Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking/Archive 8

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Year links for extremely aged folk

As some have noted, the link is created to "gloss" the item. If someone needs more info or context with which to better understand a term, it would properly be linked. I think this holds true of the birth year of en extremely old person. Giving the year some context provides a better understanding of the rapidity of change mankind has experienced in the last century, and may provide some with a curiosity or sense of wonder about the future. This will likely always be so.robdashu (talk) 15:03, 29 January 2010 (UTC)— Robdashu (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

  • This is the same argument as wanting to link to articles where years are 'not within living memory', but that idea was also rejected in WP:DATEPOLL (or the RfC before), as I recall. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 15:17, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
That's a comeplete straw-man. This would apply only to persons noted for longevity, whereas the other poll would apply to anyone, young or old, born before 1895. It's amazing that people are actually not seeing the difference, when the difference is as great as that between trees and the ocean, not trees and grass.Ryoung122 03:06, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Ryoung, you still haven't explained why visiting an article full of events that happened that year significantly helps readers understand the subject better. It is indeed noteworthy that the person lived for a long time, but that doesn't mean readers care about what happened in the bookend years of his/her life. Dabomb87 (talk) 05:00, 11 February 2010 (UTC)


  • Before spending valuable time on this issue (and the two sections above—which seem eerily similar), I'd like to know with whom I'm dealing. User:Robdashu seems an unlikely editor to be suddenly interested in date linking. Note that Robdashu has made four contributions at WP (ever). The first two were on 13 February 2007; the next on 24 March 2009; and lastly is the one above. None of the prior edits have to do with date linking or with "extremely aged folk". Okay, I'll be the one to ask: is the account Robdashu being operated by someone else who has an interest here?  HWV258.  20:48, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
    • I too am perplexed. Why is it that the majority of "outside" commenters here are anons or newish users? If it were one or two I could understand, but the frequency of these editors popping up here belies the possibility of mere coincidence. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:19, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I, robdashu, am an independent, real live person. I am not a frequent editor, but this topic is of interest to me as I follow the status of extremely old folk and the study thereof. My grandmother lived to 111 years old, so I have a personal interest in the subject, and think it significant.robdashu (talk) 22:28, 29 January 2010 (UTC)robdashu

"I, robdashu, am an independent, real live person"—well that clears that up. Just out of interest robdashu, how did you discover this debate was occurring?  HWV258.  23:36, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, and My name is Michael Caine. ;-) Ohconfucius ¡digame! 03:37, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
Another CYNICAL comment. Your real name is certainly NOT My name is Michael Caine. Comments such as that above are disparaging and distracting from the discussion. Obviously, editor Robdashu is someone who already stated "I have a personal interest in the subject." What more disclaimer do you need?Ryoung122 03:08, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
I've never heard of Robdashu and I don't know who it is.Ryoung122 19:44, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Address hyperlink-era usage patterns in "Repeated links" section

Suggested addition for below the bulleted list:

In addition to the traditional top-to-bottom reading pattern of the print medium, Web-based content (including Wikipedia articles) is also frequently read nonlinearly, as hyperlinks take the reader to anchors within a larger article and the reader reads (or skims) that section only. This is why repeating links across sections—especially when they are a long way apart, but also even when only somewhat far—can be valuable to some readers, who can pursue a line of thought across (only snippets of) hyperlinked pages, then backtrack to the jumping-off point of their digression and resume their main reading. Meanwhile, the second link is harmless to linear-mode readers, who ignore it. However, this principle must be applied sparingly—if applied to common terms, it would result in pointless overlinking; but it has value for more obscure or technical terms.
That this nonlinear mode of reading is common nowadays will be recognized by most users. It is the healthy, reasonable end of a spectrum whose maladaptive extreme is humorously lamented at xkcd.com/214. The question is whether we duly incorporate the reasonable part of the spectrum into WP:LINKS, or whether we try to pretend that it doesn't exist, that is, try to pretend that the entire spectrum is equally bad. Of course, we'd have to codify it properly so that idiots can't cite the codification to justify completely mindless overlinking of even common terms. — ¾-10 16:42, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Ah, the assumption that people who read an article in the intended sequence can "ignore" repeated links is flawed. Every link has the potential to dilute the others in the vicinity. Our readers, in all likelihood, follow links rarely anyway. It is our job to ration wikilinking so that readers are offered the most valuable. If a reader section-links from somewhere else, they can either have a skim through the rest of the article or type into the search box any item they see in that section. Turning everything blue in the fear that one in a thousand readers might want to click on it is the old justification for blue-carpeting. If you want to see that, please go to the Fr, Ge and It WPs, which apply no notion of selectivity in their internal linking. The result is a degraded linking system, which is a huge pity.
The slippery slope here is that allowing people to justify the linking of an item once in every section will not only hugely increase the density of bright blue, but will throw the notion of skilled linking out the window. Tony (talk) 02:34, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
PS Love that cartoon you linked to. It should be widely promulgated on WP. Please see User:Tony1/Silliest wikilink of the month award. Tony (talk) 02:38, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Extremely good counterargument. I can see all sides of it. You know, one thing that provides a handy bypass or workaround to my argument is that, within the past year or so, and led (TTBOMK) by the Chrome browser team, a feature has cropped up in the major browsers whereby you can select any word or phrase at all, right-click it, and choose "Google this" from the shortcut menu. That feature is absolutely brilliant, absolutely basic, and it's really embarrassing for the makers of IE that they never made it happen (AFAICT) until Chrome shamed them into it. I believe that, as of this writing, Firefox users (and possibly users of Chrome, IE, et al) can customize that shortcut via add-ons to add "Wikipedia this" to it. The one snag is that, as of this writing, TTBOMK, only geeks do this; average Joe web surfer doesn't have any habit of shortcut-searching—yet. I imagine that within 10 years (if not 5), even grandma will be doing it regularly. That will be really great, IMO, and would make my purple argument above 90% moot. Shortcut-searching beats "traditional" searching (i.e., copy, then paste into a search field elsewhere in the window or in another window), because in many low-need-to-know instances, people wouldn't quite bother to do the latter but *would* bother to do the former. In other words, it is not just more convenient but is the difference between the search getting done at all, or not. ¶ Well, to finish up, I will say that links will never become needless or moot in all instances (even *with* the advent of widespread shortcut-searching by readers), because (a) target≠anchor text [i.e., piping] will always have a place in life; (b) the WhatLinksHere concept will always have a place in life; and (c) even when target=anchor text, links will always be a way for the message sender to convey a metamessage to the message receiver, that is, to say, "We both know that you could digress from this message by jumping off from any single word within it; but we also both know that you don't want to do that, and that it would be totally impractical. So I am using my linking choices to *suggest* to you, 'If you only jump off into digression from *one* word in this sentence, make it *this* one!'" (cf snowclone "If you only see *one* [insert_genre] movie this year, make it *this* one!"). Thanks for the interesting and thought-provoking discussion. I've decided that my purple suggested addition to WP:LINKS#Repeated_links can safely be left on the cutting-room floor. Best regards, — ¾-10 00:19, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
You raise future issues that I'd never thought of. It would have been possible for the WMF to have introduced a right-click system that treated any clicked word as a link; it could still be done. But I think you see the disadvantage in relying entirely on this: part of the benefit of flagging items with blue is to tell the readers that "this item is focused, relevant and useful to this context, and we have a decent article or section on it". If every (black) word were a potential link, it would be the ultimate dilution and, IMO, would discourage clicking. The blue highlighting, for the very same reason, needs to be constrained.
Tim Starling, WMF developer, told me that the choice of that ugly bright blue colour for wikilinking was probably done without much thought right at the beginning. Now we're stuck with it. I use a monobook code to take the garish edge off it, and I still find it an unprofessional (and discouraging) look to have more than a certain density of items linked. Tony (talk) 01:09, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
I think you hit the nail right there ("this item is focused, relevant and useful to this context, and we have a decent article or section on it"). The act of linking, which is to say, the choice of what to link or not to link, is ideally a form of metainformation that should be conveyed with pedagogic skill that respects the reader's cognitive bandwidth limits. — ¾-10 02:29, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
As for link colours, wouldn't it be most logical to just leave the browser default alone? What is the "right" colour for a reader will be too bright for another and too dark for another – and that's not just a matter of personal tastes but a gamma correction issue as well. (Ditto with many other things such as the font size (currently "xx-small" times "127%") and so on.) ― A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 11:02, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
  • You mean my personal choice of colour, or the global default, which I strongly believe was foolishly and blithely chosen without regard for utility and appearance. If I had my way, in the settings page you'd be given a range of colour choices for your wikilinks, ranging from the current garish bright blue down to a more mellow darker blue. If you want to see a range of basic choices (of which I chose the second-darkest), see my user page (scroll down). You may wish to personalise it, you may not. However, this is quite separate from my point above, which was that even though I use a less in-your-face colour, I still find high-density linking to be a problem. When I go to other WMF sites, it's hideous by comparison, I'm afraid. Tony (talk) 11:49, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
    All I meant was that if I had my way, I'd not specify a link colour at all, so that anyone (not just logged-in users) can set the colour in their browser's settings, and not just from a range but from the entire system palette. (I wasn't commenting on the main point at all.) Did you misunderstand me? ― A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 12:02, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Most overlinked article?

Gratuitous links galore. This recent version of John Quinlan (wrestler) deserves to be considered a serious candidate, courtesy of Dabomb87. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 01:54, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

It's got my vote. Anyone who says seas of blue do not interfere with readability should be shown that oldid. Some of the more useless links include "descent" (piped to "ancestor"), "Fall", "Spring", "Annual" (piped to "year"), "competed", and "placed 1st" (pipe linked to "champion"). Dabomb87 (talk) 03:00, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
Don't forget these other beauties: "December", "income", "past decade" (piped to "decade"), "event", "feud", "table" (piped to "Table_(furniture)"), "months" (piped to "month"), and "concrete".  HWV258.  03:13, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
I wonder what could have brought about that rather serious case of 'linkitis'? It just seems like somebody linked to all those terms because the were articles there to be linked to. The mind boggles... Ohconfucius ¡digame! 04:09, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
Probably stems from boredom and ownership issues—e.g. someone just wanted to keep tinkering with their pet article. Of course it's doubtful that just one wrestler received this treatment...  HWV258.  04:28, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
Oh, this is worthy of being made a museum piece. Perhaps the "Silliest wikilink of the month" should be expanded to include the most embarrassingly overlinked article each quarter. This one was a doozy. 06:53, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
"Concrete"—in an article about a wrestler?!?!?! (Shakes head in disbelief.)  HWV258.  08:03, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
It's not surprising, as the main editor of the article has no experience in editing any other WP articles - probably has not even visited any policy page (I suspect it is the wife or business associate of the subject). Ohconfucius ¡digame! 08:40, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
I have to admit, that one was truly impressive.--Father Goose (talk) 09:39, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
A good laugh, but re noobness, we should remember not to bite. I can well imagine what it's like to enthusiastically make some first-time contributions to Wikipedia and then have people bite your hand off for being hyperlink-happy. You go from not even knowing that you did anything wrong to being laughed at and shamed. It's no good for developing the encyclopedia, because 2 outcomes are likely: either they leave in disgust and never contribute again, or they overlearn and go around hypercorrecting (read: no link is OK) until someone else bites them for being a delinkification nazi. Actually I think such a process is the general principle of pedant creation. Pedants begin life as insecure students getting slapped with rulers for trivial offenses. So remember to guide without slapping! — ¾-10 02:23, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, I agree that I would be more comfortable if the stance against "overlinking" were not quite so, um, passionate. More than newbies have been chewed in the name of anti-overlinking, as the datelinking case demonstrated.
That's not to say I'm for overlinking, but this is one of those issues on Wikipedia that I wish could be discussed on a more rational and less emotional level. Just saying.--Father Goose (talk) 06:20, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
  • I quite see what you're saying, Father. (I'm feeling devotional.) The linking debate runs deeply because it concerns nothing less than an evolutionary change in this early part of the history of wikis. We began with this great new distinctive functionality and people understandably used it as they wished, without much skill or guidance, for at least the first few years. Then after three or four years, there was a realisation by many editors that the project was covered with blue that wasn't useful and had the unintended effect of diluting valuable links and reducing the readability and professional look of the text. There is still a divide between those who value these things differently. The encouraging aspect is that once someone understands that wikilinking is a skill, like writing good prose, and that it should be used strategically, they usually fall completely into the "ration it or it's wasted" side. But that underpins why it's sometimes a politicised matter rather than just a technical one. Tony (talk) 07:11, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
    Tony, our differences on the concept aside, the comments above are an excellent example of why the execution of this matter needs to be approached with more care than has been done to date. There is no value at all to mocking people as above, nor is there any benefit to making this out to be a "critical matter" rather than the stylistic difference it actually is. The proponents behind the "delinking" campaign do need to accept their share of responsibility for the way that this has been a) imposed upon the community, and b) presented in a rather confrontational manner. One would be hard-pressed to not mistake the delinking campaign for some sort of new Wiki-religion, what with the strident comments, the over-the-top characterizations ("sea of blue" for one), and the way in which those who don't meet the "test of faith" sufficiently have been misrepresented and vilified. Even the method of delinking is somewhat suspect; "cleanups" are done by scripts that mix the delinking with various other less controversial tasks, which makes it harder to revert individual contested changes. More to the point, this particular script-based approach does not incorporate any form of consensus-driven agreements as to what exactly should be delinked. The lists of terms are buried in the script's code, which itself is hosted on a user page, not a public page, and the specific choices have never been open for debate or discussion. There needs to be a greater emphasis on respecting the middle ground in this stylistic difference of opinion, rather than on pushing through one particular point of view at all cost. --Ckatzchatspy 08:55, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
Ckatz, I do wish you'd not start with an accusation. Where did I "mock" someone? What is the difference between "critical" and "stylistic"? Is your language itself confrontational? ("imposed", "campaign"?). I've yet to see a single word from you in substantive debate; just personal stuff. As far as scripts go, I usually unlink much more than what is listed on any common-term script, manually, and I check through what has been unlinked already. It's important to do so in terms of context. Tony (talk) 12:47, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
Tony, please review the message I left on your page, where I specifically said that I wanted to keep the back-and-forth personal bickering between us off of this page. My comment is directed at this entire thread, not your note in particular; you weren't even a participant in the top half of the section. Both 3/4 10 and Father Goose's comments above suggest that they are uncomfortable with the way in which the editor who made those links was described; just think how that person would feel if they came here themselves and read that. As for the scripts, many terms that end up being unlinked are embedded in the code, with little or no chance for the average Wikipedian to discuss or change them. For example, there is no easy way to identify all of the cities and countries involved without the expertise needed to wade through the script's code. --Ckatzchatspy 23:11, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
Ckatz, I don't think anyone's means to mock the other editors, who, as Three-quarter-ten said, were contributing in good faith and may not have been aware of Wikipedia's linking guidelines. It was just surprising to find an article where the principle of building the web was taken to a rather extreme level. I do take issue with your comment that a "sea of blue" is an over-the-top characterization. Dabomb87 (talk) 15:31, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
"Sea of blue" gets tossed around far too often, in situations where it really doesn't apply. It is also a personal opinion, based on individual preferences, as to whether or not the number of links is excessive. That is central to the problem here; it really is a difference of opinion as to what and when to link, yet it is being treated as an "I'm right, you're wrong" issue with little room for seeking common ground. Again, if we are performing wide-scale script-based operations to strip out links, there has to be some way for the average editor to easily have input into the process. There needs to be a simple, readable list in an easily accessible location, one that can be reviewed and discussed. There also needs to be a better method of assessing context; I've seen some script-based changes that make no sense whatsoever in the context of the article they are in. --Ckatzchatspy 23:22, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
  • I'd like to take responsibility for the article I delinked largely. In view of the comment above, as there has been little comment [from CKatz] on where linking/delinking balance should lie, I'd like to be enlightened as to what extent Ckatz thought I went overboard - firstly if (s)he agrees the article was overlinked - if there were any terms/words I delinked which (s)he felt were inappropriately done, and if so, which ones they were? At least then, we can have a concrete rather than abstract discussion about the whole subject, and no more beating about the bush and accusations of religious zealotry. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 17:36, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
  • That unfortunately would be an example of the mocking attitude mentioned earlier. Or at least a 'way to kill the joke' moment.
    I keep meaning to follow up in this thread on a serious level. Ckatz has a lot of good points, but this conversation almost immediately drifted back into the old tit-for-tat.--Father Goose (talk) 03:01, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
  • I'll make a suggestion that everyone needs to lighten-up over this issue. There are horrendously over-linked articles, and we just have to accept that and move forward (as those articles get encountered and fixed). I guess that some of us don't mind a little (light) mockery—to encourage other editors to realise that over-linking isn't desirable.  HWV258.  03:32, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
  • You should see that I don't mind a little light mockery, considering I cracked the 'concrete' joke. But mockery in general is not a good strategy for attracting sympathizers to your cause. If you really want the reform to move forward well, treat your opponents -- and even those overlinkin' fools -- with the utmost of respect, and spend your time on winning them over instead of beating them down.--Father Goose (talk) 04:02, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
  • OK, lets separate out the issues of defining to what extent any link is not desirable, from the mocking, which I would tend to agree may get people the wrong way and thus become rather unproductive. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 04:21, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Three classes of desired links

Thinking to what's wrong with the above article and what we're trying to do as a hyperlinked work, I would say there are 3 classes of desirable links that we want to encourage:

  1. Proper names - Names of people, companies, products, and places should always be linked if used. This however excludes obviously common locations in non-geographic articles - continents, major countries, major cities like New York City or Paris.
  2. "Parallel" terms - These would be terms that are of the same type as the article's topic that are brought up in the article - for example, in an article about a chemical element, we would link any other chemical element, compound, or term that is mentioned. This is for the purpose of someone researching that topic to make it easy to jump to related articles.
  3. "Distant" terms - Given a article in a field, a uncommon term from a completely unrelated field that one would not reasonably expect to be connected to the article's field should be linked. The most common thing here would be, for example, describing the medical condition that caused a person to die. There's likely a better way to describe it. But here, the idea is to promote understanding of unexpected terms to the person researching the main topic.

This would not preclude any other types of preferred links, but this type of advice - covering near terms and distant terms - would see to help give value to a lot of our links. --MASEM (t) 04:58, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

This is a good starting-point, Masem. Even so, the categories need to be examined carefully. I have seen "Jesus Christ" linked many times in contexts where, IMO, it does not qualify. It would qualify for a link in the article on the RCC and any other religion, but not in almost every other context. Tony (talk) 05:56, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

This is a good starting point. I'd like to add one more class, or pseudo-class: links in tables and other non-prose sections such as infoboxes. It's my sense that in non-prose sections, links are valuable as a compact way of explaining the meaning or context of a term (table headings, single-word entries, etc.). Not to say that a table or infobox is a free pass for linking, but I'd say they have more value and less intrusiveness there than in prose.--Father Goose (talk) 08:59, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
I would definitely consider those, but keep that as a separate concept (eg that is more how tables and infoboxes should be presented, with standalone links), and keep the issue at hand for what is present in prose, where meanings of words can otherwise be inferred from surrounding text. --MASEM (t) 15:05, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Separate concept, fine, but we do need to develop it alongside our "links in prose" standard so that the differences between what we expect in each are formalized.--Father Goose (talk) 00:29, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Links in tables are already treated as a different matter, aren't they? I'd be inclined to focus on running prose. In addition, you may wish to examine the "Four key tests" for whether an item should be linked, here. Tony (talk) 07:14, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Except when they arent: [1]. I can't really figure out why you de-linked terms like Norway and West Germany (in some places but not others), and didn't de-link Yugoslavia or Lithuania, and you left an entire table full of United Stateses alone. Some of the de-linking you did made sense, such as delinking country-after-city, but given that none of it was prose (except the lead), I'm not sure how critical it was to de-link any of the country names appearing alone, regardless of their familiarity.
I'm not intending this as a criticism of that specific edit, but as a demonstration of how de-linking in tables and templates is an entirely different art from de-linking prose; consistency of formatting, among other things, comes into play. So it's important that the differences we recognize between tables and prose are spelled out clearly in the guideline, so that they may be consistently observed in practice.--Father Goose (talk) 09:22, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
It's probably because templates such as {{USA}} and {{UK}} etc. link to the country article at the same time as generate the flags. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 09:34, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Ah yes, that does explain the inconsistencies.--Father Goose (talk) 10:10, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Speaking of country flags - it has been brought to attention that flag icons may not be a free as some users expected (eg the EU flag), in addition to being questionable means of identification at the size used, and we may need to depreciate their use within tables or infoboxes. But that's not directly to linking in prose, just a different issue. --MASEM (t) 15:12, 23 February 2010 (UTC)


Overlinking At Steamroller

We should keep internal links (bluelinks or wikilinks) to a mininum:

  • if it is not a piped link
  • unless it is to a different article

road roller is linked 3 times:

  • "A steamroller (or steam roller) is a form of road roller"
  • "This is another example of how the use of "steam roller", to describe a modern road roller, still persists in the English language."
  • "* Road roller – internal-combustion-powered road rollers"

We should reduce the number to 1. These 3 instances seem to have different definitions. We should write these occurrences so that it is readably more clear, but I have a dispute with some editors. Please help resolve this dispute.174.3.99.176 (talk) 00:13, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Extraordinary abuse of our wikilinking facility

Here. It has just been entered at the Silliwili awards for March. Tony (talk) 02:36, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Looks like vandalism: [2]. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:19, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Announcement: Silliest wikilink of the month awards (January–February 2010)

Evidence has recently surfaced confirming that the Moon really is made of cheese.

Greetings, my fellow Wikipedians, and welcome to the second SILLIWILI awards ceremony for the year two-thousand and ten of the Common Era. This time I was supposed to make the announcement earlier, but have delayed it as a courtesy to the Oscars. Let it never be said that I wish to steal anyone's thunder.

Before we begin, an announcement. As some of you may have noticed, there have been a couple of changes to the rules. Or, rather, we have created a couple of rules. These will apply from this month onwards, and are the following:

Firstly, the scope of the contest has been restricted to articles. It is to the mainspace that the Manual of Style applies, so it makes sense not to include project pages and templates, which often follow different (or no) guidelines. Therefore, last December's winner will probably be the only project page to win the award, at least as long as I am judge. But that's not necessarily a bad thing; I suppose such anomalies and exceptions are at the core of any event's history and cherished traditions...

Secondly, a limit has been placed on the number of links that can be nominated for each article. I cannot put enough emphasis on the fact that in this contest we reward links, not articles; each submitted link is judged individually on its own merits, and therefore it is counter-productive to flood the nomination tables with them in the hopes of increasing an article's chances. The new limit of four links is meant to encourage nominators to think harder about the specific links they enter. Note that, as only one link can be silliest wikilink of the month, groups of links are necessarily represented by one of their number if selected (see October 2009). Among the elements evaluated in all links are their surroundings, so nominators can submit one link from a group and make a note about this. It will be noticed anyway, but it is best to draw attention to the fact that the link is part of a group, just to be sure.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, on to the awards for the last two months. Drum roll please...

  • With 82 entries, January 2010 broke all records of participation, and I cannot begin to say how delighted I am. This was, of course, what made me realise that a nominations limit was necessary, but I am certainly very happy to see so many new faces. Unfortunately, this also means that my choice is made harder, and that I'll have to pass over many excellent candidates. Now, the winner... Enough drum roll, thank you. Ahem. From the article Civil confinement, an unexpected bit of linguistic meta-commentary in the form of the link [[Litotes|not without]]. Nominated by Robofish, it is a type of Easter egg that we should never, ever have to see in articles, and for this reason it wins this busy month's award.
    • Two honourable mentions this time. First, SuperFlash101's "3", from Phineas Flynn. Not only was it entirely unnecessary but, as most Wikipedians know, it leads to the article for a year—specifically, the year when the rule of emperor Augustus was renewed for a ten-year period, and Wang Mang foiled a plot by his son, his brother-in-law and the Wei clan to oust him. Interesting stuff. Second, Majorly's "linked" from Rubber duck. I actually found "spoke" funnier, but one has to appreciate the self-referential nature of redundantly linking the word "link".
  • In February there were many bizarre links (although definitely fewer than in January), and I liked many of them, but the award goes to one with a great educational value, which illustrates one of the greatest mistakes an editor can make when linking. The article in question is Marvin Gaye, and in it could be found the following gem: "Martin Lawrence". See how hard it is to tell that they are two links? After some dithering, I decided that the first link—"Martin"—was more ridiculous (the disambiguation page was longer), and so this shall be the silliest link of February 2010. A warm round of applause for its nominator, Belovedfreak! All right, enough applause; I should also like to tell him that his diff was, rather oddly, for the current version of the article, and I had to search for the version with the link. If I cannot find the silly link, I cannot select it, so please be careful.
    • My second choice for this month was another confusing link: Tony1's[User:A. di M. (Edited by Ohconfucius ¡digame! 15:16, 11 March 2010 (UTC):)] "LHC" from Large Hadron Collider was a delightful false tautology with a great potential for throwing readers off track.
      That entry was mine, not Tony1's... ― A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 15:00, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
      • So it was!

And so ends the second awards ceremony of our competition. I do enjoy what I do, but make no mistake: entertainment value aside, if I could wish out of existence all links like the ones seen above, I'd do so. However, in the knowledge that there will be such links for a long time to come, I can only hope that they will be found, eliminated, and placed here for all to see and learn from. And on this note, I leave you for another two months of judicious de-linking. From Waltham Hall, I bid you a good day! Waltham, The Duke of 06:04, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

What? My goodness, the card was misprinted. Please, Mr A. di M., accept our sincerest apologies for this terrible error. Here, have some money, too. Please don't sue us.
Now, let's have a talk with my loyal and effective employees... They deserve a bonus for their hard work, don't you think, Cartwright? A severance package, perhaps... Waltham, The Duke of 17:07, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I shan't sue you; I acknowledge how hard such a work must be, and errare humanum est. ― A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 19:52, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
Delighted to make history as the first and last anomalous winner in defiance of these very reasonable new rules :-) Commendable work, your Grace. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 09:36, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

'Germane' again

I have noticed during my recent travels across Wikiland that articles carry a large number of links which I believe to be unhelpful although they may satisfy the 'relevance criteria' because they are not sufficiently germane. We all know now that whilst linking in an intelligent fashion helps the readers' understand the topic in question, linking can also be value destroying. In much the same way that linking to dates should only be done when the date is germane - and it now seems to be accepted that dates in the vast majority of instances are not - I have amended the text accordingly, to state that other links should also be germane. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 09:44, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Looks good to me. CKatz, would you mind going into the issues that you feel make it an undesirable edit ... substantive issues? Tony (talk) 02:01, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Reverted, because the existing version is simpler, clearer, and doesn't merge the "technical terms" language. (Not sure why this didn't post previously.) As an aside, I'd ask per WP:BRD that you please refrain from reverting your change back in until we can get a good range of input. This being a guideline, it is important that we establish consensus for revisions first. --Ckatzchatspy 03:10, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Simplify and clarify if you wish, but there is every good reason to provide editors with advice on the linking or non-linking of technical terms. Tony (talk) 03:14, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
I merged simply because I felt that these are similar ideas which are more logically grouped. In essence, I made two changes: one was the merger of 'technical terms and jargon', the second one was the insertion of the word 'germane'. Your argument above targets the former, though it's good that you do not appear opposed to linking what is not germane. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 03:30, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
CKatz, your recent edit summary is on the boundary of WP:CIVIL: "Please have the decency to revert yourself when you realize I did post a discussion". Whatever you may feel emotionally, please do not allow it to spill over into statements that accuse another editor—in this case, Ohconfucius—of indecency. As an admin, we look to you to exemplify the community's expectations of calm and even-handed behaviour towards other editors. Tony (talk) 07:17, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Tony, please stop the incessant overuse of WP:CIVIL; it is really quite tiresome, and unbecoming of a long-time editor such as yourself. For some reason, you've chosen to tag me alone for this while completely ignoring the fact that OC used near-identical phrasing ("Please at least have the decency to discuss") in his post immediately prior to mine. You've also chosen to ignore the fact that OC and I have already discussed and resolved this between ourselves in user space, a more appropriate venue, rather than on a more public page. Now, I'm virtually certain that you'll try to censure me for this post too, but before you do so I simply ask you to review your posts (and related edit summaries) to various talk pages over the past few months and note how many times you have brought up WP:CIVIL against other editors. --Ckatzchatspy 01:49, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm not offended by the edit summary. In fact, I discovered that the edits crossed cyberspace in a short period of time, so we were slightly cross-purposes. I left a note on Ckatz's talk page to the effect. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 07:38, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Ckatz, you're right, I did not examine previous edit summaries (they're now not on my watchlist). All the same, I think you are meant to be the example of moderation in dealing with other editors. Tony (talk) 03:37, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Could you point out some examples of the links you found to be "to be unhelpful although they may satisfy the 'relevance criteria'"? Maybe there's a clearer way to make your point. ― ___A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 13:26, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Offhand, I can think of a number of them which fall into that category. I note in particular the tendency to systematically link to 'President George W. Bush', 'Prime Minister Gordon Brown' or 'President Hu Jintao'. In most cases, because it relates to somethink the individual did or said (usually related but not central to the subject), the title - and more often than not, the biography - of the individual has little bearing on the article in which the link appears. The title is what Tony would call a 'chain link', because the title is always linked in the biography, and thus wholly unnecessary. These are 'relevant', but fail germane, IMHO. A somewhat better test might be to ask oneself, before placing such a link, whether there may be a reciprocal backlink. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:01, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
Aren't these already covered by the no-chain-links "rule"? ― ___A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 10:00, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
Even if they are, the rule is not observed; also, links to George W. Bush and Hu Jintao under those conditions are not covered.
If a rule already here is not observed, why do you expect that another rule against links which are relevant but not germane could change the situation, especially when the difference between relevant and germane will not be obvious to many readers? Also, I'm not sure I get your point about "links to George W. Bush and Hu Jintao". If they are relevant (enough for a reader to be likely to want to read them) link them, if not don't link them, as with anything else. ― ___A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 12:30, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
If it's of interest to anyone, I'm having just that sort of argument with someone at Talk:Hong Kong by-election, 2010#Chain links. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 04:41, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
To someone who has never heard of Zhuhai, "the annual meeting of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Zhuhai" conveys no more information than "the annual meeting of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference", so either the place where the meeting was held is relevant (in which case the reader needs to be able to easily find out where the heck it is), or it is irrelevant (in which case, why would it be mentioned in the first place?). (I'd guess it's the latter.) The chain-link rule doesn't apply, as neither of the other links in that sentence even mentions Zhuhai. ― ___A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 15:56, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

When did we all of a sudden decide Zhuhai, Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Secretary for Home Affairs were such easy links? Benjwong (talk) 05:12, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Should this page be renamed to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (linking)?

See Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Rationalizing_MoS_page_titles.--Father Goose (talk) 21:47, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

That appears to be the way to go for the sake of cohesion and logic. Tony (talk) 01:28, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Great catch, Father (that hopefully all can agree on).--Epeefleche (talk) 03:41, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Linking "New York City" in article on New York City subway

Hi. Looking for some other views, as another editor and I have a reasonable difference of opinion, so we could use a sense as to the concurrence of view of editors who visit this page. I de-linked "New York City" in the infobox of the "New York City subway" article. He reverted. We discussed, and haven't reached consensus. What's your view? Our respective rationales are set forth here.--Epeefleche (talk) 22:02, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

The city link is certainly appropriate in this case. As per Oknazevad's comments, the city is definitely relevant to the subway system, and it is very reasonable to assume that a reader who is interested in the New York subway system might also be interested in the more general article about the city it services. --Ckatzchatspy 22:18, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
A reader who has followed a link from an article about metro systems in general may want to navigate to New York City in order to find out about the city's precise size or other details. Some readers will look for a link at the beginning of the lead, others will look in the infobox. Both types should be served. So this kind of link is actually required due to our efforts against over-linking. Hans Adler 22:30, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Speaking in very general terms, I find the infoboxes are usually the most densely linked parts of any given article (whether the field or the label), but the general consensus seem to prefer packing them in. I have seen it often argued that this is the 'nutshell' where, if the reader goes nowhere else, they will visit, and click. I really don't actually see it necessarily as binary as that, nor do I subscribe to that.

To answer the specific question, although it might be "very reasonable to assume that a reader who is interested in the New York subway system might also be interested in the more general article about the city it services", I would probably delink in en passant, but I would not expect it to stick because many editors will actually feel it is appropriate, as the comments above will prove. If you ask me if is it "useful" to readers, I say no – fundamentally, it creates a diversion from higher value links. It is actually relevant and germane, but the likelihood of visitors clicking on it, IMHO, is zero. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 01:47, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

There is no useful purpose in linking "New York City" in the infobox, unless you like the blue as decoration. This goes against the notion of focusing our readers on links that are more likely to be useful, and more relevant. "New York City", although deceptively linked via a name that many English-speakers will take to mean the local government entity ("owned by the City of New York"), is already there in the opening sentence of the main text. NYC is chain-linked from a further two links in the opening sentence. You cannot escape it. To link from the infobox as well, as though readers visit an article to look at the infobox alone (what?), is an unwanted dilution of wikilinking.
Hans Adler, if someone wants to know the "the city's precise size", why wouldn't they go to New York metropolitan area? You'll have to come up with better than that. What is it that is useful to a reader who suddently wants to divert from the infobox? I'd be pleased to know. Here's your chance to justify in concrete terms, something CKatz will never do.
Ckatz's, "the city is definitely relevant to the subway system"—relevance is insufficient; it must be useful for increasing the reader's understanding of the topic in the circumstances. By your standard, we should link "train" and "number" and "2009" and "sq. mi." as well in the infobox. We could turn everything blue: why not?
Epifleche, you did precisely the right thing: it is a service to wikilinking. Please continue. Tony (talk) 02:47, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
To answer your question from a technical standpoint, Tony, linking to the New York City article, instead of the New York metropolitan area article is precisely correct because of the political entity you mention. Firstly, the subway doesn't serve the greater metro area (a term that includes, at its broadest definition, fairly rural areas two states away), but remains entirely within the political borders of the city (the Five Boroughs). Secondly, as the article somewhat explains (thouhgh it could do a better job), the political entity of the city actually owns (in terms of real property) the entirety of the subway system (the MTA operatation of it was part of a political deal), making it a truly germane link.
More generally, as I said at my talk page, I really can't think of a more germane link for a metro system than the city that it principally serves. It is one of two defining characteristcs of a system (the fact that it is a metro being the other). Even the shortest stub article on the theoretical X-Town Metro would state "The X-Town Metro is a rapid transit system serving X-Town." Both "rapid transit" (which is the name of the article on such systems) and "X-Town" are germane, and therefore link-worthy, because they are neccessary to define the subject at the most basic level. oknazevad (talk) 06:17, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
"Relevance is insufficient"? Really? That's almost as good as the "Wikipedia is not about consensus" claim that was used by another editor in an unrelated discussion. Tony, once again I'd appreciate it if you could avoid cheap shots and presumptions as to what others are thinking. The discussion is specifically about linking the related topic "New York City", not about basic words such as "number", and making spurious claims about unrelated concepts serves only to distract from the discussion at hand. As for the link, keep in mind that many readers will appreciate it. If you don't wish to click on it, you don't have to, but there is no reason to deny the link to others who may find it useful. --Ckatzchatspy 03:57, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Lovely article, this. I found all manner of trivia, as well as 'relevant' (sic) links such as 'escalator', 'elevator', 'broken windows', 'tunnel', 'mezzanine', not to mention irrelevant ones such as 'disability rights movement' 'Los Angeles Dodgers' 'newspaper' 'photograph' and 'food'. I think this proves that "relevance" alone is not enough, they need to be 'germane'. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 04:24, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Linking should be both for germaine links and for terms that are not universally clear in the language and in relationship to the topic : both 'disability rights movement' and 'Los Angeles Dodgers' are completely fair links, as both presume an American reader. --MASEM (t) 04:41, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
[[disability rights movement|handicapped-accessible]] is a misleading pipe. You argue that 'Los Angeles Dodgers' is a lesser known term which should be linked to inform, but I really fail to see how, it being several thousand miles away in logic and physical distance, that linkiong would serve the understanding of the readr. Simpler maybe to remove it altogether as trivia rather than arguing about that wikilink. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 05:52, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Ok, "handicapped-accessible" is a very different term than "diability rights movement" and thus I would agree linking that way is unnecessary. But I will content that unless it is a well-established geographical location (United States, New York City, Paris, Tokyo, etc.) every proper noun should be linked barring certain circumstances – I expect people reading en.wiki to be readily familiar with English and thus all the other terms you listed are completely fair game to ditch links, but English language knowhow is not the same as person/place/thing knowhow. --MASEM (t) 06:17, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

As somewhat of an outsider to these discussions, and someone who isn't fond of overlinking in general, I took a look at the article. I have to say the unlinked 'New York City' in the infobox looked kind of naked. To my own surprise I plump down on the side of linking. Wwwhatsup (talk) 06:22, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Interesting how one can get used to these things. Bit like moving into a quieter district, one would initially feel it's too quiet. ;-) Ohconfucius ¡digame! 06:55, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Interesting how one can find out all sorts of interesting things about oneself here. Thanks to Www for the insight. I, too, thought it looked naked without the link – perhaps that's precisely why I found it more appealing.--Epeefleche (talk) 08:33, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
  • I think one reason it looks naked is that infoboxes are similar to navigation templates in important respects. And to some degree they function as such. (I certainly use them in this way.) Therefore an unlinked germane word such as "New York City" signals that we don't have an article for it. Hans Adler 08:51, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Sorry, Hans ... I should have left a smiley face, I guess. That was meant as a joke. I don't view it as naked. Looks fine to me. Sorry for the confusion.--Epeefleche (talk) 09:29, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Regardless of whether it looks naked to you or not, my point remains: Infoboxes have a second function as rudimentary navigation boxes. If we restricted this function by rigorously restricting links in infoboxes, we would probably get more navigation boxes. That's not a desirable outcome at all. Hans Adler 09:34, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Ckatz, I made no "cheap shots": everything I say is thought through. I must ask you again not to personalise issues; you are close to the boundary of WP:CIVIL, although not over it on this occasion. As an admin, we expect you to set an example, not to push debate into a personal frame. Please calm down—we need your talent as an excellent writer and editor, not engagement in mild combat at every opportunity.

Hans, if I can't work out the metropolitan/railway/boundaries issue from either the text or the links, it's not working. I am not assisted by linking to the whole NYC article. It wastes my time as a reader pretending that it is going to help me. That is what irritates visitors, and those who follow links to what turn out to be oceans soon give up on clicking at all. If we want visitors to hit wikilinks, we have to do them the service of rationing them, funnelling them down what we know through our acquiantance with the topic to be the best. Section links and daughter-article links need FAR more consideration, here and elsewhere.

Hans, you say "Therefore an unlinked germane word such as "New York City" signals that we don't have an article for it." No no no, we need to sit down over a cup of coffee to work through what I believe is a complete misinterpretation of the function of wikilinking. Please put yourself in the role of a visitor who knows nothing of wikipolitics and is just reading the text for what it is: such a message is, I believe, an artefact of being too close the machinations behind WP.

More generally on this article's links, I find a lack of skill and thought in some of the pipes: some are quite deceptive. I've tried to improve a few. Bad piping is almost as damaging as overlinking. Tony (talk) 09:18, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand your point, and in fact I am not sure there is one. Hans Adler 09:27, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
My points are that aside from the issue of linking NYC, the approach to linking/piping in this article leaves a lot to be desired; and I believe there's a basic misunderstanding in your view of wikilinking. Tony (talk) 09:45, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
I can't help but noticing that another disinterested editor seems to have come across the results of the wide-ranging, blanket de-linking scripts that one or two editors are running - and encouraging others to run - and commented that their application seems a little strict. As I suggested elsewhere, most people probably don't care too much one way or the other, but I'm obviously not alone in thinking this is all a little over-zealous, and being done without much in the way of consensus or accountability. It's also a little disappointing to see the same arguments still being trotted out, for example that people raising concerns "want to see everything linked" or a "sea of blue", and that those running this delinking campaign are doing it for everyone's else good because they know best. I'm also a little confused as to how linking from the New York subway page to the article on New York City, or to the page on the Seoul subway system, are examples of bad or irrelevant links, which must be purged. Even strictly interpreted as written, WP:LINK would appear to have no problem with this kind of link.
I'm unclear as to how any link can strictly be described definitively as "not useful", let alone "unhelpful" - even what appears to be the dumbest link to one person is presumably likely to be useful to someone. If someone wants to move on to read another page on a related and significant topic - either because they don't know what the topic is about, or because they wish to see how WP treats the topic - why prevent them from doing so, especially out of prose, in an infobox? If you yourself don't want to read that page, and don't think personally that it is a useful link, don't click on it. But why deny that option to others? Claiming that "everyone knows what X is", or that "we're trying to direct people to the articles we think they should be reading" don't really cut it - it's surely impossible to make generalisations about why people do move between pages, and quite frankly somewhat arrogant for a small self-apppointed group to attempt to dictate how they should move between pages. People seem to have put a lot of thought into all this in order to come up with their own personal theories - that's all they are, after all - about the principles and purposes of wiki-linking, and then used that to justify an extensive de-linking drive. In my view that all rather over-complicates the issue - and in any event, seems to translate rather simplistically into nothing more than a fixed list of terms that apparently have to go.
Look, all we're talking about in the end is a convenient device that allows easy navigation between relevant non-trivial pages in an online environment, and makes some text go blue. The scripts being run might have the marginal/debatable advantage of making a few words on each page stop being blue (while leaving plenty of others), but severely limit functionality and readers' ability to navigate easily to pages they may well want to go to. Since you're removing popular terms, some of those pages are going to be among WP's most-read pages. If you spot truly dumb and repetitive links on pages, why not just remove or improve them on an ad-hoc basis, as I do quite often. That's what editing here is meant to be about - not a rigid conformity, imposed without wide discussion, and without any flexibility or discretion in its application. N-HH talk/edits 14:57, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
First off, I am the one who cleaned up the overlinked New York City Subway. It was an ad hoc effort which took me over an hour; quite a lot of thought was involved. I don't dispute there is something 'mechanic' about the job - it takes on a mechanical character when a term is delinked for the fifth time. I have no idea how many links I undid, but would just say that of all of them, Ckatz chose to challenge me on approximately five links.

Secondly, articles are organic: they go through a growth phase and consolidation phase. You will undoubtedly have noticed many articles have unwieldy and or irrelevant content, whether through good faith edits or POV-pushing, that need cleaning up. I venture to argue the same applies to word-linking. We used to encourage editors to link liberally; people follow examples. I used to be one of those who linked ("wikify" is still the word which many use), as if the proper thing to do is to create as many relevant links because you can, or before you have found your place on te project. Then came the realisation that excessive linking is detrimental. Delnking is really not about the deprivation of choice - the beautiful search box on the left,and the navbar at the top is always there - just like placing good content, it's about providing knowledge in a form and quantity/quantity which, in one's judgement, would do service to those looking for it. Delinking is part of that consolidation. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 15:52, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Nothing wrong with the links to the Tokyo and Seoul subways: except I cleaned up the deceptive pipes. The link to NYC is chained twice in the opening sentence. It is one of the most well-known cities in the world. There is ample linking to it within the article. It is not a well-focused article, given that the reader almost certainly knows where the city is. There are more focused links at the start.
There is a downside to low-value links: they dilute the high-value links. Tony (talk) 16:02, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
I accept the point that this case is about manual de-linking. Ckatz replaced some of the links - correctly in my view - as a manual re-linking. That's the normal editing process in action. On the wider debate, scripts or no scripts: why make navigation more difficult than it needs to be when the facility to link is there? I don't think it's an answer to always say "use the search function". And I think the idea that there has been a "realisation" that "excessive" linking is "detrimental" - while perhaps broadly true, if we were actually talking about a push to link everything, multiple times, and if we replace "detrimental" with "pointless" - is hard to accept in the more precise sense that I perceive it to be meant, as I've pointed out at length above. Who is this "we" exactly that "realised" this, and how do we define what is "excessive" and how that would exactly be "detrimental"? The answer seems to be that a small number of editors took it upon themselves to run scripts that remove, en masse, certain terms, on the basis that this would slightly reduce the overall number of blue words, and that it would supposedly better guide other editors and readers to use Wikipedia in the way that small group thought they ought to be using it. Some others make similar individual changes. Again, I really don't understand the point about "diluting links". What does that mean exactly? N-HH talk/edits 16:20, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
ps: The fact that you used to be in favour of liberal linking and have now swung the other way, I find more worrying than comforting tbh. The zeal of the convert, etc etc (a winking emoticon would have been added to this last point, if I did that sort of thing)
  • Errr ... where did I say I used to be "in favour of liberal linking"? I saw immediately, as many educated visitors do, that there was a problem—but it took me a year or two to work it all out, and to have the confidence to promote the idea that, like writing prose, linking is a skill, not to be spattered about the way people did when it was first invented. I have grown with the project in terms of realising that the old way served no one well. Look at the French, German and Italian WPs: all blue spattered and rather dysfunctional linking systems, IMO. We have come a long way in realising that intelligent allocation, selectiveness, serves the system much better than indiscipline. Tony (talk) 16:26, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, I should have been clearer that there was an edit conflict there, and that I was originally simply responding to User:Ohconfucius, at whom those specific comments were directed. And of course focus and clarity are important, in formatting as in writing. But as I - also an educated visitor - have repeatedly pointed out, the basis for asserting what is more focused in the area of linking is being based on a whole raft of assumptions, about what people are likely to click through to as well as what they ought to click through to. I simply don't see how you can make those judgments on behalf of millions of readers, in the way that you seem to be doing, when the only indisputable changes that follow are a) slightly fewer blue words; b) less choice and navigability for readers. To what advantage precisely? N-HH talk/edits 16:36, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
  • I think NHH was referring to what I said about 'wikifying'. I seem to recall a welcome message on my talk page telling me how to contribute - one of those tasks was 'pages needing wikification'. So I went to see how other articles were 'wikified', and then set off to make myself useful to the project. I now spend about half of my time on content, and half on MOS matters. I wouldn't call meself a 'convert' at all. I found wikifying pretty brainless, and found tasks more interesting to me. Does my apparent change of register now make me a potential delinking zealot? One or two of the presently assembled might think so, but I'm pretty sure that's about all. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 16:40, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Four edit conflicts later

Yes, "low-value" links can interfere with the reader's experience. However, the problem lies in the fact the definition of "low value" has been arbitrarily created by a very small group of editors, without any real consultation or discussion. Furthermore, this definition is arguably far too strict and reflects personal preferences rather than a logical recognition of what the larger general audience may want or need. I think many people might accept that we do not necessarily need to link simple terms such as "cat" or "boat" every time they appear. However, I doubt that you would find wide-scale support for the removal of virtually all links to continents, major cities, wars, and the like. There are far, far too many examples available where the scripts have been used to strip out links without any apparent appreciation of either context or appropriateness. (According to this process, NYC was not only an irrelevant link for the subway article, but also for the article on Manhattan!) While the guideline may speak in generalities, there is no openness or transparency to the "in the field" determination as to what should stay and what should go. Links are stripped away based on an arbitrary list that is hidden away inside the code for the delinking script, where it cannot be easily assessed, or discussed. At the very least, such a list should be easily available for community review with access to all for adding and removing terms. It is also important to note that the vast majority of the script-based mass delinking is being done by a very small pool of editors. --Ckatzchatspy 16:42, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Exactly - the automated process is arbitrary in terms of what it removes, yet is based on subjective preferences and judgments, and also imposes WP-wide changes without any scrutiny or peer assessment. As I said, no one would deny focus is a good thing. But focus on what? Another clique could come along and argue that we need to reduce the number of links by cutting out those to obscure pages that no one ever goes to - however much we educated people might wish them to - but to add more links to the everyday and the familiar, since those are the high-traffic pages that should be made easier to reach. At the end of the day, people are going to follow through to pages they want to follow through to, rather than arriving at an initial page hoping that someone has "selected", on their behalf, the key links that they, as an undifferentiated mass, should be going on to afterwards - were it even possible for such a judgment and selection to be made objectively anyway. All that's happening is that if one of those terms is on the sh#t list and that page has been hit by a de-linker, they won't be able to. However, if the link is still on the page, those who aren't interested don't have to click it. Which option is providing a better "service"? I don't think that's a hard question to answer. And to repeat - trivial, repetitive links, that's one thing. Occasional links to major countries, cities etc are another, and the latter are being mined out with no consensus. N-HH talk/edits 17:01, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
I hope I understood you correctly. I seem to read that you and Ckatz seem to be giving yourselves (or anyone else, for that matter) carte blanche to link indiscriminately, calling this giving a "choice" for readers, and then try and scupper any attempt to remove links on grotesquely overlinked articles like the 'New York City Subway' article - where I counted approximately 150 superfluous links - on the grounds what I'm doing is "subjective". You are forgetting your duty as editors to actually improve their understanding of the subject of the article, and not line the proverbial boulevards with large billboards of semi-clad or naked ladies so that drivers never get to the final destination? Ohconfucius ¡digame! 18:21, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
I have certainly never called for indiscriminate links, and I have never seen Ckatz do so. Tony and others have repeatedly alleged it though. It is getting a little tedious. I would go back and dig up the relevant quotes from what I have said here and on my own talk page - where for example I repeatedly talk about "relevance" and "significance", and call for the removal of dumb links when spotted, including from the New York subway article if there are indeed 100s of them - but I don't see why I should have to go to the trouble. I mean you could just look at the very last sentence of my previous comment. Nor, for the record, do I see how an article with perhaps a few more blue words than it might have otherwise, which link to relevant and related topics, somehow prevents readers from understanding the topic at hand, as if it were plastered with saucy photos. The point is that this massive, rigid and automated delinking drive is a solution in search of a problem. And that solution knocks out some perfectly good links as often as it removes pointless ones. Anyway it was a quiet Friday afternoon, but it is now the weekend. Cheers, N-HH talk/edits 18:35, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
This discussion would be much more productive if we could avoid statements that have no apparent connection to what other editors have written. OC, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and accept that you're sincerely misreading the above posts. However, it would really help if you could identify actual statements made by N-HH or me that give you the impression that either of us supposedly champion the notion of "indiscriminate linking". I'm not seeing it in N-HH's posts, and I know that I've never, ever, ever made such a statement, despite what some contributors here have claimed. Furthermore, as for the claim that we are trying to "scupper any attempt to remove links", where does that bit of fiction come from? you yourself said earlier "I have no idea how many links I undid, but would just say that of all of them, Ckatz chose to challenge me on approximately five links." There's a bit of a disconnect between the two statements. --Ckatzchatspy 18:37, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
It wasn't spelt out. I understood perfectly what you said about automated delinking, but my comments were more general. I have been trying to pin Ckatz on where the sensible linking terrain lay, but the answer is elusive. You both send very mixed messages in the above exchanges but I think what I sensed (and wrote about) is obvious from the subtext. I grant that NHH did say xhe would delink the silly ones when xhe come across them, but when you (collectively) complain about delinking on any scale other than removal of a few square brackets, and argue so strongly against delinking on the grounds that such actions are subjective, and that a denuded article deprives the reader of 'choice', I sincerely believe one could be excused for coming to the wrong conclusion. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 12:49, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Although NHH only recently said: "I don't see why I should have to go to the trouble", the sentiment is that xhe prefers tokenism of delinking the odd silly link cross his/her arms and just tolerate, allow a poor situation to perpetuate. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 16:01, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Please, again, read what I say properly. The "I don't see why .." comment doesn't refer to the removal of links. N-HH talk/edits 09:59, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

  • I spend much more time going through articles unlinking more terms than could possibly be on a general script, checking for false positives, and in particular, fixing bad piping. When I see "daytime television" piped to "soap opera", I really become disheartened. Tony (talk) 13:58, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
  • I do not feel automation would be or can be all that helpful, in that I have been unable to discern any pattern in overlinked words, due to the variability of common words linked in different articles. What Tony says reinforces that view. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 16:01, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
To clarify, perhaps. My objections to what is being done come, roughly, in three parts -
  • A fairly fundamental one, to the idea that there is an objective truth - as opposed to varying personal views - about what links are for, about how much blue is too much and about what readers should be linking through to; and the idea that overlinking in whatever form is "damaging" and "detrimental", rather than being simply pointless and a bit unsightly. You'd probably get a broad consensus about the merits of removing trivial or repetitive links, but why elevate one particular view that goes much further than that to the status of holy writ?
  • To the idea that links to articles on countries and cities need to be removed from pages about things from those places (whether by automated process, or individually/manually). And where in wp:overlink does it say that major or well-known places, cities etc should never be linked, even when they are relevant, or even germane, to the topic at hand?
  • To the running of scripts that strip specific terms from all articles, without any apparent discretion or oversight. Where is the discussion that confirmed a consensus to remove all links to Britain, World War 1 etc from every Wikipedia page, and mandated a handful of editors to start running official-looking scripts through hundreds pages in order to achieve that?
In my view the main problem of overlinking does not lie in the fact that for example there are links to "Paris" and "France" in the article about French wine, and the solution to the problem of overlinking does not lie in the use of a script (or some other method) to remove those links, such that the page might then have a total of 51 links, rather than 54 - many of which may of course fall into the genuine category of pointless links, such that, as noted, the script has removed a couple of perfectly good links, while also leaving a far greater number of weak ones. The last two comments from each of you above seem to suggest that you actually agree with that after all, which has left me a little confused. N-HH talk/edits 09:59, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
We all agree with each other on a fundamental: we want to optimise the wikilinking system. It is strange that we are at loggerheads. Tony (talk) 12:18, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
I am not necessary a big fan of metaphors, but the best way I have been able to equate what our goals are for in linking within prose to achieve best-use is similar to that of the job of a tourist center. They know their way, to an unfamiliar visitor, to highly specific places within their area of knowledge, and can point that visitor to directions to get to afar, unfamiliar places, but they aren't going to tell you how to get to common destinations that are well outside the area they cover. Similarly, we should stick to linking of tightly associated terms for a topic, link to unfamiliar terms from far-distance fields that are useful for understanding the article, but avoid linking everything in between: common everyday English words that we would expect readers to know. The only added bit of advice based on this is the linking of Proper Nouns which should always be done except in one case: the use of geographic names (all continents, countries, and cities like Paris, NYC, Toyko, etc.) unless those terms fall into the "tightly assoicated terms" for a topic (such as the discussion of political and economic relationships one country has with another). --MASEM (t) 13:27, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
  • I like the analogy. It would be well outside the call of duty for the Japanese tourist office in Okinawa to tell visitors how to get to a particular street in Nagasaki other than suggest that the questioner 'get on a train to the city and ask at the tourist office when you get there'. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 01:39, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Tony, we are at loggerheads because of the three points I raised just above, and because you and a couple of other editors are running scripts through hundreds of pages. There were two questions there, which lie at the heart of the problem. Any answers? Masem, as per my point 1, I'm somewhat sceptical about this idea that some editors here can guide others to where they want to go or where they should be going. People use links to get to all sorts of places for all sorts of reasons. I don't really buy the argument that if people know what something is, we shouldn't link there. Yes, linking to common terms and common places is rather pointless when they are tangential to the topic, but in respect of things directly connected to the main topic, it seems equally pointless to obsessively remove them. As I said, I don't see the problem for example with links to France or Paris in the French wine page. Indeed I think that page ought to have such links. However, you wouldn't link Belgium if at some point the page mentioned that wine is often exported there. Conversely again, you would link Belgium in the article about Belgian chocolate. One other problem with the "common terms" issue is where you draw the line - at what point does a country or other thing become "well known" enough for it never to be linked? N-HH talk/edits 17:25, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
ps:can we indent a bit more consistently?
  • You know, it's the "I don't see why I should remove such links" mentality which is troubling me - even if it's the square brackets around Belgium in your example above. I won't use a script, and you start removing links more deeply - do we have a deal? ;-) Ohconfucius ¡digame! 01:39, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Directly connected and useful to the reader and sufficiently focused. Tony (talk) 03:08, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Tony: I'm not sure I've been left any clearer by your answer. Ohconfucius: but I didn't say that, as I've already explained - the "I don't see why I should have to" was referring to whether I would dig up specific quotes from my own previous comments to refute your suggestion that I was in favour of indiscriminate linking. And as to your proposal, I regularly - relative to the amount that I edit substantively overall - remove dead or uncontroversially poor links. I've done this recently on a couple of pages with both internal wiki-links, and with external links (note, with the latter, the "dilution" point does actually come into play, in my view).
If you don't mind my digging up one of your recent changes as indicative of the problem, shall we have a look at that? It also ties in with the section below about infoboxes. Anyway, this edit to "British rule in Burma" removed, among others, several links from the infobox. The changes leave in links to the "Burmese language" page - but took out the one to the "English language" page; it left behind links to Hinduism, Islam etc - but not to Christianity. That all just seems rather arbitrary. It also leaves the infobox looking disjointed, with some items within the same non-prose short collection of individual words in blue and others not. I can't ultimately see where this improves the article, either in terms of readability/aesthetics, or in terms of helpfulness to the reader, or in any other way to be honest. N-HH talk/edits 14:51, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
First off, I'd like to apologise for getting your message wrong. Secondly, I would point out that, among linking issues, inappropriate, irrelevant and misplaced inks as well as poor piping abound. I'm glad you chose one of my edits as an example: the primary problem I had with that article was the rather blind linking of terms to articles on ordinary contemporary geopolitical entities, and are completely inappropriate to the article in question; I believe that the mindset prevails, through some blind devotion to some "altar of wikification" for its own sake, or so it appears to me. Linking to English language in this article is again just plain stupid devotion to "wikification"; it is not germane, and even if it were, it is the language of this WP. I would have been a lot less inclined to remove some of the links had they been piped to British Empire or British Imperialism in Burma/Myanmar. They were not. Therefore, unless editors can be bothered to find the best link, they are fair game to removal, as being generic and misleading. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 01:31, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
  • In the article on Anglo-Friesian, maybe; but a section-link to the history of the English language might be more acceptable. In "British rule in Burma" on the English WP, such a link is rather quaintly irrelevant. If the infobox is blue-carpeted, many visitors will not realise that the items are linked. The reason to be selective is partly to show them the way to high-value links that might be more useful to them. If you want blue throughout the infobox for aesthetic reasons, why not use the syntax to create blue coloured font? The same goes for the supernatural industry: "christianity" is the establishment religion in all seven ancestral native-speaking countries and is known to any non-native who knows enough English to consult en.WP. Is it that a reader might want to divert from the infobox to the whole article on christianity? I wouldn't link any of the religions in the infobox, actually, since linking straight to hinduism without the context of the article text is rather meaningless: it is totally not what wikilinking is about. Tony (talk) 15:19, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Again, I ask - what is the harm, especially in an infobox? Also this constant talk of "high value" links, of the need to "show" people what is useful for them (whether they know it or not), and assertions of what wikilinking is all about, acording to one person's view, is somewhat arrogant. It also needs a bit more of a thinking through in terms of the underlying argument/assumptions. Let's imagine that someone comes across the page and sees from the infobox that English is/was one of the languages commonly spoken in Burma. They might then decide to link on it, to see what that WP page actually says. Now what you are implicitly saying is that they will go to that page, and suddenly say "jeez, I'm a klutz. I know what English is. I speak it! I wish someone had removed that link, to stop me making that silly mistake and going to look at the page. And because I was seduced and waylaid by that blue font, I've missed the opportunity to look at the page on the Burmese language, which is the one I really should have looked at. I see that now. If only someone smarter than me had taken the first link out, this would never have happened". This is, of course, preposterous, that's my point. Also, the logical conclusion of any assertion that we shouldn't ever link to pages on things that supposedly everyone (or 90% of people, 80%? Where do we draw the line? How would we measure anyway? Should we allow the 90% to trump the 10% anyway?) already knows about, is to argue that we shouldn't have pages on those topics at all. Again, there is surely no obvious problem with linking to relevant and/or related topics, especially in an infobox. What actual advantage or benefit is there in removing them? Simply responding that "I don't think they should be there" or "people shouldn't be clicking them", and imposing that view on everyone else, isn't good enough. N-HH talk/edits 15:42, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
  • If we are going to make the presumption that our readers know the general English language (and thus no need to link to uncommon-but-not-rare terms), we should be able to presume they also know what blue-colored text means, and how to use their browser to identify links. We can also improve infobox presentation to avoid multiple blue-links in a row on the same link without intermediate text to be clear about it. One of the things to remember is that WP has an implicit bi-direction web of link system set up; the hard coded blue links are one direction, while "What Links Here" on the left menu is the reverse, and just equally as useful as a research tool to dive backwards from a topic. In the NYC Subway example, I totally agree that linking the city in the prose is unnecessary (NYC would be one of those geographic terms I would never link unless specifically talking about geography in the first place), but linking it in infobox is appropriate and would provide that link backwards from the New York City article.
  • The other way of thinking about infobox links is that they present a loose category-like scheme without actually employing categories, presuming that we are linking back to the right terms when we do it; this is present at the top of the article as opposed to the bottom as thus to allow faster navigation and discovery if one is trying to browse for a topic quickly that they don't know enough to directly search for it. --MASEM (t) 15:46, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
  • It appears to me that there are a series of assumptions in play with regards to links; that readers will be "confused" by links; that they cannot use their own judgement as to what they want to see (and thus need our "guidance"); and that an awareness of a topic implies an exhaustive understanding of said topic, or a lack of interest or curiousity in learning more about it. There's this idea, for example, that "New York City" is well-known. Well, yes, of course it is - but that does not mean that readers know the subject in great detail, nor does it preclude the possibility that they might want to learn more about it. For example, most readers would probably be aware of NYC's status as one of the word's largest cities. They might not, however, be aware of the specifics of the city's geography or density, information that would certainly help to put the structure and development of the transit system in context. They might also have come to the NYC subway article from another transit article, and (in the process) become curious about the city itself. As an encyclopedia project, our goal should include inspiring and enabling the reader's desire to learn more, and making it as easy as possible for them to act on that curiosity. I can't help but feel that the arguments about link density are more appropriate to a commercial site rather than an educational site; if I'm looking for a book on Amazon, excessive links complicate the path to a quick and easy purchase. If I'm trying to learn something, I appreciate the ability to quickly and easily move to relevant topics. We need to see some data that speaks to effective use of linking in an educational setting, rather than for general-purpose web sites, before we get ourselves further trapped in this "sea of blue" mentality. The delink-at-all-costs approach also ignores several realities of the web, key among them being the need to position pages for the average reader, not the typical editor who cares enough to get involved in these sorts of discussions. The frequently-stated claim is that people interested in a "common" topic can just use the search function. That assumption, however, presumes that they are comfortable doing so and that they are able to do so in an effective manner through the use of appropriate search terms. Many readers who are less-than-comfortable with technology can easily be put off by the need to use a search function. Another claim used to support the delinking campaign asserts that links cause the reader to "click away" from the main article, thus interupting their reading experience. That assertion appears to conveniently ignore the modern-day browsing experience in which most popular browsers use tabs. I, for one, rarely "click through" these days but instead just open interesting links in a new tab so that I can read them once I'm finished the main article. Now, before anyone claims that I'm arguing for us to link everything, clearly that is not the case. (Hopefully we can avoid getting side-tracked with erroneous assertions.) It does mean, though, that we need to stop this frantic script-based delinking that only benefits certain personal preferences. Instead, we need to focus on finding a consensus as to what is appropriate - and only then proceed to implement it - so that we avoid seriously compromising our primary goal to educate our readers. --Ckatzchatspy 19:10, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Once again, what you say applies equally well to content as to links. This is an encyclopaedia, whose mission is to educate and inform. We exercise editorial judgements every day in deciding what content to have in any given article, we add or remove content depending on its direct relevance to the given article. Therefore, deriding the execution of delinking on those grounds cited directly above, arguing 'subjectivity' is IMHO completely specious. While I am not saying that we must reduce linking of any article to ten or fifteen or twenty occurrences, I believe it will focus the mind no end for us to prioritise in our minds when going through an article, to list the five or ten or fifteen 'most important' links. It's easy, but fallacious, to say that if you don't want to click on a link you should ignore it. Psychologically, I find that any propensity to consciously ignore a mass of bright blue links will lead to greater fatigue, or a dampening down of my sensitivity to links in general. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 07:09, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
  • How is it fallacious to suggest you simply ignore a link if you don't wish to click on it? People have been doing that for time eternal, whether they are skipping over a newspaper article that they're not interested in, flipping past a channel they don't want to watch, or skipping tracks on their music player. Look, I'll accept that you may not like the idea, but you seem to be denying the reality that there are many people who do not mind having the very same links you are deleting. After all, and despite the tedious "sea of blue" nonsense, the reality is that we are arguing over "blue" text that makes up a very, very small percentage of the content in most articles. I could better accept your rationale if we were faced with articles that really were a "mass of bright blue links" - but the fact is that most articles simply are not that way at all. If you review the objections that have been filed against the delinking script, it is clear that the problem lies not with the material that is clearly overlinked -- repeats, extremely simple terms and so on - but in the material that is subjectively perceived as "overlinked", such as geographical terms. When I look through articles and see "History of" pages that have no links to the primary subject, or articles about city infrastructure that have no links to the city they are actually in, and the article's history shows they were stripped away by the delinking script, it is clear that there is a real problem to be addressed. --Ckatzchatspy 07:46, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
I suppose he became extremely frustrated at your comments, although it's not a response I'd have advised. Ckatz, you are aware of the copious discussions about the pluses and minuses of adding a wikilink, including those concerning dilution, readability and the professional look of the page? It's as though those issues have fluttered by without notice. Tony (talk) 13:55, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
I replied to Katz on my talk page. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 14:28, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Well of course I would say this, but it seems to me that Ckatz - who is pretty much on the the same page as myself here - is actually addressing the issues at hand, and also being far more open-minded as to what the uses of links might be for different people, and flexible on how to employ them, which is surely a good thing. Equally, it is you Tony and a tiny number of others who are consistently ignoring reasonable points and queries that are being raised against the narrow rigidity of one interpretation, scripts and the more general drive to remove links to specific terms, and sticking to the "I know best what is best for Wikipedia, and this is what we shall continue to be doing" line. For example, I still have not had anything approaching an answer to the simple questions I asked here. In place, you simply assert - without explaining why - that having 30 rather than 28 links on a page, even when those extra two links are to things that are relevant and related, makes it "less professional" or "less readable". This is presenting opinion as fact, surely you can see that? I am still also waiting for an explanation as to what harm is being done by having a couple of extra words in blue. The comparison with irrelevant/poor content is bad in two ways - such content genuinely takes up space in the article and is, er, irrelevant to the article, badly written or whatever. By the time the reader has worked this out, it may be too late. Links however do not take up space, and readers can see straightaway whether they want to use them - eg "do I want to look at the page on NYC, or not?" In fact, ignoring a link is even easier than flicking a TV channel or turning over a newspaper page. In addition, the complaint here is not that you are tidying up irrelevant or trivial links, which we all agree is probably a good thing, but very much that you are taking out relevant links, because you've taken against the linking of certain terms for some reason.
Anyway, I've spent far too long arguing the toss on this. I have clearly met some people on a mission to assert their version of the truth, and no one'e ever going to persuade most of you that you might, possibly, be wrong, even in the vaguest respect, with any of this slightly obsessive drive to lessen the usability and functionality of the site, to very little apparent advantage. If I was looking for more drama, I'd go to WP:ANI on this, or maybe start an RFC. But that's just going to lead to more talk page meanderings. N-HH talk/edits 14:37, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
"I'd go to WP:ANI on this, or maybe start an RFC"—please do. Then your minority view-point will be demonstrated once-and-for-all (e.g. as per the vast number of articles that have had their over-linking reduced—without complaint).  HWV258.  02:41, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
See, the thing is, these concerns are being dismissed as a "minority viewpoint" by the same small group that is most adamant to push through the radical changes. N-HH isn't complaining about obvious delinking of repetitive material, he is (as am I) concerned about the systematic removal of useful links without any real consensus to do so. The linking guideline is being interpreted in the strictest terms possible in order to make pages meet a personal standard, rather than an objective one. --Ckatzchatspy 03:05, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
"...without any real..."—let us know when you land on one side of the fence or the other (in any case, the answer to your point is covered in my original post—to do with the failure by the masses to find problem with the delinking that is happening). "The linking guideline is being interpreted in the strictest terms possible in order to make pages meet a personal standard"—I like that: let's put it on the t-shirts. Thanks.  HWV258.  04:22, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
"One side of the fence or the other" - why this insistence that it has to be all or nothing? That's certainly not what I (or N-HH) have ever advocated. (It is, however, more representative of the way the script is being applied.) --Ckatzchatspy 04:43, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
My observation of your fence-sitting was not to do with delinking; it was to do with your vague use of "consensus".  HWV258.  05:35, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
Hmm, I do want to address this point about consensus. In fact, people - like myself when I saw the link to "France" rather oddly being removed from the page on "French wine" - have occasionally raised concerns about the delinking when they've spotted it coming up on pages they work on and have been bothered enough to speak. This whole thread was originally started as a result of someone appearing to query the point, until we all spun off into a more general discussion. I've also seen changes quietly reverted. Other editors also regularly add links to what you lot might think are pointless terms. Has there been a mass revolt? No. However, you have no idea why that might be - as with the fundamental question, you are making some big assumptions about how people think. My guess - and it is a guess, but I'm going to cover a few options with it - is that most people haven't noticed. Many of those that have aren't that bothered either way. Others, as noted, register their disagreement in other ways, more quietly. That's usually the way in the world, that most people don't usually care about fairly trivial points, leaving the field open for those with a bit more determination to get their way on something. I suspect there are also some who see something being formally run through lots of pages, and simply assume it is an officially sanctioned clean-up, which they shouldn't be messing with. And finally, the fact that you are challenging someone to raise this in a wider forum does kind of indicate that this was never done in the first place. Nor has anyone answered the simple questions that have been asked on several occasions about where any consensus discussion did actually take place; or those about whether this is all even based on an accurate understanding of what wp:link currently says - it still says it's OK to link things if they are "relevant" - let alone just a very rigid one. Who's "talking past" who here? N-HH talk/edits 14:03, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
"...this was never done in the first place"—on WP it doesn't have to be. Get it yet? If you think it's a problem please start an RfC, otherwise leave people alone to improve WP.  HWV258.  02:55, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Generally speaking, it is considered basic courtesy to discuss changes of this nature and on this scale first. As for the "leave people alone" comment, that exemplifies the arrogant attitude that has characterized this affair right from the start - and it is not how Wikipedia is supposed to work. --Ckatzchatspy 03:08, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
"Generally speaking"—again with the fence sitting! Fact: the delinking that has been done has been overwhelmingly well received. I (and others) are tired of a few that just will not let go when confronted by the facts of the case. I don't see any RfCs developing here, so I can only assume that there is no conviction to the arguments being profferred against the delinking. Please don't lecture about "how Wikipedia is supposed to work" as that is a topic that has filled many hundreds of talk pages with much more discourse than is present here. Here's one way it's "supposed" to work: intelligent, professional editors making bold decisions in order to improve article space. Some can proffer vague "register their disagreement in other ways, more quietly"-type counters, however there are no metrics backing such statements. In other words, that's a guess. Here's not a guess: there have been no RfC-type processes trying to hinder the delinking being done; so, for the fourth time: if you want metrics, formulate an RfC and let's roll. If the resultant consensus is that the linking of more common terms (or whatever the wording of the RfC is) is desirable, then I'm happy to comply. I will try to help you guys with one piece of advice: be careful what you wish for as you might just get it <insert link here to any one of the thousands of previously overlinked articles>. Regarding "arrogance", you wouldn't perchance be referring to a recent RfC that came down overwhelmingly on the side of the "arrogant" editors who turned out to be correct from the beginning?  HWV258.  03:42, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
My apologies, it was clearly an error to suggest that arrogance might have anything to do with this. That, at least, is now clear, as is my apparent inability to see "facts". I apologise as well for obviously not making it clear that I agree that overlinking, however exactly one chooses to define it, is indeed pointless. Maybe my explicitly agreeing that overlinking is an issue - while simply querying whether a little more judgment and oversight might be exercised when running scripts that strip terms out from every article, including those where it is clearly a relevant and related topic - caused some confusion on that point. I haven't asked for an RfC or gone to ANI because I don't have the time or energy, and prefer to rely on reasoned argument and a bit of give and take where there's disagreement about subjective matters. More fool me. Btw I have absolutely no idea what you are referring to in your last sentence. N-HH talk/edits 16:33, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
Ah, clarity, at last. There's history here. And you lot weren't always on the right side of it. N-HH talk/edits 22:38, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
ps: FWIW, and before I get told otherwise by those who presume to know better, and as if it were relevant anyway, I am not in fact against removing links to dates
Tony, I'm well aware of your strongly-held opinions regarding this matter; what you're missing is the manner in which those opinions are being treated as if they were absolute fact. Frankly, this discussion appears to be a case of trying to outlast the opposition; if we don't answer, we're faulted for that, and if we do answer, those posts are for the most part ignored. --Ckatzchatspy 00:05, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 2

  • Agree w/HWV258. First of all, I'm new to these parts. So I don't know who is being referred to as the "same small group", but it seems to be one that I am in, and that description certainly doesn't apply to me. Second, in this string, there appears to be a consensus, which (I'm not always so lucky) appears to be the group that I'm in. I doubt from what I see here that further discussion on this subject in this string will be helpful. As HWV says, if need be, sure any editor should feel free to go to dispute resolution if they feel it would be appropriate. I wonder whether further time in this string my not be a waste for all concerned. Best.--Epeefleche (talk) 05:45, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
  • If you examine the script-based edits, you'll note that the vast majority of the disputed delinking - that is, the more-or-less complete removal of certain terms - is being done in large batches by a small group of editors, of which I don't see you as being a part of. Other editors using the script tend to use it more conservatively, and on a much smaller scale. As stated over and over again, the problem is not with appropriate cleanup, but with this outright stripping of terms. Where is the consensus that, for example, articles on battles shouldn't link to the main article on the war that battle is a part of? Where is the consensus that New York's article is not worth linking from an article on NY's subway system? Where is the consensus that the main article on Canada doesn't warrant a link to its closest neighbour and biggest trading partner? Finally, why is the script itself - and its list of "common terms" - kept in a manner that makes it all but inaccessible to the average person? There is no forum for discussing what should and should not be on the list, and the average editor - even if they could wade through the script's code - would no doubt be uncomfortable making changes to something stored in user space. --Ckatzchatspy 05:56, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Without wishing to defend either to the hilt in this forum, there are two main concepts driving the delinking in question: "being bold" and "silence implies consent". You can also add to these a high level of professionalism from the people involved, plus an obvious desire to improve WP. Of course, if there were a large backlash against the delinking of such common terms, then the normal WP processes would apply. So far there just hasn't been that backlash. If you feel there should be more scrutiny, pull the ripcord on an RfC.  HWV258.  06:42, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Yep -- I use various scripts, sometimes including de-linking. I actually think that some -- such as the dashes script -- should be done by bots. De-linking requires more scrutiny by me than other scripts, but I find it helpful. I kicked off this string, and made my views known above. So you know where I came out on the New York matter. I think the consensus on it, to answer your question, is above. If you don't like it, as H suggested, you might pursue other avenues. As to what is on the de-link list and how you might access it, I imagine that would be a good question for someone in the know (that would not be me). I just see the discussion here, between editors who are all clearly bright and experienced, and able (and I think we would all agree on that ... and it's not always the case), as going nowhere at this point. And sucking everyone's valuable time. There are some aspects of the project that I think are much more serious, quite frankly, such as how primary sources are treated, and how rogue admins are treated -- to name just a couple I've touched on today. I think if everyone could focus on those, we could really make substantive strides on important matters. At this point, this string seems to be a time-suck. Just my opinion.--Epeefleche (talk) 06:47, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
  • The Lightmouse script is nothing new; it removed links to the USA, New York, London etc for as long as the date-linking vs delinking madness has existed, if not before. It was never a problem then, but some appear to have decided to make this the new battleground because Canada has been delinked a few too many times. Like many scripts, this one is privately written and privately maintained (had LM not become blocked). It rightly resides in userspace, IMHO. I guess Lightmouse did not put it into WP space possibly because its is an individual effort which does not engage others.

    Complaining about what the script does and then complaining that it is inaccessible is the most blatant mixed message of them all. I welcome HWV's and Epeefleche's intervention, which I think adds a greater breadth of opinion than hitherto. It has been exasperating to argue in this fashion with Katz and NHH - the only thing we seemed to agree on is that not linking is bad, and that too much linking is bad.

    I have never argued about the difference between 32 links in an article compared with 36. I would contend that there is no magical line which defines when an article is underlinked as opposed to overlinked. If anything, I suspect that, all things being equal and assuming no repeated links, the number of links in any article would have a function which falls off very sharply, much like marginal utility. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 08:26, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

  • Well maybe not "too much linking is bad", but "low-value linking is bad". In some paragraphs it's hard not to link to a lot of targets, and why not? Occasionally, for example, paragraphs in popular music articles are likely to mention albums, tracks, groups, individual performers, all of which are a good, focused, relevant, useful link-network. So why link "guitar" and "UK" as well? Nick, if those words occur as low-value links, yes, they should be unlinked to reduce 30 links to 28: fine. And don't forget that every time a visitor or newbie sees "guitar" linked, they're just as likely to think it should always be linked. Let's not lead them down that pathway. Tony (talk) 08:44, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
Well, to pick up on that specific point, actually I think a link to "guitar" on the Jimi Hendrix page would be eminently sensible. Maybe not on every band page. But again, it's a matter of judgment and context, which is precisely the point being made. I just spent about eight minutes on a page, doing some minor copyediting and taking out nearly ten repetitive links. I actually added a couple of general ones, but overall I think the page is better. No, we shouldn't get too hung up simply on numbers, but the point being made was - where is the harm, especially in terms of the "too much blue" argument, in having/keeping two additional/particular links, but at the same time clearing out the much more obviously pointless links? Where is the breach of wp:link, when the two links in question are clearly relevant to the topic at hand? Anyway, I am done now. This is indeed a waste of time and energy on what is a fairly minor point. But that of course is what makes the stubborn insistence from a tiny number of editors on ploughing ahead ust the way they want to all the more frustrating for some of us, especially when affected pages keep popping up on our watchlists. N-HH talk/edits 14:24, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
I agree with the view that there will always necessarily be a degree of subjectiveness on this issue. And I second N-HH's suggestion that continued diminishing-returns discussion on this fairly minor issue would be a waste of everyone's time and energy at this point.--Epeefleche (talk) 03:47, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Yes, the marginal utility of keeping this thread alive is approaching 1/∞. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 01:45, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
It appears quite clear that there is not a unanimous endorsement of the radical clearcutting of links that you, Tony, and a few others are implementing with the script. There is support for improving linking practices, but the way the guideline (guideline, not policy) is being interpreted is far too radical and hardline. It's a case of pushing a personal preference on the larger group, withot ever getting consensus from that group to do so. If you were to demonstrate a respect for the difference of opinion, and a willingness to compromise instead of simply belittling those who disagree with you, this discussion would indeed be far more productive. --Ckatzchatspy 02:11, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Correction: the marginal utility of keeping this thread alive is 1/∞. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:30, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, once again, for clearly demonstrating the problems inherent with the clique-like behaviour on the MoS pages. --Ckatzchatspy 02:34, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Could you post just once without making personal accusations? Tony (talk) 03:07, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Repeated links

I'd like suggest another option into section wikipedia:Linking#Repeated links: Enumerations of special terms or other items, in which almost all elements are linked. First, it is visually non-appealing when a homogeneous list is typographically non-even. Second, it is really annoying to search for a wikilink elsewhere, since usually such lists are rather out of context and often require explanation. Example: my edit. Conceptually, IMO my suggestion is close to existing items 2 and 3. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.146.69.71 (talk) 03:38, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

In cases such as yours I might do the same, but not in general. This is akin to naming people by full name the first time and by last name the following times: you'll get lists in which most people are named with full name but some only with last name, and it's not a bad thing, because the reader will understand that the latter is the same individual as someone who has already been named before. ― ___A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 11:46, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
I agree with A. di M. Here, linking "erosion" among the other related terms has technical ramifications: it's worth linking. BTW, if your point was primarily aesthetic, you could have chosen a list in which a questionable link occurred in the middle, to test the case against selective linking in running-prose lists—the blue/black "spottiness" issue. But to have a wikilinking system at all presupposes a certain amount of spottiness in the text, doesn't it? Otherwise, we'd link everything, as some people want to in infoboxes. The advantage of carefully and judiciously allocating links, even in a list of parallel terms, is that we use our skill and knowledge as editors close to the topic to show the readers which items are most likely to be useful.
On the matter of being annoyed at having to hunt down the link for a term on its first occurrence ... well, why not just type it into the search box? Bad luck if it's a gobbledy long term, but that does not often happen. There has to be some give and take if we are to minimise the dilution effect on the high-value links.
Thought of signing in? It takes about two minutes to organise. Tony (talk) 12:51, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
"On the matter of being annoyed at having to hunt down the link for a term on its first occurrence ... well, why not just type it into the search box?" because it defeats the purpose of having a hyperlinked encyclopedia? Your milage may vary, but that's the core of the problem with underlinking, as I see it. oknazevad (talk) 00:40, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Unfortunately, you could make that argument about just any word people may or may not want linked. There are examples in articles all over this electronic encyclopaedia where people appear to use wikilinking as if it served some dictionary, not encyclopaedic function. This practice is a relic from a time when we did not appreciate the fine line between value creation and destruction by linking, when we thought that more must be better. It would only defeat the point of a hyperlinked encyclopaedia to the extent that a browser encourage any keyboard input but does not exclude it. Unless where they are directly relevant (I say germane, but YMMV), such linking should be discouraged. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:14, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Misleading internal Links

Hello. In the article on Liberty City, a fictional city from the Grand Theft Auto series, there are several, possibly hundreds, of links in the article which to me seem misleading. The entire article seems like original research but that will have to dealt with over time. The fictional locations link to their real world counter parts in New York City, as observed by the various editors of the article. Is this an acceptable practice? SpigotWho? 12:50, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Agree. The information is lost if the reader doesn't hover on the links. I'd go with "Landmarks such as the Statue of Happiness (inspired by the real-life Statue of Liberty), Zirconium Building (inspired by Chrysler Building), Rotterdam Tower (Empire State Building), ...", provided the associations are attributed to a reliable source and are relevant to the point of the list. ― ___A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 14:17, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Yes; misleading piping is a major problem across WP. Tony (talk) 14:35, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Linking "London", "England" and "UK" on Queen (band)

There's an interesting debate on this at Talk:Queen (band), where one user is arguing that all three of these need to be linked. It would be great to have some more opinions there. --John (talk) 13:44, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Proper nouns, again

Since the last thread about this appears to have died, I'm opening a new one.

There's a bullet saying:

  • articles about geographic places that are likely to be unfamiliar to readers or that in the context may be confused with places that have a similar or identical name.

I can see at least three issues with it:

  1. Why are geographic places treated especially? Wouldn't that apply just the same to person names, or whatever?
  2. The part about "similar or identical name" appears to encourage links such as Springfield which are a bad thing (they force the reader to hover on the link to find out which Springfield it is, and the information is lost when the page is printed, copied and pasted, etc.).
  3. It gives no rule of thumb about when a name is "likely to be unfamiliar to readers".

Hence, my proposal (copied and pasted from above with markings removed) is:

  • Most proper names of persons, places etc. with an article on Wikipedia (or notable enough for one), unless there is a more specific link nearby (as in Thimphu, Bhutan), because a reader unfamiliar with a proper name cannot figure out from context whom or what it refers to, and would have to look it up. On the other hand, names of major< countries, major subdivisions of primarily English-speaking countries, cities of world-wide importance etc. can be presumed to be known by almost all readers, and should only be linked from articles on closely related topics.

What do you think? ― ___A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 09:29, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

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