Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking

Semi-protected edit request on 24 September 2020

Please replace

After playing [[Germany national football team|for Germany]]

with

After [[Germany national football team|playing for Germany]]

because it would be a reasonable link and it makes the point even clearer. 64.203.186.120 (talk) 12:43, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

I think we should just switch to some other example. The current version is too much of an unexpected submarine link despite the page saying it's showcasing how to avoid surprise, your proposed version is probably more obvious to a reader but it's not commonly used on Wikipedia. – Thjarkur (talk) 12:56, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

@Þjarkur: How about:In 1845, the Republic of Texas was [[Texas annexation|annexed by the United States]]. instead of In 1845, the Republic of Texas was [[Texas annexation|annexed]] by the United States. ◢  Ganbaruby!  (Say hi!) 09:23, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

I like it, certainly much clearer – Thjarkur (talk) 09:26, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

 Done. ◢  Ganbaruby!  (Say hi!) 09:59, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

A question about MOS:OVERLINK

In MOS:OVERLINK, it's mentioned that only major examples of countries, geographic features, locations, languages, nationalities and ethnicities, and religions are subjects with which most readers will be at least somewhat familiar. What is meant here by "major"? What constitutes as major and what constitutes as minor?

Furthermore, it's mentioned that these are not linked unless they're particularly relevant to the context in the article. What specifically is meant here? Should Australia and Western Australia be linked in Perth? Should they be linked in Politics of Australia? What about in States and territories of Australia? Also, what cities are linked and what are left without a link? Linking only capital cities would lead to, for example, New York City not having a link and Lilongwe having one, which wouldn't make sense. _Signed, Swiftestcat ^talk 13:23, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Major constitutes any country, geographic feature, location, language, nationality, ethnicity, or religion that a reader of the article could be expected to know. For instance, in the discussion of a recording, one does not need to link the nation or studio album in the first sentence, but the musician should be linked as there is a close association.

Highway 61 Revisited is the sixth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan.

I'm not sure what the manual of style is for Australian subjects, but other than the United States, the state or province should not be listed unless the subject is likely to be internal to the nation. For instance, I would argue that the Rolf Harris article errs in listing Bassendean, Western Australia, Australia. If it is for internal readers (in this example, primarily Australians) then linking it is entirely unnecessary as the link will likely never be clicked. Similarly the article on Gordon Lightfoot lists Orillia, Ontario, Canada, but the province is not linked. New York, London, Paris, Munich and most other cosmopolitan cities do not need to be linked, unless they're relevant to the context in the article. For instance, I would link the city of Sydney in the article on the Sydney Airport, but not in an article about a sportsperson, or the like. However, if you're linking the city, I would definitely not link the state (if it were listed) or the country. If the article on that sportsperson had a personal life section, I would not link that the person was "Christian", or "Evangelical", or "Anglican", or "Jewish", etc. It's probably not necessary.

The way I've heard it explained is that you should ask, "will the reader click on a link to this subject because they are unfamiliar with it?" If the answer is "no", then no link is needed. I've also heard it suggested that if a reader were to ask, "what's that thing? You know, the one that <subject> is known for? Oh I know, let's go to <subject>'s Wikipedia article to read more about it." Would the link be there? If no one would ask that question, don't link it. For instance, "what the name of the mountain the Edmund Hillary scaled?" If there's a link to Everest, the reader will be happy. If no one would ever ask that question, the link to Everest is an OVERLINK.

In short, this is not a rule, it's a call to common sense. By all means, avoid a WP:SEAOFBLUE. Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:52, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Input sought on use of Wikilinks in table

I'd appreciate input on the use of Wikilinks in the table located here. My view is that individually Wikilinking each instance of "Singles match" is excessive; another editor has contested this and pointed to the wording at MOS:REPEATLINK. The MOS states "if helpful for readers, a link may be repeated in infoboxes, tables..." I would welcome a view on whether the Wikilinking of each instance of "Singles match" in this table is or is not appropriate. McPhail (talk) 16:04, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

The user McPhail did not give much background here which makes it difficult for a reader to understand what was being asked. For example, every instance of a match is linked at WrestleMania 35#Results. Per WP:REPEATLINK: "Duplicate linking in stand-alone and embedded lists is permissible if it significantly aids the reader. This is most often the case when the list is presenting information that could just as aptly be formatted in a table, and is expected to be parsed for particular bits of data, not read from top to bottom. If the list is normal article prose that happens to be formatted as a list, treat it as normal article prose." These results are often not read top to bottom and are a perfect example of this exception, as someone may come to these results tables and will want to see what happened in the final match and not the opening matches

In addition WP:PW has already discussed this and by consensus agreed it should be repeated and created a style guide based on the interpretation of this policy. There is a hidden table behind a green bar at WP:PW/PPVG, which shows the agreed upon use based on this exception. - Galatz גאליץ^{שיחה Talk} 16:17, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

The salient question is whether the duplicate linking "significantly aids the reader". My view is that in the table in question it does not, but I would welcome views on this point. McPhail (talk) 16:21, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

If they were not duplicated, in addition to "Singles match" being linked once, 4 of the people in match #7 would not be linked. A person who was not reading the table from top to bottom, as one typically will not in results tables, is aided by this duplication. Your argument would say no one should be linked in the results table at all since they are linked in the article already. So either repeating links is helpful or its not, and clearly you think it is or else linking the article should be enough. - Galatz גאליץ^{שיחה Talk} 16:29, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

The statement in the MOS for repeating links is intended for tables where you have a count of rows > the height of a page (so, let's call it 30 rows). That table fits entirely on one page, even on most mobile displays. I would suggest removal here. --Izno (talk) 00:42, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Redirect-link in a hatnote

{{Distinguish}} says it is to be used in cases of linguistic confusion. Suppose for an article there is a similar-spelling/pronounciation unrelated topic, but that other topic is actually synonym of (and therefore redirect to) an article whose actual page-name is totally different. As a specific example, "fluorene" is similar to "fluorane" but are unrelated topics, and fluorane→hydrogen fluoride as synonymous. Is it appropriate to use the redirect in the hatnote, or should (instead, or also) the redirect's target be listed? For example, should the Fluorene article have:

• Not to be confused with Fluorane
• Not to be confused with Fluorane or Hydrogen fluoride
• Not to be confused with Hydrogen fluoride

DMacks (talk) 18:25, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

To explain to the reader why a hatnote is there, the first alternative makes the most sense. The second is confusing because the "or" is not really an "or" as both terms link to the same article, and the third leaves the reader wondering why there could be confusion. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 00:15, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

MOS:EGG and linking to specific pages

I've come across a similar question a few times now, and wanted to present it here for more general consideration. It arises for pages like, for a prime minister John Smith of Foobaristan:

• At Smith's page: Smith downplayed the threat of the [[COVID-19 pandemic in Foobaristan|COVID-19 pandemic]] vs. Smith downplayed the threat of the [[COVID-19 pandemic]]
• At the 2020 Foobaristan elections page: A major issue of the election was the ongoing impact of the [[COVID-19 pandemic in Foobaristan|COVID-19 pandemic]] vs. A major issue of the election was the ongoing impact of the [[COVID-19 pandemic]]

In both of these instances, plus a bunch of other similar ones, we have three options, all of which have drawbacks:

1. Link to the worldwide pandemic page, a less appropriate and less useful link than the country-specific pandemic page would have been, thus going against MOS:SPECIFICLINK.
2. Link to country-specific pandemic page, introducing a possible minor MOS:EGG issue.
3. Adjust the passages to make the link something like [[COVID-19 pandemic in Foobaristan|the country's COVID-19 pandemic]], introducing unneeded verbiage that is already clear from the page's context.

There's no perfect solution here, but my sense is that different editors have different editorial approaches to balancing these concerns, leading to slow-motion edit wars and inconsistency, so it'd be nice if we could decide on the best option for these situations. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:31, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

• Personally, in most cases I tend to go for Option 2. The more specific pages almost always link prominently to the general page in their own leads, so someone who ends up at the Foobaristan pandemic page can easily find the more general page if that's what they want. Conversely, linking to the more general page (option 1) typically means that readers who might have benefited from the more specific page won't read it. Option 3, if applied at wide scale, would lead to lots of very clunky prose that would ultimately reduce readability. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:31, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
• This is not a question of EGG actually in that it might be surprising. It is a question whether that is the most accurate inference for what that person said. Was he actually talking about the pandemic in Fooistan? Yes? Then a link there is reasonable. If not, then a link there is not reasonable, regardless of any other case. You shrug this off as unneeded verbiage but it is in fact sorely needed. Assuming the link is reasonable, then the text should always make it clear where someone is going, so that leaves us with 3. --Izno (talk) 20:53, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
• You raise interesting points that show how much skill we editors can apply to linking. Another option, too rarely used, is to link to the actual target name downs in the ==See also== section. Tony (talk) 07:48, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
• Use the specific link where it is reasonable. MOS:EGG is not necessarily a concern: "it should at least take them somewhere that makes sense". Unless the person was dealing with COVID on a larger scale (e.g. international trade impacts, general worldwide research, etc), the country specific article would generally be more applicable.—Bagumba (talk) 09:49, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
• Linking to the specific page seems better overall. As argued above, it's not a surprising target, and it's easy to find the general page from the more specific one. I'm not sure that inserting modifiers like "the country's" is all that clunky; that's perhaps down to a matter of taste. XOR'easter (talk) 21:40, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Need for clarity on linking major American cities

Several years ago, we renamed articles on the major American cities to remove state names. Thus, Los Angeles, California became Los Angeles. Chicago, Illinois became Chicago. Houston, Texas became Houston. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania became Philadelphia. Boston Massachusetts became Boston. And so on. The rationale was that these cities are generally recognizable and do no require disambiguation.

Despite the change in naming, some users sought to bypass the new protocol by linking around the new names as follows: "Los Angeles|Los Angeles, California". User:Jweiss11 is an advocate of this work around, so I invite him to explain the basis for his position. Also, there was a 2016 discussion about this subject at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking/Archive 18#What sort of linking here, but no clear direction was finalized.

It appears that MOS:GEO is the applicable guideline. It states: "Places should generally be referred to consistently by the same name as in the title of their article". Under this language, Los Angeles should be referred to/linked by the same name as in the title of its article, i.e., Los Angeles.

As things now stand, there remains significant variation which includes: (1) Los Angeles (which MOS:GEO seems to support); (2) "Los Angeles|Los Angeles, California" (which Jweiss11 advocates); (3) Los Angeles, California (triggering a redirect to Los Angeles); (4) Los Angeles, California (with separate blue links to city and state); and (5) Los Angeles, California (blue link to city, no link to state).

My view is that (1) is correct, though (5) might be ok if there was some legitimate reason to believe that the state ought to be included in a particular case. Wider input is sought here so that a consensus, one way or another, can be reached. Thanks for giving this a moment of your time. Cbl62 (talk) 00:01, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

• In case anyone's wondering, the origin of the no-state cities is WP:USPLACE, which provides Cities listed in the AP Stylebook as not requiring the state modifier in newspaper articles have their articles named City unless they are not the primary topic for that name. Buried in the footnotes is this list: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Honolulu, Houston, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.—although Washington, D.C., does have a territorial qualifier and New York is naturally disambiguated.

  EEng, do we have any guidance regarding non-American cities? I'd imagine that if we're referring to Seattle without the state, we'd do the same for e.g. Montreal. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:38, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

  Articles certainly refer to (simply) London, Paris, Rome, Berlin, Moscow, Tokyo, but I don't think there's a central list. Notice those are all national capitals, but surely not all national capitals go on that list (though having said that I went to see how the capital of Tonga is styled, and it's simply Nukuʻalofa -- not Nukuʻalofa, Tonga -- so I don't know). On the other hand, "surely" there are non-capitals outside the US that go on the list; if we feel readers don't need to be told that Cincinnati's in Iowa then surely we don't need to tell them Toronto's in Canada (much less Ontario -- or maybe we tell them it's in Ontario but not Canada? -- my head whirls). EEng 02:52, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

  Readers definitely don't need to be told that Cincinnati is in Iowa. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 03:56, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

I think there's a time and place for revisiting that list, which seems to have been drawn up around 1920. (With all due respect... Cincinnati? Really???) But for now, let's stick with Los Angeles as the canonical example. EEng 02:23, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

• I favor "1" or "3" in most cases, with "1" being more common usage. Other forms WILL be needed from time to time. I would NOT be in favor of making wholesale changes to existing pages, but if someone did do a page-wide change to one page or a small number of pages, and the results were consistent within each page, I wouldn't blindly revert them without starting a discussion. On the other hand, if someone decided to do mass-changes without a discussion first, that would be disruptive. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 00:19, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
• I prefer "1" though I want to recognise there will be instances in which it's appropriate to include the name of the state in the article. So, #1 is preferred in most instances, but #2 or #3 is fine when maintaining consistent prose is more important (for instance, in a list with cities that don't follow those rules and include the state), and #4 should probably be used in relevant infoboxes, for instance birth and death locations. SportingFlyer T·C 01:18, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
• Thanks for bringing this up. I've long been a little unsure just how much linking/detail is needed. I'm interested in hearing from Jweiss11 and others, but without delving too much into the prior discussions you linked, it does seem as though they are inappropriately going against MOS:GEO.

Also, at the risk of complicating things further, there are some related questions, such as whether to begin articles with Foo is a bar in Los Angeles, California, United States or just use the city/state or just the city. Other than not linking the United States, all of this seems like it could use some standardization. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:21, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

• 4 is never appropriate one next to the other per sea of blue (or somewhere in that vicinity. --Izno (talk) 01:39, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

  Well, there is the comma, so technically it's not an uninterrupted sea, but that is something to weigh. Personally, I view SEAOFBLUE as less sacrosanct than making sure useful links are present when otherwise warranted. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:16, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

• To clarify, the disagreement between Cbl62 and me concerns usage in infoboxes and tables only, particularly place of birth/death field infoboxes, as seen at Greg Lens. For the sake of consistency across articles and between parallel elements in the same article, I advocate variation #2 above ("Los Angeles, California" or San Antonio, Texas) because it renders a style consistent with "Marshall, Minnesota". Variation #4 above should be thrown out because it's a clear case of overlinking.

Also pinging Rikster2 and Nikkimaria, who has been involved in recent discussions about whether "U.S." should follow city and state in place of birth/death fields in infoboxes; see User talk:Nikkimaria#Adding “US” after city and state on baseball, basketball, college coach articles. Jweiss11 (talk) 01:45, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

For tables that definitely makes sense for internal WP: Consistency within articles. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:16, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

• I favor the ability to display City, State in tables and infoboxes where consistency is desired. This mirrors what most sports use in rosters and biography articles in the “real world.” I don’t think use of American (or Canadian) City ONLY should be required in all cases. As for linking, I am good with 2, 3 or 5. In sport articles that I work on the correct “unit” (usually birthplace, etc) is the city/state because the question the reader is trying to “answer” is “where specifically is this person from?” Rikster2 (talk) 03:25, 24 November 2020 (UTC)