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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Contributor321 (talk | contribs) at 03:02, 3 December 2020 (→‎Consensus?). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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

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

Major constitutes any country, geographic feature, location, language, nationality, ethnicity, or religion that a reader of the article could be expected to know. For instance, in the discussion of a recording, one does not need to link the nation or studio album in the first sentence, but the musician should be linked as there is a close association.
Highway 61 Revisited is the sixth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan.
I'm not sure what the manual of style is for Australian subjects, but other than the United States, the state or province should not be listed unless the subject is likely to be internal to the nation. For instance, I would argue that the Rolf Harris article errs in listing Bassendean, Western Australia, Australia. If it is for internal readers (in this example, primarily Australians) then linking it is entirely unnecessary as the link will likely never be clicked. Similarly the article on Gordon Lightfoot lists Orillia, Ontario, Canada, but the province is not linked. New York, London, Paris, Munich and most other cosmopolitan cities do not need to be linked, unless they're relevant to the context in the article. For instance, I would link the city of Sydney in the article on the Sydney Airport, but not in an article about a sportsperson, or the like. However, if you're linking the city, I would definitely not link the state (if it were listed) or the country. If the article on that sportsperson had a personal life section, I would not link that the person was "Christian", or "Evangelical", or "Anglican", or "Jewish", etc. It's probably not necessary.
The way I've heard it explained is that you should ask, "will the reader click on a link to this subject because they are unfamiliar with it?" If the answer is "no", then no link is needed. I've also heard it suggested that if a reader were to ask, "what's that thing? You know, the one that <subject> is known for? Oh I know, let's go to <subject>'s Wikipedia article to read more about it." Would the link be there? If no one would ask that question, don't link it. For instance, "what the name of the mountain the Edmund Hillary scaled?" If there's a link to Everest, the reader will be happy. If no one would ever ask that question, the link to Everest is an OVERLINK.
In short, this is not a rule, it's a call to common sense. By all means, avoid a WP:SEAOFBLUE. Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:52, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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

MOS:EGG and linking to specific pages

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

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

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

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

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

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

Need for clarity on linking major American cities

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

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

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

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

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

I think there's a time and place for revisiting that list, which seems to have been drawn up around 1920. (With all due respect... Cincinnati? Really???) But for now, let's stick with Los Angeles as the canonical example. EEng 02:23, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I favor "1" or "3" in most cases, with "1" being more common usage. Other forms WILL be needed from time to time. I would NOT be in favor of making wholesale changes to existing pages, but if someone did do a page-wide change to one page or a small number of pages, and the results were consistent within each page, I wouldn't blindly revert them without starting a discussion. On the other hand, if someone decided to do mass-changes without a discussion first, that would be disruptive. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 00:19, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I prefer "1" though I want to recognise there will be instances in which it's appropriate to include the name of the state in the article. So, #1 is preferred in most instances, but #2 or #3 is fine when maintaining consistent prose is more important (for instance, in a list with cities that don't follow those rules and include the state), and #4 should probably be used in relevant infoboxes, for instance birth and death locations. SportingFlyer T·C 01:18, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for bringing this up. I've long been a little unsure just how much linking/detail is needed. I'm interested in hearing from Jweiss11 and others, but without delving too much into the prior discussions you linked, it does seem as though they are inappropriately going against MOS:GEO.
Also, at the risk of complicating things further, there are some related questions, such as whether to begin articles with Foo is a bar in Los Angeles, California, United States or just use the city/state or just the city. Other than not linking the United States, all of this seems like it could use some standardization. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 01:21, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • 4 is never appropriate one next to the other per sea of blue (or somewhere in that vicinity. --Izno (talk) 01:39, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, there is the comma, so technically it's not an uninterrupted sea, but that is something to weigh. Personally, I view SEAOFBLUE as less sacrosanct than making sure useful links are present when otherwise warranted. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:16, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    A sea with toothpick floating in it is still a sea. EEng 22:46, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • To clarify, the disagreement between Cbl62 and me concerns usage in infoboxes and tables only, particularly place of birth/death field infoboxes, as seen at Greg Lens. For the sake of consistency across articles and between parallel elements in the same article, I advocate variation #2 above ("Los Angeles, California" or "San Antonio, Texas") because it renders a style consistent with "Marshall, Minnesota". Variation #4 above should be thrown out because it's a clear case of overlinking.
Also pinging Rikster2 and Nikkimaria, who have been involved in recent discussions about whether "U.S." should follow city and state in place of birth/death fields in infoboxes; see User talk:Nikkimaria#Adding “US” after city and state on baseball, basketball, college coach articles. Jweiss11 (talk) 01:45, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
For tables that definitely makes sense for internal WP: Consistency within articles. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:16, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I favor the ability to display City, State in tables and infoboxes where consistency is desired. This mirrors what most sports use in rosters and biography articles in the “real world.” I don’t think use of American (or Canadian) City ONLY should be required in all cases. As for linking, I am good with 2, 3 or 5. In sport articles that I work on the correct “unit” (usually birthplace, etc) is the city/state because the question the reader is trying to “answer” is “where specifically is this person from?” Rikster2 (talk) 03:25, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option (1) makes sense to me as a default, but I can easily envision situations where (2) or (5) may be appropriate, such as in lists or tables alongside other US cities, and in situations where the state might warrant a mention anyway. I agree (4) is inappropriate (and slightly WP:EGGy given the many US cities which include the state name in their links), and (3) seems a poorer version of (2). CMD (talk) 04:46, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • <city>, <state> is OK for consistency in tables and infoboxes. For link style, I prefer (3) to discourage drive-by editors creating a MOS:SEAOFBLUE by linking the state. (2) goes against MOS:NOPIPE, but honestly, many long-time editors don't follow it.—Bagumba (talk) 08:54, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do our readers a favour: if it's clear from common knowledge or article context, don't slavishly insert the state. Use the state to identify only less-well-known cities. Tony (talk) 11:38, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with Tony. Most of these references are blue linked, at least at first encounter, so anyone who wants to bone up on their geography is only ever one click away from enlightenment. For Badiddlyboing, for sure add in the state Odawidaho to save people the trouble of looking. But for big towns and cities, why bother? MapReader (talk) 15:05, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    There is one school of thought that holds that we should not use Wikilinks as explanations. I'm not sure what I think of that argument, but wanted to note its existence. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:17, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree it is good to display the state also in many cases for consistency. It also avoids deciding when "it is clear from common knowledge" that the state is unnecessary - we do have a worldwide readership and shouldn't assume the reader has a typical American knowledge of geography, whatever that is. Of course, in prose you wouldn't say Los Angeles, California beyond perhaps the first occurrence. When the state is added, I would use (3), (2) is acceptable as well but I don't see a reason to "complicate" the source unnecessarily to avoid a redirect. Never (4). MB 16:22, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Per the list EEng has provided, we normally should not list the state for those cities unless it is in a place where the omission clearly causes consistency problems, such as in a table, list, or infobox where we have had to link cities by "city, state" names. When such it needed, it should be linked as one single piped linked eg either [[Chicago|Chicago, Illinois]] or [[Chicago, Illinois]], but definitely not making the state a separate link, that's just a waste of a link that's typically not relevant since the city is the relevant link, not the state. --Masem (t) 00:16, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Consensus?

@Cbl62: seems like we have wide support here for including the state in infoboxes, tables, and lists. Do you agree? Jweiss11 (talk) 02:52, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Consensus is clear as to tables and lists where the state names are consistently recited. That makes sense. I'm still unclear whether there is a consensus for using state names in narrative text and infoboxes. I tend to agree with Tony and MapReader's view that the state should be listed only if it's a lesser-known city. As to infoboxes in particular, they are not like a lengthy chart or list where inclusion of state name is needed for consistency's sake. There's also a variety of views as to "how" the state name should be displayed. The discussion has been helpful. Let's let it run its course and see where it ends up. Cbl62 (talk) 21:26, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Cbl62, there's support here from a number of editors (Sdkb, SportingFlyer, Bagumba, Masem, Rikster2, and me) for including the state names in infoboxes/tables/lists. It's unclear whether Tony and MapReader were offering an opinion about prose, non-prose, or both. Perhaps they can clarify? @Nikkimaria:, can you weigh in here? How would you format the place of death field in the infobox at Greg Lens? Jweiss11 (talk) 21:24, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
With regards to linking, I personally would link only San Antonio and not other components of the place. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:33, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Nikkimaria: But you would include Texas and U.S., i.e. "San Antonio, Texas, U.S."? Jweiss11 (talk) 21:37, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Correct. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:38, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Contributor321: Please see this discussion per your reversion of my edit at California State University, Los Angeles and weigh in if you like. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 19:28, 2 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for letting me know about this discussion. I think it's important to include the state name in the prose. Let's keep in mind the international readership who might not know that San Antonio is in Texas. As to how to display that information, one way is San Antonio, Texas, which links only to the city; an alternative is to put brackets around each of San Antonio and Texas, which links the city and links the state. The text looks the same in either case, but the latter lets a reader easily go to the state page if interested, while the former leaves out that option. I prefer the latter simply because it gives the reader more options. Just my 2 cents. Contributor321 (talk) 01:34, 3 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Because the latter looks the same as the former, users are not able to distinguish visually that there are two links versus just one - see WP:SEAOFBLUE. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:16, 3 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Putting your cursor on it readily distinguishes whether it's one link or two. Contributor321 (talk) 03:02, 3 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I recommend that we first resolve what to display and then we can discuss how to link it.—Bagumba (talk) 01:45, 3 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I inserted navboxes into the existing text, so that it reads:

...if helpful for readers, a link may be repeated in infoboxes, navboxes, tables, image captions, footnotes, hatnotes, and at the first occurrence after the lead.

because, well, doing so is custom and practice in every single case where a navbox mentions something already linked in an article.

This was reverted the edit summary "No reason for that addition per common sense, and also because the content of navboxes is not in the article text (while the rest of that section concerns those constructs which are)". The former claim is bullshit, and the latter claim is false, as neither footnotes or hatnotes are part of article text article text.

Accordingly, I restored my edit. It has again been reverted.

Can anyone make a cogent case why navboxes should not be mentioned in this context? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:01, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Pigsonthewing: Your failure to understand the context of that sentence is clear. Those elements mentioned in that section clearly have some text appearing in a specific page that a user can choose to link. "Navbox"es do not allow the editor of a specific page that choice. 'nuff said. --Izno (talk) 20:18, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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