Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking/Archive 11

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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. --Ckatzchatspy 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. --Ckatzchatspy 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) --Ckatzchatspy 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. --Ckatzchatspy 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. --Ckatzchatspy 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)

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? --Ckatzchatspy 22:26, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
Have you asked SV why she did it? Tony (talk) 02:19, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
  • "Relevance/relevant" is used almost ad nauseum in the guideline. We need another instance like a hole in the head. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 15:04, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
A)There's nothing wrong with restating principles in a guideline. B) Especially, since guidelines are often used as reference documents, with individual sections read on an as-needed basis, not in one sitting. So repetition is not a detriment. oknazevad (talk) 16:08, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
  • No, that is the essence of bad guideline writing. You say it once, and once only. I do it professionally in RL. It looks very much like tag-teaming here. Are you backchannelling with each other? Tony (talk) 16:11, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Wow, way to fail AGF. No, there's no backchanneling. We just happen to agree with each other. As for the repetition, the audience here is not the same as that which would use a professional style guide, as they are far more likely to learn as they go on an ad hoc basis, not familiarize themselves ahead of time. oknazevad (talk) 18:40, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Really bad form indeed. This is ridiculous - you know perfectly well that the statement was there before SV reorganized the section, and you also know that there was no discussion or agreement to remove it. --Ckatzchatspy 19:10, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Am I detecting a change of tone now? After having made some rrelatively 'measured' comments much earlier, I very much hope you're now not accusing SV of changing the text deliberately and by stealth? ;-) --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 14:28, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
No, it's a reaction to the insistence that there's no consensus to include the clause. There certainly is. We assume a good faith error on SV's part. Its the lack-of-good faith accusations that PO me.oknazevad (talk) 15:04, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
If anyone asks me, I much rather people take their gloves off rather than engage in doubletalk. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 15:09, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
There is no evidence that Slim Virgin made an error. Tony (talk) 15:11, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
I can't remember whether I removed it on purpose. I may have done, because I don't know what "relevance," or "particular relevance," would mean. It could mean that this would be okay, given that every linked word is relevant to Smith. "John Smith (born October 1, 1960) is an English headmaster, freelance writer, stamp collector, and Member of Parliament for the Labour Party." I assume we all agree this would be overlinking, so the idea of "relevance" isn't terribly helpful. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 15:21, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Arbitrary break (sect. "Recent change that ...")

Suggestion: instead of talking about "relevance," which could mean anything, we could use instead the criterion used for non-free images: "Words and phrases should be linked only where the addition of a link is likely to increase the readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding." SlimVirgin talk|contribs 16:14, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I think the "relevance" qualification is of value, as, it is clear, do many others. As I noted above, and others have also said, it ensures we don't strip out links to United States on the pages for Canada, Illinois etc alongside every instance where the place is simply mentioned in passing in unrelated articles; or to foot in the yard article. More importantly, for the purpose of consensus and continuity, there was no agreement - or even discussion - about removing this long-standing wording, which applied/applies to the whole example list of "common terms". Now, either people know it was always there and are quietly using this opportunity to get it excluded, or they genuinely didn't think it was there, which calls into question what they have been doing when removing manifestly relevant links citing "per overlink". Either way, it doesn't reflect well, and please stop removing until you have agreement to.
The issue raised above, about strings of links to professions and nationality in the very first sentence of a page is indeed an issue - I'm genuinely unsure about the best way to deal with that (indeed I tried to make it part of the old RfC that drove itself into the dirt). I think I'm in favour of not having them, as they clutter the page and across lots of pages become very repetitive, so long as they are used in the infobox (making that more of a navbox almost). For the casual visitor - who, unlike people who edit here a lot, does not necessarily read lots of pages - such links can be potentially useful. Also, as is often pointed out, the argument that "everyone knows what a plumber is" and "WP doesn't need dictionary links" isn't exactly a clincher as: a) actually not everyone does; b) that page might well - although knowing WP, it probably won't - contain detailed and possibly interesting details about the history of plumbing and plumbers' qualifications, if that's your thing. It's not simply a dictionary explanation. If we're saying we should never link to it, we're in effect saying we needn't have the page at all. And, as ever, where would you reasonably draw the line as to what is common and what is not - Doctor? General Practioner? Paediatrician?N-HH talk/edits 17:19, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Why would we need a link to United States in the article about Canada? And of course everyone must be expected to know what a plumber is. Someone without rudimentary English wouldn't be able to read our articles. We must aim the articles at the average reader.
But I think the point here is that these arguments about linking to ordinary words have been more or less decided on WP, and what we should do here is find words to reflect that consensus. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 17:25, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Well I'm really not sure that has been "more or less decided". Can you point to where? There's certainly no consensus here, right at this point, to remove the "relevance" qualification for common terms. And, why wouldn't we want to link to US in Canada? It's a relevant and related topic, and one of the WP's most visited pages, even though people presumably know what/where it is. There are quite a few assumptions in what you've written. As for the plumber issue, you missed the second and more significant part of my point - WP pages do not simply define, dictionary-like, what something is. Nor have you addressed the issue of where we would draw the line. Not everyone is well-educated and/or from the west, and not everyone in the US - or indeed the UK - has that good a grasp of geography, for example. N-HH talk/edits 17:43, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
What use would a link be in the article on Canada, and why Canada and not elsewhere? Why not link it everywhere it's mentioned? Why not link the for people who don't know what the definite article is, and a for the indefinite—I imagine a lot of our readers don't know those terms. There's no end to it, NHH. That's why we need to give some useful guidance. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 17:48, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
What use are links at all? To make the site more easily navigable for its readers, for whatever reasons and in whatever way they wish to navigate around it, within reason. Again, it's not just about dictionary definitions and about people needing to find out what something is. And come on, the "the" point is a bit daft. And there is an end to it - at the limit of relevance, which is something that can be tested pretty objectively on a case-by-case basis, and which cuts off the link-every-word option, which I agree we should do (although it is a legitimate point of view to argue we should link that way of course). If we start talking about what people know, or relying simply on what will help the reader "understand" something better, then one massive problem is that we are really going to find it difficult to set limits, because there is no clear boundary there that applies to millions of readers and visitors. It's an impossibly subjective criteria. Plus, in my view, it's needlessly limiting and restrictive. Why should one (pretty small) group of editors dictate to others and to the general readership what options they have to that extent? The idea that having a few more links than some might ideally want in their perfect version of WP is somehow "distracting" or "diluting" is a bit odd, and assumes people can't think for themselves when confronted with a (still limited) range of links to other WP pages. Are people reading the page on Marx going to click on the link to Germany "by mistake" and wish they hadn't when they arrive at, er, the WP page on Germany, but that they had linked on "dialectical materialism" instead, and only we can save them from the risk of that error by removing the Germany link in the first place? Come off it. Give people some credit for knowing what they are doing, while at the same time acknowledging that not everyone has the exact same knowledge or interest base that you might. N-HH talk/edits 18:19, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Of course the argument against linking to Germany in the Marx article isn't that a person might click it by mistake. It's three arguments that mustn't be confused: 1. If a person is reading about Marx, he is likely to want to read related topics like Engels or communism, but unlikely (not for sure, but unlikely) to want to read the Germany article. That article mentions Marx only once ("Karl Marx's and Friedrich Engels' formulation of communist theory"), which doesn't say anything you can't learn from the Marx article. 2. The diluting argument, which strikes me as perfectly valid, not odd; you can't be against a sea of blue without being against any individual waves in that sea. Perhaps the reader wants to read Germany anyway, or about "the" for that matter, but linking unlikely choices distracts him from the more likely choices like the Communist Manifesto. He won't click Germany aiming for the Manifesto; he won't see the Manifesto because of links like Germany. And 3. We wouldn't need to talk about it if there hadn't been a campaign years ago to link all examples of words like Germany. Now editors think that's what is expected.
  • Similarly, if someone is reading an article like koala, they would have little reason to click that article's United States link. But if they have already chosen to read about Canada, it's much more likely they would want to read about the U.S. also. Art LaPella (talk) 22:06, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Why would we need a link to United States in the article about Canada? Because someone who decided to read an article about a North American country is likely to be interested in reading one about another North American country, even if they already know where the US is (after all they likely already knew where Canada is but have been reading the article about it anyway). The same kind of connection doesn't exist between "United States" and "English articles" (though it probably does exist between "English noun phrase" and "English articles"). A. di M. (talk) 22:14, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Why not link the, then, in every topic? It is always very relevant. Some people cannot even define it (go on, try). Why not link just about everything, while we're at it? That's what they do in many other WPs, with the result that their pages look shabby and their wikilinking is so diluted that people probably don't click on much. Why on earth would you link "Canada" in an article on the US? What we owe our readers is to apply our knowledge about a topic so that only the items that are likely to be most useful as link targets should be blue. Carpet everything and there's so much noise it degrades the system. Tony (talk) 02:18, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Have you even read my post, which answered practically the same question? (Also, I don't see how the is that relevant to Canada: Japanese has no word for the and yet apparently it manages to talk about Canada just fine.) By the way, would you name a few articles from which you would link Canada? --A. di M. (talk) 02:48, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Possibly from some of its daughter articles (Economy of Canada, etc.), if there were no obvious section link. Tony (talk) 03:10, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Honestly, and I say this in all good faith and with no insult intended, if you cannot see the value of a link to "Canada" in an article about its neighbour, ally, and trading partner, then I think you are really not grasping the value of an interlinked system at all. There is no parallel between linking basic words such as "the" and linking "Canada" or any other country, city, religion, or similar broad topic. Do we need to choose links carefully? Of course - but if we take it too far and strip away useful links, we do far more damage to our readers than if we err on the side of caution. --Ckatzchatspy 03:28, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
  • What is the utility to the reader, then? Which bit of Canada would they want to divert to? I believe I do grasp the value of an interlinked system, but the difference is that I also grasp the value of allocating links carefully on the basis of average likely utility to the readers, and focus. If someone wants to wanter through WP country articles without particular focus or purpose, that is what the category is for, not blue links strewn throughout the prose that hardly anyone will click on. We've been through all of this before. Tony (talk) 03:50, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Using the Canada article as an example as above. I see the merits of both arguments and actually side with the delinking side. However i do not see this as an applicable or a sustainable policy. First off i dont see how we will prevent our readers (editors) for relinking this types of words. We have the word United States linked in the first sentence of the lead. I see only undo conflict with editors if this link was delinked ever time some one relinks it. This would led to many reversals and biting of new editors. Basically i believe it would led to Disruptive editing and Tendentious editing. The word United States in its context in the sentence would led most to believe it should be linked as it the main item used in the statement. I agree no real need to link this, but dont see how this is enforcible without undue conflict. Moxy (talk) 04:13, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

It's very very rare that such items are relinked. Perhaps this is because people immediately see that the links are inappropriate if the system is to work well. Smart linking practices have been well-accepted at featured content processes for some years, without a blink from anyone involved; these are our best articles and serve as models. It is surprising and heartening that the culture of indiscriminate linking has receded on enWP over the past several years.

We now face the task of improving link practices in a few areas where the message hasn't got through, and for the many smaller, more out-of-the-way articles that were created in the days before we had worked out how linking can be optimised by strategic selection and allocation. We can make wikilinking work even better if we tend to bad piping, too. I typically see pipes that take away information that is in the target article title (err ... neurosurgery piped to surgery, a contrived example coz I'm short of time). It's extraordinary that editors would make more work for themselves in this way to degrade the linking system. And sometimes I make link-pipes longer so readers will know it's not a useless, general link (can't think of an example, but I'll soon dig one up). Linking, IMO, is a skill just like writing good prose. Tony (talk) 05:14, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

We cannot use the sheer volume of delinking as a barometer of acceptance. It is much more a matter of time and resources. We must be clear here - the controversy over the delinking does not revolve around trivial words such as "the". Such links have never been on the table as a viable option, and any claims to the contrary merely serve to distract from the real problems at hand. The vast majority of the controversial delinking occurs during the rapid-fire scripted edits done by a small number of editors. Even if one were to use scripts to track delinking edits and relink where appropriate, there would be no practical way to keep up (or even to accurately track how many errors, such as the aforementioned Canada/US problem) still exist. --Ckatzchatspy 05:28, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Tony, could you please provide an example from a FAC discussion where a FAC reviewer other than yourself has argued that a relevant geographical link - such as the aforementioned Canada-US situation - should be removed? As mentioned above, we really need to separate the controversial aspects of delinking from the ones that people here appear to agree on, and thus avoid recycling the inappropriate arguments that try to suggest there is a connection between the concept of linking "the" and lining terms such as "Canada". --Ckatzchatspy 05:36, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Bit concern the facts are not being represented properly here Tony. This type of geographical names always get relinked in time --Remember this -->Wikipedia:Featured article review/Canada/archive1 since them we have had this linked and delinked over and over and felt its best to just leave it linked to stop undue conflict with our Good faith editors policy or not. Australia Germany and many many many more FA articles have this links. Even Ireland a GA articles has this links. The theory is sound but its not enforceable without conflict. As a content editor i am also concern that some are not aware of what realy goes on in articles if they are always in the back side of the project and/or bot editors. Moxy (talk) 05:40, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
(double e.c., and going out now) Ckatz, why would you want to degrade our wikilinking system by doing that? The community would not stand such destructive moves. I'm not aware of this "sheer volume" thing you're talking of; frankly, we need to encourage much more gnoming of wikilinking to improve it after the damage done in the early days. I hear almost no complaint except from a few editors on this page ... the same editors. You have, however, raised issues that I think have changed people's behaviour WRT minimising overlinking: the issue of tables and within-prose lists. Further contributions like that are welcome, but people cannot take seriously the pushing for linking "Canada" and the like to a slavish, unthinking formula. You are such a good writer and thinker in all other respects; and your admin work on WP is a great contribution overall. I wonder why you do not re-think the boundaries you have been advocating for geographical linking. Just one more thing: linking "Canada" in every Canada-related article does make it look as though it's a backwood; rather defensive, don't you think? As if every English-speaking WP reader in the world doesn't know at least the basics about it. I'd say Canada would come up in the world if its inhabitants accepted that fact. Tony (talk) 05:46, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Well, for the record, I see quite a few new faces cropping up here and on the talk pages of editors like Tony, Colonies Chris et al to query aspects of the delinking. Not thousands, but it's a fairly regular occurence. And usually, when they do, they have been rebuffed, even when raising questions about delinking that has brought inconsistencies to tables and lists (are you saying things have changed in respect of that point Tony?) By contrast, I have never seen, despite numerous requests to be shown, where the consensus for quite such rigid script-based delinking - which simply seems to say "never link to France/pop music etc", even if arguably relevant, while failing in fact to deal with 80% of the genuine linking problems that I see when I look at a random page, ie repetition and trivial links to nonetheless relatively obscure terms - was explicitly settled. Instead we get allegations - still - of wanting to make seas of blue, wanting to link "the", of wanting to "degrade" the linking system (I'm not quite sure what purported proposal of CKatz's that refers to in this case, either) etc. As noted, there's broad agreement on what constitutes overlinking - why keep pretending otherwise?
Anyway, can we assume that the relevance issue is over now though? Without wishing to add to the volumes of assertion and conjecture about what constitutes "good" linking and what people as a whole supposedly think, I'm quite sure most editors on this page and across WP would, for example, agree that "dog" should be linked in the Rottweiler article, and possibly on the Barbara Woodhouse page, but not when the word is simply mentioned in passing, eg "while walking his dog one day, Karl Marx came up with his labour theory of value". As "walking" wouldn't be. It seems to be that the section on common terms, with the relevance qualification, covers this rather neatly as it is/was. More importantly, it's been there for a long time with only this slight hiccup. N-HH talk/edits 06:52, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Consistency is but a red herring. The real crux is precision and focus in linking. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 07:07, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
I dunno, consistency seems quite an important principle to me with formatting, structure and style points, even if it covers all sorts of ground, eg of principle, of outcome etc, which might sometimes contradict each other. Meanwhile, as highlighted a while ago, are these examples of precise and focused linking? One major point, amid all the others about common terms, relevance and navigability, is that quite a few delinking edits are leaving a mess that is just as arbitrary and unfocused, in its own way, as what preceded it. Plus, to be pedantic, surely "precision" in linking is something that applies to piping, rather than to what to link in the first place; and with "focus", it rather depends what you want to focus on? N-HH talk/edits 07:26, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
  • The 'consistency' argument can be taken to the logical extreme of including all links that are sui generis, or all words if taken even further. According to this logic, an article would link, for example, all country names or none at all. Oddball situations where we might see Canada linked at every turn (which I get the impression is what some of those opposite want); on the opposite end of the spectrum, we wouldn't link to Burundi if United States is not linked. This clearly is not satisfactory, but I would be prepared to indulge those in the "consistency" camp on the basis that linking 'none' may occasionally be better than 'all' (less is more).

    As to target and focus, it isn't purely about piping, although the possibilities of piping seems to unleash some editors' 'creativity' (sic). It is true that automated link removal often fails to touch upon the really bad cases of linking, including truly misleading. One moderately bad example that I came across recently is [[Italy|Italian]] [[association football|football]] [[club]] instead of [[Football in Italy|Italian football]] club. The former example just puts readers off, and gives wikification a bad name; the latter example stands at least some chance of being clicked on, that assumes readers haven't been desensitised by the former type of link so prevalent in en.WP. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 11:03, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

OC, who exactly is calling for Canada (as an example) to be "linked at every turn"? It is very easy to make such sweeping statements; I would ask, however, that you actually provide proof of anyone making such a demand in this discussion. Also, why the rush (and it is a rush, based on the rate at which the editors doing large-scale scripted delinking operate) to strip out easy targets such as countries for which there is clearly not universal support to do so, instead of putting that same energy into the more difficult - and by your own admission more problematic - links that the scripts cannot address? --Ckatzchatspy 11:23, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Not in a rush... have you checked any of my edits lately?? I actually do quite a bit of manual complex unlinking or relinking.

    Now let's see, with a total of 3 million articles in en.WP. Let's assume nobody creates any more articles and nobody makes or remakes any links, and unlinking takes place at a rate of 500 articles per day – BTW, I can process maybe 2–500 articles a day going full whack – that would take approximately 6,000 days (or 16 years). And if there really are so few of us 'diehards' doing "mass unlinking", you, frankly, would have little to worry about. Just keep your fingers crossed that unlinking isn't infectious. ;-) --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 13:55, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

  • I agree with Slim Virgin that "relevant" or "particularly relevant", or whatever it is, has no useful meaning. That, presumably, is why she binned it in her edit. I think we should revert to her edit for the sake of the utility and comprensibility of text. Things that make no difference are a disservice to the community, because they will simply lead to misunderstandings. Tony (talk) 08:11, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
    • It is important, as the discussion earlier on the page clearly indicated, and as debated at length in the archives. If we're to revert anywhere, it would need to be to a version that includes that language. (As to your "backwood" comment, honestly, that makes no sense whatsoever, and furthermore serves to distract attention from the actual discussion. --Ckatzchatspy 08:58, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
    • I would be rather happy with the NFC-inspired language shes suggested up-thread. -- ۩ Mask 11:29, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
    Apparently, no-one thinks that all articles mentioning Canada should link to it, and no-one thinks that none should (i.e. that the Canada article should be orphaned). Now, without the "relevant" clause, the point in question would read "[a]void linking the names of major geographic features and locations, religions, languages, and common professions", without qualifications, i.e. it would suggest that such articles should be orphaned, which is not what anybody wants. As for "NFC-inspired language shes suggested up-thread", there should be no link whose "omission would be detrimental to that understanding", per the last sentence of point 5 of WP:NOT#JARGON, point 4 of WP:ACCESS#Text, the fact that someone could be reading an article they've printed down earlier and so have no immediate access to the articles it links to, etc.
    The main purpose of links should be navigation; so the main consideration in deciding whether article A should link to article B should be the conditional probability that, given that someone is reading A, they will want to read B. Of course, short of tracking the referring URL of (a significant sample of) the accesses to each article, we cannot directly estimate it, but I think everyone would agree that it is ridiculously small for pairs such as United States → English articles but significant for United States → Canada. A. di M. (talk) 14:02, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Oh, why would you say that? Tony (talk) 14:50, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Because the countries are inexorably linked. Largest trading partners, longest peaceful border, shared sports leagues (don't underestimate that one) , etc. Canada is relevant to the US, and the US is relevant to Canada.oknazevad (talk) 14:55, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I kinda like SV's proposed text. It's clear and focused, yet still permissive enough to allow for links that are appropriate, based on importance to the topic of the article, in a given article that would otherwise be considered too general or common, such as geographic links.
One thing we must be cautious about is not reinforcing en.Wikipedia's systematic bias in linking. Yes, there's some things we should expect English speakers/readers to know, but we cannot assume too much. This is not a call for linking everything, so no irrelevant and demeaning "sea of blue" comments, please.
It is, however, a call to use good judgement, and not paint any category of link as always inappropriate. We should always decide if a term should be linked based on a two-fold concern. Firstly, the purpose of links is navigation, so we must not make it too difficult for readers to get around; that's my concern with a strict application of parent-child links (as in the above discussion). Forcing people to go to one article to get to another just seems like an unnecessary road block to me. There are valid concerns about linking to too broad of a topic, however. In practice, it requires careful, case-by-case judgement. That's why overly-broad and overly-rigid guidelines are a bad idea.
Similarly, a judgement that the term is appropriate in content, that is to say relevance, should also be handled on a case-by-case basis, not as part of a hard and fast guideline. Certainly, no one wants utterly irrelevant links. But to phrase the guideline as though certain areas and topics are never appropriate links is foolish. That's why a fairly elastic clause is necessary, whether it's the current (as of this writing) "unless particularly relevant" bit, or SV's phrasing above.
Anyway, just my $0.02. oknazevad (talk) 14:55, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

SO realy what we have here is a POV campaign of delinking because some people have a personal views on certain types of links. Not sure this is very constructive to the community as a whole. After looking at past talks its clear there is not a conccesus for massive removal of this links. Moxy (talk) 16:26, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
SO reallly what we have here is a POV campaign to link everything. Tony (talk) 00:26, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
Odd we all know who are delinking, but have no clue who your talking about when it comes to linking - i take it you mean everyone else of Wikipedia? What we have is some editors using a bot that was intended for dates fixing in an inappropriate manner for delinking that is not part of the bots mandate. For the 5th time this talk pls link us to this talk about were the delinking on mass without context has been approved and the use of the bot in this manner has also be authorized. Moxy (talk) 01:24, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
  • I'm guilty as anyone... but this continuous mutual finger-pointing and flag waving are not the least bit productive. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 01:52, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
The reason we are here in this talks is because we have delinkiing on mass happening (were not here because things are going well)...Noone can show us were this was okayed nor were the permission to use the date bot to do this was approved. So we are getting frustrated. Do you happen to know were this talk is or has this not at all been approved. Its frustrating when editors ask for answered and there are simply told to go way and there uninformed. Moxy (talk) 02:01, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
(e.c.) Ckatz, just out of interest: you fought a long, bloody battle in 2008 and 2009 to enforce the now-discarded practice of linking every date, and indeed most chronological units. I wonder why. Do you still want to go back to linking all chronological units, despite the overwhelming consensus in the community against it? ... Because your attitude doesn't seem to have changed in relation to linking well-known geographical items.

I can't understand what Moxy is talking about in his/her past few posts.

Okazevad, the fact that you would use the closeness of Canada and the US in some respects to advocate mutual linking of the most general article on each of those countries demonstrates a lack of insight into how wikilinking serves the readers. The guidelines makes it quite clear that focus is germane, to start with. Tony (talk) 02:33, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

I think I see the problem here. You honestly don't think that the most general article on a subject should be linked from a corresponding general article, such as linking to Canada from United States. That's just odd. It makes perfect sense to me to link to the corresponding article, that is the one that covers the same level of depth. Not every time, mind you, but where the two subjects are related enough for it to be appropriate and relevant. It's just a simple case of making the encyclopedia more navigable. After all, that's the reason for links in the first place. And no argumentun ad absurdum about "linking everything". Please, for the love of Pete, stop saying people who think you're too restrictive with your link choices want to do that. It's incorrect, and resorting to it makes you look far less intelligent than you are. oknazevad (talk) 13:06, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
Or more concretely: First consider why a person would read the United States article. Is he reading about how U.S. geography would affect his trucking business? He is probably thinking interstate or he would be reading a state article, so it's likely that his trucking might take him on to Canada. Is he reading about U.S. military history? A majority of U.S. wars have included Canada as either an ally or an enemy. Is he considering tourism in the U.S.? Tourists often visit more than one country at a time. At the other extreme, we have people protesting the insult of the sea of blue metaphor, while we sometimes continue to hear arguments that favor any imaginable link, whose logical conclusion is the same oft-denied sea of blue. Art LaPella (talk) 22:30, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
All good examples. While some might argue that the reader would be better served by more specific articles, that is for the reader to decide. We just provide options, not make demands.
As for the latter comment, I see no one in this discussion advocating linking everything. To mischaracterize other contributors positions is the sort of arrogant insult that I object to. oknazevad (talk) 14:59, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes, of course the reader can decide to take or leave the choice us editors have made for him/her, by clicking or not on the link immediately available. Duff links will make the reader more inclined to ignore other links, useful or otherwise. It's patronising to suggest or even subtly imply he/she is also incapable of choosing to avail him/herself of the search box, that everything should be laid out on a plate. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 15:23, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
See, I find the suggestion that people should just use the search box more patronizing. It reads to me as "we know what link is best for you, and to heck with helping you navigate to anywhere else". That may not be what you intend, but that's the way it comes off, to me at least.oknazevad (talk) 00:08, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
  • I disagree. I think your suggestion is more patronising. ;-) Are we going to draw straws as to who 'wins'? --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 14:58, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
  • No, Ohconfucius, it is not patronising to offer readers choices. But it is patronising to suggest that readers are so dumb that they are not capable of exercising discretion. The link is there to be used as required. --cheers, Michael C. Price talk 15:16, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
  • No one in this discussion directly advocates linking everything, but occasional comments like this could apply to almost any link. Art LaPella (talk) 20:06, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
Tony, please stop dragging in unrelated distractions; you know full well there is no connection between the date issue, N-HH and your block records, or any of the other tangents introduced during the course of this discussion. (Nice try, by the way, but there is no parallel at all between linking countries for information purposes and formatting dates in the proper way the wiki software has used for years to allow personalized formats for dates.) As for the Canada-US thing, I'll state again that if you cannot see why such a link would benefit the reader, you're really not getting the value of linking. --Ckatzchatspy 03:56, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
Sorry i should say scripts. This is the problem and y the editors here are frustrated - Questioned asked and answered with a question (dont look to good). O well as per the norm we will just watch this happen and watch our editors relink them time and time again. Find it odd i agree with what your doing just would like to see and thus be able to point to a talk on the matter so that i can do this to. But guess thats not possible because its never happened. All you have to do is show me a debate were this has taken place and you would have an editor that would help you in this delinking . But after being bitten over and over here, dont think i would help anyways even if someone could provide the link. Saying its clear as its writen in the manual is not right - if it were clear we would not be having this very long talk. Moxy (talk) 02:42, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
  • You are not the only one frustrated. The discussion has been going around in circles for some time, and quite frequently gets highly personalised. I am sure that there are plenty of sane editors out there happy to stay away and let the two sides fight it out inside the ring. But in the same way it is claimed that a 'small handful of editors' is intent on "forcing the debate" with "high speed mass link removals", an equally small (if not smaller handful) appears to be making a lot of noise that unlinking Canada (example) is unacceptable, and equally saying that more intuitive and focussed linking alone does not suffice, thereby insisting that Canada does remain linked regardless of there being more focussed links in the body of the article. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 03:57, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
Katz, so you seem to be keen to drag back block records. You still haven't answered my earlier query: Did you remove "edits with false accusations of self promotion"? Do you have "an interest in protecting a page that is very local and niche" in that case diffed above? Are you "guilty of promotion of friends"? Did you send a "nast [sic] letter" to the complainant "warning of being banned"? Tony (talk) 04:06, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
Wow Again no answer to the relevant questions at hand and a question meant to de-credit someone. @Ohconfucius I see the problem being that the guideline leaves it upto the editor to make this choice. Whats happening is that editors are deleting this links (that i agree can go) on there interpretation of the guideline. The problem occurs because the content editors of this pages see this as a POV edit by an uninvolved editor to the page (meaning an editor that is just passing by and who does not actual care about the articles context just the links). Many projects as a whole have a different view of the policy (some link county - some link nationality - WP:Olympics would be the best example). If there was a consensus somewhere that we could point to it would help stop this debate from happening again. Each time this editors do mass delinking within a new WP coverage we will be here. And lets be honest the question being asked by the new editors to this page are not being answered - instead they are being mocked.Moxy (talk) 04:18, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
  • I'm not so sure it's a "problem", as the issue is necessarily subjective. There is no 'black' or 'white' (used illustratively, of course), and I don't see how the guideline could be any other way. I lean towards 'dark grey' in certain cases while Katz leans towards 'white' (or so it appears). There is good reason for the links being removed by semi-automation and not by bots, as some discretion is indeed necessary. I don't think unlinking by bot would ever be approved, but how the guideline interpretion is acted upon falls under WP's pillars and policies. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 04:46, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Errr ... where did you get that idea? ("The problem occurs because the content editors of this pages see this as a POV edit by an uninvolved editor to the page (meaning an editor that is just passing by and who does not actual care about the articles context just the links)"). There seems to be an idea pushed by "a very very small number of editors" (to quote back) here that there is widespread simmering discontent in the removal of low-value links. There is no evidence for this. There is also a falsehood put about that there is some kind of hurricane-like attempt to "strip away" (Katz's words) wikilinking with relentless, careless automation. Wrong again; such removal takes painstaking oversight and is almost never performed without a lot more manual removals than other. CKatz, the formulaic linking of dates and other chronological items has everything to do with this push to reintroduce widespread low-value links to country-name articles of well-known countries, etc. It is exactly the same issue. The community has said it wants wikilinking to be allocated on a better basis. I am tiring of this circular debate, and will give little further time to it. Tony (talk) 04:39, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Tony, I've no idea why you seem to feel that an obscure complaint from a random user (who was irked because he wasn't able to use Wikipedia for self-promotion) has any connection to whether or not we link geographical items. If that is what you want, though, why stop there? I can give you links for some really nasty folks who could keep you in business for ages. Seriously, though, if you'd focus on the points raised, rather than repeatedly introducing tangential, inaccurate, and misleading diversions, it might make for a more substantial debate. I'd encourage you to please do so. --Ckatzchatspy 06:30, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Wiggy's concern about non-consultive mass edits being made to article in Wikipedia:WikiProject German football

I'm new here to what seems to be an extended discussion. I've gotta protest because I suddenly feel I've been caught up in someone else's stuff with the sudden and unexplained changes to links in articles on German football. Links on Germany and the sport of football (which are typically the only of the sort in these articles) have been removed, and a category link removed to be replaced by a link to an outdated and hard to maintain list. There may be some argument to be had about the nature of these links, but this sort of unilateral approach is not working for me as it looks like relevant material is being removed. Ohconfucious, how be you go back and undo what you've done, so we might have some discussion on it beforehand? I'm not up for being somebody's collateral damage. Wiggy! (talk) 17:42, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Stick around, Wiggy!, we could use your help at reversing this insane delinking jihad. --cheers, Michael C. Price talk 19:20, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
It's disappointing that the same emotive and irrational language ("insane", "jihad") is proffered by those who can find no way to address the fact that the delinking activity (many tens-of-thousands of edits) has been overwhelmingly well received by the multitude of editors whose articles have been affected. Wiggy!, the same hard-working and dedicated editors who were proved to be correct in the date-delinking issue are striving to improve WP for all on this issue, so could you please provide specific links to the edits that concern you?  GFHandel.   20:36, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
A string of articles on German football were delinked. The articles are specifically about German football and that form of football known as association football - not the form of football played here in Canada, nor the game played just to the south of us in the USA, not the Australian stuff I've seen on TV, not that other English game that soccer evolved away from or any of the other myriad forms of football it might ambiguously be. You see, in this instance, the Germans play football, football AND football, so it makes some sense that there be a link in place to ensure the reader has an easy opportunity to understand just what football means in context. Especially for users here in North America, where football is generally taken to mean football (or football to Canadians) as opposed to the European or more generally global sense of the word.
In addition, the delinking in this instance appears to have been purposely targetted as the newly imposed link (as opposed to a mutually agreed upon new link) ended up pointing at a list that is not up-to-date and that nobody in the German football project works too hard at keeping up-to-date because its just simpler to use the related category. Regardless of the merit of delinking this stuff (and there may well be some, that's a separate discussion), it would just be plain civil to talk it through with the folks affected before deliberately leveling one's bot at them. The end result in this case isn't particularly helpful to the average (or lord forbid, uninformed) user and could actually be said to have made the article less useful or informative.
Good on you guys for the date thing. Loved it and it made perfect sense. But in this case the delinking just comes across as uniformed and a fairly sloppy attempt in the context of the German football project. A little discussion beforehand would have been much preferred, thanks. Now maybe let's get OhC to undo that stuff and we can talk about a more sane appropriate approach if these articles will continue to be targeted in the manner they have been. Wiggy! (talk) 22:22, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
Neglected to point at examples. Any of the teams listed in under section A here. It all just boils down to thanks, but no thanks. Wiggy! (talk) 22:43, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
Here is the first edit that I found in an article in that category. Is that edit indicative of why you posted here? If it is, could you please explain what troubles you about that edit?  GFHandel.   22:51, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
My €0.02: I'd think "a German football club" would be much better "a German football club". (Also I don't think the link to North Rhine-Westphalia is so vital.) BTW, I've just edited the article Football in Germany so it explicitly states the kind of football it's about. A. di M. (talk) 23:04, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
I agree, however your suggestion is simply an improvement on the gigantic leap taken with the edit I cited. The point being that both versions are tremendously better than the "German football" that existed in the article. As Wiggy! has expounded at some length here about perceived problems, I would still like to hear specifically what is troubling about edits such as the one I cited.  GFHandel.   23:20, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
  • I do not understand how my edits to replace the awkward cascade of links [[Germany|German]] [[football (soccer)|football]] [[:Category:German football clubs|club]], with a single focussed '[[List of football clubs in Germany|German football club]]' could be referred to as 'delinking' in any meaningful sense of the word. As it stands, those three adjacent links were questionable, and do not encourage clicking through to any one of them. The problem lies, I think, in the use of deceptive piping in the first instance; one already needed to hover over the 'football' link to find that the writer was referring to association football. Admittedly, I had contemplated using the [[Football in Germany|German football club]] pipe, but thought I had found a better link in amongst those German football articles. The argument seems to be that I replaced three apparently pertinent links with one link where the article was not 'up to date. However, I reject the argument that the 'best link' must be one to a 'fully up to date article'. If anything, it would encourage more readers to click through to that List of football clubs in Germany article, and perhaps would incite more people to update it. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:41, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
OhC, can you please hold up long enough for us to have a discussion? Some of the suggestions coming forward here are useful and I'd work them through than be stuck with the poor link you are using as a substitute. Thanks. Wiggy! (talk) 03:10, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
  • I can see one way out of this mess of how to name and describe varieties of football by tying it to WP:ENGVAR: In American articles, association football would be referred to exclusively as 'soccer'. In all articles, Gaelic football, Rygby football, Aussie-rules football be specifically referred to as such; in British and all other articles, it may be referred to as 'association football' or simply 'football', as it is the most common, watched, played and popular sport referred to by the name of 'football' across the world. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 04:34, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
I called it "insane" because the arguments proffered here by the delinkers are irrational and unreceptive to criticism. For instance, the delinkers are still telling us to "just use the search box", despite it being explained, repeatedly, over the course of years that this is a very suboptimal solution. As for "jihad", that is just a metaphor. Call it "crusade", if that suits you... -- cheers, Michael C. Price talk 20:59, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
  • MCP: Your amping-up the vitriol with words like “insane” doesn’t help your cause. Nor does Ckatz’ endless ranting on the subject. Tendentiousness (holding one’s breath until they turn blue to get their way) and vitriol does not help direct a consensus your way. Wikipedia’s processes for determining consensus would break down if industrial-strength whining was all that was required to sway consensus. The proposal here makes sense and is a perfectly reasonable approach to the ever-increasing awareness that over-linking needs to be corrected and that wikipedians need to use a smarter approach to linking.

    The proposal being discussed here, where if the subject is ‘lead-ins of songs’, then linking like this: …the piano introduction in The Beatles' song Let It Be is an example of… is much preferable to the old-style way of doing things, which amounted to “if it can be linked, then link”: …the piano introduction in The Beatles' song Let It Be is an example of…. Wikipedia is increasingly trying to get away from the link-itis that made Wikipedia read like The sewer cover in front of Greg L’s house. This proposal is just another, small, common-sense tweak to the principle of smart linking where we try to link only those words that truly add value and which the typical reader would have a prayer of actually clicking. Greg L (talk) 21:36, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

    P.S. As to this specific arbitrary break of this sub-thread over smart-linking (someone removing …unless they are particularly relevant from the guideline), I’m both pleased and disappointed to see that wording restored. I’m pleased because it best serves the interests of the project to have proper guidance for new editors unsure about linking. I’m disappointed because the removal of that was such a splendid demonstration of the logical shortcomings of the link-the-crap-out-of-everything crowd. I can imagine the hushed whispers of the people responsible for that one: “(*shhhhh*) This clause suggesting that links should somehow be *relevant* is troublesome; let’s delete that bit and see if anyone—you know—notices.” Greg L (talk) 22:12, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

    • Greg, your double standards are amazing. How you can criticize my language when you resort to labelling anyone who disagrees with you as a member of the "link-the-crap-out-of-everything crowd" is truly mind-boggling. But not unexpected. -- cheers, Michael C. Price talk 22:21, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
      • You are perfectly within your rights to be boggled and I will defend you right to be so. Happy new year. Greg L (talk) 22:24, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
      • Well Michael C. Price, I haven't used any language that should trouble you, but I am very troubled by your language. You wrote "insane" and "jihad" when prompted by a post from Wiggy! however Wiggy! seems to be troubled by edits such as this one (by Ohconfucius) that modified "German football club" to "German football club". Far from criticizing and demeaning such edits, we should all be supporting these attempts (by hard-working and dedicated editors) to improve articles by both focussing the links and getting localized editors to improve their linking strategies. The death of any sensible opposition to the valuable linking being performed occurred today with: A) the blind criticism of such edits and B) the emotive and irrational call to join the forces that oppose such improvements to WP.  GFHandel.   23:43, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
        • Yes, sir, Mr. GFHandel sir, we'll stop our silly protests and do your bidding from now on. After all, if it is the "hard-working and dedicated editors" (as you've said many, many times now) who are behind the campaign, I certainly do not wish to be considered a part of what must be a bizarre collection of lazy transients who are deluded enough to question your ideas. I mean, I was almost sold with the stirring arguments that delinking - in the manner you've decreed to be essential to the very survival of the project - is right simply because you and your compatriots said it was right. However, after hearing "sea of blue" a few more times, that really sealed the deal. --Ckatzchatspy 01:28, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
          • Just when I was hoping that a dignified burial could be arranged, along comes 893 characters of sarcasm that adds nothing to the debate. Very disappointing from an admin.  GFHandel.   01:52, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
        • Well GFHandel, I am disturbed by your selective criticism. Is it acceptable for an editor's contribution to be described "endless ranting on the subject"? Or did you overlook that because it came from the "right" side? -- cheers, Michael C. Price talk 08:31, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
    Actually, the letter of the guideline was stricter without the "unless particularly relevant" clause than with it: without it, it could be taken to suggest that articles such as United States ought to be orphaned. A. di M. (talk) 22:32, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
  • A fatwa is hereby declared against all infidels. ;-) Oh-sama-bin-confucius ¡digame! 02:49, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to discuss. I see we're editing past and around each other on this page, so it important to give the thing time to gel.

I'd rather see the link suggested earlier Football in Germany used in place of the List of football clubs in Germany. The first link is directly relevant and probably does a better job of facilitating a reader's understanding of the broader topic. I think its a good suggestion.

After that I gotta reject your rejection of the argument that the best link is to a fully up-to-date article. At a bare minimum, it's got to be a better link than the link to an out-of-date article. And I don't think that the assumption that people will be encouraged to update the list once they get there and find it out-of-date is valid. Keeping the category up to date is a simple thing to do as its a routine part of creating an article. Speaking as a guy doing some of the slugging, that list is just a pain in the b*tt to keep current given its format. I'm not interested in doing it and nobody else is stepping up to do it, so the simple solution is just to key off the category page. All that said, I could actually live without that particular link because the category lives at the bottom of the page.

That's all resolvable stuff, though. What bothers me most is the lack of consultation in all of this. There's a group of people attached to a project that have an interest here. Speaking with them and letting them know what you'd like to get up to would seem a reasonable thing to do. The approach that's been taken here goes past simple delinking. It's not fair to the "hard-working and dedicated editors" who work on articles like these to have arbitrary link substitutions or deletions foisted on them, especially when there is so clearly an interested, organized group in place.

Civil behaviour begats, civil behaviour. I'd be happy to get along with you guys and do what I can to support you (by simply being a better linker, for example), but you might want to make it a little more friendly. If you don't want to get stuck wearing the "insane" and "jihadist" labels, or others like them, then turn it back a notch and make a genuine effort to work with other folks. Characterizations like "awkward cascade of links" and "deceptive piping" don't assume good faith. I'm just interested in writing articles, I'm not here trying to secretly undermine your Goals. I've already been through a couple rounds of Its For the Good of the Project and I gotta say, working with the Righteous can just plain suck. I'm trying to be reasonable and expect (hope for?) the same from the folks I come into contact with here. This whole thing was so out of the blue and could cost me my state of Bliss! :)

Okay. I'm done whinging.

I'm good with Football in Germany being substituted for [[Germany|German]] [[association football|football]]. I'd like to see the category link stay for "club", but can live without it. The suggestion that links of the sort North Rhine-Westphalia are "not so vital" is just an opinion and one that has rather broad implications given that the form city-link, state-link is a pretty pervasive linking format throughout Wikipedia. It's exactly the kind of thing that merits some discussion and I'd rather not see all those links evaporate without some consultation.

I don't get how removing links like World War I and World War II from these football articles is helping any. These were the key historical events of modern Germany and they affected every aspect of life in the country, including the nation's football. These links (and others like them) help provide a broader, more informed context for the reader and I've tried hard to provide useful links, not just fluff. German football doesn't happen on a blank canvas.

I get that overlinking is not a good thing, but stripping stuff down to the absolute bare bones can't be helpful either. Part of the joy of being here is the ability to bounce from place to place and the joy of new or unexpected discovery. I don't think that as a body the German football articles as they stand are particularly overlinked and given that they have some core similarities, I'd prefer to have a opportunity to discuss any sweeping changes across the range of these articles before they're made. Thx. Wiggy! (talk) 04:46, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

  • First off in response, I'd say that use of phrases like "awkward cascade of links" and "deceptive piping" are purely descriptive. I do not know who put those links there, nor do I particularly care. It has nothing to do with good faith being assumed, or otherwise, and would apologise if it came across that way. Notwithstanding disagreement about specifics of linking/unlinking, that there should not be several uninterrupted links in succession is not apparently in dispute – this aspect of the guideline has been in place for some time now, and I do not believe there is any fundamental or significant controversy. It is also well recognised that the links should be as accurate and descriptive as the piped text, so any text which fails this is, by definition, deceptive. Of course, I agree that 'German association football club' is infinitely preferable to [[Germany|German]] [[association football|football]] [[List of football clubs in Germany|club]]. My view is that 'club' in that context of your suggestion should not be linked. We may consider adding that as an item in the 'See also' section. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 05:50, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Well, lets's maybe set aside the clutter and get down to the nuts and bolts of it. I'm assuming that you'll be wanting to fire up your script again. Here's what I hope might come of it:
  • Instead of [[Germany|German]] [[Association football|football]] [[List of football clubs in Germany|club]] I'd be happy with [[Football in Germany|German association football club]]. That seems like the most useful link and would improve the set of articles.
  • The link to the clubs category off of the term club is redundant given that the category link is found at the bottom of each article, so I'm not actually real fussed on it staying. Placing it in the See Also section could work I suppose, but I don't see at as particularly necessary either. Your call, I'd be content either way.
  • I'd rather not see List of Football Clubs used as the general link. The article is okay for what it is, but its incomplete and out of date when compared to the club category. The category page shows close to 700 clubs and is regularly and consistently updated. The list of clubs probably shows less than 200 as it stands. Anybody looking to find a specific club, or to learn about what else is out there would do better to look at the more complete of the two.
  • I'd hope that the links to World War I and World War II could stay in place rather than be stripped away. They are part of the historical context that these clubs operated in alongside stuff like the Cold War, the Allied occupation of Germany, Nazism and de-Nazification, East Berlin, West Berlin, East Germany, Saar (protectorate), German reunification, etc. These things make up the broader historical background to the individual histories of these clubs and can make clearer what happened with these clubs and why.
  • All the rest of the minor stuff like N-dashes and date formatting is all good. Everything will look all buffed up. Cool.
  • In the end thanks for what should turn out to be useful improvement(s), but please stay with talking to other folks where that's possible, rather than just making unannounced sweeps. Wiggy! (talk) 14:10, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Sounds good to me. I'll go back and fix those 'A' club articles I did. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 14:40, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Many thanks. Wiggy! (talk) 14:44, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
TL;DR. Anyway, I agree that [[Germany|German]] [[Association football|football]] [[List of football clubs in Germany|club]] is pretty bad, but if there are dozens of articles consistently using that (suggesting that it wasn't just a newbie's blunder), I would ask the relevant WikiProjects before converting them in mass. A. di M. (talk) 11:23, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Not a newbie. It's part of the boilerplate template I use to frame up club articles (which I've updated some pending the discussion here). If it's bad and needs fixing, fine, we're here talking about it. I'm ultimately all for the improvement, but as I've said repeatedly, I don't see the harm in engaging the guy(s) that caused the problem to work towards something that works for everyone. Thanks for your touch ups, by the way, to some of the football articles and your generally positive approach. I found that more productive than being hectored. Wiggy! (talk) 14:10, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
It is a serious disservice to readers to conceal "List of football clubs in Germany" under an apparent dictionary term, "club". This is dysfunctional linking, and the guideline does not allow it. I don't see any need to get "permission" from WikiProjects to add somewhere in the vicinity "(see List of football clubs in Germany)" if one really must interrupt the reader with a link they are unlikely to follow, and if they do, are more likely to want to go there after finishing the anchor article. Better would be an unpiped link to the list in the "See also" section; that would garner more hits. And "German" should not be linked in a bunched-up chain like that. Spare a thought for the readers, please. Tony (talk) 12:40, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for that. It's not about permission. It's about working collegially to make improvements and respecting the contributions of others. Don't be so quick to slap the dunce cap on other folks. It's not necessary. Wiggy! (talk) 14:10, 2 January 2011 (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. --Ckatzchatspy 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. --Ckatzchatspy 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. --Ckatzchatspy 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. --Ckatzchatspy 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. --Ckatzchatspy 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)
  • 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. --Ckatzchatspy 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. --Ckatzchatspy 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. --Ckatzchatspy 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. --Ckatzchatspy 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. --Ckatzchatspy 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. --Ckatzchatspy 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. --Ckatzchatspy 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.) --Ckatzchatspy 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? --Ckatzchatspy 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. --Ckatzchatspy 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. --Ckatzchatspy 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? --Ckatzchatspy 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? --Ckatzchatspy 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)
Yes, that's what "myself included" meant, with Katz implicitly/obviously in there as well as a "usual suspect". And the maths are such that the two of us are outnumbered by yourself, Tony, GFHandel and GregL etc. Thus, when all of us are excluded, asuming we did indeed start at 50:50, we are left with a majority of opponents. I did think that was all very clear ... N-HH talk/edits 17:37, 28 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 (sect. "Parent–child links")

  • 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)
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)
Oh give me a break: "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." Well, if a reader hasn't heard of "the Beatles" or "sliced bread" or "France", they need to go back to infants' school. It is not WP's job to be a dictionary or to put readers down in this way. You discount the disadvantages of bunched-up multiple linking. Tony (talk) 02:17, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
It is part of our remit to gather and organize information, and part of that organizing involves making connections through articles. The hyperlink was what made the internet more then just static messages everyone can see, and your increasing insistence that letting readers decide what topics to move on to is 'bad' is fairly bizarre. -- ۩ Mask 05:28, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
"...and part of that organizing involves making connections through article"—that's the entire point of the proposal: that the child term is sufficient for providing the link to the parent. The proponents here acknowledge that it is one more click (to get to the parent), but are of the opinion that the emphasizing of the high-value links is worth that. No one here (who is opposed) has tried to explain "how low they will go" in terms of linking. At what point do the links become dictionary-like? No, Tony1 is an experienced editor, and his desire to direct readers towards the high-value links in an article is commendable (and supported by the multitude of editors who have implicitly agreed with the tens-of-thousands of edits where the parent term has been de-linked).  GFHandel.   06:07, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
I never implied he wasnt a respected editor, its not his position im concerned about, he's perfectly willing to have it, its his insistence that others cant have different ones. 'Oh give me a break' is not the response i would have to someone who opposed a proposal of mine. And not stopping something is a far cry from actually supporting it. No one may have stepped in and cried foul when he unilaterally deprecated links, but the numbers here shows theres hardly a consensus for it. As for how low i go, it depends on what would be relevant information. If i were from a country without much influence of Anglo music, i would need a link to The Beatles to fully comprehend the impact of I Want to Hold Your Hand, whereas an author born in LA wouldnt need a link to California, all relevant information I need about the city, including its location in the state and economic contributions would be at Los Angeles. -- ۩ Mask 06:22, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
You do understand that it's not just Tony1 involved in the de-linking edits I've mentioned? The MOS is out-of-touch with the multitude of parent de-linkings that are happening every hour. I am amazed that people would rather attach themselves to the "silence doesn't imply consent" argument as in my experience, WP editors are extremely capable and vocal when it comes to voicing their dissent (and that is obviously not happening for parent-delinking in the real WP world). The "oppose" editors here keep proffering the "I" debate (as in "If i were from a country without much influence of Anglo music..."), but that's not reasonable as we are not writing WP for the special case; instead, we are writing for the average, and the proposal here is that the average can still benefit from the linkage via the child (without the dilution).  GFHandel.   07:02, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Indeed, we dont write for special cases, the majority of our readership is not from England or the US, and would benefit from the link to The Beatles mentioned. If there are large scale delinking for instances similar to this proposal without consensus on the MOS then a small taskforce to correct the edits can be organized without too much trouble. Could you provide links to some of these sprees? -- ۩ Mask 07:11, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
"...and would benefit from the link to The Beatles mentioned"—a statistical guess that is not born out by the facts. "If...sprees"—sigh. For one moment I was hoping that you were going to engage substantively in the debate; but: no.  GFHandel.   07:21, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
I have been doing that, this entire thread. Unless by 'engage substantively in the debate' to mean 'agree with you. Our concerns all well voiced, and then you do a handwave and dismiss them as irrelevant and not borne out when we repeatedly asked you for information from you to base this change in policy on. Thats where the burden of proof lies, not on those arguing for the status quo but on those seeking change. And you ducked my request for links. -- ۩ Mask 07:32, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
While im here though, i dug this up from the foundation-l mailing list, stats! Actual to goodness stats! [5] US and England account for 31% of page hits, although a larger percentage of edits come from those countries, this debate has been about readers. -- ۩ Mask 07:39, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
And when restricted to the English Wikipedia, those two (the two im most comfortable saying would immediately know the general history and story behind the beatles) they barely crack a majority of hits. You could probably toss in Canada as well but it still doesnt hit a respectable figure. -- ۩ Mask 07:42, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
In one post you state "..the majority of our readership is not from England or the US..." and in the next you provide a link that demonstrates that for the English (en) WP (which is all we're interested in here), the US has 46.0% of Page Views and the UK has 10.3%. A swift burst of mental arithmetic has the total at 56.3%, and when Canada, Australia and NZ are tossed into the mix, the total increases to 66.6%. With two-thirds of our readers coming from an English-speaking country my previous argument about writing for the majority remains sound.
How do I provide links to the tens-of-thousands of similar delinking edits? I am a little surprised that you are unaware of the scale of the parent-type delinking that has been occurring for quite some time. Such delinking is not my primary area of interest (I handle them as encountered), but here are some of mine I prepared earlier: [6], [7] and [8]. That first diff is a great example because not only does it contain two examples of parent-delinking, but one of the examples is a triple! Here is the before-shot from that example:
"Bridal Chorus" from Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin
and here is the after-shot:
"Bridal Chorus" from Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin
The edit I made results in less cluttered text and naturally leads the reader to the most valuable link (from where both "Lohengrin" and "Wagner" can be reached). Also important to note is that "Lohengrin" and "Wagner" are trivial information in terms of the article (Mendelssohn's Wedding March) so linking them does nothing to deepen the understanding of the article. These are the concepts that this proposal is trying to instil into the MOS so that other editors can start to consider the issue more carefully (before applying the scatter-gun approach to linking that happens frequently).
In terms of other editors, you can look through their contributions for countless examples: [9] (search for "overlinking"), [10] (search for "überlinking"), and [11] (search for "overlink"). Those editors run scripts that do many useful operations, but it didn't take me long to find examples of parent delinking.
I hope this provides some food for thought. Cheers.
 GFHandel.   20:52, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
You argued these were edge cases, a full third of our readership would be inconvenienced by this change, whereas no harm would be done by leaving the status quo. I hardly see how thats a net positive, even as i suppose I'll defer to you about the penetration of British music acts in Australia and NZ as I dont have any knowledge in that field. As for that edit, I dont see how that improves the article whatsoever. Users were equally directed toward the topic you mention before, and meta-information behind the music piece is lost by not referring to the artist behind that piece. You seem to think that all it takes is some blinding light going off over our heads and we'll be enlightened, but those of us opposing view this proposal as impairing our mission as a reference work. -- ۩ Mask 22:05, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
We can discuss minor cases determining policy, but we should stick to the (now established) majority for a while (and I'm not convinced that many out of the minority aren't English speakers). The "harm" (as has been discussed) is that the high-value links are diluted by linking parents. The delinking of parent terms is something that has a long history of approval (based on the tens-of-thousands of unchallenged such edits). It's now time for the MOS to catch-up.
The only comment I'll make regarding enlightenment (in response to illumination) is to quote a favorite saying: "when a mistaken honest man hears the truth, he either ceases to be mistaken, or he ceases to be honest".  GFHandel.   04:48, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
You cannot use Tony, OC, and Colonies Chris' edits as examples of wide-spread support for delinking; they are leading proponents of the very argument to mass-delink. In fact, their edits undoubtedly form the vast majority of all such delinking work, hardly demonstrative of "universal acceptance". --Ckatzchatspy 22:56, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps have another read of the debate, but (in this instance) I didn't cite the delinking of those editors as "support". I was asked to provide examples of the delinking—and I did.  GFHandel.   04:48, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
It might well be that all but an unsubstantial minority of readers have heard of the Beatles, but that's hardly an argument to discourage "chain links" in general: for example, it wouldn't apply to "Una donna per amico by Lucio Battisti". A. di M. (talk) 23:46, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
You are correct in that there are differing levels of interpretation based on the example used. Personally, I would still prefer not to link Lucio (based on the word "by") as I believe that far more than the average of the readership would accept that if they were to click on "Una" they would soon be presented with a link to "Lucio". I did request other examples that might be used to illustrate the principle. Remember that the MOS currently has no example of what is now well-accepted practice. Could you suggest a more apposite example for the proposal?  GFHandel.   05:05, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
I just subjected that opinion to an experiment. I showed family members the sentence "She sang Una donna per amico by Lucio Battisti." on a piece of paper, and asked them how they would find information on Battisti. 2 said they would click the link and look for Battisti, and 1 said he would type the name into the search box. I suspect more would use the search box in a more realistic experiment, but anyway that was my result. Art LaPella (talk) 07:02, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
  • GFHandel, those are strong examples of why linking for the sake of linking should be discouraged. The only reason I would not restrict such linking to the most focused in the chain would be if the Bridal Chorus were somehow unsatisfactory as an article; i.e., if it were a raw stub. But three links, moving out in concentric circles of less focus? That is likely to garner fewer clicks through the carpeting effect; and it goes against the existing "focus" guideline. Thanks for this example. Tony (talk) 01:44, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
  • GFHandel’s arguments carry the added virtue of being well founded on facts and does not suffer from statements like the majority of our readership is not from England or the US. I would say that GF is on solid ground for valid reasons and those who oppose what he is proposing have nothing but tendentiousness on their side; that’s not enough. Greg L (talk) 02:00, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
    • Well, maybe that, plus Lucio Battisti (see just above; see also the similar Flobots example long before him). Art LaPella (talk) 02:48, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
      I still can't see consensus on this proposal. Can we not just rely on sensible editing article by article, rather than trying to insert more reasons/justifications for de-linking? Plus, can I just say that framing the issue of linking around whether people "know what something is or not" slightly misses the point in some respects (as does saying people should "go back to infant school" if they don't know who the Beatles are). The argument that WP is "not a dictionary" doesn't apply in quite the way people have suggested. Yes, people will link through to find out what something is. They will also link through to find out more about something they already know about. The article about Germany doesn't simply say "a country in the middle of Europe, next door to France". It has loads of detail and information about Germany. Equally, to make the point again, this proposal would entail that Europe should not be linked in even that sentence, assuming France was, because the page on France would contain the link to Europe. N-HH talk/edits 17:30, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
      BTW, I do agree that if C is a such an obvious subtopic of P that anyone would (correctly) expect the article about C to link to that about P in the very first paragraph, then P shouldn't usually be linked from a sentence which also links to C. (But common sense exceptions can be made if P is not a famous topic worldlike and the article about C is very stubby.) Anyway, arguments for or against this proposal shouldn't be based on the particular example which happened to be choosen for it. BTW, I think that nearly all adults living anywhere they are likely to have heard about and be able to access and read the English Wikipedia know who the Beatles were, but many younger people would likely be unable to name one song by them, and half of the Wikipedia readers are younger than 22.[12] A. di M. (talk) 22:58, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Before making arguments based on the fact that a majority of readers are from North America, check out this please. ;-) I don't mean to offend all Americans; after all in my home country such interviews are done with members of the parliament with very similar results. ;-) A. di M. (talk) 22:32, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

  • Holy mackerel! you just demolished all the arguments not to link 'every frigging word'. ;-) --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 01:55, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

An example of a Beatles-removal edit from real life.  GFHandel.   19:40, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Which unlinks the Beatles, and I have agreed, and also unlinks Chumbawamba, and I have disagreed with a similar example. I would think the unfamiliarity of that word is reason enough to make it likely to be clicked. Yes, that could be found by clicking their song – if the reader thinks of it and prefers it (remember my mini-survey), and after waiting for Wikipedia's occasional server delay. Or it could be found by copying to the search field, but that would justify unlinking everything like a sea of blue argument in reverse; each of the links you didn't unlink could be copied to the search field if it were unlinked. Art LaPella (talk) 21:17, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Your observation goes to the heart of this proposal. A link's existence shouldn't depend on whether a word or phrase is rare or unusual. Using a link should depend on whether the linked item deepens the understanding of the article. The proposal's basis is that a link to a parent doesn't sufficiently deepen the understanding of the article when a link to a child is nearby. As with all things, editors are making decisions for the average readership, and the decision for examples like Chumbawamba is that it doesn't add anything of value to the article (Prince of Denmark's March), and would merely serve to dilute the higher-value link (Tubthumping) that is nearby. The decision was also made in the realisation that a link to Chumbawamba would be quickly available after the single click to Tubthumping (as you have personally observed). That is certainly a good example of the more mature linking being widely practised and accepted.  GFHandel.   21:53, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Agreed that linking Chumbawamba doesn't help explain Prince of Denmark's March. So why shouldn't "A link's existence ... depend on whether a word or phrase is rare or unusual"? We may assume that readers are interested in "Prince of Denmark's March" because they are reading it, but we may also assume that readers wonder about "Chumbawamba" (unlike the Beatles) just because many readers, including me, have no idea what that word means. So why must we force them to read about "Prince of Denmark's March" and nothing else? Art LaPella (talk) 22:09, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Because the chances that a reader who has navigated to "Prince of Denmark's March" and is interested in Chumbawamba will be negligibly small. The considered decision is that it is not worth diluting the links that deepen the understanding of the article with links that simply facilitate click-through. If click-through is the goal, how low do you go in assuming the level of the reader? I genuinely cannot see the disadvantage in delinking Chumbawamba based on: A) Chumbawamba not likely to being within the domain of interest of the average Price of Denmark's March reader, B) a link to Chumbawamba doing nothing to deepen the understanding of the Price of Denmark's March article, and C) the fact that it must be a very small number of remaining readers who cannot figure out that a link to Chumbawamba is one click away via the Tubthumping link. The proposal does say "generally", so if a local editor really does believe there to be merit in linking Chumbawamba they can always link it and discuss the merits on the talk page if required.  GFHandel.   22:35, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
"the chances that a reader who has navigated to "Prince of Denmark's March" and is interested in Chumbawamba will be negligibly small." Agreed. "it is not worth diluting the links that deepen the understanding of the article with links that simply facilitate click-through." Well, that's a consideration, but then if the reader can't read what he (suddenly) wants to read about, he's less likely to read what we want him to read about, either. "If click-through is the goal, how low do you go in assuming the level of the reader?" My wife also has no idea what "Chumbawamba" means, so does "low ... level of the reader" mean a level much higher than both of us, in a sentence where "Chumbawamba" might mean a nationality or a musical style? A) The "domain of interest" just changed by using an unfamiliar word, B) agreed, but the argument is that isn't the reader's goal, and C) Navigating to Chumbawamba by copying and pasting to the search field took me 10 seconds, while clicking Tubthumping and then clicking "Chumbawamba" took me 6 seconds, and that was when I knew exactly what I was looking for and the servers weren't overloaded. Art LaPella (talk) 22:56, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
I'm not oblivious to the possibility of a reader wanting to find out what "Chumbawamba" is, but I'm suggesting that the mechanism is still there (search box, child click-though) for the rare case (in the context of being on the Prince of Denmark's March article). The fact that the rare case of "inconveniencing" the reader is more than balanced by the more mature approach to linking (and the facility that approach generates) for the majority of readers. I have wondered if an invisible link mechanism would solve some of these issues? E.g. a word or phrase that is invisibly linked would appear as normal text, but would cause the cursor to change to the usual click shape (as used all over the Internet) when the user hovers above a link. I'm not sure about the downside of that idea (or refinements that could be made).  GFHandel.   23:32, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
The issue of the ‘sentence where "Chumbawamba" might mean a nationality or a musical style’ is better solved like this than by adding links: even if the link is there not everyone will want to have another page load to know whether Chumbawamba is a band or anything else. A. di M. (talk) 00:43, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
More than the probability that ‘a reader who has navigated to "Prince of Denmark's March" and is interested in Chumbawamba’, what matters is the conditional probability that a reader is interested in Chumbawamba given that they have navigated to "Prince of Denmark's March", which is likely also not very large but not so vanishingly small. (Have you heard the joke that "the best way to be sure that there's no hijacker with a bomb on your plane is to carry a bomb yourself as it's very unlikely for there to be two bombs on the same plane"?) I still would err on the side of not adding the link in this case as there are more relevant links nearby, but... A. di M. (talk) 00:43, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
I just wish there were a way to actually count how many people click such links. Art LaPella (talk) 02:31, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
In principle, a server can keep track of the referring URLs for the visits to a page, so that we could know how many of the visitors to the Chumbawamba article came there from the Prince of Denmark's March article, how many came from the search results page on Wikipedia, how many came from Google, how many came from some other site, how many typed the URL straight into the browser, and so on. But I don't think they'll ever implement that on Wikipedia. A. di M. (talk) 11:07, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
Or in principle, [[Please leave this redirect in place for a month while we test it|Chumbawamba]] could be counted with http://stats.grok.se/ , along with a similar redirect for Tubthumper for comparison ... But now that you've explained "Chumbawamba", nobody would click to find out what it is – at the cost of making everybody read about it. Art LaPella (talk) 22:44, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
BTW why did you replace quotation marks with italics? Songs titles are supposed to be between quotation marks, italics are for albums. A. di M. (talk) 21:25, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
I got it wrong, sorry.  GFHandel.   21:53, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Comment: I think it depends. For example, we rather routinely link places in the style Rockville Centre, New York (that's [[Rockville Centre, New York|Rockville Centre]], [[New York]]); that is at least moderately useful for a person who does not know the geography of the country in question well. I'm not sure a single standard would be an improvement here. - Jmabel | Talk 17:28, 15 January 2011 (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)

I have often used a pipe to clarify an archaism or obscure reference in a quotation. - Jmabel | Talk 17:30, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

  • I'm not sure exactly what examples you have in mind, but I don't think it's for us to interpret the content of a quotation by inserting piping, which may or may not be accurate. That job ought to be left to the adjacent text, cited to reliable sources, of course. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 10:32, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
For example, a 19th century original refers to a celebrity by only a surname. Or uses 'dropsy' rather than 'edema'. Or, in the context of the post-American Civil War South refers to someone as 'unreconstructed'. All of these things would have been clear to any reader at the time, but have become obscure over the intervening century-and-a-half and now require a gloss. A piped link can often be a very efficient gloss. - Jmabel | Talk 18:34, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
  • It may be efficient, but without a reliable cite in close proximity, it is difficult or impossible to determine if it is correct or misleading. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:10, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
    • To be honest, I think this is exactly wrong, and the rise of this attitude is why I am not writing many articles in Wikipedia these days. Eventually one ends up with an infinite regress of pettiness. Would you demand that for every reference to "Washington" in a source document about the American Revolution we find a commentator indicating that they mean George Washington? That there be no redirects because they inherently do not include citations? Etc. This need to continually (over-)cite the obvious tends to obscure the relatively slim evidence often provided for the genuinely controversial, because the things that really need citation get lost in a sea of the over-cited obvious. - Jmabel | Talk 03:35, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
      • Appreciate the concern about overciting, but every quote needs citing here on WP. and there really are no exceptions I can think of. So long as there is a quote nearby saying it was George Washington and not, for arguments' sake, Denzel ;-) there would be no problem writing "...[George] Washington". That would obviate the need to use links as an untransparent means of disambiguation. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 04:18, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
    • And if it isn't nearby, and if the reference is more obscure than George Washington, you feel the reader is better off without a clarification or link? I beg to differ. - Jmabel | Talk 06:45, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Links in lists

Per WP:LISTPURP, lists have internal links particularly for navigation. The majority of film articles have cast lists that provide links for navigation. WP:REPEATLINK mentioned only tables, and lists belong with them, presenting similar information, just in less columns. Erik (talk | contribs) 02:57, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Links in headers explanation seems lacking

Hi, in "General points on linking style" we say:

  • Section headings should not themselves contain links (see WP:ACCESS#Links for why);

but if you go to the linked section you don't find a statement which explains. This leaves me with fallbacks like "because they look hideous and confusing" but surely there is more to it than this ... is something missing, or am I just missing the point, or what? Thanks and best wishes DBaK (talk) 17:52, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

No reply here so I will give it a little while longer and then remove the unhelpful text. Best wishes DBaK (talk) 11:22, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
Per the above, I have removed "(see WP:ACCESS#Links for why)" from the line in question. If you can explain why this worked and was good to have in, please do so and revert me. Currently it seems to go nowhere; I may be missing the point but if so I'd appreciate having that explained too. Thanks and best wishes DBaK (talk) 08:58, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Don’t unnecessarily make a reader chase links

(conversation copied from MOS to here)

Proposed add to links section, or following "avoid jargon" -

”If a highly technical term can be simply explained with a very few words, don’t make a reader use a link to understand the sentence, especially if this requires going into nested links (a link that goes to a page with another technical term needed to be linked, which goes to a page with a link to another technical term, and so on).”

PPdd (talk) 20:27, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good to me; but what are "nested links"?Tony (talk) 01:01, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
Nested links are when a technical term appears, and you click on the link and another technical term is used to define the first, then you click on that, and so on. A reader gets lost as to what they were originally reading. Examples are the older versions of math articles at WP, which were almost impossible to read without prior knowledge, basically being a giant series of nested (or circular) links. This situation has been fixed in many of these math articles in the last two years. PPdd (talk) 01:45, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
Possibly something that should be included in WP:MOSLINK. Tony (talk) 06:58, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
SUPPORT 100%. 74.105.135.235 (talk) 14:51, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
Thumbs-up. I effing support big time. It is really miserable to feel like I have to read 20 articles to understand one. Biology and anatomy are really bad here and it's not even needed (not like we are talking about group theory or quantum mechanics). What's even more miserable is when you get sent off into that set of linked articles or that "definition by blue link" and then the article is some stub that's inadequate to even explain the concept (IOW, the link and set of them don't even define).TCO (talk) 22:12, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
I favor. But if you eliminated the ref to "technical terms" it could apply to us poor patrolling editors, as well, who have to "chase" links to see whether a linked items actually does have the attributes described in the sentence because there are no footnotes in the linking sentence/paragraph. Same problem, basically. Okay, the encyclopedia is supposed to be for readers, but we can help ourselves, too, can't we?  :) Student7 (talk) 00:19, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
A proposal of mine at MOS may deal with your problem with nontechnical terms. I suggested putting quotes in refs to deal with checking attributes described in the sentence. You should weigh in on that discussion. PPdd (talk) 01:48, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
  • I think the value of a wikilink to a technical/unfamiliar term is to provide a lot more information on that term/topic than an immediate definition. It follows that—unless it's really clunky to do so, such as in in-depth mathematical articles, where you'd really get bogged down defining a host of technical terms on the spot—a difficult term should be glossed immediately (parentheses or nested within commas). Whether a term itself is linked should have little to do with the need to provide an in-context brief gloss. What the guideline should mention is that linking is not an excuse not to gloss immediately. Does this make sense? Tony (talk) 04:00, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
Perfect and helpful sense. Suggested simplified wording - ”If a technical term can be simply explained with a very plain English words, always do so. A link is not an excuse for failing to do so." PPdd (talk) 06:12, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
Point 5 of WP:NOT#JARGON already says that, but I'd be OK with stating the same thing here on WP:LINK. I'd also add "Don't assume that readers will be able to access a link at all, as they might have printed down an article and be reading the hard copy" or something like that. --A. di M. (talk) 00:22, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
I added "Don't assume that readers will be able to access a link at all, as they might have printed down an article and be reading the hard copy on paper". (The may be reading from paper and can't link to find out what "hard copy" is.)

Geographic terms

Perhaps I overlooked it in the article itself, but what is preferred practice for, say, "Houston, Texas" or "London, England" -- where the city has its own article? Do we put separate links for both the city and the state, or a piped one to the page for the city? Of course, sometimes the name of the state or country has already been Wikilinked earlier in an article (or even is the subject of that article) so that link doesn't need to be repeated. In that case, should only the city be underlined? --Casey (talk) 10:51, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Many editors believe the most effective way to get readers to click is to link only the most specific item in a bunch. The broader link-targets (such as state and country) are almost always linked from the most specific article. Tony (talk) 16:31, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
I would only link the most specific term: "Houston, Texas" or "London, England". The link to Texas is a less specific parent link, and will be immediately found in the Houston article (should the reader wish to click-thorough). You have to consider the context in the article—which will reveal that links to parents almost never add value (over and above the value already added by the child link); however the parent link does dilute links in an article by making it visually less obvious which links do add value to the current article. There is a discussion above (on this page) to which you might care to contribute.  GFHandel.   19:40, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
Separate links are best, as it retains the option of choice for the reader and maintains easy access to relevant and related geographical information. If the province, state or country is linked earlier in the article, however, you do not need to relink it unless you feel it is beneficial to the reader. --Ckatzchatspy 19:59, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
The city of Houston, Texas and the State of Texas are two distinct articles which each add separately to readers understanding and navigation, I use and would recommend separate links. -- ۩ Mask 00:15, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
I can appreciate that this seems like overlinking to one editor, but I favor double links, as well. Gives the reader more choices, immediately. Student7 (talk) 16:16, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
This violates MOSLINK'S recommendation against bunched links and for making links as focussed as possible. This regrettable practice pushes in readers' faces a focused and a less focussed link side by side, again contrary to MOSLINK's advice; and the less focussed is "chain-linked" from the more focussed link target. It is unhelpful to suggest that ever-broader links nearby should be bulked up to present unlimited immediate-click choice directly from the anchor-sentence. Why would someone want to click directly on "Texas" when the subject of the statement is "Houston"? It is ridiculous and needs to be derided as an abuse of the wikilinking system. Tony (talk) 17:05, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
The MOS is like any other policy, it is descriptive of community practice not proscriptive of our use. Policy can and does lag behind the community consensus, and with the pushback this jihad against useful links has begun generating we may already be there. ---- ۩ Mask 16:02, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
Loaded terms such as "violates", "ridiculous" and "abuse" don't really help. No-one's questioning your right to hold such a strong opinion as to what makes a link useful. However, it is important to keep in mind that others do not necessarily share that perspective. Our guidelines - and the way in which they are applied - need to reflect that fact. --Ckatzchatspy 23:25, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
As usual, Tony1's post addresses the fundamental issue. If you want real-world cases, I find that when I unlink a parent term (when it is in close proximity to a linked child term) I rarely get a revert. Statistically, there is enormous support out in real editor land for the delinking of parent terms. The editors against this idea will never (that's never) address the value of links. Value is crucial because without considering it, you might as well link the lot.  GFHandel.   23:48, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
"The editors against this idea will never (that's never) address the value of links."" Rubbish, pure and simple. This is a question of differing opinions, and the sooner we can stop avoiding that fact the better. You may choose to arbitrarily dismiss the concerns that have been raised time and time again, but that in no way invalidates them. --Ckatzchatspy 01:00, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
Simple answer based on the above statements: if in a article I say something like "Soandso was born in Houston, Texas", the phrase "Houston, Texas" is referring to the city, the state is not a subject of that line. Only the city should be linked in such cases as advocated above. --MASEM (t) 00:15, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
  • And the sight of 'Houston, Texas, United States' will almost invariable provoke a knee-jerk in me... my itchy finger will click on 'unlink common terms'. Just like there are others who feel the compulsion to link [almost] every occurrence of Canada, mine is to call the script function. ;-) --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 01:29, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
  • Doing us all a service, IMO. Ckatz, you still haven't discussed the value of specific links, and you never will. That is why people take no notice of your statements. This talk page is for discussing substantive issues to do with linking, not for making personal or political statements in lieu. Tony (talk) 01:32, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
Not taking the bait, Tony - and repeating a falsehood doesn't bring it any closer to the truth. --Ckatzchatspy 06:31, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
  • Oh shucks. You're no fun any more. ;-) Tony (talk) 06:37, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Oppose delinking inside templates

I noticed a few delinking edits (example 1 example 2) are being applied to PD templates that are used for image files, and I would like to register my opposition to this practice and to ask that such delinking is stopped and/or removed from any plans to mass de-link any more of them. In brief, please do not do it.

  • 1. I feel that the justification given "This delinking is in line with the MoS (see WP:OVERLINK)" applies to articles and not templates that do not appear in articles. These templates appear on image description pages.
  • 2. These templates contain text and links that is important for the reader to understand as they apply to the licensing and copyright of the images used in wikipedia. It is important to know exactly which country's laws are relevant and to to help those who may not be anglocentric to quickly find the country article it applies to (to find the equivalent article in other languages for example). Changes should not be lightly made and if made, only if agreed upon on the talk page, and made with the minor edit flag off.
  • 3. Because of their important nature these templates are on several people's watchlists, and that leads to unnecessary spamming of those watchlists (even with the minor edit flag on, as editors such as myself check all edits to these templates). Leaving these templates alone will leave such editors more time to concentrate on other edits.

I will make a short post linking to this discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Oppose delinking inside templates. -84user (talk) 15:04, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree that there should be a link, but one to articles such as copyright law of the United Kingdom (for countries for which they exist) would be better than one to the main article about the country. --A. di M. (talk) 15:23, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
I think this is a waste of time, the link to the United Kingdom shouldn't really be there, but it is not worth removing - these templates are not part of the encyclopaedia. Since there is a link to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 the less specific copyright law of the United Kingdom would not be that useful wither. Rich Farmbrough, 16:39, 10 February 2011 (UTC).
I hadn't noticed that. In that case, I agree any other link is useless, though IMO removing such a link is not the best use of someone's time (though Colonies Chris is entitled to use his own time the way he likes, provided that the edit summaries are explicit enough so that he doesn't also waste the time of everyone else who has the template in their watchlist). --A. di M. (talk) 19:35, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
Template PD-UK is linked from about 850 files, although only Wikipedia insiders have much reason to read them. So it is probably seen more often than a random article would be seen, and is thus a relatively good use of time. Art LaPella (talk) 22:39, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
  • In general, specific trumps generic; generic links are unlikely ever to be clicked on, or would potentially misdirect if the reader clicked on them. The weightiest argument against unlinking is #2, that "It is important to know exactly which country's laws are relevant and to to help those who may not be anglocentric to quickly find the country article it applies to". But as others have pointed out, key informational links are already provided by the link to the article focussed specifically on copyrights in the respective countries. I would merely ask a rhetorical WTF question as to the use of a link to United Kindom or Italy in the cases above. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 01:51, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
    • Oh, the standards were doubtless different back in 2006 and 2007, when these templates were created. Editing practices have improved then. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:15, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Does overlinking apply to the references section?

For example, if I have an article with 10 references, but three are from the same newspaper, should only the first occurance or the newspaper's title be linked? If I rearrange the article, do I have to make sure I change the link? Or can they all be linked? –anemoneprojectors– 17:26, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

  • Thanks for raising this centrally. It seems to me that the spirit of the guideline as well as common sense would point towards only linking the first instance in this situation. I'd be interested to hear other opinions though. --John (talk) 17:30, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
    • I generally link every time, using the same logic for table linking - each ref should be able to be read standalone and without the pub link, I'd have to go searching for it in the other references, and may be futile if the pub actually has no article on WP for linking. By linking every source, it is assured to easily find the link or know that there's no link to be found. --MASEM (t) 17:35, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
If the references are of the "footnote" type (as in Quark), I wouldn't assume someone reading footnote 47 to have read any of the first 46 footnotes, so I'd link each footnote as if it were the first. (On the other hand, I wouldn't link both the journal and the publisher if the WP article about the journal has a link to that about the publisher in the first paragraph, etc.) If the references are instead in their own section with the footnotes only containing Harvard citations (as in Vector space), I would link the same way as any other section. --A. di M. (talk) 19:22, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
  • I concur with with Masem and A. di M.; each reference should be self-contained, as they can easily be (and often are) checked without recourse to other references. It also serves both editors and readers to have the link in each ref. Editors, as they aren't then required to go through every ref to make sure that they didn't delete the only link of it's kind. And it serves readers, as they then aren't required to hunt through other, irrelevant references to get the link they want. oknazevad (talk) 22:59, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
    Is that why some of our reference sections look like a dog's breakfast? On a table, a whole column can turn blue. In reference lists, it's an ugly patchwork of blue and black, just so The Daily Telegraph can be linked when there's a direct URL link to the article in question? Tony (talk) 09:32, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
    Geez, do you have any better arguments than aesthetic ones? If you don't like the appearance of links, just edit your own style sheet, please. If I read a footnote citing a The Daily Telegraph article, I might want to have a look at the Wikipedia article about said periodical to know basic info about it, e.g. whether it's a tabloid or a broadsheet and whether it has any political alignment. (I've heard of that newspaper before, but off the top of my head I could not even tell what country it's published in.) The “chain link” thing doesn't apply, as no way is the newspaper article itself going to link the Wikipedia article about the newspaper. --A. di M. (talk) 12:19, 9 February 2011 (UTC) (amended at 14:13, 9 February 2011 (UTC))
    The aesthetics are definitely a consideration, yes. Only one of a number, and I trust you're not implying I think it's the only one, or the dominant one. I think most readers would be happier to be able to access one link to each different newspaper in a ref section, not a dozen. The URLs are already blue, and I find it much easier to pick them out when not juxtaposed with constantly repeated wikilinks to newspaper articles. I'm unsure why they're necessary at all: why does the history of The Daily Telegraph matter to a time-pressed reader who wants to access a story from its URL, trusting that it's a reliable source (WP policy). But it's really no big deal. Thanks for your personal suggestion: I toned down the garish bright blue of wikilinking years ago. But my reading experience is not at issue: it's that of WP's visitors I'm concerned about. You could use a less combative tone. Tony (talk) 13:55, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
    Yeah, I was a bit over-the-top, I guess. I apologize for that. Anyway, I have to disagree about whether a link to the periodical is useful. (Maybe The Daily Telegraph is not the best example, but if some scientist reads an apparently far-fetched statement in a WP article sourced to a paper from a journal they had never heard of, I don't think it's unlikely at all that they will want to know more about the journal, as not everybody always follows the WP policy on reliable sources.) Also, the external links are in a different colour and followed by an icon, so I don't find it any hard to locate the external link in a footnote also containing an internal link – though YMMV. --A. di M. (talk) 14:13, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
    Yea, linking the source for obscure or unknown works if available helps the reader quickly evaluate the source's history/reliability/appropriateness to the topic at large. Reflists, like tables, are not prose, so the interruption of bluelinks is not the same issue as it is with overlinking within prose. --MASEM (t) 14:16, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
    I wouldn't even restrict that to “obscure” works, given that readers come from all over the world and even a major Australian newspaper might be unfamiliar to someone from Canada or vice versa. --A. di M. (talk) 15:19, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
    Sure, sure, wasn't meaning to imply differently. --MASEM (t) 15:21, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
    Oops, I forgot to watch this discussion! Personally I agree that it's helpful to link newspaper titles for the reasons A. di M. gave, and I agree with Masem about the interruption of bluelinks. I'm all for linking. –anemoneprojectors– 17:22, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Interesting points, all. Here's a question; what are these links actually for, from the reader's point of view? --John (talk) 23:24, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

As A. di M. puts it, to allow the reader to learn what a source is that they may have never seen before. --MASEM (t) 23:31, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
  • Journal/source names need rarely to be linked. I often see ref sections in articles linked with more than ten instances of a given journal; this is clearly excessive in any book. If the source a mere reference, as opposed to a comment or opinion, I see little need to systematically link to journal names in the refs section, as these sources are largely fungible, provided they are included in compliance with WP:RS. OTOH, where editorial quotes are involved, the journal names are invariably mentioned and linked to in the article, thus also obviating the need to link to it in the refs section. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:31, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
    • That's what I was thinking. If a bio uses a journal as a source, why would I want to read the Wikipedia article on the source at all, except to check it was a reliable source? If a bio uses a journal as part of the article it seems fine to link it on first occurrence, as normal. What I am still struggling to see is why it serves our readers to have 6 or 10 instances of the same link to a journal's article in the references section. Maybe someone can explain why this helps our readers and needs to be an exception to the usual advice about linking on the first instance only, as I am totally not seeing it. --John (talk) 03:31, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
      • It is not an obvious problem until you consider that, say, you're a student in a remote area of the world like Asia or Africa and have no idea what "Science" or "Time" or "Tetrahedron" are, and as such, in reviewing the sources, you have no immediate way to judge what they are or the quality of them. Yes, you can type that into the search bar and if its not disambiguated, you can find that, but that's not always the case (eg for each of the above cases). The link provides quick access to figure this piece of information out. --MASEM (t) 03:36, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
        • A link to a WP article does not infer or imply it's a reliable source, merely that an article exists; by the same token, lack of a link does not infer or imply it's not a reliable source. Anyone reading a scientific article would be expected, from the context, be aware of what Science is, and would know where to find out about it if it wasn't linked; as a reference/source, the article to the publication itself certainly not germane to the subject of the article. One way or another, I see such links are redundant. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 03:55, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
          • Anyone reading a scientific article would be expected, from the context, be aware of what Science is is absolutely a misunderstanding of who the potential audience is for WP. Say a 9yr old is reading a scientific article about a basic principle that Science happens to have a good article about and thus referenced. You are implying that this elementary school child would know what the journal is a priori. We can assume that the reader has ready-understanding of the English language and basic geography to avoid linking basic terms and locations, but that's about the extent we can expect from the average reader. --MASEM (t) 04:33, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I will say though, there is likely room for "first-editor-selected" choice (eg as we do for reference formating in the first place) of one of three styles - never linked; first-use linked; or always linked - as long as it is used consistently in the references section. This would be consistent with how references are handled in general (eg consistency among the references may differ from the body but has to be self-consistent) and avoid many battles over linking issues. --MASEM (t) 04:41, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

First-use linked makes little sense (as it assumes that the reader reads all of the references in order, which is quite unlikely) and is pretty hard to maintain. I wouldn't recommend it. --A. di M. (talk) 15:49, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
If the editors are insistent on that and willing to maintain it, they can be our guest. Which is why we can say the other two forms (no or all) are easier to maintain. --MASEM (t) 16:41, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
  • I will make one comment before I stand aside to allow othrs to comment: I still tend to disagree with such linking, on the grounds that such are secondary – they relate more to the understanding of the article itself than the subject of the article. And while such links may be helpful to some readers, it is less likely to be helpful to most of our readership, or "our average reader", in understanding the actual subject of the article. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 05:33, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
    We don't write for "our average reader", we write for many readers. (For example, see the second sentence of this.) The inconvenience if someone would be interested in the article about the periodical but there's no link is much greater than vice versa, as citation footnotes are seldom longer than a couple of lines and so the slowing-down effect of links is much less relevant than in long paragraphs. --A. di M. (talk) 15:49, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
    • Absolutely. Links (non-repeated) to journals other publications are useful in some contexts. For example non-natives of the US might find a link to the National Enquirer gives them a better understanding of the relevance of a citation - the same would apply to [{Deseret News]], and the papers owned by Murdoch when reporting on, say Fox Televison. Even mainstream journals such as Nature do not have the obvious scope one might expect from their names. moreover we oftenuse the standard abbreviations which drive out all meaning for the uninitiated - J App Clin P & P excl or Proc Rl Russ Acad Sm Kn. Why do we do these things? Rich Farmbrough, 16:35, 10 February 2011 (UTC).
  • I think Rick makes a valid point above in certain cases, but it is still far from saying that journals/sources articles should be linked to as a matter of course. Obviously we attract readers from all walks of life, but we do not seek to cater specifically to the lowest common denominator, otherwise we would go back to the indiscriminate linking of any term which may be relevant and for which there is an article. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 01:58, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
  • No, we do cater to the LCD,. But at the same time, we start with the presumption that they know English and world geography, so that terms like "dog", "window", "China" and "New York" are not linked in prose to distract from the more germane links. Proper names of published works, outside of prose, are certainly far from the issues of trivial links in the body of the article. --MASEM (t) 04:15, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
  • On the other hand, their meanings may be regarded as less crucial to the understanding of the article. If a reliable source has reported that Angus McColl is a pharmacologist, that's probably worthy of a link. If the reference states that this fact was reported by The Scotsman, is it as crucial to link this? Is it (separate question) really necessary if it's already been linked eight times in previous references? Ten? --John (talk) 04:52, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
  • My point exactly. Such source links are largely fungible, and we should avoid linking them. If they provide an opinion or a quote, then it's a different matter. We must not regard the references section as some sort of carpet underneath we sweep up our dust. The nature of reference sections means that each citation is often a very long link already to an external article, and we must avoid cluttering that piece of real estate with even more blue than there has to be. ;-) --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 07:30, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
  • But you dont read refs as a list, you click on it, and the page brings you to the ref, with it occupying the topmost portion of the browser. You dont see the entries above it (at least in Firefox and Chrome on my PC, Browser, DolphinHD, Opera and Skyfire on my phone. I can't test on IE, I've got a linux laptop and an android phone.) -- ۩ Mask 12:05, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
The point of the link to the Scotsman is that if you wish to know something about the nature of that source, you can see what it is and judge its reliability. Not being in the UK, I might have not the least idea whether The Scotsman is a paper of record or a tabloid. I know from experience here that we use it widely to document events in Scotland, & is presumably reliable for them, but I would not know whether it would make that statement about the man only for a well-reputed conventional scientist, or also for a crank. (and , checking, I will not find out from the article on Wikipedia. I should be able to--since the article does say its a national paper, there is presumably sourced information to be found about its quality. (in practice, I would follow the link, and look at other articles also and make my own judgment--but appearances can be deceiving. I should not have to do original research to determine that. ) DGG ( talk ) 00:39, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

So have we come to any conclusions? –anemoneprojectors– 16:44, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Repeating links

I have a question about the "repeating links" exceptions list. The last one says that a table is an exception because each row should be considered on its own. Does that still apply if you're table includes back-to-back-to-back rows where at least one name never changes? It just seems weird to have the same name linked in a 10 row table half the time.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 18:08, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

It is weird and looks amateurish. Either link the first row only, or link none (with a link to the entity in the text introducing the table). If you head or introduce the table in the right way, perhaps the column becomes redundant?  GFHandel.   19:18, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
The example I'm referring to is from pages like Friday the 13th (franchise), where the table is listing the films and we have producers, writers, or directors on consecutive films.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 17:47, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
The technique used in that article to reduce the problem is to span rows and/or columns—resulting in one link where there might have been more than one link due to repeated information in neighboring cells. That's not too bad a solution, however it causes problems in larger tables, e.g. there's more chance of repeats in non-neighboring cells, and the table can't have sorting applied. Sorting isn't really necessary in that table, and there are problems sorting when there are two or more names in a cell. Three choices: link everything available (the current choice), link nothing (and rely on links in the surrounding text), or link only the first occurrence. I prefer linking only the first occurrence in larger tables, however what's been done in the example table isn't too much of a worry.  GFHandel.   00:15, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
IIRC, that point used to have a rationale, which made it clear that it doesn't apply to non-sortable tables, especially ones which can fit in one screenful; what on Earth became of it? --A. di M. (talk) 20:40, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
So, should that point be placed back in?  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 19:45, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

WP:EGG

WP:EGG is a link to this MOS guideline that is under the section Piped Links. Under the section is a link to The Principle of Least Astonishment, followed by this statement: make sure that the reader knows what to expect when clicking on a link.. In the context of wiki-links, thats not what WP:ASTONISH seems to be saying, or at least its only half saying that. What it really says is: You should plan your page structure and links so that everything appears reasonable and makes sense. If a link takes readers to somewhere other than where they thought it would, it should at least take them somewhere that makes sense.. This should be changed as it WP:EGG seems to be saying one thing based on WP:ASTONISH and WP:ASTONISH appears to say something else, or at least clarifies.--Jojhutton (talk) 22:48, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

straight up wrong/misinterpreted piped links

I hate to bring up "nerdy piping" again, but... I keep seeing piped links where people think that two things are the same when they aren't. Of course they don't cite sources because aside from being factually wrong we don't source piped links on wikipedia. Line if I piped "holy war" to "jihad" or "monkey" to "ape" or "multiple personalities" to "schizophrenia" or... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.73.27.126 (talk) 19:32, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

links used in furtherance of controversy

I suggest that the sole purpose of links is to aid the reader, not to inject POV debates into an article by using disputed or questioned links. If there is any dispute, it is better to forgo the link. Collect (talk) 14:34, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I would generally oppose this wording as the wording that you added can and most likely would be used to mean that "anything that is opposed for any reason". Best to leave each link addition to consensus on the various articles' talk pages, and not have some blanket rule that any link that is opposes should not be linked.--Jojhutton (talk) 17:49, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
I would note that use of links to further POV does occur, and the sole aim of the proposal was to indicate that such use is improper. How would you word it - or do you feel extended fights over links are the better way to go? I know of no reason, in fact, why such contentious links can remotely be seen as furthering the interests of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia. Collect (talk) 20:00, 22 March 2011 (UTC) Collect (talk) 20:00, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
This is quite general and vague. Could you please provide some real wiki-examples that have led you to want to change the MOS wording?  GFHandel.   20:23, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
The purpose is to state clearly what is already accepted:
Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject. This applies not only to article text, but to images, wikilinks, external links, categories, and all other material as well.
Which pretty much says what I think should be made explicit - that wikilinks ought not be used to further any particular view of a topic. [13] shows that such issues have existed (I have nothing to do with this page). [14] [15] and a slew of others are found on a very cursory search (several hundred after ignoring false matches). All I suggest is that the wording already in the policy be explicitly stated with regard to wikilinks as noted. And as wikilinks are intrinsically not "sourced" the default should be to de-wikilink in event of a dispute (unless a reliable source says "this word is used in the precise sense it is used in the Wikipedia article" of course). This would also have avoided a few man-years of discussion about wikilinking dates :). Is this all that controversial when it is already in the MoS? Collect (talk) 21:03, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Oh, I seem to remember coming across such in the past, when I was still editing Falun Gong articles. There were perennial problems involving linking that subsided and resurfaced depending which Falun Gong devotee was around. Fighting over links to images, their placement, links to words such as 'propaganda', choice of word like 'genocide' or 'persecution' were legend and tedious. Having said that, I'm not sure that WP:Linking can solve such interminable issues. ANI or AE threads occurred every six months... --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 13:01, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

A bot for undoing self-links

Hi everyone. Please see here: WT:Redirect#Bot for undoing self-redirects. - Richard Cavell (talk) 13:30, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Request for comment

Please could I ask for some input at Talk:Fourth Doctor#Request for comment: repeating links where there is an ongoing dispute about whether or not including multiple identical links goes against the spirit of WP:REPEATLINK or not. Seriously. ╟─TreasuryTag►District Collector─╢ 21:14, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

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