Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking

Question about how to link in an article

I am in a dispute with another editor over how to link to a specific page. The article in question is Smallville (season 10) and it involves the linking of the character "Lionel Luthor". I linked the character's name to his specific page (Lionel Luthor). The other editor wants to link to Characters of Smallville#Lionel Luthor because "other characters are linked that way". The other characters in question do not have their own page, and that is why they are linked that way. The editor says "it's to keep consistent", but I thought that we should be linking to the most directly relevant page. In this case, my assumption is that the individual page is the most relevant and not the small blurb that appears at "Characters of Smallville" before sending you to the individual page. Really appreciate other people's thoughts on this.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 02:58, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I was going to comment that we should link to the specific page, but it now seems to have resolved itself based on a post by the other editor. --Ckatz^chat_spy 03:36, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Archive frequency

As we all know, this page sees either a little activity, or occasionally becomes an avalanche. We also know that active threads are not archived.I think 14 days from the 'natural death' of a thread is reasonable, otherwise, when the avalanche arrives, the page will reach 250k without much effort. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:52, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

What's your reason for removing the talk header and auto archiving notice, and removing the shortcuts from the talk message boxes? --Bsherr (talk) 04:59, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Apols for the inadvertent error. I clicked on 'revert' to the pre-Katz version instead of 'undoing' that edit, as I had intended. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 05:25, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Ok. Thanks. --Bsherr (talk) 06:12, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

And I've reset it to 30 days. Note that the initial change was by Kslotte, who appears to spend more time than the rest of us combined adjusting and assessing talk page settings across the project. I think that we can trust his/her judgement, and we can also easily judge when the page is starting to fill up and adjust accordingly. There is no need to remove material when the page is quieter simply out of fear that it may fill up. --Ckatz^chat_spy 07:08, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

No, I don't trust Kslotte's judgement on this, just because they spend lots of time resetting archive triggers. A whole month of inactivity on a thread is a ridiculously long time. If you want stuff hanging around, why don't you create a themed archive? When the page last became active, it stretched to something like 350 kB. This is simply unfair on anyone who hasn't got fast broadband. And it's a cluttered bore for others. Two weeks is quite enough on other MoSes. What's your agenda here? Tony (talk) 07:22, 23 November 2010 (UTC) PS And it doesn't even work properly. Why are the top threads all more than a month untouched? Tony (talk) 07:25, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

"Agenda"?!? Tony, why is it that anyone and everyone who disagrees with you has to have some mysterious ulterior motive? Is it that difficult to accept that someone legitimately thinks you are wrong? (Plus, such accusations serve only to raise tensions and distract us from the actual matter at hand. Not really a productive use of our time, eh?)

Seriously, why the rush to clear the page when it isn't busy? I'm sorry that you don't seem to trust Kslotte's judgement, but perhaps you should actually look at their work. I've noticed that Kslotte seems to spend a good bit of time checking and adjusting archive durations based on page load, size, and so on. One would think that we want guideline discussions to be out in the open; if there are questions that remain unanswered after a long period, perhaps we should try to deal with them rather than shuffle them out of sight. --Ckatz^chat_spy 07:33, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

As for why the older posts are still here, I'll post at Kslotte's page to see if they have an answer.(superseded by the following comments) --Ckatz^chat_spy 07:39, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I think the bot by default only works when there are more than five threads on the page. A. di M. (talk) 07:44, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks... yes, I was just reading through the bot's instructions and it seems to default that way so as to avoid stripping a page clean. It also has a default setting to prevent it from removing material unless there are at least two discussions to archive. Both of those are configurable if desired. --Ckatz^chat_spy 07:49, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

←(1) You say "Tony, why is it that anyone and everyone who disagrees with you has to have some mysterious ulterior motive?" Well, hardly anyone ever disagrees with me, so I find it hard to test that claim. (2) "Is it that difficult to accept that someone legitimately thinks you are wrong?" It occasionally happens, but I'm perplexed that this matter can be construed as a binary right or wrong. (3) It is surprising how easily you lurch into the language of personal confrontation; the word "accusation" is unsuitable on this page. (4) You still haven't explained why a thread should remain dead for a whole month before being archived. (5) Most importantly, are you going to undertake to adjust the trigger when this page blows out again, such as is occurring now in discussing how long the archive trigger should be when it blows out? If you agree to promptly do this, I'm fine. No one wants a repeat of the 350 Mb page you insisted on last time. Now, that's my budget for the time being on this page: don't expect another quick reply. I'm pretty busy elsewhere. Tony (talk) 08:03, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not touching #1 and 2, as they speak volumes on their own. Your "agenda" comment earlier more than explains #3, and #4 is already amply explained by the number of questions that remain unanswered here. That leaves #5, which is just a part of the normal judgement process that we all use on talk pages, looking to balance size versus relevance. --Ckatz^chat_spy 08:12, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

The fact that there are always 5 threads on the page, irrespective of their age, is plenty good reason to push the archiving frequency up to 14 days. As to Kslotte, it's not about whether I trust his judgement. He seems to come around once in a blue moon, and if he comes by when the page is like the proverbial graveyard, archiving gets adjusted to 30 days. I seem to still remember some were insisting archiving stayed at 30 days the last time it got in excess of 100kB (oh, it was 350k. Sorry!); you know full well Kslotte was not present at any stage during the last debate which resulted in a 350kB page (remind me to call him over and "trust his judgement" when the next bloat occurs!). This is nuts. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:16, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

"Well, hardly anyone ever disagrees with me"—CKatz, I expected you'd take that in the self-mocking tone in which it was intended. Clearly not. <sigh> Now it seems we need to hold an RfC on the number of days for the archive trigger. Tony (talk) 15:09, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Poe's Law, anyone? A. di M. (talk) 19:55, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I also missed the joke the first time. Art LaPella (talk) 21:40, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Parent–child links

I would like to add another sentence to What generally should not be linked:

There is generally no need for a parent link when a child link is nearby. For example, there is no need to link "The Beatles" in "... the piano introduction in The Beatles' song Let It Be is an example of ..."

Of course, happy to read other wordings, terminology or examples, but the sentiment is that:

1. the over-linking of the parent is a distraction/dilution.
2. the parent can be found via the child link.
3. the parent link usually doesn't deepen the understanding of the article.

Perhaps another way of saying this might be: "Generally only link the lowest level in a chain-link"? I find the over-linking of parent terms to be a wide-spread problem.
 GFHandel.   23:28, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd not thought of calling them parent and child links. It works, but the broader concept/terminology people have been using is chain links, whatever the relationship between the two targets. Thus, there is no point in linking "Elgar's" in "Elgar's Enigma Variations, since the latter is more specific, contains a prominent link to the composer at its opening, and causes "bunching" between two links, explicitly discouraged by MOSLINK. However, if there were no article on the work, a link to the composer should be considered in the context. Tony (talk) 23:58, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Whatever we call it (parent/child or chain links), I agree; there is no point to linking to The Beatles if the subject of interest is their song and it is linked a few words over. I think the above example explains the concept clear enough so that even Johnnie Cochran himself came to wikilawyer and wax poetic, the principle is clear enough.Greg L (talk) 00:31, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, I've advertised this discussion at WT:VPP. A. di M. (talk) 12:13, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Object - not without wider consensus, not just that of the MOS regulars. There have been too many changes here that reflect individual preferences, without adequate consultation of the wider community. --Ckatz^chat_spy 03:55, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Please note that it was 267 minutes between my post requesting discussion at this talk page (in front of "the wider community") and Ckatz's assume-bad-faith response (which is really disappointing from an experienced editor—and admin no less). Ckatz, could I respectfully request that you address the issue I raised with relevant reasoning (as I'm sure everyone else around here will do). Of course, I fully expect there to be many days of discussion before the issue is decided.  GFHandel.   04:25, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

It's not "assume-bad-faith" as you claim, and note that said accusation could easily be considered to be "in bad faith" itself. I'm just being realistic based on past practices. Keep in mind that this is a proposal to further lock in the delinking agenda, proposed by one leading proponent of the cause and supported within 63 minutes (since we're apparently tracking time now) by two other strong advocates of the "cause". This is not something that we should decide amongst merely the regular contributors here; it needs (and should require) much wider input. --Ckatz^chat_spy 04:35, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

"...based on past practices" would be the definition of assume bad faith. I did not seek the opinion, or help, or input from anyone before posting my request for discussion; and I have not asked anyone for support, so they comment by their own volition. "...it needs (and should require) much wider input"—for Heaven's sake Ckatz, that's why I posted the issue here instead of simply changing the MOS. Thanks for letting us all know how the process of discussion works, but it really wasn't necessary for you to post your off-topic pejorative comment. If you have some relevant reasoning to add, please do; otherwise how about we both just keep quiet and let others add their thoughts now? (I'm quite happy for you to remove this thread and to start again with some relevant text following "Object - ".)  GFHandel.   05:03, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Nevertheless, in an attempt to alleviate Ckatz's concerns, I have left a note at the main MOS discussion page. Dabomb87 (talk) 05:08, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

As long as so many routine technical issues keep escalating, I know I have work to do here. You both seem to agree this issue needs more advertising, so what would be some good places? WP:Village pump (miscellaneous) maybe? Art LaPella (talk) 05:24, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Ckatz, just because you use a bold Object and posture with all sorts of hoped-for hurdles such as “wider consensus”, such facades are no basis for you to get your way. Just because you might declare that six-party talks that include China and North Korea are also required to get something done here does not make it true (although it’s *pretty* to think so). Issues pertaining to the manuals of style are settled all the time by the regulars of MOS and MOSNUM and this suggestion is no exception. I know you would like to paint this issue as still-born but it isn’t. And just because of that hocus-pocus posturing of yours, I’ll follow up on my simple statement above and not only meet your bold *Object”, I’ll raise you a <big> to boot. Ergo…

Support Because it is another subtle and sane way to address overlinking, which has lead editors to create abominations like the first sentence of the current version of “Indianapolis’. Take note that two instances in a row of “Indiana” are linked (as is “capital” for all the 2nd graders who will be reading up on that city) . I believe we are at 3 in support vs. 1 in opposition, Ckatz. We’ll see if we can arrive at a consensus here first. If the outcome is not to your liking, then you can go hunt down a [I DON'T LIKE IT] tag that suits you and slap it up at the top here. Greg L (talk) 05:46, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Gee whiz,Greg, I wan't aware that "wider consensus" was such a "hurdle" for the community to overcome. Thanks for clearing that up. --Ckatz^chat_spy 06:02, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

By the way, your "3 to 1" consists of you, HMV258GFHandel, Tony and myself, which is exactly why I made the point about needing wider input. --Ckatz^chat_spy 06:06, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Please note that Ckatz has not actually opposed the suggestion (and certainly not with any cogent reasoning). As I understand it, Ckatz has objected to a declaration of consensus based on being desirous of further discussion—and guess what: so am I.  GFHandel.   06:08, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Of course I oppose it, as it is merely justification for increasing the wanton removal of links you guys disagree with. I'll point out yet again that these lists of "common terms' still remain secretive collections buried in the scripts used to remove them; there is no oversight, no real opportunity for discussion or objection, and - most importantly - no way for the editing community to make changes on their own. If you were serious about making this an open process, then any and all terms subject to these purges would be in easily accessible lists that the community could add or delete from as desired. Frankly, I don't think you are prepared to do that, although I'd be happy to be proven wrong if it meant we got more transparency for this matter. --Ckatz^chat_spy 06:15, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Search User:Art LaPella/AWB list for "Pacific" to find my OVERLINK list. OVERLINK could specify what common terms shouldn't be linked, but it doesn't, and as far as I know, not listing them is a consensus. If it isn't, then perhaps you should add such a list and see if it stays. Art LaPella (talk) 08:00, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

If you want a “wider consensus,” Ckatz, go see if you can find some meatpuppets to join in here; this talk page for MOSNUM (linking) is the appropriate place for discussing this subject. Just because you are impassioned beyond all comprehension on the issue changes none of that. A lot of the time when these sort of suggestions are made and few people weigh in on the subject, it’s only because precious few people care one way or another. I suggest you put a notice on WT:MOSNUM and WT:MOS alerting editors to this discussion. Greg L (talk) 06:21, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I'll comment on the first sentence: could you please define "wanton" and give some examples of edits that you consider to be wanton? The rest of the above is irrelevant to the issue I raised as I didn't mention anything to do with scripts (which have their own rules of use). I'll leave it to others to discuss how "public" their scripts are, but I believe they are (e.g. [1]). The issue I have raised is motivated by edits that I have to perform such as these today: [2], [3], and [4]. Would you say that any of those edits are "wanton"?  GFHandel.   06:33, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Who gives a crap about such extraneous issues? It’s water under the bridge and addressing those points is just diverting us from discussing the wording in the light-blue box, above. Hmmmm… getting diverted from the central issue and focused instead onto garbage about an editor’s personal conduct in the past. Has that happened before on Wikipedia?? I’m still counting 3:1 on the central issue under discussion. That tells me two things 1) the motion is passing so far, and 2) we need more input from other editors and less whining about how GFHandel chronically fails to apply deodorant in the morning. Greg L (talk) 06:40, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

←Support The matter is already covered in the guideline, although the text is a useful summary that should be added.

"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.", and

"When possible, avoid placing links next to each other so that they look like a single link" Tony (talk) 07:02, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

oppose Although the main idea is right, this should be left for checking at each specific case. In this example, we all know who are the Beatles and that "let it be" is one of their songs. That's not always the case, sometimes both the parent and child topics are unknown at first sight by most readers (for example, because of systemic bias). In other cases, a child topic may be mentioned briefly, but the focus is still on the parent topic. MBelgrano (talk) 14:06, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

I understand your point. Could you provide one or two examples that demonstrate what you are saying? Perhaps we can refine my text to take into account (or exclude) based on your examples? Thanks.  GFHandel.   18:57, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

• Support. Never really thought about it before but always felt a "little funny" performing "extra" links. This gives a solid MOS reason that I did not have before. Even if it doesn't make it to the policy page here, it ought to be somewhere if only in an essay. How else are we going to be able to improve the reader's experience? This makes it clear: Avoid distracting the reader from the main point! Student7 (talk) 15:37, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

• Very weak support, in that the idea is right but there's a lot of case-by-case arguments to be made here. I, for one, believe that save in limited cases, nearly every proper noun should be linked the first time it is used (presuming it is a non-redirect blue link), with the present set of limited exceptions of things like major geographical features and cities. If the example given about the Beatles is in an article about music or music-related related topics, "The Beatles" would be a known expected term and thus the idea of letting the child link provide that linkage would make sense. But an example where this would not apply well; for example, in the video game Ico, the cover is reference to Giorgio de Chirico's The Nostalgia of the Infinite; neither proper name would be something expected to be reasonably known to the field of video games, so while there certainly is the parent/child linkage from the name of the painting, failure to link de Chirico's name as well would be a failing of what WP links should be doing. If anything, we should try to include language to avoid back-ending parent-child links via the posessive form or other means ("The Nostalgia of the Infinite painted by Giorgio de Chirico" vs. "Giorgio de Chirico's The Nostalgia of the Infinite) to put more visual space between links. --MASEM (t) 19:06, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support. It makes eminently good sense to write "[[Piano Concerto No. 1 (Tchaikovsky)|Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1]]" instead of "[[Tchaikovsky]]'s [[Piano Concerto No. 1 (Tchaikovsky)|Piano Concerto No. 1]]". The link to Tchaikovsky is remote and of very limited utility, and the link-bunching would be avoided. I would also support "Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1" instead. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 07:09, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

• Chain linking such as that removed by my edit here ought to be strongly diecouraged. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 07:38, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. This move puts more steps between me and information, which is a problem for an encyclopedia. In the example given this is obvious. If i wish to move on to 'The Beatles' this proposal requires me to make a stop at a song I may not have much interest in. This proposal is not well thought out and fundamentally flawed. -- ۩ Mask 02:21, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Concur with User:AKMask. The proposal is very user unfriendly. We should make it easier, not more difficult for a reader to get to the page that they want. Forcing someone go through a page they're not reading to get to the page they want to read is poor form. And please, can we avoid the search box argument, as that's even worse. oknazevad (talk) 02:49, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

This might be an OK argument if there were no disadvantage in loosely plastering our text with links. But as we all know, there is such a disadvantage, which must be carefully weighed up with the advantages of linking to an item, to produce maximum utility for all readers, not just those who just might want to link to "California", bunched up next to "San Diego". Just why a reader would want to go first to California (if at all), when the item in the anchor text is something much more specific, is a mystery to me. You can't just link everything because one in a million visitors might just happen to want to lazily browse around. This is a serious, professional source of information, and part of our duty as editors is to make obvious the specific links that might be most useful and relevant. WP has dispensed with the notiont that there is some formulaic imperative to link all geographical items, no matter where they occur—in relation to a topic and to a more specific item next to it in the text. That was a symptom of the early days of wikis. Tony (talk) 04:30, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

No, some Wikipedia editors have decided they don't like it, and are implementing their personal preferences on a site-wide basis. If people are going to the trouble of coming here to state their opposition, then there is obviously discomfort and discontent with the level to which the delinking campaign is being pushed. Again, as stated over and over (and over) on this page there has to be some form of compromise if we are to ever resolve this. --Ckatz^chat_spy 05:34, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

No, we dont 'all know' this is a disadvantage. It's quite an advantage, actually. Oh god, the encyclopedia makes it easier to find out information! Oh god! Whatever shall we do? Please. This is not the same issue as linking the same article multiple times. This is you being foolish. -- ۩ Mask 07:18, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, there are more of us fools out here who think automatically linking words like "California" (or at least US) makes it harder to find information, not easier. So please indulge our foolishness more gently. Art LaPella (talk) 17:31, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Im not saying he's the only one, and dont worry, i indulge quite well. Don't bite either. It's still foolishness though :) -- ۩ Mask 22:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

• No AKMask, this proposal makes it easier for the average reader to find information (by linking terms that deepen the understanding of the subject of the article).  GFHandel.   19:55, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

By removing perfectly useful links because a second more specific link is present you are, actually, reducing the number of useful exits from an article. X-1=Y, it doesn't take a genius to figure out Y<X. Being overly specific can be a problem. Being too general can be a problem. Having both covers all usecases. This is a no-brainer. -- ۩ Mask 22:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

No, it isn't a no-brainer unless you want to link every word. Otherwise, the issue is which words to link and which words not to link. To say someone lives in San Diego, California is debatable; San Diego, California, United States is less debatable; a person is no more likely to suddenly want to read about the United States, than to want to read about the word "lives". Art LaPella (talk) 03:30, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I whole heartedly disagree, but just to move it along, try taking that view outside of your single-issue focus on Geography. Lets use the example listed at the top of this section. I can name countless reasons why someone would be more interested in the band then the song, and countless reasons why someone would need the song but not the artist. -- ۩ Mask 05:06, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I can't. The context is what the piano introduction is an example of, not an article about John Lennon for instance. The Beatles are one of the best known groups, and reading all about them wouldn't help understanding what the intro is an example of. Once again the question isn't whether there is any reason to read the Beatles article, but whether there is more reason to read that article than other words in that sentence like song or piano. Art LaPella (talk) 06:04, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

If you cant then you're at the point of being willfully obtuse. I'll contribute a practical example. I had the De Colores page open, and noticed in a section near the bottom about artists who have recorded it, and points out it was mentioned in the Flobots song Handlebars. This seemed like an odd thing to me. I knew the lyric, but had never really put any thought in to why there'd be such a bold reference to a Spanish folk song be a contemporary alt rock/rap group, which also lead me to realize I had never really assigned an ethnicity to any of its members while listening to their music. At that point my goal had become to find out more about a musical act I enjoy in order to more fully appreciate their work and understand the roots behind it, in order to gain a more complete experience. This kind of undirected learning is a major cornerstone of our viewing audience and this makes it harder to accomplish that. -- ۩ Mask 06:22, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

You do appreciate that we don't write articles just for you? We write for an average readership. No doubt there is a reader who finds any particular word or phrase in an article interesting enough to have a link. We cannot link everything just in case. The MOS gives guidelines designed to enhance the reading experience for the average reader, which in this case means linking the parts that deepen the understanding of an article.  GFHandel.   20:31, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Let's see some proof, then, that the typical reader does not want to have easy access. This issue did not arise from complaints from typical readers, but instead from the personal preferences of a few editors who do not like the links. --Ckatz^chat_spy 21:03, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The proof is that there have been hundreds-of-thousands of such edits with (proportionally) little issues arising. The "personal preference" turns out to be what the vast bulk of editors (who don't comment here) support.  GFHandel.   05:29, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

This is exactly my point, we write them for everyone. This proposal stems from a specific use case that is unrepresentative of our readership, and makes it harder to navigate the encyclopedia. -- ۩ Mask 01:25, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

• I might be obtuse; I'm pretty sure I'm not wilfully obtuse.
• I'm completely obtuse about the Flobots, so I wouldn't object to linking them. For what it's worth, that means I'm not really sold on the first sentence of the proposed change: "There is generally no need for a parent link when a child link is nearby." But I know who the Beatles were. It's harder to imagine undirected learning being satisfied by that article. Such learning is possible because I don't know everything in the Beatles article, but that can be said for linking any word.
• To my knowledge, Wikipedia statistics don't tell us how many times each particular wikilink is clicked. So I don't think we can prove this issue one way or the other. We can only try to put ourselves in the reader's place and imagine which links would be more useful than others. Art LaPella (talk) 01:40, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

We may actually agree then. I don't discount overlinking, my objection is that this proposal drops away with links that are quite useful. Thats one of the reasons I moved this beyond the examples of geography, which are actually covered by the MOSL already. Simply put this proposal advances a rule that makes broad generalizations about *which* topics readers ought to be interested in. A product made by a company would get one link, to the product, when the company is also a quite useful (and i imagine used) link. It's not thought through very well, and presents some WP:CREEP issues. -- ۩ Mask 01:52, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

You keep using the word "useful", but the point (understood by all the "support" contributors above) is that the parent links are generally not useful. You have yet to address the main point of this proposal: that the parent link (whilst useful to set the context of the child link) does not generally deepen the understanding of the article (i.e. it's not whether the Beatles are an important entity in a global sense, it's whether they are an important entity in terms of the article with the child link). Additionally, you have not addressed the issue that the linking of the parent term unnecessarily dilutes the high-value links in an article. These concepts have been overwhelmingly supported by both the many editors who contribute here, and by the vast majority of editors who have accepted the enormous number of edits that have already been made based on these principles.  GFHandel.   05:40, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

*Leaving aside subjective usefulness of certain words compared with others, "Usefulness" can, of course, be relative too. Those who agree with this proposal tend to want to ensure we keep the relatively 'useful' (but closely-related) links and sacrifice the 'less useful' where there are such clusters, in order not to crowd out other relatively useful (but unrelated) links. If we do not apply a bit of discipline in this sense, linking every word would be the logical conclusion; and the place will be littered with some useful links and many useless links. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:04, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

The "point" about "parent links" is in fact an opinion; just because it is a strongly-held opinion on the part of a very small group who frequent this page does not make it reality on a project-wide basis. Many of the more contentious bulk removals - the ones that obliterated numerous geographical links, for example - were accompanied by edit summaries with trumped-up statements that made them appear to be some sort of official action. Thus, it is no wonder that the average editor would not see fit to complain - but that cannot be used to support an opinion that the changes were widely supported. After all, one could just as easily state that the links were near-unanimously accepted because most editors did not feel it was necessary to remove them. --Ckatz^chat_spy 07:03, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Again, Ckatz, not a word from you in terms of why certain links should be retained and others not. Your posts seems to be framed entirely in terms of personal politics and wild assertions as to the existence of "a very small group"—simply a whim, I'm afraid. Now, I thought you agreed a few months ago not to use language such as "obliterated", "stripped", "trumped-up". Purporting to speak for "the average editor" is all a bit rich, isn't it? I don't have time to frequent this page at the moment, so don't expect a reply any time soon. Tony (talk) 07:33, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

If you really "don't have time to frequent this page at the moment", then why the drive-by comment with spurious claims that have no basis in reality? As I've asked you repeatedly in the past, please avoid any such unverified claims unless you can provide links to back them up. Now, let's stick to the matter at hand. --Ckatz^chat_spy 08:07, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

• Katz, you keep on repeating it so much I think you're starting to believe that you are part of the 'righteous majority', and we're all on a minority jihad. And now it looks like you've even found a risible "explanation" as to why there aren't more complaints on my talk page – that they must be intimidated or otherwise blinded by science. Sad day for us all, how Wikipedians have now almost universally lost their analytical and reasoning faculties. ;-) --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 08:13, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Right on cue... and wrong again. There's no "righteousness", just a deep frustration at watching a small group repeatedly try to push their viewpoint on the larger project. A quick read of the (endless) archives here demonstrate that editors such as myself and N-HH have no desire to "carpet the project with blue links"; we even have stated that we agree with the removal of obvious overlinking. That, however, has not stopped you, Tony etc. from repeatedly making such outlandish claims as part of your arguments here. Do you really find it realistic to think that the average editor - not a lot of edits, unfamiliar with the MoS (if they even know it exists), dabbles in changes here and there - is going to find their way to your talk page or this project page to challenge an officious edit summary with booming "WP:OVERLINK" messages entrenched within? Why is it that you can claim to know what other people might want linked? There's certainly no lack of posturing here with claims of what the readers "should" want linked, or what they "need" to have linked, but no proof that your assumptions are in fact anywhere near correct. --Ckatz^chat_spy 08:27, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

As for the "small group" issue, it is perfectly valid. Again drawing upon the archives, one can easily discern that there are a fair number of regular MoS contributors who are using the delinking scripts to take out obvious issues, delink dates, and so on. There is, however, a very distinct and small subset that is using scripts and inaccessible, limited-access lists in a large-scale manner with the expressed desire to remove many if not all of what they feel to be "common" terms. That is where I see the real issue - not in the reasonable, balanced approach, but instead in the "winner take all" mass delinking. --Ckatz^chat_spy 08:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

For others following this debate, please note that none of Ckatz's comments relate to the content of the proposal being discussed.  GFHandel.   09:36, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Please address the concerns raised, rather than trying to distract attention from them. --Ckatz^chat_spy 09:40, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Um, that's precisely what I just pointed out to everyone is the problem with your posts (i.e. they are second-guessing motives, assuming bad faith, and devoid of content related to the proposal). Every issue raised that is related to the proposal has been addressed. Could you please either contribute directly to the issue being discussed, or leave us alone to do that? Thank you.  GFHandel.   10:00, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Man, this page exploded while i was at work. GF, you made the point in your last response that i didn't address how the parent link would help understanding next to a child link. I actually addressed it three times, twice with music (once using the example in the proposal) and once with a generic Company-Product example. -- ۩ Mask 10:52, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Many people here have explained how the parent link is available on the child page (for the very few readers who might be interested in the parent). The well-understood issue here is that the parent link does not deepen the understanding of the article (that contains the child link).  GFHandel.   11:06, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Wait, qualify your 'very few'. Whats the number? I'm assuming since you seem so confidant in it you have the stats on link traffic, which would greatly help this conversation and clear up some confusion on both sides. Can you link me to them? -- ۩ Mask 11:17, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

My observation (in brackets) is based on a great deal of experience at WP. You do understand that thousands upon thousands of edits have been made by many editors here based on the current MOS Linking principle of "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, and that there have been trivial numbers of complaints arising from those edits? We have to go by what our editors are telling us, and they are just not complaining about the valuable tidy-up work that has been going on for some time now. Are you also saying that a reader who has managed to navigate to an article about music is incapable of further navigation to The Beatles article (if they were so inclined), say, by searching for "The Beatles" or by through-clicking on Let it Be (where the eighth word is a link to "The Beatles")? I've never believed the argument that the average reader is somehow inconvenienced by having to perform just one more click, but strongly believe that many more readers are inconvenienced when over-linking dilutes the links that are relevant to the topic of an article. Come on, let's put this one to bed.  GFHandel.   20:31, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

As you said, you strongly believe what you are doing is correct. That just clarifies that it is an opinion, without any statistics or facts to back it up. We are well aware of the "thousands and thousands" of edits, but it is important to put that in context. Impressive numbers, sure, but not when you consider that they are really just an endless stream of (for the most part) scripted changes. The average reader isn't all that interested in what we do with the MoS, or else we'd have significantly larger numbers of editors participating in these discussions. As it is, I'd wager that when they see an edit summary on the order of what is typically used during a delinking run (the "OVERLINKING" shortcut etc.) they just assume it is some official matter that they neither know about nor care about. In a similar fashion, I think you could expect to get the same response if we were to relink with "UNDERLINK" summaries. Once again, we are talking about the opinions of the people who actually bother to come here, and as such we have a responsibility to ensure that our personal preferences do not get imposed on the project as a whole. (That goes both ways, of course. However, when one reviews the concerns raised by myself, N-HH, and the others who have complains here, I do think it is fair to say that we have been asking to keep a lot less than what you would prefer to remove.) --Ckatz^chat_spy 21:52, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Regarding "...without any statistics or facts to back it up...": it's becoming increasingly obvious to everyone here that the delinking edits involved are in the "I just don't like it" category for you, but there's just no way of getting away from the fact that the multitude of editors who maintain the articles for the readers of WP have overwhelmingly supported the improvements made by the hard-working editors performing the delinking. This proposal attempts to refine the basis of those edits and isn't something anyone here should be scared about. The MOS is a guideline after all, and it must be obvious to you that the delinking is going to continue, so how about contributing here to refine the wording to allay your worries? I'm sure we would all welcome the on-topic contribution of an experienced editor such as yourself.  GFHandel.   22:17, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

No, you're making claims about parent links, "sea of blue", and so on - and it most certainly is not just me who is asking for proof. (See AKMask's query only a few posts above, which was answered with an opinion.) How many people need to ask for some - any - proof of what you are presenting as "fact" before it is provided? --Ckatz^chat_spy 22:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

So that would be two or three editors versus the multitude who are quite comfortable with the delinking edits? I think we're done here.  GFHandel.   22:46, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

• It seems that we need to be more objective and even-handed about the demands for evidence that the alleged systematic purging of 'sea of blue' is somehow detrimental to users. I have seen maybe four or five opinions offered to this effect in this circuitous discussion – a lot of hot air and zero empirical proof up to now. I go by my experiences elsewhere, my intuition and from the feedback from pages such as this and my talk page. Now we are getting surreal conjecture as to how users don't dare complain because they aresomehow feel intimidated by the edit summaries left by little-old-me. Well, I'm just soooo sorry CKatz doesn't like it. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:20, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
  • It's no more "surreal" than the presumptuous attitude that readers don't want/don't need the links. By the way, you might need to re-read my posts as you are the only one who has used the term "intimidate" in this entire section. (Twice, in fact.) I never said (or implied) anything of the sort. --Ckatz^chat_spy 04:34, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
    • OK, That response seems like a conversation-stopper. I'm 10-10 on the side. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 05:08, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

• Look what I stumbled on, talking of links. Tony (talk) 11:49, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Thank you for that! I think it puts to lie the myth used elsewhere that people aren't clicking these links, or gaining benefit from it (the 'fascinated clicking'). -- ۩ Mask 14:53, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
    • How someone could interpret a cynical cartoon (that is attempting to satirize over-linking and nebulous-linking at WP) as "puts to lie the myth used elsewhere..." is fascinating.  GFHandel.   20:31, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
      • I dont know if you're new to XKCD or just haven't picked up Randall's humor, but go read the thread for this comic in the individual comics section of the forum... hes making a joke about how easy it is to find whatever you want. Here's another he did on this, make sure you read the alt-text, where the joke is. -- ۩ Mask 21:13, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
      • Agreed, not sure how the cartoon could in any way be a satirical poke at "overlinking". I highly doubt anyone outside of a MoS regular would even think of creating a cartoon about such a thing. --Ckatz^chat_spy 21:52, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
• Any sort of link can be overused, & one of the things I look for first in copyediting is links to remove, but this particular kind of link is likely to be useful. If for example I look for an article on a book or a play by its title, I may even have searched for the book title in order to find the author article, because I remember the title, but not the author. And even for parents like the Beatles , if I'm reading an article on a particular work, I may still want to quickly go the the general page for context or things that occur to me as I'm reading. I'd even say that an up-link of this sort, preferably in the lede, should generally be required; it's part of building the web . But there is of course no need to use it frequently in the article, and we already have rules about that. DGG ( talk ) 18:32, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
• If the intention is that we should not link, for example, "the Beatles" if we already have a link to "Let it Be" in an article, I'll add my voice to the opposition to that as a general rule or instruction. Seems like a seriously bad idea, and I'm struggling to see what benefit it would bring. In certain cases it might well be a redundant or irrelevant link, but let's leave that to be decided rationally in context. Nor can I see any consensus for this - people who have commented whose names are not familiar from previous discussions seem to see problems too. And for those citing WP:IDONTLIKEIT, don't forget that WP:ILIKEIT is the other side of that coin, and equally weak as an argument. N-HH talk/edits 12:50, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I thought you were blocked .... Tony (talk) 14:39, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

What would I have been blocked for? No, just tired of going round in circles on talk pages with ethnic nationalists, music and film fanboys, and doctrinaire MoS obsessives (insert winking emoticon here, in respect of all three accusations), and haven't seen anything content-wise that I can be bothered to make marginally less crap than it already is, which is little more than I ever aspire to do whenever I edit here. N-HH talk/edits 15:10, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

A block is a serious matter. Please refrain fromusing obscene language on this page. Tony (talk) 03:59, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, the serious answer is: He was repeatedly but briefly blocked long ago. He isn't blocked now. To avoid making serious misinterpretable accusations, click a username, click "user contributions", and click "block log" to determine someone's block status. Art LaPella (talk) 04:40, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

For convenience, the direct links: N-HH and Tony1. Both have blocks, none are relevant to this discussion. Would it not be best to delete the last few entries, starting with "I thought you were...", as being off-topic? --Ckatz^chat_spy 04:52, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, considering Tony has a block more recent by a year this stinks of sour grapes after the debate started slipping away from him. -- ۩ Mask 06:55, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

The difference is that my blocks last about an hour before they are reverted for being in bad faith; this typically occurs when I'm asleep. Mask, your use of the word "stinks" is the second time you've breached the civility code. I hope you don't repeat it again. Tony (talk) 07:52, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

There's nothing uncivil about stinks, and if you want someone else to tell you that, you're more then welcome to file a complaint, im not losing any sleep over it. While i wait for you to do that, it'd be nice if you refrained from pointless warnings. -- ۩ Mask 08:39, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

"it'd be nice if you refrained from pointless warnings"—not pointless at all. You need to take heed of WP:CIVILITY, which is policy.

I do heed it. And so let me say, categorically, the fact that you start throwing around some guys block log and old, empty ANI threads stinks to high heaven. It seems petty and vindictive. You need to focus on the debate and stop acting childishly. Civil tells you to focus on the content, not the contributor. That statement refers to your actions, not you, and lets you know how you could adjust them to fit the social norm. -- ۩ Mask 19:10, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Can I join this mud fight? Here's a quote someone can use against me! Art LaPella (talk) 19:20, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Watch out, under these rules thats a permanent blackmark! ;) -- ۩ Mask 19:27, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I still read the mood as being generally supportive of the proposal. I'm sure everyone here does appreciate that the start wording of the proposal ("There is generally...") means that this is an example in the guidelines that will cause editors to think carefully about such links. Editors thinking carefully about what overlinking means to them (in the context of each article) is a great outcome for all at WP. Merry Christmas to all here (and thanks to everyone for the hard work they've put into the MOS over the year).  GFHandel.   08:03, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

If you think consensus is in your favor you're more then welcome to ask someone to close the thread and judge, but it seems pretty clear to me there isnt consensus to add it. -- ۩ Mask 08:39, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Ckatz, before throwing stones, beware of the home ground. For example, this. Tony (talk) 08:49, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I dont think this is where you meant to leave this comment, Tony. Ckatz hasn't participated in this part of the discussion yet, he's upthread a bit. -- ۩ Mask 09:00, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Also, are you sure thats what you meant to link? It's an unsigned complaint in an ANI archive that got no replies... doesn't seem sinister as you try to imply. -- ۩ Mask 09:02, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Tony, what I wrote was pretty clear... he's been blocked, you've been blocked, none of it is relevant to this discussion. Not sure how that constitutes "throwing stones" as it would seem to treat both of you equally. Can we please actually address what N-HH said? --Ckatz^chat_spy 11:57, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I have only ever been blocked because of my foolishness in getting involved in one of WP's more contentious and politically charged areas. No one who has any degree of objectivity and neutrality, and who is willing to assert those principles aggressively sometimes, is going to get away there. Blocks are often given out for somewhat superficial reasons, for example, for brief edit warring, for using a dirty word or telling someone they were being stupid, even if they were, or simply because ArbCom wants to clear an area while ignoring any substantive content points. As noted, none of this is relevant here, or relevant to this issue. Nor is it a "serious matter". Get over yourself and stop flinging mud at people. I thought your comment might be a friendly joke at first, but it clearly wasn't. And more relevantly, no, GFHandel, the mood is clearly not "generally supportive" of your proposal. Even including the usual suspects, it seems split 50:50. Exclude them - myself included - and the figures look even worse. And to play the reductio ad absurdum game on the point at hand, continuing the Beatles/Let It Be example, the page on Let It Be itself would not include a link to the Beatles, because it includes links to Paul McCartney, whose page provides the main link to the band. I note your point about "generally", but is this really where we are heading? N-HH talk/edits 12:57, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

• Did you count Katz and yourself as one of the 'usual suspects'? Judging by your claim that excluding them radically shifts the balance suggests to me you did not. ;-) --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:23, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

• Ckatz, while you seem so keen to talk about blocks (throwing stones while himself living in a glass house), I'm just wondering whether you had anything to say about the accusation against you at that link, that's all: "Removal of edits with false accusations of self promotion. This administrator clearly is a rogue as I can see from other complaints aginst them. clearly has an interest in protecting a page that is very local and niche. Half of notable entries are not truly notable. CKatz is the one guilty of promotion of friends. Also sent nast letter to me warning of being banned."

  "Get over yourself"—that is indeed moving towards the kind of language that has resulted in your previous blocks, N-HH. I remember you were so rude here once that you apologised.

  "There's nothing uncivil about stinks"—I beg to differ. You should read the bulleted list at WP:CIVILITY. "it'd be nice if you refrained from pointless warnings"—the point is to discourage you from being uncivil here. Tony (talk) 14:48, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Tony, you kicked off a wholly irrelevant side-debate about blocks with what now appears to have been a rather sarky intervention aimed at me. Now you're trying to continue it, while widening your smear campaign to others. Please stop. The blocking tool is one that is wielded fairly arbitrarily by those editors that happen to have administrative rights against other editors, often for fairly minor infractions. They are not "serious", and it was preposterous to suggest they are. Nor are they relevant to the issue at hand. I would ask you to clarify what language you think I've ever used that got me blocked and how many of my blocks are actually for incivility anyway, or whether you think it's appropriate or relevant to recycle a random quote about CKatz from someone who disliked something they once did, but that would just invite another post. Log off, and go and have a sherry and a mince pie. Happy Christmas. N-HH talk/edits 16:56, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

ps: if someone wants to collapse all these comments while retaining any substantive content, feel free.

Since you commented down here too, ill repeat myself: "I do heed it. And so let me say, categorically, the fact that you start throwing around some guys block log and old, empty ANI threads stinks to high heaven. It seems petty and vindictive. You need to focus on the debate and stop acting childishly. Civil tells you to focus on the content, not the contributor. That statement refers to your actions, not you, and lets you know how you could adjust them to fit the social norm." -- ۩ Mask 19:12, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

• Weak Support but think theres a problem when it comes to bios. I have recently just become aware of this proposal and at first glance was way opposed to the idea. Y because i became aware of this after noticing many "peoples and/or ethnic and/or demographics" links being deleted from many high profile bios with the edit summary "Removed link to nationality - see WP:OVERLINK. However looking at WP:OVERLINK i dont see mention of ethnic group's or nationality. I see ethnic background as something very different then language and/or religion or a place in many cases for bios. I do agree with what the proposal here intendeds to do, but think there would be some difficulties in implementing this for nationalities and/or ethnic background in bios. For example Anne Frank (an FA article) is linked to Jews in the led. To suggest to the editors of that page that its not worth linking her ethnic background in the led, i would imagine would not fly over well. Some people in history are defined by their ethnicity and/or religion for that matter. To try to not get people to not relink this after being delinked would be impossible and cause undo conflict over one simple type of link i believe policy or not. As most editors dont read guidelines before they edit and simply link what they think is relevant. We should mention this talk to almost ever Wikiproject out there - as metion above as this will affect so many pages if implemented vastly - (Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography) should be the first place. As a participant in many mnay projects i can tell you that projects have been making "ethnic/peoples articles" for along time so that bios can be linked to them and not country articles. As people are not a place nor do most represent the countries in an official capacity. As i said before if delinkng is going to be implemented as it currently is by some editors we realy should mention nationalities and/or ethnic background and/or demographics should not be over linked by name and not assume our editors will think religion and/or language is in the same group.Moxy (talk) 21:21, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Religion and ethnicity are important to the story of Anne Frank, because she died for them. A more typical case is Napoleon I: why would someone reading about Napoleon be likely to click Roman Catholicism, or someone reading about Einstein be likely to click Judaism? Art LaPella (talk) 23:15, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Agree 100%...this is the problem how can we make this a policy when in each case we should be evaluating the links and there benefit and/or relevances to each article. How do we word this policy to emphasizes the fact that there are clearly exceptions to the rules. Moxy (talk) 23:29, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

If you mean the "Parent–child" rule proposal above, it contains the weasel word "generally", and I didn't find anything like the parent–child problem in the Anne Frank article. If you mean WP:OVERLINK, it says "Unless they are particularly relevant to the topic of the article", and the argument is that the previous practice was to link phrases like "United States" or "Jew" automatically, and so in most cases they should be unlinked. Art LaPella (talk) 23:40, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes your right - but were it gets confusing is with ethnic backgrounds - Like at Celine Dion were French Canadian is linked in the led. I would say there is no need for this link but WP:Quebec would say otherwise. In Quebec, cultural identity is strong, and many French-speaking Quebecers commentators speak of a Quebec culture as distinguished from English Canadian culture so they feel the link is a must for French Canadian people of international fame.Moxy (talk) 00:45, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

• It sounds a bit WP:POINTy to me, or perhaps even a bit WP:SOAPy. But it's not one of those links I would typically remove. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:18, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

yup it does. I have never realy chatted here on the policy talks and find my self very impressed looking back at chats and seeing how things get solved and thus worded. Hard job to do this and satisfy all. Anyways hope the Parent–child links thing gets implemented as it makes sense to me. All the best and Happy Holidays everyone!. Moxy (talk) 04:12, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose As is said above, removing the link puts information a little farther from the reader. If I encounter this article without ever having heard of the Beatles before, I'm going to wonder who they are, so I'll be unhappy that the name isn't linked. Let's not advocate the removal of links that help readers. Nyttend (talk) 00:38, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

nerdy piping

as an example, Encyclopedia Dramatica often uses piping to make a joke... what is the piping policy? I see links on wikipedia where the text in the current article refers to something completely different (imo) from the linked article.

I looked at the WP:CONTEXT archives but they didn't seem to answer this question, and this current article sure doesn't.

Examples: jokes, links that make a point (like piping something you disagree with to "false")...? "metaphoric" pipes?

Even when it's not so obvious, a lot of times I disagree with a pipe. Sometimes it's obvious someone was trying to be cute or clever or whatever. Sometimes they just show a misunderstanding of the terms. I don't remember good specific examples. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.34.223.38 (talk) 09:56, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Well yes. The general standard of piping on WP is poor. Often, the pipe senselessly removes important and relevant information that is in the link title: it beggars belief that an editor would waste time removing it; perhaps it's a misplaced attempt to simplify the text. Tony (talk) 10:15, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

There's WP:EGG. (Piped links to make a joke might be OK on your user page or a talk page, but they definitely aren't in an article.) A. di M. (talk) 12:29, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

More specifically, jokes in an article (with rare exceptions, like the joke article) should be treated as vandalism; see {{uw-joke1}} and WP:Vandalism. That is, revert, warn, and eventually report them to be blocked. Similarly, piping a controversial statement to false would be an obvious neutral point of view problem. Art LaPella (talk) 21:38, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

ok, but sometimes it's not an intentional joke and less "point of view" than a disagreement on facts. Since you can pipe a word or phrase to an entirely different word or phrase, and I might want to pipe that word or phrase to yet another different article, who wins?

I am proposing that piped links require references, just like all statements of fact in wikipedia: "encyclopedic content must be verifiable"....

really this goes beyong piping, but I think wikipedia has way too much "original research" and needs more citataions/references/sources, or at least some sort of systematic way of deciding...

In wikipedia there is a lot more encyclopedic content than sentences in articles that conveys different ideas, opinions, _facts_...

Examples would help explain what you mean. Is it something like "bla bla bla happened ever since [[Big Bang|the universe began]]", and someone wants to link it to some other scientific (or religious) theory instead of the Big Bang? That would be settled in the same way as if it explicitly said "The universe began with the Big Bang". Art LaPella (talk) 08:55, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

The best way would be to not pipe (link the word "universe" instead of the phrase "the universe began" assuming there is not a separate article about the beginning of the universe). Either don't say it or explicitly say it, giving due weight and most importantly citing sources. If piping is used, it can only pipe to one of the the theories, and then I guess you would have to search the linked article to give you a source that verifies the universe began with the big bang.

If X is a word or phrase and Y is a word or phrase and there is a pipe [[X|Y]] then Wikipedia is basically saying X is equal to Y (or Y is a type of X or synonymous or...?) and this should be verifiable, as you said.

After rereading the guideline pages, it is explained as "intuitiveness"

1.the wording of the exact link title does not fit in context, or
2.there are multiple meanings of the word (see "Mercury" example on the Disambiguation page).

1. sometimes a rewording is more of a "remeaning" and the meaning of the exact link title does not fit in context after being piped.

2. sometimes the wrong meaning is chosen from the disambiguation page.

sometimes the displayed text and the piped link have not a single word in common.

so next to the pipe we should have a link to sources to verify they mean the same thing right? better than "intuitive," obviously some things are obvious/intuitive/common sense but like WP:V I mean. Or I guess the whole point of the intuitive guideline is that if it needs a citation, don't pipe it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.18.29.173 (talk) 23:27, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Links that have square brackets in the URL

How do you include links that have square brackets in the URL? --- Sbmeirow (talk) 03:12, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Replace the left bracket with %5B and the right bracket with %5D. See meta:Help:URL. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 03:37, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I copied the answer from WP:Help desk. Someone please add a subsection to this article about how to work around this problem, along with an example. Thanks. Sbmeirow (talk) 04:24, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Recent change that removed the "relevance" qualification

A couple of months ago, the section on under/over-linking said this - "Unless they are particularly relevant to the topic of the article, avoid linking terms whose meaning can be understood by most readers of the English Wikipedia, including plain English words, the names of major geographic features and locations, religions, languages, common professions, common units of measurement,[3] and dates (but see Chronological items below)."

That sentence has now been reformulated and bullet-pointed, and the opening phrase - "unless they are particularly relevant ...", which is quite a crucial qualification - appears to have magically disappeared, thanks to this edit. Switching to bullet points is probably an improvement, but was there any agreement to actually change the meaning of the section? N-HH talk/edits 12:44, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I've put in an explicit mention of the relevance consideration. I don't think there has ever been consensus to eliminate the idea of linking relevant terms, even ones that are otherwise common words.oknazevad (talk) 15:55, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

considering that relevance is the overriding factor for whether or not a link is appropriate it seems odd this was removed without discussion. Good catch. -- ۩ Mask 06:57, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

After reading the diff it looks like it just got lost in the jumble with Slim's reordering. -- ۩ Mask 06:58, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for restoring. I agree I don't think it was a deliberate or malicious removal, at least first time round, regardless of any comments about "floodgates" (odd in respect of returning a long-standing phrasing, which references "relevance", but there you go). Although should the qualification not be at the intro to that section, not simply at the first bullet point? For example, a link to yard is clearly worthwhile and includable [sic] on the foot (unit) page, France on Germany etc. N-HH talk/edits 13:05, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Apologies, someone beat me to it .. sorted now. N-HH talk/edits 13:18, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree, its placement as part of the lead text is superior.oknazevad (talk) 13:24, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

"superior"? Debatable indeed. It is arguable that this elevation into a general point goes further beyond what the previous consensus established, as such placement gives it a higher level of emphasis compared with the last stable consensus version. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:19, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that means the consideration wouldn't apply to the geographic clause, and I have yet to hear a good reason why a link to New York City is irrelevant to the article on the New York City Subway, which is the sort of geographic link that has been removed with a citation of this guideline. Relevance, as a whole, applies to all types of links, and should be in the general points.oknazevad (talk) 18:16, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

For all the debate about OVERLINK I think there is more agreement than we realize. I think both sides, when pinned down to an answer, will agree that most links to the United States (such as the United States link in this article) should be removed, and that links to the United States from articles like California or Canada should stay. So that's what the guideline should say. Art LaPella (talk) 20:28, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

OC, please stop reverting. The inclusion in the introduction restores what was already there; there was no consensus to remove it or to limit it only to one point. Do we really have to roll back to before Slimvirgin's changes to stop this? --Ckatz^chat_spy 22:26, 26 December 2010 (UTC)