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Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking

What is the preferred styles ? Robertiki (talk) 15:37, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Typically I remove and see others remove them, though I don't know whether there's a functional reason for that, or whether it's just to increase readability. DonIago (talk) 22:50, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For talk pages, they should be removed, and I usually do. I am less good for edit summaries, though. Usually cup/paste over the article title works. Gah4 (talk) 08:38, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If it's in the link target proper (such as Alex_Ferguson), then remove because it's visible; if it's part of the piped string, why waste time doing it. -- Ohc revolution of our times 15:15, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Remove, always. They are only ever present due to user error.--Srleffler (talk) 16:50, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: Linking of three-part place names

There are two common ways to link to a place name with an "A, B, C" format where the article is titled [[A, B]]. Both can be read as fair interpretations of the guidance to "link only the first unit".

  1. Have the link span only the smallest unit, using piping if necessary
    Buffalo, New York, United States
  2. Have the displayed text match the title of the linked article
    Buffalo, New York, United States

Which style(s) is/are acceptable? If both, is one preferable to the other?

Note: See previous discussion above and above. This is not a question about whether "New York" should be linked to New York (state) in this example; basically everyone agrees that it should not be. 20:57, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Discussion re RfC: Linking of three-part place names

  • Both acceptable, approach 1 preferable. Approach 2 is, no doubt, more common, but both approaches are used in good and featured articles without issue. As a matter of MOS:RETAIN I'll stop short of saying approach 2 should be proscribed, but I think approach 1 is preferable for two reasons:
    • Consistency: Having a prose guideline turn on the title of the article being linked to would be strange, given that the article title policy is informed by various considerations that do not apply to prose, such as disambiguation and the semi-arbitrary rule that is WP:USPLACE. To a reader seeing "Buffalo, New York, United States", next to "Boston, Massachusetts, United States", it is not at all obvious why the two are handled differently. It is cleaner and simpler to have the link span the exact place being referenced, not attached disambiguators like ", New York".
    • Accessibility: The only difference between "Buffalo, New York" and "Buffalo, New York" is the color of the comma. For anyone who, like me, struggles to distinguish between blue and black in small quantities, it looks like clicking on "New York" in the first example will take you to New York (state).
  • The main argument made in the opposite direction is simplicity of markup, but that's usually the lowest priority in MoS decisions, certainly lower than accessibility. We should not make our articles more confusing to readers just for the sake of slightly shorter source code. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe) 20:57, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • None -- I struggle to understand why it wouldn't be necessary to link the first-level administrative division, in most cases outside the US (and even the US as well, but let's assume that Buffalo, New York is an accepted practice in that context). Who could be expected to consider Ialomița County or Simeulue Regency instantly recognizable terms across the vast expanse of the world? and if we're not linking unfamiliar terms, what is the point of having internal links at all? Seems like someone was peeved by having two links next to each other, and came up with this atrocious moratorium on having necessary links where they appear side by side (though neatly separated by a comma); this bewildering approach should not have been tried out at all, ever. Dahn (talk) 21:10, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The normal argument against linking the second-level entity is that it can be easily clicked from the first-level, if some wants. As discussed above, exceptions may apply when the first-level entity's article doesn't prominently discuss the second-level one, mostly in the case of former countries. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe) 21:17, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The exceptions are in fact the norm -- most subdivisions would be unfamiliar to anyone outside that country. Which is why "Buffalo, New York" is a misleading example, the sort of which has prompted some overzealous users to delete links to Olt County and Wallachia, thus leading to the absurd suggestion that Olt County has the same notoriety as New York, and Wallachia is a notion similar to the US. "It can be easily clicked from [somewhere else]" can be said about each and every bluelink out there, so I don't see why that was ever accepted as a valid argument in any debate. Dahn (talk) 21:32, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option 2 per MOS:SPECIFICLINK. It's also a normal unpiped link, without superfluous text: compare [[Buffalo, New York]], United States (five words) with [[Buffalo, New York|Buffalo]], New York, United States (eight words). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:13, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment — there are plenty of situations where linking place, subdivision and country is appropriate, and I think the guideline should do more to encourage that. Examples: 1) Bogdana, Tutova County, Moldavia; 2) Haraklány, Szilágy County, Kingdom of Hungary. It’s more than likely the average reader will have no idea where any of these places are/were, so why not link them all? — Biruitorul Talk 05:59, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option 2 because it's shorter to write and leads to linked text and linked page title being in agreement. Later addition: Also per WP:NOPIPE, as pointed out below by Bagumba – don't use piped links when you don't have to, and here you very clearly don't have to. Gawaon (talk) 08:55, 18 October 2024 (UTC), edited 07:55, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Both acceptable, do not specify preference for either. I personally prefer Option 2, which cuts down on redundant text that looks extremely silly in the editor and in diffs. I suppose it also matches linktext with article titles, which I care less about. I don't think we should enshrine a preference for best practice here. Agree with others above that in many cases it may be helpful to link multiple administrative subdivisions: not long ago I had reason to mention Yao Mangshan Ethnic Township (莽山瑶族乡), Yizhang County, Chenzhou, Hunan. Leaving out the container state, that's still four subdivisions. I left Hunan unlinked since it appears in User:Ohconfucius/script/Common Terms, but there are probably editors who would argue for linking that as well. Folly Mox (talk) 09:52, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Link only the most specific item—especially when the other two are so well known. Tony (talk) 10:25, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option 2 Makes no sense to pipe and hide "New York", just to type it again and display it. Per WP:NOPIPE:

    Unnecessary piping makes the wikitext harder to read.

    —Bagumba (talk) 10:54, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option 2 don't find any specific reason to leave out the state from the muncipality, as it is kind of self explanatory. Also creates redundant piping per Bagumba. Takipoint123 (talk) 02:20, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option 2 In this specific format, it seems more intuitive to match the title of the article. I will also add that including the non-linked country at the end may be somewhat out of place/redundant in either option. Symphony Regalia (talk) 14:38, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • No preference. MOS should state this. I fully agree with Folly Mox here and would go one step further to say the style guide should be explicit in stating there is no dictated preference. It should list some things to consider, provide examples, and otherwise defer to editorial judgment. Things to consider might include MOS:NOPIPE and other rules or guidelines. A lot of this will come down to context-specific factors and personal judgment or consensus within an article. In nearly all cases it matters too little to mandate a single standard and doing so will likely result in more appeals for exceptions and workarounds. MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫— talk 22:03, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option 1, but both acceptable, per Tamzin and link intuitiveness. I don’t want people clicking “New York” and being confused at being sent to Buffalo. I also think all arguments based on what looks best in wikitext or is easier to type for the editor are wrong. Style decisions are not made for the wikitext editor’s benefit. — HTGS (talk) 00:50, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I don’t want people clicking “New York” and being confused at being sent to Buffalo: But that is exactly why we avoid consecutive links to begin with i.e. SOB. It is a single link to <city, state>, not consecutive links <city>, <state>. —Bagumba (talk) 04:37, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    And avoiding links that span two page-level topics is another step we can take towards making links clearer. — HTGS (talk) 02:06, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Right. Readers have no reason to expect that "New York" won't link to New York there: They don't know that MoS says it shouldn't, and in practice countless articles would link to New York there. Using a different state because the NYC/NYS ambiguity complicates things, there are 11,030 articles containing either [[Boston]], [[Massachusetts]] or [[<someplace>, Massachusetts|<someplace>]], [[Massachusetts]]. These links are distinguished from e.g. [[Boston, Massachusetts]] by the color of a character that is less than a millimeter wide at standard zoom. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe) 00:20, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Regardless of the outcome of this RfC, the standalone link to Massachusetts should be unlinked per MOS:GEOLINK in all these cases. MOS:GEOLINK is already very clear on this and it's not something that will change. Gawaon (talk) 08:39, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Single link In almost every case the purpose of the link is to take you to the article of a single, unambiguous, location. The link should be written in it's natural format (no piping). The larger regions are merely so that a printed form will lead you to the same place but we don't really expect the reader to want to go directly to the articles for the larger regions - ie, we are listing a city for a reason, the larger regions are just to make it unambiguous and are not a target in their own right. So, we give the link to the city in its natural format (without piping), and then add whatever else is needed in plain text. If it turns out that some cities in a list have the link encompass different portions of the hierarchy (eg Paris, France vs Paris, Ontario, Canada) then that is okay.  Stepho  talk  01:21, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Ooh, I really disagree with that last point. I’d rather a list be consistent regardless the choice between these two options. — HTGS (talk) 03:01, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    How would you list those 2 cities?  Stepho  talk  03:10, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Assuming it’s a normal prose sentence, I would have something like: “However in 1894, the government of Paris, France decided to implement the change, while the mayor of Paris, Ontario forced the city to withhold …” But honestly I would still rather the opposite (… Paris, France decided to implement the change, while the mayor of Paris, Ontario did not…”) to the split styling you suggested. — HTGS (talk) 21:40, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    And for most lists, the same (with disambiguation pages being the exception). — HTGS (talk) 21:42, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree, but note that what you describe is in fact exactly Option 2 ("Have the displayed text match the title of the linked article"), so you're effectively voting for that. Gawaon (talk) 07:23, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    the larger regions are just to make it unambiguous and are not a target in their own right: I'm not sure if "unambiguous" is the right word. For a large country, most people have never heard of most non-major cities, so a larger region is mentioned to provide context, whether or not the same city name exists in another region.—Bagumba (talk) 04:48, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Definitely Option 2. No pipe gymnastics needed, and the blue the reader sees tells him unambiguously where clicking will take him. EEng 00:33, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Link "Buffalo" alone. Tony (talk) 02:25, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    As in Buffalo, New York, United States? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:01, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Hi folks. I came here to raise a closely related point, then I saw this discussion and the previous ones. I think the examples should be changed to allow or encourage this type of thing:

Three very nice cities are:

That is, in many cases it's preferable to be consistent with how the links are presented, and in my view it's *not* necessary to have the visible linked text exactly match the article titles. So in this example I've coded [[Chicago|Chicago, Illinois]] to achieve that. Although coding [[Chicago, Illinois]] would achieve more or less the same thing, because "Chicago, Illinois" is a redirect to "Chicago". Edited to add: This suggestion does not match either option 1 or option 2. — Mudwater (Talk) 01:55, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • At least correct the description of what is recommended: To me, it is false to say "Both can be read as fair interpretations of the guidance to 'link only the first unit'." In the string "Buffalo, New York, United States", there are clearly three units, and the first of those three units is "Buffalo". If we're going to say that "Buffalo, New York, United States" ([[Buffalo, New York]], United States) is the preferred format, we need a different characterization than saying that for "a sequence of two or more territorial units, link only the first unit". For example, we could say to "link only as much of the name as is used in the corresponding article title" or "link only the initial parts of the name that form its conventional identification". (We might also need to refer the reader to MOS:USPLACE for the conventional form of US location descriptions). —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 01:06, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: In most cases no one is ever going to link to "Terre Haute", as suggested above, just because the subject was born there. Who cares? (Unless that town had significant bearing on the notability of the subject.) So often we are faced with the logic of not linking because of insufficient relevance, or because the location is internationally known: the smaller and least consequential "village" ("Terre Haute") vs the too-well-known larger location ("Chicago"). In that case, nothing seems to need linking. Another example: "suburb of London, London, UK"—link nothing, unless the suburb has sufficient relevance to the subject (unlikely).
There are cases that could be linked as a matter of logic. Let's say the formative years were spent in the village of birth: Adalaj, Gujarat, India. Here, the article on Adalaj will reasonably contain a link to Gujarat, if the reader really wants to know more about the state. Remember that the one in 10,000 readers who really do want to know more, in situ, can spend 10 seconds typing a target into the search box. Otherwise we have systemic bunching, which MOSLINK discourages for good reason. Tony (talk) 23:42, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm fairly sure we have decided in the past to only visibly link to the smallest unit. The reason being that the difference between a link to the smallest unit and it's next superunit, and two links is merely the colour of the comma between the two place names. People will click on the superunit expecting to be taken there, and get a WP:Easter egg. I have done this myself. The priority needs to go to the reader, not the editor here. If you prefer less typing, go ahead, but don't oppose others improving it. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 20:34, 1 March 2025 (UTC).[reply]
"I'm fairly sure we have decided in the past" is very much a weasel phrase. Assuming we did, supposedly there would be a rule somewhere that says so? Gawaon (talk) 12:52, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Meta-discussion

"née"

Thoughts on the linking of "née"? There are 100,000 WP articles using the word. I recognize that the rules says that "Unless a term is particularly relevant to the context in the article, words and terms understood by most readers in context are usually not linked." And its not in the instance in which I am seeing it particularly relevant to the context in the article. An editor and I have admittedly subjective divergent respective views as to whether it should be linked. Looking for other opinions. Thanks. 2603:7000:2101:AA00:7962:D7BF:E7BB:426E (talk) 06:22, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's enough of a boundary case to not die on a hill over, imo—i.e. enough people will not be familiar with it that it is worth linking. Remsense ‥ 论 06:27, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
MOS:NEE advises linking the first occurrence. —Bagumba (talk) 06:54, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to point out that we have Template:Nee for this exact reason, not everyone knows what it means. The OP has claimed it is a violation of WP:OVERLINK ("needless blue linking") as their only argument why it can't be used here, but has ignored several requests from me to clarify what part of OVERLINK they are citing. I have tried not to be BITEY, but there is no logical reason why the only instance of nee being used in this BLP article can't be linked for any readers that might not know the term. - Adolphus79 (talk) 07:21, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Remsense and Bagumba -- I was hoping for a consensus view (which you have provided) .. and thanks to Bagumba for finding and sharing the MOS reference that had not been introduced previously into the discussion. And thanks for your civil discourse - my colleague who had a different view than mine (which Bagumba's find supports, and which I of course will respect) seems upset with me having expressed my fiew. 2603:7000:2101:AA00:C041:3E65:B966:1BAE (talk) 17:28, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't the forum for a WP:CONDUCTDISPUTE. —Bagumba (talk) 19:12, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And it is blatantly not true, none of my comments came even close to being construed as "upset with the IP for having expressed their [v]iew". This thread was nothing more than an attempt at canvassing support for their opinion instead of P&G/MOS. They failed to intimidate me on my talk page, and WP:OTHERPARENT'd here. - Adolphus79 (talk) 22:57, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's an ordinary word in English. Don't link it: in context anyone with an IQ above 30 can see what it means. People with IQs below 30 should type it into the search box. Tony (talk) 09:45, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So, you don't agree with MOS:NEE, or just purposely wanted to be insulting? - Adolphus79 (talk) 03:22, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You're free to change consensus on that. —Bagumba (talk) 04:48, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If anyone feels a burning desire to create a link for it – personally I don't see the need – it makes more sense to link it to Wikt:née, IMHO -- Ohc revolution of our times 15:26, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, if the units don't directly follow each other (e.g. "Kitsilano" and "Vancouver" in Ryan Reynolds#Early life and education), does MOS:GEOLINK apply to the larger one nevertheless? Pinging @750h+, who thinks it doesn't. Thedarkknightli (talk) 18:46, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You mean "in Vancouver's Kitsilano neighborhood"? I'd say it does in this case, since the point is to avoid a WP:SEAOFBLUE, and 's is just a tiny separator. Gawaon (talk) 17:11, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, I was tryna refer to "Vancouver, British Columbia" in "in Vancouver, British Columbia, on October 23, 1976". My bad. Thedarkknightli (talk) 18:06, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ah! That one's obviously covered by MOS:GEOLINK, how could it not be? It's fine as it is, though Vancouver, British Columbia would be possible too. Gawaon (talk) 18:31, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for my poor wording! In my previous comments here, I was actually tryna ask whether we should de-link "Vancouver, British Columbia"; I mean, we've already linked "Kitsilano". Thedarkknightli (talk) 18:58, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We haven't "already" - Kitsilano only appears and is linked several sentences later. So GEOLINK wouldn't be a reason to not link Vancouver in that context. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:51, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Style for highlighting text with Text Fragments?

I've been seeing URLs in Wikipedia references that incorporate W3C Text Fragments: those URL segments that start with #:~:text=, and result in highlighted text in supported browsers. But I don't see any WP:MOS guidance on how Wikipedia editors should use or not use this feature. The upside is that it can help focus readers' attention on the relevant portion of the target page (especially on mobile browsers), but a downside is that it's not easy to tell from such a raw URL how the feature is being used. This includes what the Text Fragment parameter values are: prefix, start, end, and/or suffix.

I propose that a section be added to MOS:LINK describing best practices on when to use, and when not to use this feature. Assuming there will be cases where use is recommended, Text Fragment parameters could be added to Template:URL (e.g., frag-start, frag-end, etc.) that would make it easier to detect, analyze, and manipulate use of this feature. A downside to this idea is that it one could no longer grab the full target URL from the article source, since it would be assembled by Template:URL.

Thoughts? Dotyoyo (talk) 03:49, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What would be the purpose? By and large, URLs are meant to be clicked on, not to be read. So why highlight parts of them? Gawaon (talk) 16:32, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Gawaon: Perhaps I should have better explained the Text Fragment feature. It's a feature now supported by all major browsers that allows highlighting not of the URL text, but of a text region in the target page being linked to. It's described in detail here. Since Text Fragment URLs come largely from Google searches(?), it might be tempting to accept them as is, thereby effectively surrendering to Google a portion of Wikipedia's editorial control, but I suspect that Wikipedia editors will eventually find policies and tools to better deal with this. Tools to better read, understand and edit such URLs could include template support, syntax highlighting, and fancier visual editor features. Dotyoyo (talk) 22:58, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As said, these are mostly URLs generated by Google searches and users blindly copy the entire URL as-is. The vast majority of them should have the #:~:text= parts stripped out. But there are occasional uses where you have a large web page or e-book where it might be hard to find the information without the assistance of keywords being highlighted. Although this is somewhat negated by browsers having a search function to look for obvious keywords. So, in my opinion, avoid them unless really necessary.  Stepho  talk  02:14, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion notification

There is a discussion concerning the use of links in infobox parameter labels at Template talk:Infobox basketball biography#Linking field titles. You are invited to join. Left guide (talk) 02:11, 28 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Overlinking via Template:Representative

If you look at the Government section of any California city article, the political parties are linked every time a candidate is mentioned, often multiple times in the same sentence. It would make much more sense for the first instance to be linked and subsequent instances not to be. But there doesn't seem to be a setting in the template to prevent repetitive linking to political parties without also suppressing other links that are actually useful.

But the talk page for the template last had someone post a question/suggestion back in 2021, and it's gone unanswered. My main reason for posting here is to ask if there a better place to make such a suggestion (that is, if this isn't the place) where it will actually be seen? Given that the template is in such wide use, it strikes me as odd that its talk page is a virtual ghost town. 1980fast (talk) 02:07, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's been pointed out in an ANI discussion that the natural conclusion of major examples of the following categories should generally not be linked is that London would become an orphan article. One could make the argument that this would be a Bad Thing. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:47, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Does OVERLINK apply to navigation templates? London appears in enough of them to avoid being an orphan. :-) Donald Albury 21:12, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As the maker of that comment: Fair! But still. There is a curious conflict between those two parts of the MOS. And - as I pointed out there - In addition, major examples of the following categories should generally not be linked: gives me the feeling of subtle systemic bias as it assumes knowledge of these locations on the part of the reader, which in many cases, especially those outside the Anglosphere, may very well not the the case. - The Bushranger One ping only 22:45, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Link when it makes sense in context to link it. The guideline says "generally" avoid as it generally adds no value to link commonly known words. If in context a detailed description of the city adds value then link to its article. Linking London makes sense in Greater London for example. Geraldo Perez (talk) 00:12, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I must say that this "major examples" thing has generally confused, especially regarding cities and countries. What distinguished a "major" from a not-so-major city? Which countries are sufficiently "major" to not be linked? Is it a matter of population size, geographic size, or how many of our readers might happen to live there? It all seems very underspecified and essentially unknowable. Gawaon (talk) 08:52, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I formally agree that GEOLINK should take precedence and that any contrary provisions in OVERLINK be overridden and amended. IMO, OVERLINK should be talking about having too many links for that term. It is ridiculous that even linking the very first mention of a place is one too many.

The new policy could be something like this:

2600:1012:A021:7A65:5C8E:C69B:4D52:695 (talk) 17:48, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As another data point, User:Absolutiva (contribs) has been systematically and indiscriminately removing all links to Saint Petersburg, New York City, London, Tokyo, etc. citing WP:OVERLINK. I have asked them to please stop this behavior. –jacobolus (t) 04:41, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I get it. I have to stop de-linking largest cities in articles. Absolutiva (talk) 06:32, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Mike Novikoff mentioned on Template talk:Infobox person#Subordinate countries in infoboxes about major cities are immediately recognizable such as Berlin, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev. But linking to Kiev/Kyiv can be appropriate to all articles. Absolutiva (talk) 07:45, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Recognizable doesn't mean we know everything we need to know about them. Why would we force our readers to type their name in the search box when linking is so cheap and convenient? Common sense before all this WP-lawyering, please! Ponor (talk) 15:49, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What typing, what search box? Googling is done with just two mouse clicks on any text. — Mike Novikoff 21:09, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Why should we ask our readers to Google information that's already available in our wikis? Unless you can prove that nobody in our international readership clicks on "London", there's absolutely no need to force them to use the wiki search, or worse—to Google it. Address a "sea of blue" only when you see it; do not unlink indiscriminately at a rate of a few articles per minute. Ponor (talk) 16:19, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have to agree. There's a giant distance between 22 June 2015 and New York City. The former is actively unhelpful and distracting. The latter is totally harmless, it won't surprise anybody (except possibly a handful of editors who have memorized every line of the MOS), and some readers will likely find it helpful and click on the link. Not because they have no clue what's New York City is, but because they think (and rightly so!) that by following that link and reading the article, or parts of it, they will indeed learn some new detail or other. Gawaon (talk) 16:56, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Extra attention to trivial details is not harmless, it decreases the intellectual level of the whole thing. There always is and should be something more important in every article. And remember, "simply adding more links does not increase the overall number of clicks taken from a page. Instead, links compete with each other for user attention." — Mike Novikoff 21:10, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, but why, and how exactly, is a smaller city more important than a larger one? Gawaon (talk) 21:47, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's not more important, it's less well-known. — Mike Novikoff 22:00, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There are multiple good reasons to include a wikilink: one reason is because a plausibly unfamiliar topic was mentioned, and readers might want to click through to figure out what in the world is being talked about. Another reason is because the wikilinked article is relevant to the current article in the context of the link. Links to places in biographies are often relevant irrespective of how broadly familiar they are to Wikipedia readers, but in some contexts links to places may be substantially irrelevant, but still possibly worth linking when the place is obscure so that readers can figure out what place is being mentioned. –jacobolus (t) 03:33, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
links compete with each other for user attention – can you characterize this more precisely with some concrete research? I posit that a wikilinked city in an infobox is not really in attention competition with other links in the article. –jacobolus (t) 03:35, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's all in the MoS already, and it's there for some ten years: special:permalink/1297561363#cite_note-4. — Mike Novikoff 17:42, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think your interpretation of the data seems quite right, and in my opinion this study doesn't give enough information to make specific choices about whether or not to include particular wikilinks; it's a high-level aggregate study based on tracking server logs, which frankly doesn't give much insight into individual readers' motivations for clicking links or whether specific changes in links were net helpful or harmful to readers' goals. The main thing we learn is that:

"When fixing the source page, however, structural degree [number of outlinks] has only a small effect on (c) stopping probability [probability of readers clicking a link to a "special sink page", not specified in the paper] and (d) navigational degree [total number of link clicks]."

What this indicates to me is that many readers have a navigational pattern of following links within the same browser window/tab and often not going back to the original page to try clicking a different link, and the probability of clicking some link depends more on the reader than the particular links. So if you increase the number of out-links, it doesn't dramatically change the number of links clicked.
This doesn't mean that the additional wikilinks are distracting readers' attention or preventing them from finding the information they are looking for.
Moreover, the number of times a link is clicked doesn't necessarily indicate whether the link is valuable or not. The 66% of links added in a particular month, mostly from low-traffic pages, which are never clicked a single time during a month-long time window a couple months after their addition, still have value, because in aggregate such links facilitate readers' navigation from page to page as their curiosity is piqued, and pages persist for many years. Drawing a lesson along the lines of "these 2/3 of links should be removed" is in my opinion completely misguided. Wikipedia's greatest aggregate value is in the long tail of articles, quotations, citations, wikilinks, etc. which are of niche interest. –jacobolus (t) 18:37, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Other users Edwardx, Nikkimaria, etc. are also involved removing links to New York City and London as well. Absolutiva (talk) 08:02, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Of course these cities are textbook cases of overlinking, there's nothing to talk about. — Mike Novikoff 11:51, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Indiscriminately and semi-automatically removing all links to these cities is completely missing the point of the manual of style's recommendation. Many of the links to these places are relevant, appropriate, and helpful to readers. They should not be removed at scale without specific consideration of each case. –jacobolus (t) 20:29, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
They should be removed unless there is a compelling reason to keep them in the context of the article they are in. Birth location in a bio article, nobody will find a detailed understanding of the birth city will add anything to understanding of the person. Having a career in that city a link might be appropriate. An geo article that mentions another related geo locations will likely have some relevance and a link would be appropriate. Geraldo Perez (talk) 20:52, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The context where I noticed this was the couple wikilinks to Saint Petersburg being removed from Leonhard Euler, including in the lead "He spent most of his adult life in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and in Berlin, then the capital of Prussia." And also in the section § Career » Saint Petersburg, where Euler's relation to the city is the topic of the section. It is in my opinion ridiculous to remove those wikilinks on the basis of WP:OVERLINK. –jacobolus (t) 20:58, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, only this infobox where Saint Petersburg is de-linked. Absolutiva (talk) 21:08, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, removing it from the infobox is also completely unnecessary. Please don't remove major city wikilinks from infoboxes: there is absolutely no editor consensus for that. –jacobolus (t) 21:40, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Anyway, Remsense did overlinking by removing major cities. Absolutiva (talk) 03:35, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've been away for a bit here, apologies—if I did something wrong somewhere, could you link me the diff? Cheers. Remsense 🌈 论 01:42, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You're doing a good job for our readers, Remsensel. Tony (talk) 06:52, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
See here at Special:Diff/1271386890 that overlinked to United Kingdom. Absolutiva 01:48, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I removed the links, if I'm understanding correctly? Remsense 🌈 论 01:52, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Same as MOS:GEOLINK. Absolutiva 01:53, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, I don't have any problem either way with these particular wikilinks. I think it's just fine to either include or remove them. ("English language" doesn't need a repeat link because it's directly linked in the prose paragraph to the left.) –jacobolus (t) 03:29, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's good for infoboxes and prose to both include links because they can be read in either order. MOS:REPEATLINK reflects this by excepting infobox links. Jruderman (talk) 03:51, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Removing links to major cities and countries is complete silliness. No benefit to readers at all. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 21:00, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  • Then the same argument could be used to force us to link all years, dates, centuries, and decades. I think we must ask ourselves who is going to click on a link to London (whether in an infobox or the main text). The community decided in 2009 that there should be a balance between the disruptive effect of blue links on the reader, and the utility of not bothering to quickly type a word into the search box. If there's confusion between London, Ontario and London, UK, linking isn't going to solve it. Tony (talk) 01:18, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd suggest also balancing it with infobox edits being a common source of drive-by edits "fixing" unlinked cities. I think it's minor enough to leave in infobox city fields and avoid the churn. —Bagumba (talk) 01:32, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The point of having wikilinks is to link articles which are relevant to the current article being read. Almost never is the article for a year, or a counting number, or a commonly encountered word used in ordinary prose, etc., especially relevant. We don't need to be wikilinking every instance of bathroom, tree, street, university, 7, or 1990. The reason not to link these is not primarily because readers know what they are / could type them if they want, but because they are irrelevant and linking them is a distraction. By comparison, articles about places are very often (but not always) directly relevant, because places are specific. The city where someone was born or moved, where a business is located, the capital city of a region, where a battle happened, etc., are of direct interest to readers of the article where they are mentioned, and should be wikilinked not because readers are unfamiliar with them, but because (whether or not they are familiar) they may be curious to learn more about the specific place under discussion. Your comparison is in my opinion far from practical relevance, and not at all persuasive. –jacobolus (t) 03:19, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with WikiOriginal-9. Also, agree MOS:GEOLINK should control. It hurts nothing to link and we should give readers all the benefits possible that don't require unusual effort. Quaerens-veritatem (talk) 02:30, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
See MOS:OVERLINK for reasons to not have links that are not needed and why harmful to have pointless links in an article. Geraldo Perez (talk) 02:36, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Good points there, which is why my proposal (above) was an exception specifically for infoboxes. —Bagumba (talk) 02:49, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agree, but MOS:GEOLINK should control and won't lead to harmfulness. Agree, also, with Bagumba regarding Infoboxes. We should specially note in MOS:OVERLINK, "Be conscious of your own demographic biases when determining whether certain terms have this level of recognizability – what is well known in your age group, line of work, or country may be less so for others." Quaerens-veritatem (talk) 03:01, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's not pointless to occasionally link the names of cities, when they are relevant to the content of some other article. Nor should "major" cities be treated categorically specially. If e.g. a person moved to some city to begin their career, we should wikilink it in the biography, whether the city is Tokyo or, say, Fukushima. In either case, a reader may be curious to click through and learn about the place.
We also shouldn't be blanketing every article with links on every word and phrase, including cities. We shouldn't be wikilinking every mention of any city, even if the city happens to be small. –jacobolus (t) 03:06, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"It hurts nothing to link": Wrong. Aside from looking unprofessional and reducing readability when not strictly rationed, low-value links dilute the utility of the linking system. Readers (unconsciously) rely on the skill of us editors to ration links to those that are most likely to be clicked on. Rationing links at least shows readers which links we (the experts) think are of reasonably high value. Linking to Paris is ridiculous. The assumption is and has been that someone reading the English-language WP can speak English and knows a bit more about the world than a six-year-old. I'm surprised to be having this discussion in 2025, 16 years after the community said a resounding NO to chronological links. Tony (talk) 10:30, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Are there stats on how many readers actually click on these links? If nobody does, then yes, they're arguably useless. If some do, that would seem prima facie evidence that some of our readers, at least, do appreciate them. Gawaon (talk) 10:52, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, this is pure speculation. But @Tony1: what we are talking about in this conversation is editors using semi-automated / tool-assisted editing (cf. WP:MEATBOT) to substitute indiscriminate context-free application of a "rule" for what was typically previously considered and intentional use of wikilinks. So if what you want to promote is the "skill of editors", then I certainly agree! What to wikilink should be left to local consensus and editorial judgment, not robotic blanket application of a poorly conceived rule. –jacobolus (t) 11:07, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I sometimes use semi-automated scripts. But I always check through, and a lot of links I manually remove (the script can't know everything). I occasionally relink, too. Tony (talk) 11:13, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with WikiOriginal-9. Maybe such links are not strictly necessary, but there are lots of borderline cases and just removing a geolink, without doing any other improvements, doesn't make an article better, unless it's done to address SEAOFBLUE concerns. Gawaon (talk) 06:35, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This seem to opt out of the responsibility to use our editors' expertise to ration linking down to the most likely to be useful for editors (not the most relevant, of course). Please see my comment above. Tony (talk) 11:11, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Let me firstly contest the argument that wikilinks "cost nothing". This notion ignores the hidden cost to the overall readability of our articles, and can work against the standing of the project. While some may want to argue that such links may benefit younger members of our readership (not intending to cast any aspersions) who might not know where London, New York or Paris is, I don't see it as being the job of WP to palliate the deficiencies of the education system, but instead add value to readers.
If we discounted the wikilinks made by templating, countries are among the most linked-to articles on WP, with France, United Kingdom, Germany each with over 200k incoming links; By a similar token, New York City and London are the top for cities, with over 100k links each. But while we may want to know Puy de Dôme or Massif des Calanques , geographical/geological feature was in France, we would certainly not be so minded to investigate that Louis Vuitton or Louis Vuitton came from that country. Similarly, Charles Dickens and Tony Blair appear to be possess correctly judged links: there is an abundance of wikilinks, but not one single link to Great Britain, England, or United Kingdom. Editors clearly understand how to link sanely; prescriptions such as is being advocated seem retrograde. There are usually/often better links to be made than, for example by saying "Kane is a [[Football in the United Kingdom|British footballer]]" instead of "Kane is a [[United Kingdom|British]] [[association football|footballer]]"
Links can and do provide value for a reader of a given article to when they aid readers' greater understanding, but such links are less problematic (also incidentally less numerous) for the former category than the latter. Indiscriminate linking practices, which were endemic in the late 1990s, have by now largely been eliminated through education of the community's editors, resulting in a significant leap in the quality of articles, both in terms of aesthetics and utility. I very much hope that reasonableness and sanity will prevail. The above discussion reminds me of WP:SILLIWILI, which was a project to highlight the inking practices in the late noughties and early teens that banished most of the worst linking practices. -- Ohc revolution of our times 13:45, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ohconfucius, instead of "which were endemic in the late 1990s", do you mean to refer to the late noughties? And one more point: instead of "sane" linking practices, I would stress "skilful" linking practices. It takes a little while for newcomers to get the hang of it. Tony (talk) 02:07, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I stand corrected  Ohc revolution of our times 09:28, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It should be stressed that editors should not use "OVERLINK policy says" as an argument, when the point is that the policy itself may need to be amended for (insert good reason) - in this case, the point is that "this other policy (GEOLINK) is superior for this purpose because of (insert good reason)".
@Mike Novikoff:, it should not be a blanket "textbook cases, nothing to talk about" - such a stance is why this talk page discussion was raised in the first place: adopting a "never link" attitude to so-called well-known locations would orphan them because (ironically) they are too notable for Wikipedia. 172.58.211.56 (talk) 19:18, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It makes sense to link to other related geo locations in a geo focused article such as say United Kingdom as those links generally add value and readers are likely to click on them. Generally we don't link major locations such as England or London but it is definitely appropriate in an article about the UK where they are located. Linking London when it is just someone's birth location, for example, is overlinking. Geraldo Perez (talk) 21:29, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Which readers (who presumably have enough English to consult en.WP) would want to click on "United Kingdom"? Give me a break. Tony (talk) 06:56, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You misunderstood the previous comment, which was about other links to other geographical places from within the article United Kingdom (e.g. Wales, British Isles, Edinburgh, London, United States). There are some oddities in that article's geoegraphical wikilinks though; e.g. the sentence "The most common origins of those naturalised in 2024 were, Pakistani, Indian, Nigerian, Filipino, Bangladeshi, Italian, Turkish, Romanian and Iranian." wikilinks Nigeria, the Philippines, and Bangladesh, but not the other 6 countries listed; it's not really clear why the inconsistency. (I personally think it would be fine to wikilink all of these, but I wouldn't complain if none were linked.) I was surprised to find no wikilinks to France, which seem relevant in sentences such as "In 1066 the Normans invaded England from northern France." or "After the defeat of France at the end of the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars (1792–1815) the United Kingdom emerged as the principal naval and imperial power (with London the largest city in the world from about 1830)." or "It lies between the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea with the southeast coast coming within 22 miles (35 km) of the coast of northern France, from which it is separated by the English Channel." (among others). I would expect at least one or two wikilinks to France from within that article. I suspect there probably originally were some of those links, inappropriately cleared out by someone running a "eliminate links to major countries" script (but I didn't check).
But anyway, in response to your "Give me a break", yes, I do expect readers to click on United Kingdom in contexts where it is relevant. I personally click links of this type routinely. I could imagine clicking such a link if I was reading about e.g. the Economy of the United Kingdom, London, Commonwealth of Nations, or History of England § 20th and 21st centuries, where links to United Kingdom are highly relevant. It would be an absurdity to ban such links. –jacobolus (t) 16:51, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
" Linking London when it is just someone's birth location, for example, is overlinking" Linking to London in such a context is no different from linking to any other city. It's directly relevant providing useful context about the physical environment to the biography, not confusing or distracting, by definition won't involve more than a single link per page (so doesn't result in a "sea of blue"), likely of interest to some readers of the page. A link from an infobox or "early life" section of a biography to a city is dramatically more useful than the links we spam everywhere to category pages like Category:People from London. Calling this "overlinking" seems like a radical misuse of the term. –jacobolus (t) 22:30, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, if we linked on the basis of relevance, "population" and "southeast" would be linked. The question is whether more than one in a billion readers will click on the link. Tony (talk) 23:39, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't understand what you are trying to say. Can you be more explicit? "Population" and "southeast" would be linked from where, in what context? When do you think these are relevant? I would expect Population (despite being a pretty crummy article) to be linked from articles such as Demography, City, or Nation. On the other hand, Population is not relevant to link from many other articles (say, about some specific city), where it is just one among thousands of ordinary words used. Southeast reasonably redirects to Points of the compass (Cardinal direction might be a better target). I'd expect links to one of those articles from e.g. Compass, Compass rose, Nautical chart, History of navigation. I don't see how deciding whether to link to these is remotely relevant to our current discussion. –jacobolus (t) 00:31, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, from London. Tony (talk) 05:20, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I do think of linking London from biographies of people born there is overlinking, and I have trouble imaging that to be a radical misuse. In most cases, I think the information readers already certainly have is enough to understand the physical environment. I do feel differently about infoboxes, which tend to be more focused on navigation than the regular prose is. I would support adding some guidance in OL that navigational aids (infoboxes, navboxes, sidebars) are generally more permissive of linking, in the same spirit as the extra permissiveness in REPEATLINK. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 12:20, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That looks like it could be a reasonable compromise. Gawaon (talk) 13:40, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The "major examples ... should generally not be linked: settlements and municipalities" line item should be removed from MOS:OVERLINK. The statement is too strong, because mentioned cities are relevant more often than not. Other parts of the linking guideline offer sufficient advice for determining whether a link is relevant. Jruderman (talk) 03:44, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, that sounds reasonable. Gawaon (talk) 06:32, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But looks like WP:SNOWBALL. — Mike Novikoff 18:44, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Why do you say that? The current phrasing doesn't reflect (and never did reflect) editor consensus, and should never have been added. I think the odds are in favor of changing it if anyone makes a dedicated proposal. –jacobolus (t) 18:55, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would not support removal, but maybe we can adjust in other ways? I've always interpreted the "Unless particularly relevant to the context in the article" mentioned a few paragraphs earlier as applying to both lists, including the one with "settlements". Maybe we could restate it in that list's intro, like "In addition, major examples of the following categories should generally not be linked unless particularly relevant to the context of the article: Countries ... settlements and municipalities ...". I already view the case for linking London from an article like London Borough of Harrow to be very strong, but maybe this will make it more obviously strong to those that read the list of no-nos in isolation. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 12:20, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That might work, though it's a bit unclear what "particularly relevant" means. Gawaon (talk) 13:41, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's about as clear as "major examples"; we just have to trust our own judgment and sort out disputes as they arise (rarely). Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 13:47, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The context in the page is that if the link is "relevant", then "reading the article you're about to link to would help someone understand the article you are linking from". Of course this depends substantially on the readers' past knowledge, so there's no hard rule and whether to include a particular link is largely up to editor discretion and local consensus. The big problem here is that some Wikipedians apparently interpret this section to indiscriminately ban links to particular pages, and are running scripts to enforce that understanding. In my opinion that is a gross misreading of the policy; clarifying the policy page might help avoid the misunderstanding. –jacobolus (t) 00:58, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relevance is a particularly poor indicator of utility for readers. The word "suburb" is relevant to London. Avoid well-known and dictionary links. Tony (talk) 23:54, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think you have a very different definition of "relevance" than any I have encountered in the past. I completely disagree that the words "suburb", "population" or "southeast" are substantially relevant to the article London. Your personal link criteria, that links should be limited to the ones "most likely to be clicked on" is not supported by editor consensus or Wikipedia policy. What the policy page says is: "A good question to ask yourself is whether reading the article you're about to link to would help someone understand the article you are linking from. Unless particularly relevant to the context in the article, words and terms understood by most readers in context are usually not linked. [...] Balance readability, information, and accessibility when adding multiple links in one section of text. [...] The purpose of linking is to clarify and to provide reasonable navigation opportunities, not to emphasize a particular word. [...]" This is completely different than your interpretation in this discussion. –jacobolus (t) 00:53, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think "understand the article you are linking from" is a good criterion, because many of the links we routinely set are not needed for this purposes, and yet we still set them. For example, I think that whenever a human sacrifice is mentioned, it makes sense to link to that article too (at first mention) – or at least most of the time. But most readers will already know what a human sacrifice is, so they don't need this link to understand the article they are reading. So why set that link? I'd say it's because it allows people to deepen their knowledge about the mentioned topic. They will likely know what a human sacrifice is, but they might not know where, why, and in which circumstances they were practised, whether there still are any human sacrifices today, etc. So if they want to know more, they can click the link and find out. That's why the link is there and should be there – nothing more, nothing less. It's not necessarily about understanding the article you're on better, though (especially if it's a technical term) it might be helpful for that as well.
    Why not link to suburb then? I'd say it's because people reading an article about a specific town or city are unlikely to be particularly interested in deepening their knowledge about suburbs in general, hence the link is unlikely to find much interest if set in the context of any specific settlement. But if people are already reading the article city centre, they're apparently interested in the general arrangement of settlements, so in that context, links to suburb, borough etc. are entirely appropriate, making it easier for readers to deepen their understanding of these concepts since they have already expressed their interest in a related topic. Gawaon (talk) 07:06, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    So, a better criterion instead of "whether reading the article you're about to link to would help someone understand the article you are linking from" might be: "whether the article you're about to link might be of interest for people reading the article you are linking from". Gawaon (talk) 07:09, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Possessives

Simple question, should we use Washington's or Washington's?

This is being discussed at Help talk:Link#Consensus on possessives?

As noted there, the MOS is silent on the issue. Cheers CapnZapp (talk) 07:52, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As has been pointed out at that page, the implications of linking [[George Washington|Washington]]'s or [[George Washington|Washington's]] are not the same. One is a link to the individual's biography, while the other would imply there's an article on the possessions of the individual, which would clearly be nonsense in the majority of cases.  Ohc revolution of our times 09:53, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I agree, not including the possessive clearly seems better in nearly all cases, and it's already our default recommendation. Gawaon (talk) 10:11, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Although we could imagine including it when the possessive is adjectival, such as Occam's razor or Mozart's Requiem.-- Ohc revolution of our times 13:51, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Aren't possessives nearly always adjectival? "Mozart's Requiem" is not different grammatically than "Washington's house".--Srleffler (talk) 05:59, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And it helps to avoid MOS:SEAOFBLUE by distinguishing between [[Occam's razor]] and [[Washington]]'s [[something]]. — Mike Novikoff 22:00, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sea of Blue aside, I reckon it would be utterly stupid to link [[George Washington|George Washington's]] [[Mount Vernon|House]] instead of George Washington's House. If Mount Vernon already existed as a proximal/germane link, it would be overlinking to make GW a blue link 2 mm from it. Ohc revolution of our times 23:45, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. "Of the seaside links the more precise wins". — Mike Novikoff 00:35, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What default recommendation? Where? Does the MoS actually recommend one form over the other here?--Srleffler (talk) 05:59, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Notwithstanding what Ohconfucius wrote above, I think it is odd and confusing to link only part of a word. I disagree that any sensible person would be confused to think that a link to Batman's car (or whatever) is linking to some general article on Batman's possessions rather than the article on the character. Yes, sea-of-blue issues need to be prevented by good editing. A non-blue apostrophe s is not really enough of a visual break anyway. Much better to rephrase or use a more specific link if the possessive and the following noun are both linked.--Srleffler (talk) 05:59, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I'm aware, linking only the base word is the common practice. I selected five random FAs, and four of them linked just the base word (see Thorpe affair, Barry Voight, University of Washington station, 15th Tank Corps), and the fifth didn't have examples of either usage (Harry Glicken). Someone with a little regex skill might be able to do a full dive into the stats.
Common practice aside, I agree with Ohc and Gawaon's points. As a reader, it never registered as odd or confusing to see the base word linked, either here to or at the many other websites where this is common linking practice. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 12:37, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Should "United Kingdom" be linked in the infobox of the article about Palestine Action? I removed the link per MOS:OVERLINK, but it was reinstated by Genabab with this edit. Khiikiat (talk) 07:32, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In my view, it's reasonable to link it (and unreasonable to edit-war over this), since the country is central to the article. It would be something different if it was just mentioned in passing. Gawaon (talk) 08:44, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Gawaon: In my view, if MOS:OVERLINK is to be followed, then "United Kingdom" ought not to be linked, as it is clearly a major example of a country. However, if it is to be linked, shouldn't we link its first occurrence in the infobox (in |region=) per WP:LINKFIRST? Khiikiat (talk) 22:49, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, if it's linked, the first occurrence in the infobox should be linked, and the first occurrence in the main article text should be linked too. And yes, I know that a literal reading of MOS:OVERLINK allows the conclusion that it shouldn't be linked, but then the same literal reading would result in terms like United Kingdom being orphans (never linked), which surely cannot be the intent. Plus there's the word "generally" in the guideline, which suggests exceptions, but doesn't clarify when they are to be made. I therefore favour a reading according to the spirit rather than the letter of the rule, which is to avoid linking such terms when they are mentioned in passing, but to link them whenever they are of major important for the article in question, which is clearly the case here. Gawaon (talk) 07:56, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Plus there's the word "generally" in the guideline, which suggests exceptions, but doesn't clarify when they are to be made. → This is the problem. We all have our own interpretation. For me, an example of appropriate linking to the United Kingdom would be the article about the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, where linking helps to resolve any confusion. Khiikiat (talk) 12:58, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The word "generally" means there are exceptions and it is a judgement call as to whether or not a link to the other article adds value in understanding more about the article it is linked from. Basically would you understand this topic better, or gain some additional insight to the topic, by reading the linked article. If the country name is linked solely for definition purposes that is overlinking as we assume everyone knows what the United Kingdom is. If there is a reason beyond mere definition, a link may be appropriate. Only people familiar with the topic can make that judgement. Geraldo Perez (talk) 19:22, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What you say about unlinked articles (and potential orphans) might be true were it not for the fact that, for a major topic – one that has intrinsic importance – such as the UK, there will always be germane links to be made from other articles. People also often arrive from outside WP, and they will also type in the search bar from any page.  Ohc revolution of our times 15:50, 20 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would also support it being linked given as you say it's central to the article GothicGolem29 (talk) 20:04, 17 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would certainly delink UK, but not if it were Soviet Union for example. Anyone reading that particular article would be sufficiently aware of geopolitics, United Kingdom would be on the opposite end of germane and would not be of interest. Although there's a certainly a risk of a sea of blue appearing, I wouldn't dwell on it or war over it, though. Chances are that someone who's aware of best practices will come along and delink it again in pretty short order.  Ohc revolution of our times 15:40, 20 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I'd link "germane"—you're meant to be able to read English if you consult en.WP. Tony (talk) 05:17, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
All readers would know that the United Kingdom exists as a country, so a link in the infobox isn't required. If a link is to be included then a more appropriate place for that would be the first mention within the main prose. It is best practice not to link the name of a country as per WP:OVERLINK and WP:GEOLINK. Qwerty123M (talk) 08:00, 3 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Growth Team features: "Add a link" experiment and next steps

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Growth Team features § "Add a link" experiment and next steps. Sdkb-WMF (talk) 17:50, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Does linking 'skyline' to a list of buildings constitute a violation of the guidelines on linking?

Here is the edit for context [1]

Personally I do not see how any reader could expect a link to skyline to go to a list of buildings (some of which do not make up the skyline, nor is a skyline a made up solely of the tallest buildings) and not an article on the skyline itself. Traumnovelle (talk) 06:08, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As per WP:EASTEREGG, I would expect a link "skyline" to go to the article explaining the general idea of a skyline. If they really want to link to List of tallest buildings in Auckland then they would be better to use the pipe link with the text "Skyline of Auckland CBD". Personally, I think it was better without any link for skyline becuase there may be other features that affect the skyline (shorter buildings, the waterline, etc).  Stepho  talk  06:34, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Stepho. Linking "skyline" would be quite meaningless in the context, and [[List of tallest buildings in Auckland|Skyline]] of [[Auckland CBD]] is linking for the sake of creating wikilinks.  Ohc revolution of our times 11:03, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

 Please see the series of related discussions at WP:RfD where this question has been raised: For possessives in article space in running text, should the 's be included inside wikilinks, either via redirects or piped links, e.g. [[China|China's]] (China's), or outside the wiki markup, producing China's. This has come up in a series of related discussions at WP:RfD (if you click the first one and scroll down you can read all three as they appear in order):

This does not appear to be addressed here nor at MOS:'S. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 22:27, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's addressed in H:WIKILINK, which says: "Punctuation breaks display text agglutination. This is often helpful for possessives: for example, [[Batman]]'s gives Batman's." The wording used to be bit stronger than that, even more clearly suggesting that writing [[Batman|Batman's]] is wrong. Gawaon (talk) 07:02, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. WP:NOPIPE also covers my China's example, I realize. Neither NOPIPE nor HLINK cover a situation where the possessive is a redirect, e.g. Canada's, from a style perspective. I read the current wording at HLINk as merely explaining the wikilink behavior and being silent on the style question. For example, the opening sentence of Theatre Museum Canada is:

Canada's Theatre Museum (formerly Theatre Museum Canada) was founded by Herbert Whittaker in 1982, for the purpose of preserving and celebrating Canada's theatrical cultural heritage.

I can't find anything that says whether Canada's theatrical cultural heritage (with 's outside thew wikilink) would be better. I don't expect nor want the MOS to cover everything, and style is not the only relevant factor in the RfD discussions, but I raised it here because it is the sort of thing MOS might cover. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 17:56, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It seems wrong to link Canada's (possibly referring to whatever belongs to Canada?) when the article is actually about Canada itself. So I think these redirects were merely created for people accidentally making bad links, just as there are redirects for common typos. The best course of action would be get rid of both the redirect and of the erroneous links. (I know that not everybody seems to agree with this, though I can't say I understand the reasons for this.) Gawaon (talk) 20:55, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This was also discussed here recently at #Possessives. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 18:17, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! I read these discussions as largely inconclusive on the style question. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 19:12, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Description lists

@Remsense, you wrote:

unfortunately there's no way i can parse these semantics as [...] "an association list consisting of zero or more name-value groups (a description list)."

I know, but <dd> is used on project pages since it's the best way to apply this kind of formatting. I can't remember where that's documented, but there are plenty of examples, like on this page itself under § Syntax, or Template:Citation needed § Example 2.

Could you redo the edit please?

— W.andrea (talk) 17:35, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I see how my attempt to just copy-paste directly from the HTML standard intending to be clear came off as obtuse. These colons in wikitext create HTML description lists (<dl>...</dl>) – with line-beginning semicolons generating the names and line-beginning colons generating the values for said names – famously, we already naughtily ignore the intended semantics of said lists for our threaded discussions, but e.g. MOS:BADINDENT makes it clear how using them merely for their visual effect of horizontal indentation is incorrect. Remsense 🌈 论 17:39, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The intended use is somewhat familiar to editors, and looks like
name 1
value a
value b
name 2
name 3
value c
Remsense 🌈 论 17:43, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm aware of all that already, and I didn't take your message as obtuse... but regardless, I changed the formatting a different way that we should both be happy with, using {{block indent}}. — W.andrea (talk) 18:09, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much for your patience. Remsense 🌈 论 18:14, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Index: pl ar de en es fr it arz nl ja pt ceb sv uk vi war zh ru af ast az bg zh-min-nan bn be ca cs cy da et el eo eu fa gl ko hi hr id he ka la lv lt hu mk ms min no nn ce uz kk ro simple sk sl sr sh fi ta tt th tg azb tr ur zh-yue hy my ace als am an hyw ban bjn map-bms ba be-tarask bcl bpy bar bs br cv nv eml hif fo fy ga gd gu hak ha hsb io ig ilo ia ie os is jv kn ht ku ckb ky mrj lb lij li lmo mai mg ml zh-classical mr xmf mzn cdo mn nap new ne frr oc mhr or as pa pnb ps pms nds crh qu sa sah sco sq scn si sd szl su sw tl shn te bug vec vo wa wuu yi yo diq bat-smg zu lad kbd ang smn ab roa-rup frp arc gn av ay bh bi bo bxr cbk-zam co za dag ary se pdc dv dsb myv ext fur gv gag inh ki glk gan guw xal haw rw kbp pam csb kw km kv koi kg gom ks gcr lo lbe ltg lez nia ln jbo lg mt mi tw mwl mdf mnw nqo fj nah na nds-nl nrm nov om pi pag pap pfl pcd krc kaa ksh rm rue sm sat sc trv stq nso sn cu so srn kab roa-tara tet tpi to chr tum tk tyv udm ug vep fiu-vro vls wo xh zea ty ak bm ch ny ee ff got iu ik kl mad cr pih ami pwn pnt dz rmy rn sg st tn ss ti din chy ts kcg ve
Prefix: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

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