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WP:CONTEXT archives Support and opposition Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 – repeating links Archive 5 – links in quotations Archive 6 Archive 7 – final archive WP:BUILD archive Archive WP:MOSLINK archives Archive 1 Jul 2006 and earlier Archive 2 Archive 3 Sep 2006 – Jan 2009 Archive 4 Jan 2009 – May 2009 Archive 5 May 2009 – Jun 2009 Archive 6 Jul 2009 – Aug 2009 Archive 7 Sep 2009 – Feb 2010 Archive 8 Feb 2010 – Jun 2010 Archive 9 Apr 2010 – Sep 2010 Archive 10 Sep 2010 – Nov 2010 Archive 11 Nov 2010 – May 2011 Archive 12 May 2011 – Oct 2011 Archive 13 Oct 2011 – Apr 2012 Archive 14 May 2012 – Nov 2012 Archive 15 Nov 2012 – Sep 2013 Archive 16 Sep 2013 – present

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"Generally, a link should appear only once in an article" That is annoying, especially when you are directed into the article to a specific section. Why can't it be linked in each section? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 02:36, 22 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The same reason style guides and standard practice is to expand and provide (initialism) only once, and subsequently to use the initialism only. The "I parachuted into a section" argument would have us insist that "National Rifle Association (NRF)" be spelled out in every section—tedious. It's generally accepted that if you do parachute into the middle of an article, you might need to scan back earlier to extract context, structural information, and links. Thank you. Tony (talk) 02:47, 22 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I concur. Certain kinds of list articles, like glossaries are an exception; it's nearly impossible to find the original mention of a term in a large glossary with out doing keyword searches in the pages (not always easy with mobile device), and the glossary articles are almost entirely linking to specific entries like mini-articles, then going back to the article you came to the glossary from. Hardly anyone literally reads glossary articles as articles, from top to bottom.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:29, 20 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's not here though, it's at Talk:Brian Sylvestre#WP:OVERLINK. Please comment there. Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:17, 11 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's better to move discussions like that to the guideline's talk page where it'll become part of the guideline talk archives. Users are free to simply delete entire conversations off their own talk pages.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:22, 23 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Looks as if you scanned that namespace in a hurry, SMcC -- it's an article talk page, not user talk page. :) It does perhaps make sense to broach the issue here, even so, but bear in mind it is a matter which has been discussed here before (and indeed, countless other spaces across the project). You'll see when you take a look there; it's an old issue that has no broad community consensus and upon which local consensus usually varies considerably, both as a consequence of editorial perspective and the particular context of the article in question. Snow ^{let's rap} 05:47, 29 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

D'oh! Need better glasses, I guess.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:20, 13 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Started a discussion regarding this part of the MoS at the Village pump. Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC: Should the holder of a political office be linked within an infobox more than once (i.e. as the successor), when they have already been linked (e.g. as the vice president, predecessor, lieutenant, etc.)?. —Godsy^(TALK_CONT) 06:35, 21 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

How should the policy be interpreted when linking in lists and references?

While I see there is some consensus on relaxing the duplicate linking rule, I am still seeing it somewhat strictly enforced and it seems to me that both lists and references should be treated somewhat differently than regular prose. It's more common for people to pick out specific items to read in more detail, and especially with reference sources, it's probably relatively rare for someone to sit and read straight through the references section.

What do other editors who are more expert on this topic think? --ProtectorServant (talk) 13:18, 9 June 2015 (UTC) (signed later)[reply]

I think the question should be split:

Linking in lists

I'm a bit puzzled by this. Surely an item is not repeated in a list? Apuldram (talk) 16:48, 8 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The example linked to is a List of cases of police brutality in the United States and department names (such as the Los Angeles Police Department) are linked to when those departments are involved.

Another example which has been handled differently might be the list of killings, where argument along the lines of "we don't need another link to the city of Albuquerque (as the location where a killing happened) because the police there also killed somebody else at another time in the month" doesn't make sense. --ProtectorServant (talk) 13:17, 9 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Most times, duplicate links are not helpful in lists, but we should allow that if consensus at an article determines that they are in that context, that this is permissible. Editors do this whether we "allow" it or not anyway, per (usually unspoken) WP:IAR. Many do it outside of lists two, e.g. when several sections have gone by since the last link. This is really okay, too. Some of what we don't want to see is over-linking in lists just to make entries consistent. This argument is sometimes actually valid in a table, but I strongly question it in a list. Another is a list of redundant links in "See also". I'm utterly merciless with those. If something has been linked in the article already, I nuke it from the see-also list, and give myself a pat on the back when I can totally eliminate a see-also section by working the links in it back into the main prose of the article. Duplicate links in any but the longest and most detailed infoboxes are ponitless and browbeatingly redundant. Back to lists: I don't have any specific wording to propose at this point, but generally I wouldn't re-link unless the last link to the same ting was more than, say, 10 list entries away. Big exception: Glossaries. It's routine to cross-reference, by linking, every occurrence of every term that has an entry, except is very short glossaries. Glossaries are a special case where people are not bothered by a sea of blue, and expect terms to be maximally linked; such article are entirely about the words as words. See Glossary of cue sports terms for one of the best-developed ones (if I may say so myself; I worked on it a lot, but so did various others). Finally, the nature of the list matters in other ways. In a list expected to be read top to bottom, don't re-link at all. If it's a list we expect people to be looking for one item in before moving on to something else, link every occurrence. More usually, our expectation is between these extremes, so re-link when it's thought this will be helpful and not annoying.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:11, 13 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think that duplicate listing in links is permissible in some cases if it significantly facilitates the reader gaining pertinent information- unlike prose, a list may not be read from start to finish, and especially in lengthy lists and/or sortable lists, such that the "first" instance of a link may not be such when sorted differently. It can be left to editors of particular lists to decide whether multiple linking in lists is a deterrent or aid to readers, but I think certainly a place where WP:IAR can apply. I also think that in some instances it is OK to repeat a link in a "See also", especially if the body link is somewhat buried: by giving additional prominence to a well chosen article in a See also, the reader is more likely to increase their understanding of a topic. --Animalparty-- (talk) 21:52, 28 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I would highly discourage that. For example, would it be smart to duplicate a link for 142 times only because the link keeps occurring in a list[9]? Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 23:47, 28 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I've tried to encapsulate this discussion into wording in the guideline, here. Also added coverage of glossaries, here. I think these should be uncontroversial. The first explains when it may be appropriate to re-link in lists (without recommending that it be done, just permitting), while the second describes actual practice in glossaries for years now (8 years or longer, probably longer).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:16, 20 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  PS: Lists are difficult to generalize about. Another such case (which we probably don't need to specifically mention in the guideline, since how they work is obvious) are the Wikipedia outlines; like disambiguation pages, these are supposed to have links on every entry or they fail their navigational purpose. We can't really generalize much about lists, because lists are just a presentation format, for radically different kinds of content. Some embedded lists have no links at all, but just lay out facts presented by a cited source. Others are entirely navigational. Others like glossaries present discrete fragments of content that don't form much of a narrative. Long articles of the "List of fictional universe here characters" sort are another case similar to glossaries (and are often best formatted as such a "glossary" in HTML and WP terms is not necessarily something of the character of a list of dictionary entries). Its unhelpful to readers to not link repeatedly in those, just as it's annoying to them to keep re-linking in traditional, narrative-flow articles.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:31, 20 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Linking in references

I see no problem in relaxing the rule for references. The sea of blue problem doesn't arise there. (but see below) Apuldram (talk) 16:48, 8 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

To the contrary, I find that it applies more there, and I delink a lot of things, especially city names in |location= parameters and other such trivia. I remove all redlinks from refs, and duplicate links for authors/publishers. And links for publishers that are just general publishers (I keep them for organizational publishers tied to the content or field; no one needs a link to Houghton-Mifflin, but one to an institute or whatever may be relevant for determining bias or reliability.) When the refs section is a sea of blue, it's very hard to find which blue item actually takes you to the source you want to examine. That said, many of the citation templates just relink stuff every time they are used, e.g. ISBN. Nothing we can do about that. But this fact isn't justification for linking like mad in refs sections; that's a WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS failure.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:17, 13 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You've changed my opinion to don't relax. I now see the problem. Thanks. Apuldram (talk) 17:12, 13 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

:-) I guess I should load up on coffee like that more often. Heh.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:48, 20 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere

Please see Wikipedia talk:Drafts#linking to drafts from mainspace? for a discussion that might add content to this MOS subpage. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 16:58, 11 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere

Please see Wikipedia talk:Red link#Proposal to permit redlinks in navigation templates  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:48, 17 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Why have many of the main point of the subpages deleted? I think having all the main point here is much better then having to run all over to find them. I suggest a revert and a discussion of reworking of the page. -- Moxy (talk) 20:35, 29 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

In this edit this edit I removed the statement that links should not be given special colors, because (a) there's already a general prohibition on coloring text, and (b) I've never see this happen in eight years anyway. Certainly if others think it should remain it should be put back. Other than that, can you provide one or two diffs where the "main points of the subpages [were] deleted"? Thanks. EEng (talk) 21:09, 29 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

link colors happens all the time.... and is a main point for accessibility for our readers. All the main points on linking... the do's and don'ts should be listed. Best not to make our readers have to run around to 12 sub pages just to get the main points on linking.

Based on what you're saying the don't-color-links warning should remain. But I don't know what you mean about the 12 subpages. Can you list a couple of diffs to illustrate what you mean? EEng (talk) 22:18, 29 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

In particular, people are apt to monkey with link colors in colored-background table cells if we don't "forbid" this.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:46, 20 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

For each proposed change, EEng, can you please open a discussion, and give your rationale and explain why these changes would be necessary? As I stated in my Edit Summaries, many of your edits removed a lot of relevant material, changed the tone of the guideline, or moreover, changed the meaning of the guideline. For bold changes like this, it'd be important that they are discussed, especially after being reverted for obvious reasons (see WP:BRD). WP:EW is no way to go, I am afraid. Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 22:52, 29 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Changes don't have to be "necessary", and the idea of opening separate discussions for edits such as [10] or [11] or [12] is ridiculous. Each edit is self-explaining via the change it makes to the text itself plus its edit summary. There's nothing I can add until you point to something you specifically object to, but you've refused to do this despite multiple requests (e.g. [13]). There are 12 edits, and you say they're all inappropriate, so it should be very easy for you to supply diffs for two or three you object to, with a short reason. EEng (talk) 23:23, 29 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion of individual edits (1)

"No substantive objection"? Are you kidding me? As you can from above, there is objection to your bold edits. Instead of discussing your bold edits, trying to explain your rationale and to establish consensus, you have been WP:EDITWARring instead.

1. Why did you change the tone (and even the meaning) of text?[14] The original version was not about "accidental linking" but about "confirming that the context is helpful". This can be the case even if the linked article was from the same subject area, but if it didn't deal with the context of the wikilink at all.
2. Why did you remove this passage[15]? Self-supporting per Edit Summary again? Please see WP:REVTALK.
3. Why did you remove this one as well?[16] As explained in no. 1, those two are different things. Therefore, it is completely reasonable to emphasize this aspect as well.
4. In this edit again you keep going on about that mantra of "mistakenly linking".[17] The previous formatting was very descriptive, really well-written, had a nice tone... Now it's all changed, why?
5. Why were these step-by-step instructions removed?[18] Although you and I might not need that sort of instructions, there's a whole variety of people editing Wikipedia. Have you ever followed WP:TEAHOUSE discussion? Trust me, there's a lot of people volunteering to answer questions that might seem obvious for the most of us.
6. Although not entirely wrong[19], I don't understand the tweak as the former version was way better English.
7. Here you changed the whole meaning of the former two passages (!)[20]. The previous version clearly said "do not unnecessarily make a reader chase links" and "as far as possible do not force a reader to use that link to understand the sentence". You changed it into "should be not only linked, but briefly glossed (if possible)...", as if linking is something one is supposed to do and explaining the term is just something additional to that. No, that's not what the original version said.
8. Why did you remove this well-prosed passage and replace it with some clumsy parentheses? How does this help to capture the original essence of the guideline?
9. Why did you move this passage?[21] It was there for a reason. Please see WP:SEAOFBLUE above, something it is strictly related to.
10. See what I just wrote above[22], they might demand a higher density of links (see WP:SEAOFBLUE), not often have a higher density of links. This is a guideline, and our guideline is "might".
11. Again, this is a guideline[23], therefore "Do not" instead of "The function of".
12. And again, what's with this?[24]

EEng, this is the first and last time I will give you a detailed explanation about "WHY NOT" to keep the changes you made, instead of you explaining "WHY" to keep the changes you made. Remember, you made the bold edits, you are ought to discuss the changes and seek consensus, and the WP:BURDEN is on you. Besides, this is not just about some individual edits. Nobody is able to catch the original essence of the guidelines if you remove all explanatory material around them, for no reason. Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 16:31, 3 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No, I'm not kidding. Any old vague "objection" isn't "substantive objection", and generalities such as "many of your edits removed a lot of relevant material, changed the tone of the guideline, or moreover, changed the meaning", without specifically saying where you see that happening, are nonsubstantive. And please stop linking to policies and guidelines you don't yourself understand e.g. BURDEN applies to article content, not project material.

1. The old text's image of "a physicist speaking of" something made no sense in a discussion of article editing, and "what the system offers" was a bizarre way of saying "the linked article". I see your point about the linked article being "helpful in context", but I think it's not a useful criterion: if the linked article is the one intended -- e.g. a physics article linking to barn (unit), not barn -- then it's hard to see how it could fail to be helpful to many readers in context (no matter what its actual content) because even a stub would be helpful to a reader who'd never heard of that unit. And even if one argues that Article Y, linked from Article X, omits the very thing the reader of X wants, a properly developed version of Y would include that material, and we wouldn't not link from X to Y just because Y isn't properly developed yet. I'd be interested to hear what other editors think about this.

2. This bullet point was restored (see edit summary here) as a result of discussion earlier in this thread. The fact that you don't seem to know this raises serious question about how carefully you've considered the changes you're complaining about.

3. As you must have noticed, the very next edit (i.e. #4) reinserted this material elsewhere, so your complaint here is nonsense.

4. I don't believe in mantras. Editors don't need to be told it annoys readers when a link goes to the wrong article, that article titles need to be exactly right, that there are often multiple articles with similar titles, or other obvious and/or unimportant stuff that made this bullet point twice as long without giving editors any clearer idea what they're expected to do. The important point is to encourage editors to verify that links go where they think they're going; once that's pointed out the reader will readily understand why that's important without talking down to them. I'll be interested to hear from other editors whether they think my revision does or does not do that as (or more) effectively than the old text; it certainly is less tiresome to read.

5, 6. (These two adjacent edits are best evaluated as a single diff [25].) No, it was badly written, with a tin ear for calibrating instructions to what the reader can or cannot be reasonably expected to know already.

• Editors don't need to be told to key in links "carefully" -- that's useless advice that applies to everything.
• "display mode" -- that's not a term we use on WP to my knowledge -- why not "preview mode" (though I don't recall any talk of "modes" at all)? And even assigning it this reasonable meaning, what other "mode" would you be in after clicking "Preview"? So what's the point of saying it at all?
• Telling editors to "check [links] go where you intend" is fine, but can you possibly think it necessary to then say "if they do not, fix them"??? Well, duh! Everybody knows that, and to bother saying such a thing is a beautiful example of completely unnecessary instruction bloat.
• Similarly, everyone knows that a redlink should be checked to see if adjusting it will turn it blue (assuming they know what a redlink is -- and if they don't they won't have understood 80% of anything else being said in this guideline anyway).
• What's an "internal link"?
• "When there is not yet an article about the subject, a good link will make the creation of a correctly named article much easier for subsequent writers." Blah blah blah blah. Once you remind editors to use good naming conventions, that's all that's needed. If they don't see why good naming conventions should be followed, then they're not going to understand the naming conventions anyway, so all this motivation is just so much instruction bloat. In fact, I've made a further edit [26] along those lines.

7. You seem preoccupied with whether new text says exacty what the old text said, but that's not what matters. What matters is whether the new text as effectively, or more effectively, induces the behavior in editors we want to induce. Technical or specialized terms should be linked (at least on their first appearance in any given article) plus if possible they should be glossed where used, so that the reader might be able to skip chasing the link and still generally understand the passage -- he or she can follow the link or not depending on the level of understanding desired. The new text makes it clear that glossing is in addition to, not instead of, appropriate linking. As elsewhere, I look forward to other editors' thoughts on whether this is an improvement or not.

8. (You're talking about [27]). I look forward to whether other editors agree that the old text --

Don't assume that readers will be able to access a link at all; remember that it is not always possible. For example, a reader might be working from a printed copy of an article without access to facilities for following links.

-- wasn't bloat rightly reduced to the new text:

Note that readers working from hardcopy cannot follow links at all.

BTW, the idea that parentheses are inherently clumsy is the kind of mindless rule relied upon by people who don't know how to make stylistic decisions for themselves; parenthesizing this motivating aside is completely appropriate.

9. No, SEAOFBLUE is specifically about immediately adjacent links that appear visually to be a single link. The text we're discussing is about the overall density of links in a particular kind of article as a whole. I therefore moved it to the section on over- and underlinking, which is where it belongs.

10. Saying techincal articles "might demand" more links is effectively no different from saying they "often have" more links -- one is a statement of what the article "needs" and the other states what editors typically "give them". Either way the reader understands that more links are appropriate. You have extremely rigid ideas about the way ideas should be expressed.

11. Contrary to what you imply, the new text says "do not" just like the old text does.

12. What's with it is that this text specifically regards linking in the lead, so I moved it to the section on linking in the lead (with a very slight change in wording). If you'd actually looked at the edit in context you'd know that.

EEng (talk) 04:22, 4 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, I am also interested to hear what other editors think about the changes. You must be familiar with the WP:BRD cycle (bold, revert, discuss)? You made a series of bold edits, you got reverted, but instead of discussing your bold changes, you decided to re-revert. And not just you ignored the discussion part, you started demanding other editors to explain why your edits do not satisfy (!). So you recently made bold changes to the stable version of the guideline, and now you are defending it as it'd be the long-term consensus.

Besides, you first criticized that "the objection was vague, not substantive". In your later response, however, you admit that the bold changes did indeed change the tone and meaning, but now you argument that the changes are an improvement in your opinion. Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 00:01, 5 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No, I did not admit that "tone" was changed, nor meaning (except in a very narrow sense as explained in my response "1." above). If you have further comment on these changes then please offer it, instead of yet again rehashing your rigid ideas about who should have done what, when. EEng (talk) 00:48, 5 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I just looked at the page, it was a very big edit to a guideline page without any discussion. That much change should have had at least a discussion of not an RFC to determine if there was consensus for making it. It appears an edit war happened to keep the changes. Thats not how WP is supposed to work. This isnt an article, but a guideline that will affect tons of articles. AlbinoFerret 01:01, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It wasn't a big edit -- it was 12 small edits, each linked and discussed above. Do you have anything specific to say about any of them? EEng (talk) 01:37, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You are aware that edits in succession without another editors making an edit are counted as one for most purposes? In this case it makes substantial changes to the page. Can you point me to any discussion before making these changes to a guideline? AlbinoFerret 04:59, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's not the point. With minor exceptions each change is small and independent of the others, so it can be easily understood and discussed. Instead of obsessing about protocol why don't you step through the changes and comment on any you think are problematic, or boldly fix or improve them? EEng (talk) 12:17, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Let's get this straight, EEng: if you want to make substantial changes to the guideline, you start a Talk Page discussion, explain your proposed changes and try to convince other editors and gain consensus. Not the other way around. And I don't see consensus for your changes. You've already been formally warned about WP:EDITWARing, so please make sure that won't happen again. Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 15:52, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Let's get this straight, JS. We're having the discussion right here in this very thread, and your vague concerns have been answered, with no response from you. You've already been warned about obsessing about process instead of substance, so please make sure that won't happen again i.e. engage the explanations I (and now Boson, below) have given you. EEng (talk) 16:34, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it is a little rude to edit a guideline page at all without discussion, but 67 times in one edit!?!That's so outrageous, seriously, al editors should propose even the tiniest changes on the page first, and wait for a reasonable consensus to develop first. IMO, BOLD, had no place on guideline pages. LesVegas (talk) 14:03, 16 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion of individual edits (2)

To get back to the content ...

Short version: I agree with all the edits being "discussed".

But let's discuss the individual edits, if we must:

• No. 1: This edit changed

  Beware of linking to an article without first confirming that it is helpful in context; the fact that its title matches the concept you wish to link to, does not guarantee that it deals with the desired topic at all. For example, a physicist speaking of barns is highly unlikely to wish to link to Barn instead of Barn (unit), and any reader needing to click on such a link almost certainly will struggle to make sense of what the system offers.

to

Beware of mistakenly linking to the wrong article among a group of articles with similar titles. For example, in a physics article discussing "barns", a hasty link to Barn (instead of Barn (unit)) will puzzle the reader.

which is much more concise and gets the point across better.

Preliminary approve -- Boson.

Oppose The original version was not just about "accidental linking", but also about "confirming that the context is helpful". This can be the case even if the linked article was from the same subject area, but if it didn't deal with the context of the wikilink at all; or moreover, if the linked article was from a different subject area, but only so tangentially related that it fails to deal with the context. Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 19:58, 9 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Please review my response in the prior subthread, and if you're still not satisfied, please give a concrete example of the situation you're talking about. EEng (talk) 23:53, 9 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Would the following be an acceptable compromise?

"Check that you are not inadvertently linking to an inappropriate article or disambiguation page. For example, in a physics article discussing "barns", a hasty link to Barn (instead of Barn (unit)) will puzzle the reader."

--Boson (talk) 21:05, 10 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that addresses JS' concern, but until he offers an example of what he's talking about I doubt there's anything we can do. (I did reword slightly [28] prompted by your suggestion.) EEng (talk) 00:21, 11 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• No. 3: In the separate section referred to above, this edit then replaces the prolix

  One of the most common errors in linking occurs when editors do not check to see whether a link they have created goes to the intended location. This is especially true when a mistake is not obvious to the reader or to other editors. The text of links needs to be exact, and many Wikipedia destinations have a number of similar titles. To avoid such problems, which can be irritating for readers, the following procedure is recommended, especially for editors who are new to creating links.

with the (already quoted) more concise text

Beware of mistakenly linking to the wrong article among a group of articles with similar titles; for example, in a physics article discussing "barns", a hasty link to Barn (instead of Barn (unit)) will puzzle the reader. To avoid such errors the following procedure is recommended:

Approve. --Boson (talk) 14:47, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose The original entry is not just about the "mistakenly linked" ones. For example, at one moment there might be a working link to, let's say, a sub-section of an article. Later, however, the sub-section might get deleted, merged into the rest of the article, or merged into another article. Therefore, it's not just about "similarly named" ones.

The text needs to get the idea across, not be absolutely general and precise. Rewording to incorporate the generalized concept of location (i.e. maybe just an article, or maybe article#section) would complicate things to the confusion of novices, without telling experienced editors anything they don't already know. Editors sophisticated enough to use the # syntax know without being told that, when testing new links, they should check that the # took them to the right section.

• No. 6: This edit changed

  Do not unnecessarily make a reader chase links: if a highly technical term can be simply explained with very few words, do so. Do use a link wherever appropriate, but as far as possible do not force a reader to use that link to understand the sentence

to

Technical or specialized terms in nontechnical articles should be not only linked, but briefly glossed (if possible) as well, so that the typical reader won't need to follow the link to understand the surrounding passage.

Good copy edit, so

Approve. --Boson (talk) 14:47, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Strongly oppose This changes the spirit of the whole passage. The proposal says "...should be not only linked..." (compulsory), whereas the stable version says: "Do not unnecessarily make a reader chase links: if a highly technical term can be simply explained with very few words, do so. Do use a link wherever appropriate, but as far as possible do not force a reader to use that link to understand the sentence" (optional, case-by-case discretion). Also per WP:JARGON: "Avoid excessive wikilinking (linking within Wikipedia) as a substitute for parenthetic explanations such as the one in this sentence." Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 19:58, 9 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I adjusted the text to address your concern [29]. EEng (talk) 23:19, 9 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• No. 7: this edit changed

  Don't assume that readers will be able to access a link at all; remember that it is not always possible. For example, a reader might be working from a printed copy of an article without access to facilities for following links.

to

(Note that readers working from hardcopy cannot follow links at all.)

Much simpler, so

Approve. --Boson (talk) 14:47, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose While I agree there is something redundant (e.g. "without access to facilities for following links", I'd like to propose something like this: "Don't assume that readers will be able to access a link at all. For example, a reader might be working from a printed copy of an article, and therefore be unable to follow links" Descriptive, good-prose, not too bloated, IMHO. Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 19:58, 9 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's essentially the same as the old text and, like the old text, squeezes lots of words into very little meaning. EEng (talk) 23:35, 9 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• No. 8: This edit moved a sentence.

Oppose The sentence was located there for a reason. See, when it comes to WP:SEAOFBLUE, that usually occurs with technical subject articles. Therefore, that serves as a sort of relieve (a strong relieve) for the WP:SEAOFBLUE rule. The IT-articles for example, we might have three lengthy terms following each other, but all being very relevant to the actual article. Does it break WP:SEAOFBLUE? Yes, it does. Could you just zoom to the most specific article, or link to the most specific one already dealing with all three? No, unfortunately no. Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 19:58, 9 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The moved text was originally inserted by this edit [30] after this [31] short discussion; from this it's clear that what you're saying is simply untrue -- this text is about link density, period, and nothing to do with SEAOFBLUE. SEAOFBLUE happened to be the last thing on the list as that moment, so when this text was added it naturally came next. SEAOFBLUE already says When possible, avoid and consider rephrasing, making it clear that eliminating immediately adjacent links may not always be possible. EEng (talk) 23:03, 9 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• No. 9: This edit then changed

  Articles on technical subjects might demand a higher density of links than general-interest articles, because they are likely to contain more technical terms that general dictionaries are unlikely to explain in context.

to

Articles on technical subjects often have a higher link density than nontechnical articles, because they are likely to contain more terms and concepts unfamiliar to the general reader.

Good copy edit, so

Approve. --Boson (talk) 14:47, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Not a "declaration of the current state", not all "technical articles" demand a higher density of links. Sometimes they might demand higher density of links, therefore might. Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 19:58, 9 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Often communicates "sometimes but not always" the same as does might. EEng (talk) 00:51, 10 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary break

Hello there, Boson! I already left my reply above. Anyway, I think an RfC might be the best way to proceed, don't you think? Especially now when there's a lot of editors from the northern Hemisphere enjoying their summer holidays and the editing activity is rather slow, it'd give enough time for editors to have a look at the proposed changes.

I was hoping that the original proposer could start an RfC, but I am ready to do that also if needed. Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 16:09, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, yeah, right. There are some 400 editors watching this page -- you think they're all on vacation? The idea of an RfC when you don't yourself engage in meaningful dialogue is a complete misunderstanding of what's appropriate. Please respond to what Boson and I have said. EEng (talk) 16:34, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I most definitely do not think an RfC would be the best way to proceed, sans any attempt to resolve the content dispute (if there is one). Since the changes are just copyediting rather than substantive, I don't see any reason to make a big deal of it. And an RfC for a lot of small copyedits can be very messy. I have deliberately signed each change, so that others can express their opinion on each change. If you oppose any particular change, I would suggest you add your opinion, starting with Oppose this change, followed by a short reason explaining why the previous version was better. If you want to add anything in addition to a short reason for opposing the change, I would suggest adding a section entitled "Discussion" at the bottom, where the concise reasons can be elaborated, and discussion of those reasons can be conducted. --Boson (talk) 22:27, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

So two editors find the changes substantive, and two editors do not. Interesting, especially if the proposing party is not in favor of an RfC. I thank you for your reply on the individual edits Boson, but please note that I've already given my response above that explains the problematic nature of these edits changing the tone/meaning, or removing plenty of good descriptive material. Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 21:27, 8 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The number of editors taking a given position isn't relevant, rather the quality of their arguments is. Your "explanations of the problematic nature" was to ask, over and over, "Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?". I answered your questions, and you have ignored those answers, just as you have ignored Boson's comments. It's not a discussion if you don't respond to what we've said. EEng (talk) 22:23, 8 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If you really want to start an RfC, I believe it would be useful if you use my format of including a link to the individual edit but also quoting the before and after text, and allowing comments on each edit. We could even just add an RfC template with an introductory explanation at the beginning of the section I added, along with a couple of additional section headers. Otherwise it is difficult to understand what exactly you are objecting to in terms of content and it is harder for a newcomer to the discussion to assess if a particular edit made the text better or worse. It is also much harder to follow the discussion if each participant repeats the same structure or makes statements that are difficult to assign to a particular change and and other participants' comments on that change. I am not sure if we are using substantive in the same way. What I meant was that the changes were not intended to tell the editor to do anything substantially different but rather to improve the way in which the advice was expressed. --Boson (talk) 01:21, 9 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder, Boson, if an RfC is really appropriate, given that JS has been failed to engage in meaningful discussion. It seems like an enormous waste of many editors' time just to accommodate one editors misunderstanding of the concept of substantiveness; the fact that he opposes every edit‍—‌even those clearly appropriate‍—‌underscores the problem here. EEng (talk) 01:50, 9 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't mean to suggest that I was in favour of an RfC. As I said before "I most definitely do not think an RfC would be the best way to proceed ...", but if Jayaguru-Shishya wants to conduct one anyway, I think it would be essential to show exactly what the content differences are and present the reasons against disputed individual edits, rather than presenting editors invited to participate with more general statements. I would prefer those currently engaged in the discussion (and any other page watchers) to look at the individual edits and think seriously about whether each edit is an improvement. I can understand editors' consternation at finding several edits made without prior consultation, but I also recognise that guidelines need to be constantly reviewed to remove the accumulated cruft that results from the way Wikipedia is edited, with no real co-ordinating editor, and that it is difficult to perform such copyedits aimed at greater "clarity and grace" by committee. If separate discussion of each edit is not desired, I would have to say that the overall effect of the edits is positive, so it would be more productive to accept the edits (without prejudice) and continue the discussion on the basis of the new version. --Boson (talk) 08:12, 9 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with EEng that an RfC is not reqruied. I don't find anything undesirable with the general thrust of these edits. I like the concision. Just as long as nothing is being let through that weakens guidance for smart linking practice. Tony (talk) 09:09, 9 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Boson and Tony1! I left my response above[33], hopefully I could express myself more clearly this time :-P I tried to focus myself on the most substantive issues in my opinion, and explain which ones need further improvement. I don't think the exact wording is important, as long as the original spirit of the entries remains. Other opinions of wording I shall leave in the hands of the others (except I commented an instance or two).

We're still missing the rationale of the proposer, however. EEng, could you please explain the original intention behind your edits? Everyone else seems to have given specific commentaries except you. Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 20:18, 9 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I explained them very carefully already [34]. And exact wording is important, because a page like this has thousands of readers, and much depends on getting the key ideas across without boring or confusing editors into just giving up and navigating away. Per the suggestion of Tony and Boson, I'm reinstalling the changes, after which I'll make a few changes to address some of the concerns you've expressed. Please wait until I'm done with that, then let me know what you think. EEng (talk) 22:35, 9 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You have continued to WP:EDITWAR over the additions even, 1) you have not bothered to explain your edits (the diff above focuses more on attacking those views disagreeing with you), 2) you have been warned not to edit war but explain your rationale at the article Talk Page instead[35], 3) and you clearly do not have consensus here at the article Talk Page as three editors find your edits more or less problematic.

Instead of discussion, you decided to edit war over the content just after two hours[36] a major input to the discussion[37]. Again, you don't have consensus for the majority of your edits (except for a few), and you reverted before any serious Talk Page discussion had really taken a place. I'd like to WP:ASSUMEGOODFAITH, but as you have keep reverting over the material to your own preferred edit instead of discussion... Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 23:35, 9 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure Tony1 and Boson will be happy to set you straight on whether this is anything like an edit war. Are you ever going to engage anyone else's comments on the edits themselves? For example, on "No. 1" I asked you for an example of what you're talking about. [38] Will you do that, please? A enormous amount of time has been spent attending to your vague and largely unintelligible complaints. EEng (talk) 05:44, 10 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I value the input of both Jayaguru-Shishya and EEng to this page. Can we identify the specific points of disagreement? Tony (talk) 14:09, 10 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Jump back to the head of this subthread i.e. #Discussion of individual edits (2). The collapses are stuff on which there's no dispute. (See also earlier attempts at #Discussion of individual edits (1).) EEng (talk) 14:18, 10 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I have undid the changes, there is no consensus for any of it. If EEng wants to make these massive changes I invite them to start an RFC to judge community consensus for making over 3k in changes to a guideline. AlbinoFerret 21:35, 14 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed a triumph for collaboration and common sense. It's been a week since I ask you to participate in discussion of the changes. Will you be doing that, or are you satisfied with just insisting that everything needs an RfC? EEng (talk) 02:10, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If you think a consensus of 3 or or even 5 or 6 editors is enough to change a guideline that will affect almost every page in wikipedia I dont know what to say. AlbinoFerret 02:55, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I know what to say. These are meant to be non-substantive changes that affect only the organization and presentation of the guidelines, not what they tell editors to do. Both Boson and Tony have opined that that's exactly what they do, and to the extent they're right, no big falala is needed. If, inadvertently, I did something that really did change the substance of the guidelines, then please point that out, or just go ahead and fix it yourself if you want.

You seem to think no changes at all can be made without a big discussion, and that's just not true. Between January and May 2014 I made some 350 edits to MOSNUM, almost completely rewriting it from top to bottom. (Search the string EEng here [39].) There were no calls for RfCs and so on, because other editors there took the time to actually look at what I was doing. Now and then someone reverted or modified an individual change, and there were a few areas on which we had long discussions. Any issues were resolved amicably, and that's remarkable given the high-tension disputes that break out at MOSNUM regularly. The reason my work could go on in such an environment is that I wasn't changing what MOSNUM said, just how it was said. Where I slipped up on that, others noticed and set it right. What they didn't do was block progress by wielding BRD like a club. (At this point I modestly ask Tony1 and Boson to opine on whether my work at MOSNUM did or did not vastly improve its organization and presentation.)

This page has 400 watchers, and (not counting you and JS) the other 398 seem to have no problem with what I was doing. You and JS just keep saying, over and over, "RfC! RfC! RfC! RfC! RfC! RfC! RfC! RfC!", as if the bare fact that you can block change is a reason for blocking change. You've said nothing specific at all about how my edits change anything they shouldn't, and JS' comments, while at least somewhat substantive, show that he has language difficulties that cause him to misinterpret things. Why don't you discuss the actual changes, like we're supposed to, so we can move forward to improve the page? You can start by responding to my, Boson's, and JS' comments, found in the thread above. EEng (talk) 04:01, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Let's see:

1. Out of the first 12 edits[40], 7 are being discussed at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking#Discussion of individual edits (2), so better stop saying that I've not participated in discussion. Actually, we're still waiting for your contribution to explain what was the primary motive behind your edits. Was there something wrong with the original wording? Was there a reason to change the tone of the guidelines? Did altering the tone improve the guidelines in some manner?
2. As you well know, this guideline page is under Arbcom's discretionary sanctions, and according to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation#All parties reminded: "...parties are encouraged to establish consensus on the talk page first, and then make the changes." You actually failed to do that, and waited for other people to start discussion instead. So far, you've been picking on other editors' comments, whereas it's you who should explain your own edits. Nobody else can do that for you.
3. Although not all of your edits are substantive, it is highly misleading to say that "none of them is substantive". For example, why did you remove an essential part of WP:LINKSTYLE[41]? That's a guideline that I've referred to tens of times in my copy-editing. Your Edit Summary said: "...this explanation is severely in need of improvement in its presentation", and then you just removed it. Are you seriously telling me that it isn't substantial? Or this edit[42], brought up by PBS: "This is a big issue and usually would be discussed in a section on the talk page before such a change was made. In this case you made the change in a series of consecutive edits without clearly stating in the edit history what you were doing -- which is misleading."
4. According to WP:CONLEVEL: "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. [...] Wikipedia has a higher standard of participation and consensus for changes to policies and guidelines than to other types of pages. This is because they reflect established consensus, and their stability and consistency are important to the community. As a result, editors often propose substantive changes on the talk page first to permit discussion before implementing the change."

Anyway, comments like: "A enormous amount of time has been spent attending to your vague and largely unintelligible complaints.", "your complaint here is nonsense", "Blah blah blah blah", "JS' comments show that he has language difficulties", those aren't really helpful. I will restore the unproblematic edits in the next few days. After all, there's WP:NORUSH. After that, user EEng is the most welcome to give his rationale for the substantive ones. Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 20:10, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ps. "enormous" begins with a vocal, so the article should be an, not a ;-)

Let's see:

1. Over and over the same thing has happened: you post some comments, others respond, and that's it -- you go stubbornly silent. Most recently [43] I reminded you that you hadn't responded to my comments posted six days ago, and you've simply ignored that.

2. The edits have been explained to you over and over. I explained them [44]. Boson explained them [45]. I explained them again [46].

3. Your most recent complaints demonstrate, again, that you're not taking the time to look at the actual effect of the edits.

• You asked --

Why did you remove an essential part of WP:LINKSTYLE[47]? That's a guideline that I've referred to tens of times in my copy-editing. Your Edit Summary said: "...this explanation is severely in need of improvement in its presentation", and then you just removed it. Are you seriously telling me that it isn't substantial?

I removed the example because it was completely redundant to another example on the page. At the same time I moved the LINKSTYLE shortcut to be next to the remaining example. You only quote part of my edit summary, which actually read "Merge (this explanation is severely in need of improvement in its presentation)" i.e. merge the two examples, and (by the way) the explanation in the remaining example needs severe improvement. (And I made that improvement in later edits). So no, it's not a substantive change to the guidelines. (And you're getting the words substantial and substantive mixed up.)

• Same with your second complaint, about [48]. I removed one of two duplicate statements (my edit summary said, "maybe 10 yrs ago people needed hypertext explained to them, and more than enough pep talk about building the web is in the lead") and moved the shortcuts from the location of the deleted material to the location of the other text (which happened to be the page's opening paragraph). This is perfectly obvious if you take the trouble to look at the text surrounding the changes -- don't you realize you can't just look at the diff??? PBS obviously didn't trouble to look either.

4. The higher-level-of-consensus standard applies to substantive changes i.e. changes to what the guideline tells editors to do, not changes to how it expresses that advice. Both Boson [49] and Tony [50] believe they meet this test, and as seen over and over (most recently in point "3." just above here) your attempts to show the changes are substantive have shown only that you don't grasp what the edits actually do.

As for the rest, I stand by everything I've said:

• an enormous amount of time has been wasted on your vague and largely unintelligible complaints;
• I said your complaint (about an edit which deleted something) was nonsense because it was nonsense (because if you'd actually looked at all the changes like you said you had, you'd have known that my very next edit reversed the deletion);
• My blah blah blah blah expressed exasperation at the page's flabby and prolix verbiage -- nothing to do with you;
• And lastly, you really do have serious language difficulties which hamper your ability to comment usefully. The typographical error of mine you so absurdly point out ("a enormous" instead of "an enormous") is nothing like

• [51] "And not just you ignored the discussion part, you started demanding other editors to explain why your edits do not satisfy (!)."
• [52] "Other opinions of wording I shall leave in the hands of the others (except I commented an instance or two)."

plus the fact that you don't seem to know what substantive, substantial or tone mean.

Please don't restore any of the edits. I prefer to clear up your procedural confusion first, because it will be impossible to proceed in this ridiculous way. Now for the love of God (referring to #Discussion_of_individual_edits_.282.29) will you please ...

• (No. 1) Give the example I requested here [53], so we'll know what you're talking about?
• (No. 3) Propose a modification that would fix your concern?
• (No. 6) Say whether the modification I made to the text (linked in the discussion) is acceptable?
• (No. 8) Say whether you still think the text I moved was related to SEAOFBLUE, given the links I laid out?
• (No. 9) Explain how "Articles on technical subjects might demand a higher density of links" is any different from "Articles on technical subjects often have a higher link density" (or propose alternative text)?

EEng (talk) 05:40, 16 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Jayaguru-Shishya, if you want to continue to claim you're discussing in good faith, you need to respond to reasonable requests by your fellow editors. The above points have been pending for almost two weeks now, and you've ignored repeated requests that you engage them. EEng (talk) 03:33, 20 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Another arbor-treeish break

EEng you wrote above "PBS obviously didn't trouble to look either". I took the trouble to look at that edit and the other you made. It would have been irresponsible for me not to have done so before I placed a notification of Arbcom MOS discretionary sanctions on your talk page. I think perhaps you misunderstand why the links in the {{style-guideline}} are there. It is so that editors have a few common short-cut names to use in place of the rather verbose page name. But so that the links are familiar to other users, not only are they short but also descriptive and kept few in number. As such, not all of all the redirects to a page will usually be listed in the {{style-guideline}} template, and changes to the list ought to be discussed on the talk page first -- or at the very least. if you wish to be bold, to add a meaningful edit comment stating that you had changed the short-cuts at the top of the page. In this case for example why do you think that "WP:BTW" "WP:BUILD" should appear in the {{style-guideline}}? Your answer will be of interest to others who are actively editing the page, but I am not interested in getting involved in the content of this page and I am disinterested in whether those two links appear in the template {{style-guideline}}. It is however an example of an edit you made that prompted me to place the notification of Arbcom MOS discretionary sanctions on your talk page and highlight a paragraph of its content along with another paragraph in WP:CONSENSUS. -- PBS (talk) 12:20, 16 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Explaining in scrupulous detail

Let me explain this as carefully as possible. Here's what the opening of the page looked like before the edit in question [54]:

The opening paragraph of the page, and the start of the Principles section, both say essentially the same thing about what links are for. Therefore, in this edit [55] I removed that bit from the Principles section, and also moved the WP:BTW and WP:BUILD shortcuts (which had been in the Principles section, associated with the text being removed) to the opening paragraph of the page, i.e. moved them to the other place discussing building the web and so on:

My edit summary was:

maybe 10 yrs ago people needed hypertext explained to them, and more than enough pep talk about building the web is in the lead

While not a model of clarity, that's certainly enough for a editor to understand what was done and why: Hmm... This bit at Principles was deleted. How come? Oh yeah, edit summary says "more than enough about building the web is in the lead" -- yeah, I see that stuff there in the lead -- so he deleted this redundant part in Principles. But why did he move these shortcuts? Wait, I see, those shortcuts went with the deleted bit, so he moved them to the other place that said the same thing.

So this is not, in fact, a "big issue" (as you said on my talk page), though there was a slight flaw in the edit. Here's how a helpful editor, wanting to build on the work of others instead of just reverting everything he doesn't immediately understand, might open the discussion on that flaw:

Hey, EEng. I see you moved those shortcuts. How come? --Helpul Editor

Well, I deleted some redundant text on building the web, so I moved the shortcuts to the other place where building the web is mentioned. --EEng

I saw that, but the problem is, you moved it into the {styleguide} box. The shortcuts there are meant to apply to the whole page not just one part of it, even if that part is right at the beginning. --Helpul Editor

Darn, you're right. I'll move those two shortcuts to a separate box now:

So with all due respect, PBS what I said is true: you did not look at the edit, at least not long enough to understand what it was meant to do. The edit summary explains the text deletion, and the reason for moving the shortcuts is therefore obvious (the minor error in where they landed notwithstanding). And even given what, in your haste, you thought you saw, why didn't you just ask me‍—‌if you had, we'd have had the little discussion narrated above (leading to the simple fix) instead of the ton-of-bricks AE Enforcement notice, including the outrageous statement (on my talk page) that my edit summary was "misleading"?

So, can you point to an edit of mine which really is a "big issue" (as you also said on my talk page) requiring advance consensus, instead of normal copyediting (possibly to be followed by discussion and improvement)? You said above "I took the trouble to look at that edit and the other you made", but I have no idea what "other edit" you are talking about.

This is important. A great deal of hard work has been discarded, on your say-so based on your mistaken characterization of one edit. It's worth noting that Albino Ferret has completely declined to engage in discussion, and JS has still, after nine days, refused continue discussion of the 5 edits still at issue (see #stillwaiting, above). Don't you see what's going on here?

EEng (talk) 02:18, 18 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• The most obvious problem with this change is that it eliminated the key phrase "build the web". This is a "stock phrase" on Wikipedia, like "follow the sources", and mustn't be eliminated willy-nilly. Doing so also made the WP:BUILD and WP:BTW shortcuts meaningless and confusing. There's really no point at all in having shortcuts go directly to the lead of the page. That's irregular, confusing, and serves no clear rationale. The larger, more general problem is that, as with all Wikipedia leads, the intro to this page is an overall summary highlighting the most important points that can be found within; every point in it should be redundant with more detailed material below. Yet this edit mingles in some of the principles material, and then removes it as one of the principles! MOS:LEAD as a set of "rules" doesn't technically apply to non-articles, but we do in fact write the leads of policy/guideline pages (and well-constructed essays) in the same way. It's just "the WP way". This page's lead is an overview. The "Principles" section is not, its a listing and explication of principles we apply, one of which also happens to be mentioned in different wording in the lead.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:21, 20 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well, actually, WP:MOS, WP:MOSNUM, and WP:LEAD (just random pages I grabbed) don't seem to have "leads" in anything like the sense you're talking about. But that's really not important, and is beside the point right now‍—‌I'm happy for any individual change to be reverted or modified if they're problematic. The problem is that two editors are blocking all copyediting by insisting that even minor changes be subject to RfCs in advance, instead of just making changes in situ and reverting/adjusting the few that need it. They recruited PBS to their cause, who managed to turn the fact that I accidentally moved two shortcuts into the {style-guideline} box (instead of their own {shortcut} box) into an AE notification. That's what my above ridiculously overdetailed explanation is about.

Since to my recollection you're generally sane, I'd really appreciate it if you'd add your comments to #Discussion_of_individual_edits_.282.29. (If there's some flaw which you can see how to fix, please just give the wording you'd prefer rather than flat-out "opposing".) EEng (talk) 07:04, 20 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'll try to take a look at it, but have a lot on my plate. As for MOS and LEAD, they have pretty "rich" leads that do their job well. I would like to improve LEAD's lead (and actually have, more than once), but people editwar about that one a lot. MOS/MOSNUM literally must have a different kind of lead, more like that of a glossary or list article, because MOS pages are just lists of do/don't items that cannot be summarized, really, other than as a long outline (which is what the ToC is already). In a case like that, the lead has to lay out what the approach is, not what the content can be summarized as. (But more to the point, you can't disprove a general best practice by hunting down an exception or three; this doesn't work in the real world, and it doesn't work on WP either, where we call that the WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS argument. :-) I think what is really happening here (and it's happened to me for similar reasons) is you're being strident, and it's annoying people, who filibustering you out of frustration at your debate tactics. If you put yourself in an adversarial position, you get blockaded. My edits are not being blockaded, because I've not pissed anyone off lately (among other reasons; my addition of glossary and list-related observations reflects a prior discussion and reflects actual WP practice being observed, while the changes you're making mostly seem to be about restructuring, in ways that not everyone sees as helpful).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:42, 20 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Procedural commentary

I concur with Jayaguru-Shishya's summary of the issue: "many of [EEng's] edits removed a lot of relevant material, changed the tone of the guideline, or moreover, changed the meaning of the guideline." It can be unhelpful to make so many different kinds of edits without much explanation and then vent about objections. On the other hand, it can come across as disrespectful and lazy to mass-revert someone's changes instead of revert the specific portions you don't like; WP:BOLD is policy, and "I'm not sure about all of this" (however worded) is not a rationale for reverting all of it. WP grows and evolves by people adding material, others reverting what they don't agree with for certain, and letting the rest of other editors' changes stand, and be improved over times by other editors. This applies as much to guideline pages as to articles, though we need to be careful with guideline pages, as we would be with featured articles, or widely-deployed templates. So, both sides of this dispute need to rethink their approach. You know guideline pages are going to be resistant to change, so make discrete edits with their own edit summaries that adequately describe the changes. This helps other editors evaluate what the changes and their rationales are, and more easily only revert what they definitively object to.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:53, 20 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wow! This is way more time and trouble than I meant for you to invest. Thanks much. You hit the nail on the head with, "It can come across as disrespectful and lazy to mass-revert someone's changes instead of revert the specific portions you don't like"‍—‌or, of course, just fixing whatever you see as wrong. I went to a lot of trouble to do exactly what you're suggesting i.e. make each edit a discrete quantum [56], exactly to invite that approach, but repeatedly found everything simply mass-removed for vague reasons. As mentioned earlier I made overhauled MOSNUM completely last year (in presentation, of course, not content), in hundreds and hundreds of edits [57], with absolutely nothing like this kind of reaction.

What I'd like to do is reinstall the changes we all seem agreed upon, then continue from there, but more slowly this time, with other editors modifying, fixing, and (where necessary) reverting in a targeted way. Are we all on board with this? EEng (talk) 14:49, 20 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion of individual edits (3)

Alright. I took almost two hours to go over this mess. This thread is a perfect example of why to try to put a whole bunch of unrelated proposals under a single banner. It makes it exceedingly difficult for anyone to follow and reply to the proposals. I'll do my best to get at them all, and in the order Jayaguru-Shishya (J-S hereafter) outlined them (and I concur with him that enumerating them was really EEng's job):

1. The radical change in meaning, from linking when it's helpful to the reader, to something about accidental disambiguation failures was an inappropriate change. As it was self-reverted later, I consider this one a probably moot point. The use of similar, more concise new text, to replace old text elsewhere that is all about "mistaken linking" is okay.
2. Multiple editors have given rationales for retaining the rules about not changing link colors. "No one seems to be doing that" means the rule is working, not that we need no rule! It's OK for this MOS page to reiterate, concisely, a rule given in more detail elsewhere, when it's also relevant in this page. EEng even argues for doing this for a point already covered in WP:LEAD; can't have his cake and eat it too. :-)
3. This point was just someone confused about the self-revert, and can be ignored.
4. This revision of the "Checking links as they are created" section has noble conciseness motives, but goes too far. The original is better, clearer wording that makes at least two points EEng's revision missed entirely (it's not always about "articles with similar titles", and such errors may be hard to notice for others, inside and outside the editorial pool, so it's important to get it right the first time. That said, the original's "which can be irritating for readers" point was kind of unhelpful, and EEng's "will puzzle the reader" is more to the point. Puzzlement is a description of confusion introduced by doing something, well, confusing. "Irritating" refers to an emotional reaction which we're not in a position to be certain about.
5. EEng is correct that we don't need baby-steps instruction creep here. MOS pages are not "Help:" namespace pages. His specific objections to the original wording are cogent. But ...
6. "Strive to remember to use" is logically correct (though "strive" is hyperbolic; just use "Try"). "Strive to use" makes no sense; the tools are not difficult to operate. Regarding the second part that changed here: well both versions are poor. The original rambled, but "to maximize the chance that when the" is awkward and blathery. That section does need tightening, but that first attempt at it fails.
7. Same story here. I don't share J-S's view that the edit "changed the whole meaning of the former two passages (!)"; it's just too much of an awkward rewrite, in about 5 ways, which I can enumerate if necessary. But the original "chase links" stuff is just someone's personal jibberish, and doesn't meaning anything concrete. Somewhere between the two version is the good one.
8. This point is missing a diff link, so I don't know what it refers to. Oh, I found it in later discussion. It would be a good edit for conciseness, if the original made sense. It is really making two important points both of which should be retained, and the confusion cleared up. Try this: 'The text needs to make sense to readers who cannot follow links. User may print articles or read offline, and Wikipedia content may be encountered in republished form, often without links.'
9. Agreed with J-S that the original location of this passage was important. Not everything that has something to do with technical/specialized writing has to be grouped; in this case it is not the more important relevance criterion; the relation to SEAOFBLUE is.
10. Disagree with J-S's view that a guideline can only say "might"/"may". MOS makes many quite specific recommendations. And this isn't even one of them; EEng's edit clearly reflects reality. The ironic thing is that it's the original wording that's objectionable for prescriptivism. It doesn't say "might", it's says "might demand", which is just daft. It implies that after some unspecified criterion is met that it becomes mandatory to have a sea of blue! EEng's "often have a higher link density" is perfectly apt. The overall wording of EEng's change is helpful in other ways, from concision to removal of irrelevant crap about "general dictionaries". Keep that whole edit.
11. J-S makes another "just a guideline" point that seems self-confused (both in itself, and in contradicting the last one). He even objects that the wording "do not" was removed, when it was actually just moved. EEng's edit here is spot-on. It makes exactly the same point in half the verbiage.
12. Keep the sentence, without the footnotes. All of that is covered at WP:LEAD, to which we're already linking in the first half of the edit. It's perfectly fine to re-summarize this rule from LEAD, since it's relevant, but only one policy/guideline should ever define the full scope and rationale of a rule, or POVforking inevitably results over time. This has been a recurrent problem for MOS.

I reviewed Boson's comments, above, on the same points in series, and frankly the only criterion that editor appeared to apply at all was whether the new version was shorter; I don't consider that a useful analysis, sorry. I think what I've said above already clearly indicates which of PBS's points I do and don't concur with.

Later, there's a whole second set of numbered points:

1. EEng demands "evidence" posts, in a timely manner. But this is not an article, and we don't have to source it or any of our views about. This inter-personal pissing match isn't helpful to anyone or to this page. If either of you questions the other's faith again, you should get slapped with a {{Trout}}.
2. EEng responds to complaints of lack of explanation by diffing the fact that detailed explanations have been provided twice (can't count someone else's review as an explanation, though). Valid point: It's WP:FILIBUSTERING and WP:ICANTHEARYOU to keep demanding re-explanations.
3. EEng correctly defends his edit summaries. That doesn't make them non-controversial changes, but the complaint that seems to suggest bad-faith editing on EEng's part isn't justified.
4. A note about "higher level of consensus" that is obviously correct, or these pages would never even get typo fixes. However, many of EEng's edits in this round do in fact trigger a higher level of consensus being needed, because they're substantive.

This is followed by EEng repeating various demands. Badgering other editors isn't helpful. Nor is picking on people's use of words like substantive and substantial. See WP:WIKIQUETTE.

I also note that AlbinoFerret reverted the changes, making multiple editors objecting to them, at least pending discussion and resolution of the issues raised. I think there's a consensus for a couple of these edits right now, but the rest either need substantial (and sometimes substantive) revision, and a few are just not workable because they misapprehend the nature of the original material.

I concur with Boson that an RfC is a terrible idea. This is too unfocused, too mixed a bag of unrelated changes. We can probably proceed with a few of these changes, tweaked a little (even J-S agreed with some of them). For the more controversial changes, take them one at a time for separate discussions (RfC-able if necessary), after the non-controversial ones settle in a bit.

Please don't nitpick at my responses. Producing this review was a huge pain; just take what I'm saying at face value, and don't inspire further debate. It just raises resistance levels. We need more input from more editors willing to pore over that list of a dozen proposed changes, not more argument about what their opinions are (I feel it's fair to argue pro and con both EEng's and J-S's enumerations of the 12 issues, since they're the two who've defined the entire debate. I'm not going to reply point-by-point to Boson or PBS, though).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:45, 20 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Under anti-ambush marketing rules instituted by their organizers, some major sporting events (such as Olympic Games) require naming rights on venues to be suspended, and sponsored names replaced by generic names for the duration of the event.

There have been disputes related to this subject on 2015 Pan-American Games. How would this interact with the link clarity rules? ViperSnake151  Talk  06:13, 11 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how it relates at all. Last I looked the International Olympic Committee doesn't tell WP how to write. The subthread below illustrates pretty clearly what the problem is: These temporary renames are basically meaningless to almost all readers. While WP:COMMONNAME is an article titling policy, the rationale behind it includes a lot of WP:COMMONSENSE applicable to content sometimes.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:23, 20 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification on LINKCLARITY and SPECIFICLINK

An editor continues to claim that articles that relate to locations cannot be piped and is using LINKCLARITY and SPECIFICLINK as the grounds. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2015_Pan_American_Games&diff=670953885&oldid=670950789 is one example. As was discussed in the article's talk page, talk:2015 Pan American Games#Renaming of venues in Games-related internal links, other large tournaments rename venues that have commercial sponsorships. We have traditionally piped them as in See 2010 FIFA World Cup#Venues where Soccer City was piped and a redirect was even created, while for 2014 FIFA World Cup#Venues where Arena de São Paulo was piped: [[Arena Corinthians|Arena de São Paulo]]. Does this violate either LINKCLARITY and SPECIFICLINK? Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:23, 12 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think Magnolia objects to the piping per se, or the terms that are used in the pipe? Tony (talk) 05:45, 13 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know, that's a good question, but based on this edit,this edit, this edit, this edit, this edit, this edit and this edit, I think it's that the names are piped out. That has been the editor's objection on the article's talk page as well. The linked names are correct based on the venues article, or when not mentioned in it, the games website itself: http://www.toronto2015.org/venues. Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:15, 13 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As a compromise, why not just link to Arena de São Paulo, which is a redirect to Arena Corinthians (and create {{R from alternative name}} redirects where needed for other examples)? I would think a redirect would be preferable to a piped link because it could be later redirected to a specific section or even expanded into its own article. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 22:13, 14 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The question isn't about the other articles but about whether piping should be used. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:13, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I would concur with Ahecht as a general matter: There's usually no compelling need to pipe the links, just create redirs that do the job; all those redirs should exist anyway. But context is key. In this particular case, the temporary renames are essentially meaningless to almost everyone. The encyclopedic thing to do is actually to use [[BMO Field]] (renamed Exhibition Stadium for the games), etc. [note the lack of "scare quotes" around the rename]. The renaming verges on trivia that could safely be deleted from the article (as long as the rename wasn't kept after the event); for later readers, in a month or a year or ten years, "BMO Field" is the important point; it's quite possible some entirely different venue by that point will be called "Exhibition Stadium" for some other event! Always try to remember that WP content can be printed and otherwise reused, without links to other WP articles. The text has to make encyclopedic sense as stand-alone content, or it's a failure. Both [[BMO Field|Exhibition Stadium]], and [[Exhibition Stadium]] redirecting to [[BMO Field]]. fail in this regard.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:39, 20 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A few tweaks

I've been time-poor lately, and will continue to be so until 10 August. So I'm sorry that I haven't read through the long debate here about recent edits (which mostly seem to have been reverted). A few spot checks show that EEng made some welcome improvements, although I didn't agree with all of his changes. Here is my edit, made a few minutes ago, made on a comparison of late April until now. I think there's nothing controversial in it. Please let me know if there is. Tony (talk) 08:48, 20 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]