Talk:Australia women's national soccer team results (2010–2019)

Overlinking and inappropriate piping

According to WP:OVERLINKING'

What generally should not be linked

The names of subjects with which most readers will be at least somewhat familiar – unless there is a contextually important reason to link:

This generally includes major examples of: geographic features (e.g., the Himalayas, Pacific Ocean, South America), locations (e.g., United States; New York City, or just New York if the city context is already clear; London, if the context rules out London, Ontario; Japan; Brazil; Southeast Asia), languages (e.g., English, Arabic, Korean, Spanish), nationalities and ethnicities (e.g., English, British, Chinese, Turkish; African-American, Hispanic), and religions (e.g., Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism).

and WP:NOPIPE says)

First of all, keep links as simple as possible. It is generally not good practice to pipe links simply to avoid redirects. The number of links to a redirect page can be a useful gauge of when it would be helpful to spin off a subtopic of an article into its own page. However, while [[target|redirect]] is unhelpful, [[redirect|target]] may be helpful.

So it's in accordance with these guidelines to remove the unnecessary links to major countries such as United States, Australia, etc, and to remove piping from old stadium names to newer ones (e.g. [[StubHub Center|Home Depot Center]].

In fact the trivial saving made on the very few times anyone actually clicks these piped links is vastly outweighed by the cost of the process of adding or changing piping (and by the time spent by editors on adding or changing this unnecessary piping); and when the stadium name is changed again - as it surely will be when the sponsorship deal comes to an end - even that tiny saving will be lost as the piping will itself become a redirect, unless yet more editor effort is expended in updating the piping. A redirect can send readers to the new name without a single substantive article needing to change - and in the case of a popular stadium, that can mean hundreds of articles that don't have to be touched. Colonies Chris (talk) 22:14, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Seems fair. Matilda Maniac (talk) 22:44, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The only country I feel confident in saying most readers will be familiar with in this article is Australia. As I said in my edit summary, it's an arbitrary line of what is or isn't familiar and editors can't guess what the readers are familiar with. How do you, Colonies Chris decide what is a major country? Australia could be an exception as the page is about a team representing Australia, but if we're already linking most of the countries, I'd keep the links to Australia too for consistency.

I think that piping to avoid redirects is fine in this case. The number of links to a redirect page can be a useful gauge of when it would be helpful to spin off a subtopic of an article into its own page. is not relevant as the piped links are never going to be spinned-off (sponsor names vs. official names). Redirects can change and suddenly point to a different page (or usually a disambig page after a change), like Etihad Stadium which at different points in time redirected to Docklands Stadium or to City of Manchester Stadium before becoming a disambig page. By your logic at the time it directed to one of those stadiums you'd link to the redirect page, and by now when it changed it'd be pointing at a disambig page.

the cost of the process of adding or changing piping (and by the time spent by editors on adding or changing this unnecessary piping) - there is no cost here anymore as it is a finished page. The only cost is the one you're incurring by changing these links in the first place. and when the stadium name is changed again - as it surely will be when the sponsorship deal comes to an end - one of the reasons that the page of the stadium is under the non-sponsored name (the one that won't change), so actually linking directly to the non-sponsored page is the link which is less likely to change than the redirect. A redirect can send readers to the new name without a single substantive article needing to change - and in the case of a popular stadium, that can mean hundreds of articles that don't have to be touched. - again, unless it becomes a disambig page or something (more likely with sponsored names than non-sponsored names).

And this is all not mentioning some of the weird changes, like changing the link (which displays as Etihad Stadium) from Docklands Stadium to Etihad Stadium (Melbourne) (which redirects to Docklands Stadium) - changing a direct link to a link to a redirect page, which still keeps piping. --SuperJew (talk) 22:51, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

1. Any reader of normal intelligence will have at least a passing knowledge of all the countries in this list e.g. Japan, United States, China, New Zealand, etc.: and there are links to the specific cities that make the country links superfluous anyway.
2. A redirect's target should not be changed without taking into account all the sources that link to that redirect. That's basic. If someone does change it without allowing for that, it can easily be changed back.
3. If any article was linking to Etihad Stadium back when there was only one, it would have to be changed later to clarify which Etihad Stadium was intended; that would have to happen regardless of redirects. That's what happening with the Melbourne link - the piping clarifies which stadium of that name is meant, and the redirect takes the reader to the current title of the article on that stadium. You may believe that Docklands Stadium is its permanent name, that won't change; I wouldn't be so sure.
4. So you think the effort I put into fixing these links is too much; but your opposition to these changes creates even more work, to no benefit. Colonies Chris (talk) 23:43, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

To clarify my point 3: Docklands Stadium is a pretty generic name. It's quite conceivable that another venue called Docklands Stadium could be built in another major city, and then it might be necessary to change all your piped links to clarify which Docklands Stadium. But any new Etihad Stadium in another city wouldn't require my piping to change at all, as it already specifies the Melbourne one. Colonies Chris (talk) 23:56, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

1. You didn't answer the question where you pass the arbitrary line of which countries users are familiar with and which aren't. Links are not there as the only way to get to information, they are there to ease the access. I could say to you "the user can just type what they want in the search box, so all links are superfluous anyway".
2. Regardless the official name is more stable than the sponsored name.
3. You've been changing old pages which are hardly changed anymore so the only person making the work here is you mate. Don't try to pin it on me. --SuperJew (talk) 14:47, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

• If you want to dispute whether some of the countries I unlinked are not reasonably well known, name them and we can have a meaningful discussion. More importantly. ask yourself whether any reader is likely to click on those links. A reader already has the option of the most likely link to be of interest, the stadium, or the next most likely, the city. Is there more than the faintest possibility that someone is going to say to themselves "Oh, Japan, what's that?" and click on that link? It's not going to happen. The link is useless clutter.
• Perhaps it would be useful for me to clarify the contrasting purposes of redirects and piping. The function of piping is to make a more precise link than the visible one; an example is [[Victoria (Australia)|Victoria]], where the context implies that 'Victoria' refers to the state, but the wikilink requires disambiguation. By contrast, the role of a redirect is to take a reader from a visible link to a more general article - in the case of [[Etihad Stadium (Melbourne)|Etihad Stadium]], it goes to an article entitled Docklands Stadium which covers the visible topic, its current moniker, Etihad Stadium.
• "We've always done it that way" is a pretty weak argument. My changes are not making you or any other editor do any extra work, so you can have no objections on that ground. Colonies Chris (talk) 21:56, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Following changes on Australia women's national soccer team results (2000–09) and Colonies Chris comment we've had this discuission before. Redirects are not a problem. And what good are 68 links to Australia, 11 links to United States, etc.etc

1. Redirects are not a problem that's true, but no point creating them just because.
2. The links to Australia, United States, etc. are there for people who want to go into them. Colonies Chris still hasn't explained what their arbitrary line is for deciding which countries to link and which not. Regarding the repetition, this is not an article which people will necessarily read from beginning to end, therefore having it linked at the beginning does not mean that the reader saw it linked then.

--SuperJew (talk) 16:53, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

1. Once again, if you want to dispute whether some of the unlinked countries are not well-known, name them and we can have a discussion. In fact, in my latest change I took the more radical approach of simply unlinking all countries. As I pointed out before, in every case a reader has two other more likely links to click on. We should be linking intelligently, not just linking everything because it's there.

2. I've already explained why redirects are useful. If you don't like them, just ignore them. They work. Colonies Chris (talk) 17:10, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

1. If you are unlinking some of the countries, then you should explain which ones yes, which ones no, and why. Why is Tokyo for example unlinked but all the rest of the cities are linked? Why in your original edit are North Korea, Scotland, Fiji, Mexico, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam linked, but Australia, China, France, Canada, United States, Japan, England, Greece, and Hong Kong unlinked? What is your arbitrary line?

2. That's exactly what I'm doing - ignoring them. You're the one who came in to rock a stable page with no real reason. --SuperJew (talk) 17:59, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Try to put yourself into the mind of a reader coming to this page. By definition, you're interested in the Australia women's national soccer team, and you want to find out more. Perhaps you're interested in their results against a particular country. In that case, you don't need a link to that country - you're here for the match results and reports. Or perhaps you want to see how they did in a particular year, or in a particular contest - again, you want to see the match results and reports, maybe the list of goal scorers. What you really aren't likely to be interested in is the exact location of the match - if at all, at most the stadium and the city, probably not even those, and definitely not the country. Those links are useless. The point of intelligent linking is that we make links to only those things we judge might be valuable to our readers - we don't just link everything willy-nilly. We're here to serve our readers, and that means making judgments about what's worth linking and what's not. And the countries are definitely not worth linking. I doubt if any reader has ever clicked on one of those links or ever will. Colonies Chris (talk) 21:29, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

You still are completely ignoring the question I asked Colonies Chris: How do you decide which countries/cities should be linked and which shouldn't? Why are North Korea, Scotland, Fiji, Mexico, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam linked, but Australia, China, France, Canada, United States, Japan, England, Greece, and Hong Kong unlinked? Is it by size? Population? Percentage guessed right on a Sporcle quiz? --SuperJew (talk) 22:29, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Are any of those links useful in this context? That's my point, none of them are useful, none of them are likely to be used. That's why I delinked all of them. Colonies Chris (talk) 23:33, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

No, you delinked some of them (only after being reverted and after discussions you changed to delinking all), and still haven't explained you decided which to delink and which not. --SuperJew (talk) 17:46, 20 November 2017 (UTC)