have an unreadable disaster. One of the primary functions of Wikipedia (as in any encyclopedia) should be to organize this chaos.
Our brain depends a great deal on a certain amount of consistency and familiarity in our day-to-day surroundings. If the very basic elements of your life changed day to day you would soon be unable to function. But if the basic elements remain constant, you are able to deal with those elements that are different day to day. Each article in Wikipedia is a day; that basic structure should remain constant as the information changes.
Without this consistency it's like a group of architects arguing about what the basic structure of a building should be; each having their own creative concept; without considering that real people are going to have to navigate it every day. If that basic structure changed from day to day, the effect on the person trying to navigate it would be total disorientation.
Specific suggestions: Constants article to article - Presentation of Birth & Death Dates should be consistent, easily read and located in the same place (that's all the reader may be looking for); Location of Birth should be presented as close to the beginning of the body of the Article as possible (that's all the reader may be looking for); Links to other Articles should be relevant to the specific article it's keyed in. Imagine you're sitting in a library with unlimited resources; you come upon a term, name or other piece of information in the Article you're reading; would you get up, cross the room and pull out another text to look-up that reference? (I know that Pittsburgh is a city; I know it's located in Pennsylvania; is knowing more about the city of Pittsburgh going to enhance my knowledge of the specific subject I am researching at the time, or is it going to be an unnecessary sidetrack? The trunk of the tree is the primary subject you are researching; how many branches can there be before you no longer see that trunk?
I’m fairly new to Wikipedia, and am fascinated by its concept and execution. I plan to contribute as much as I can. More later… Michael David 13:12, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
It seems to me a wiki link is more analogous to a cross-reference than a footnote. Dforest 07:41, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Well the kind of aimless "encyclopedia surfing" you just described would never be found in a regular encyclopedia because an encyclopedia's mission is to provide you with the information you came for, and any other relevant information that they know would be helpful to most. With Wikipedia's liberal standards as to when wikilinking is appropriate, it seems Wikipedia's mission is not to provide the reader with relevant information, but simply to provide the reader with as much information as possible. While it is true that nobody is forcing users to follow the wikilinks, they do nurture the very short attention span of today's modern user. The temptation to read a different article than the one they "should" be reading is often too great for many users. Irrelevant wikilinks almost seem to shout, "Why read this article, when you could be reading this one. You could say that everything is relevant to everything else in some way, no matter how obscure, but this thinking reeks of an encyclopedia written by teenagers. How hard is it to determine a standard of relevance for appropriateness of wikilinks. You know the highlighted blue terms in commercial websites that when moused over, turn into advertisements? See the connection? If Wikipedia is a non-profit, why does it advertise itself? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.167.120.36 ( talk • contribs)
Anyone up for renaming this guideline Wikipedia:Keep links relevant? Short, snappy, and actually more accurate, since the guideline is really encouraging the removal, rather than just the non-creation, of irrelevant links. Stevage 16:55, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
I would suggest to add somewhere the following consideration: "It may be advisable to wikilink a term when a reasonable interest is expected in the particular place and the term is not linked in the nearby text. For example (from " pie" article): "Some of these pies are pies in name only, such as the Boston cream pie, which is a cake." (Here a reader might be interested what exactly is the difference between a pie and a cake.)
Any thoughts? `' mikka (t) 18:09, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
I have always found it ugly when in lists some items are linked, while others are not: " Alabama, Atlanta, California, Delaware, Oregon". The main arguments against overlinking is that it distracts from reading and makes links not prominent. IMO in my example both arguments are invalid. On the contrary, irregular linking in a homogeneous list actually distracts the brain: broken typographical monotony unduly catches the eye. I would suggest something like this "in homogeneous enumerations it is reasonable to link all terms in cases when otherwise only several items would be unlinked"
Any comments? `' mikka (t) 18:18, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
The debate over whether or not to include a link, based on its relevance to the context, potential to distract some readers, etc., seems to me like an artifact of the limitations of the Wiki software, which only allows a link to exist or not. If the software allowed editors to assign a relevancy weight to each link, readers could then decide which links to display based on relevance (or how to display the links, for example using colors, shading, mouseover text, etc., to indicate relevancy weight). A link on a date (which usually has very little relevance to the context) could have a low relevance weight, and a link on a jargon term essential to understanding the current article would have a high weight. Readers who find date links bothersome could easily filter most of them out, by setting their link-display relevancy threshold at some intermediate value. Editors could still argue about the exact weight to apply to a given link, but the stakes would be lower, since readers could elect to display links of any relevancy weight, down to zero---having one's pet link demoted to lower relevance would be less harsh than deleting it altogether. It stands to reason: if editors have diverse opinions about the "best" density of links, readers probably do too. We should try to avoid, if possible, the one-airline-seat-must-fit-all-passengers syndrome, since software need not have the same constraints as physical objects. We can cater to multiple reader preferences. Teratornis 17:08, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
I just gave this page a major reworking, mostly trying to move content around to be clearer (such as moving a rule from the "considerations" section to the "rules" section). I also tried to make the examples clearer. — Reinyday, 21:11, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
I am restoring the date section. If you would like to discuss its modification, please do so here. However, per the official policy outlined at Wikipedia:Editing policy which says, "avoid deleting information wherever possible..." please do not delete the section again. Please do not be rude and imply that I am pushing some agenda. I am not. I am trying to be comprehensive and clear. I work very hard to improve the Wikipedia and I don't like to be treated poorly for it. As for User:Francis Schonken's incorrect claim that my changes are "Not even correct about what was 'originally' believed," they are taken directly from this 17 February 2005 version of the page. — Reinyday, 23:33, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Hi fellow editors. I am writing to request some input regarding the dates section. Francis Schonken has referred to my edits as a "deformation" [1] which I find incredibly rude, so I was hoping some of you could step in and voice an opinion. Here are two versions of the dates section:
Because of the date preference formatting MediaWiki software feature, "how" to link and "when" to link dates can not be treated independently one from the other. Unrelated to that software issue, there is no general consensus that the habit of linking separate years (that are date indications that only consist of a "year") should be abandoned, although most Wikipedians disfavour that habit currently. Details about when and how to link years can be found in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Dates. An overview of the most frequently occuring cases:
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Because of the date preference formatting software feature, currently some dates are required to be linked, though some editors may consider the date links irrelevant to the context. For additional information about how to format dates, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Dates. An overview of the most frequently occuring cases is as follows:
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So could you please voice some opinions on which is clearer and more properly states the situation? There is additional discussion about this section above. Thanks so much. — Reinyday, 07:37, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Francis Schonken, please note that you recently reverted my changes stating that I needed to "use discussion page prior to effectuating changes. If you can't find consensus on a change at the talk page, then the change doesn't go through. Period." This is not correct. Not every change needs to be discussed, and in fact the vast majority aren't. Plesse read Wikipedia:Be bold in updating pages: "If you expect or see a disagreement with your version of the article, and you want to change or delete anything substantial in the text, it's a good idea to list your objections one by one in the talk page, reasonably quoting the disputed phrases, explaining your reasoning and providing solid references."
I didn't not expect any disagreement with my changes, but I will do my best to explain them here. Surely you don't object to me changing "*Do not link dates inside quotations" to "*Dates inside quotations should not be linked" in order to match the sentence structure of all the other bullet points. So I'm still wondering what you do object to. I've removed "'how' to link and 'when' to link dates can not be treated independently one from the other" because it isn't true. They can be treated independently and in fact are on this very page, where there is no discussion of "how" to link dates beyond an example without explanation. I've changed "there is no general consensus that the habit of linking separate years (that are date indications that only consist of a 'year') should be abandoned", which is clearly biased, to "There is no general consensus about linking date indications that only consist of a 'year'." Everything else was just diction. If you have any actual issues with what I have changed, please use exact quotations and explain them here, so that we can discuss them. But do not delete my changes (or the whole section) just because it isn't "your way".
Lastly, please read the official policies of Wikipedia:Civility and Wikipedia:Assume good faith before making any more comments to or about me or my contributions. — Reinyday, 16:51, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
In What generally should not be linked?:
Sorry, but... huh? Waitak 06:39, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
For the benefit of those reading this talk page and discussing this issue, another discussion took place at Wikipedia talk:Quotations should not contain wikilinks, the front page of which was recently redirected here. This is mentioned in the archives, but I am bringing it up here to discuss whether the talk page over there should be moved (not copied - that doesn't preserve the edit histories) to a subpage of this talk page - ideally linked to from the archives box at the top of the main talk page. Does that sound reasonable? Carcharoth 12:04, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
user:Francis Schonken recently commented out this clause from the page with the comment "Avoid making links within quotations" is, as far as I can see from prior discussion, not an agreed principle.
I have restored the clause pending discussion here. I participated in one of the prior discussions and have now reread both of them. I think that this represents the consensus opinion of the participants specifically and of community practice generally in a reasonable fashion - that such links should be discouraged but are not absolutely prohibited.
The clause was added after a fairly lengthy debate at Wikipedia talk:Quotations should not contain wikilinks. That was originally a proposal that we should establish an absolute rule against all wikilinks in quotes. There were very strong arguments made against the absolute rule. I would agree that there was no consensus for the proposal as it was originally worded. But just about every editor who commented in depth during the discussion included a disclaimer to the effect that links within quotes should be avoided in favor of a link in the nearby text whenever that was possible and convenient.
The same topic was also discussed at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 37#Wikilinks when quoting where they reached much the same conclusion. They should be discouraged but not absolutely prohibited. Rossami (talk) 00:55, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I recently found a good example where it is helpful to use links in a quotation. See Nobel_Prize_in_Physics. The short statements used by the Nobel Prize Committee to describe the reasons for giving the Prizes are notorious for being filled with precise technical terms that are often impenetrable to the layperson. Wiki-linking from the quotes is a classic casse of making them easier to understand. I still object to normal explanatory links from quotations where they disrupt the flow of a quote, preferring a gloss in the surrounding text if needed. Carcharoth 14:50, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Parts of discussion below moved from
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)
Parts of discussion below moved from
Template talk:Infobox City
I'm not sure why the wikilink
m was removed, but I've reverted the template. Please explain if the wikilink really should be taken out. --
SatyrTN (
talk |
contribs) 16:35, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree that common units don't need to be liked. Maurreen 21:33, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Can anybody suggest what would be regarded as common terms? Consider the following metric terms:
Could somebody propose suitable wording for a bullet on: What generally should not be linked? bobblewik 18:04, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
MattWright makes a very good point in saying that a grade-schooler that is reading an article may not know what is meant by m or sq mi in the infobox or in the article. I think that linking the unit symbol the first time it is used certainly wouldn't hurt. On the other hand, it should be said that over linking of common symbols for meausurements or anything for that matter certainly could hurt. I would suggest linking the symbol only once in the infobox and only once in the article. — MJCdetroit 13:43, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Discussion above moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)
What do people here think about the above discussion? bobblewik 08:20, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
I expanded on the Technical Terms theme with two more items that relate especially to non-natives. I think this is consistent with the context, and hope it is not too controversial. The geo-names linking is pretty well universal, so this is probably stating the obvious. The non-native speaker help may not be obvious to those who have not studied a foreign language. Many words have multiple meanings, and in another language, they translate to different words, each of which may have other multiple meanings. So one of the advantages of a wiki, as opposed to a flat text, is that we can make it easier for everyone to understand by using links intelligently.
Dhaluza 01:57, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
For an FA-candidate, one reviewer continues to object on the grounds that the dates on which a cited source was accessed as mentioned in the footnote/citation should be linked up. I refuse do to this, as the nominator and chief contributor to the FA-candidate because it's just ludicrous given that this is just a "guideline" and that it would violate Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context in that linking up such dates will not be relevant to the article's context or aid or facilitate in any way a reader's understanding of the article. So I ask the following:
I thank you in advance for your answers and assistance. — ExplorerCDT 18:04, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Do we have to have a "nutshell" template on this page? I think they are ugly, usually pointless and get in the way of the reader. While the current nutshell summary is an accurate statement of the page, it is redundant with the pagename. It is merely another box for the reader to have to struggle past in order to get a real understanding of the page. Rossami (talk) 21:54, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
The precept to "Only make links that are relevant to the context" can be construed narrowly as "If some part of text represents an entire phrase which has (or is explicated in) a separate article, then link to that article; don't link its individual elements (words or subphrases)".
However, in doing so, the entire wording (and also graphic content) of an article may be considered the relevant context upon which appropriate linking is to be applied. Therefore also single words, not least verbs, could be recognized as relevant and linked. Consider the example from a present article Abraham Lincoln:
" ... his Gettysburg Address rededicated the nation to freedom and democracy."
The ( mere) verb "rededicate" is even relevant enough to appear in the present Gettysburg Address itself. Indeed, a reader may expect the entire wording of every article to be appropriately linked (not even to dwell on annotations), and thus to be fully structured in its relevant components; either to visit the corresponding article, or, no less useful, to review the structuring "OnMouseOver".
Plain words may be usually subsumed. (However, note for instance Bernard's famous (albeit presently inexcusably underrepresented) " Yes and No, Minister!") Subsidiaries ought to be linked as well, to affirm that they are subsidiary.
One counter-argument which seems more debatable than, say (possibly temporary) limitation of resources or (surely user-customizable) varying preferences how fully linked text ought to appear, is the " spandrel issue" that, if only comparatively few terms are linked, they appear highlighted against the "background text" (at least with suitable user skin customization), thus allowing very efficient speed-reading of such articles. Perhaps such desired emphasis of few terms can be achieved by other means as well (say by emboldening or by Font color). However, this would necessarily interfere with the actual textual makeup of the article (which linking itself obviously does not).
In a nutshell: there is no consensus that Wikipedia:Only_make_links_that_are_relevant_to_the_context#What generally should not be linked should contain any entries other than "Individual words when a phrase has its own article". Frank W ~@) R 18:43, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
p.s. There seems to be presently no instance of the phrase "Relevant background can be found in ..." in all of Wikipedia except in the archive of this discussion and in Wikipedia:Only_make_links_that_are_relevant_to_the_context#What generally should not be linked itself. This indicates that relevant background (on any particular subject term) can be found already through a link of that term, or of text in direct context of that term. If there is no text "Relevant background can be found in ...", then the potential akwardness of having to link it doesn't arise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fwappler ( talk • contribs)
I just took the liberty of adding a reference to disambiguation pages as a place to specifically NOT link extensively, based on the style guidelines already in place for those pages. I know I didn't come in here and ask for consensus on this page first, but having just cleaned up a ton of dabs with linkorrhea, I figured that wider dissemination of the guideline had to be a Good Thing. I decided to be bold. The Monster 19:15, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I frequently see people remove links I place in a See Also section at the end of an article because they are linked somewhere in the text. This policy does not preclude repeating links in another section, especially if the first appearance was near the top. But what is the consensus? I think that it is useful to repeat links with a major connection because people don't always read the whole page, and even if they do, a prioritized list of where to go next is helpful. Is there any pre-existing guidance on this, or does it need to be addressed? Dhaluza 17:02, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
[Do not link]: "Words in a disambiguation entry other than to the disambiguation target itself. The general rule is "one link per entry"; additional links tend to confuse the reader."
I'm not keen on this section for a number of reasons:
I have begun a discussion at Template talk:NYCS. -- NE2 00:09, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Is the preferred style " Copenhagen, Denmark", " Copenhagen, Denmark", or " Copenhagen, Denmark"? – Henning Makholm 07:19, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
"[In general, do create links for ]Geographic place names, since many places have similar names, and many readers may be from a distant place. Link to the most specific available article, or create a stub or redirect if the place deserves a new article (check similar nearby places for naming conventions and category tags)."
The logic escapes me ("since") and it's very poorly worded elsewhere. I intend to remove this point unless someone can explain what it means. Tony 10:06, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Is it just me? Or do others feel the word "American" is overlinked all over Wikipedia? (This isn't an anti-American rant; I'm an American.) It almost always seems irrelevant and unhelpful. Here's an example. Seeing that Bob Dylan is an American songwriter, I might jump to the linked article wanting to learn how American songwriters are different from the other sorts. But no; this is a long article on the United States, its history, its government, its population. (Of course it is. That's what it should be.) Perhaps if I were reading about a singer from Ghana, I might wonder where Ghana is and take a moment to find out. But--I'm sorry--about the last thing that would help me understand Bob Dylan, or Johnny Cash, or Leonard Bernstein is a treatise on the United States of America. (BTW, Lenny's article links to United States twice in the first two lines!) I'm inclined to start knocking these links out, but wonder if there's a guideline or consensus I'm not aware of. Anyone? Hult041956 23:41, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
It is correct that too many links have disadvantages, but I'd like to point out that many WP users surely enjoy to surf, and I'm one of them. If I am on an article about the Geology, for example, I may click on a link pointing towards Poetry, not because it has any relevance to that, but specifically because it doesn't. Unfortunately, due to the WP:OVERLINK policy, I often end up in articles that only have links to similar articles in their context, eg a linguistics article may only contain links to a language, a linguist, and perhaps a date or two. The only way to escape from such articles (that act as deadlocks to surfing) is then to click on a date, click on a category to find something with more links, or to click on the main page or on the random article link (which isn't good for some surfers for various reasons). What we need is not to discourage 'overlinking', but to encourage or at least tolerate it while managing it to minimise its disadvantages. We need a way to distinguish between links put in for their surfing and web-building value and links that were put for their direct relationship to the article they are in. We could, for example, put all web-building links under a CSS class that round render them in a colour very similar to the surrounding text, and important links in the usual colours we use now. We could also put some preference bits to the MediaWiki software to enable users to choose whether they wish to see the web-building links or not. Another solution would be to add some functionality to MediaWiki to optionally enable (in the prefs) all words to become links automatically no matter whether there is a wikitext link or not. NerdyNSK 15:14, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Proposal for a new subsection under "Other considerations":
class="sortable"
), each row should be considered its own separate entity for linking, even when this gives the appearance of overlinking the table. This is because changing the sort order reshuffles the table and makes too hard and inconvenient to find back the single instance of a bluelink in a given column. (Example of a not-overlinked sortable table:
List of mountains in Peru.)It could probably be reworded a bit. Comments before I add it?
— Komusou talk @ 14:48, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
Recap: The only objection was by Rossami 10 days ago, answered by NE2, without counter-objections afterwards (I've added another layer of answer just for the record), so it looks like it's okay to update the guideline. Are there last-minute objections before I add "proposal C" as a new section of the guideline? — Komusou talk @ 10:01, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Please contribute to the ongoing discussion at wp:mosnum Links to common units of measurement. Lightmouse ( talk) 21:52, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
What level of wikifying is expected for a great article. If an article contains a word that is very rare would you expect the article to wikify the word so the reader could understand what it means? If further more the rare word had no article on wikipedia to explain it, what should happen? Should it be redlinked, left without being wikified or something else? SunCreator ( talk) 16:58, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Since WP:CONTEXT and WP:Build the web are tightly related, and in dynamic tension, I figure that, at the risk of falling afoul of WP:CANVASS, I should solicit opinions of people here who might have some thoughts that they'd like to contribute to this discussion, about what to do with the "Wikipedia does not use Allwiki" section.-- Aervanath's signature is boring 21:17, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
What about those who create idiosyncratic piped linques.? JeanLatore ( talk) 03:30, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
I have taken the liberty of taking the discussion to wp:mosnum. I hope nobody objects but the issue is relevant to both places and that is a more active forum. Lightmouse ( talk) 17:00, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
Metric units are not nearly as well known in the U.S. as elsewhere, so I believe that there is a legitimate need for them to be linked. I believe that it is damaging to the goal of wikipedia to remove wikilinks of metric units from scientific articles. It appears to be a type of reverse bias.— RJH ( talk) 03:38, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Response: Thanks for your comments, Aervanath and RJHall. I believe that the principle of disciplined linking that is oh-so-gradually gaining more traction on WP concerns the balancing of:
While judging which should prevail in every context often involves subjective judgement as to context, and even individual taste, there are aspects of disciplined linking that WP should probably be encouraging within an environment that still allows for the occasional functional exercise of such editorial judgement. In relation to the linking of units and the names of commonly known countries among English-speakers, the likely utility of a link to the reader should figure strongly. In the case of units, I've pointed out above my suspicion that the current unit articles are not a good way to assist readers who are unfamiliar with units to conceive of them in relation to other units (for example, pounds vs kilograms), which I think is the original reason for encouraging such links. The article on mile, for example, starts this way:
A mile is a unit of length, usually used to measure distance, in a number of different systems, including Imperial units, United States customary units and Norwegian/Swedish mil. Its size can vary from system to system, but in each is between one and ten kilometers. In contemporary English contexts, mile most commonly refers to the international mile of 5,280 feet, 1,760 yards, or exactly 1,609.344 meters. However it can also refer to either of the following for specific uses:
- the U.S. survey mile (also known as U.S. statute mile) of 5,280 survey feet which is slightly longer at approximately 1,609.347 219 meters (1 international mile is exactly 0.999 998 survey mile). [1] [2]
- the international nautical mile of exactly 1,852 meters (about 6,076 feet).
The swamp of technical and historical details is just fine for the article per se, as is the historical account further down, but the information that is likely to be sought by a reader concerns the comparison of miles with metric units and with smaller US customary units. I think you'll agree that there has to be a better way of delivering such information, and better still to make it visualisable in the reader's mind. At the moment, the article is highly diversionary and readers must work jolly hard for it to "significantly increase [their] understanding of the [current] topic", a key requirement of MOS with respect to links.
In the balance between the disadvantages and advantages of linking country-names such as the United Kingdom, India, Canada and the United States on first appearance, I think we have to ask ourselves what specific knowledge a reader is likely to be seeking through such links. As pointed out above, it's hard to second-guess this precisely, but I put it to you that WP should no longer be that our readers don't know where or what such well-known countries are. This is rather similar to the argument that kitchen and horse should generally not be linked, since this is not Wiktionary and a certain basic knowledge of the language and, indeed, the world should be assumed of our readers—even grade students. Again, hitting such links swamps the reader with information and either encourages diversionary browsing or forces a process of massive information filtering: country-articles tend to be large and comprehensive. The person who is snagging on the names of commonly known countries might instead be encouraged to read those articles first. TONY (talk) 16:46, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
Someone reinserted "This guideline is in dynamic tension with the the goal of building the web.". I though discussion here was going in the other direction—that there's little or no tension now, and that the pages might even end up being merged into MOSLINK. TONY (talk) 13:05, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
User:Lordvolton and I are in a dispute regarding possible overlinking. A few days ago the article memristor was linked in the "See Also" sections of the following articles: Programmable logic device, Electronic component, Neural network software, Biological neural network, Hodgkin-Huxley model, Action potential, resistor, Hewlett-Packard Company, and many more related articles, 23 in total. I believe this is linkspam, and reverted all edits, which was then undone. I have not reverted again and promised not to do so until a consensus is reached among people familiar with computational neuroscience, though I think anyone with an opinion should chime in. SamuelRiv ( talk) 18:31, 6 August 2008 (UTC)