Help talk:Link

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The contents of Help:Piped link was merged into Help_talk:Link. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists. For the discussion at that location, see its [[Talk:Help:Piped link|talk page]].

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Semi-protected edit request on 20 March 2024

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Suggest adding a short section about linking to redirect pages. Currently, there are a couple of mentions of the "redirect=no" parameter as an example of something simple wikilinks can't do, and how to do it with general-purpose templates like {{plain link}} and {{querylink}} instead. Which is great, but overkill when all one wants to do is link to instead of thru a regular redirect, which is bound to account for the majority of use cases. Draft:

“

It is not possible to create an ordinary link to a redirect page, but custom templates can be used instead, such as {{no redirect}} and {{redirect?}}. The latter works for both redirects and non-redirects but styles them differently, similar to the way they are displayed within categories. The following examples use the templates' shorter aliases:

{{-r|Shakespeare}} → ShakespeareShakespeare
{{-r|Shakespeare|Shakespeare (redirect)}} → Shakespeare (redirect)Shakespeare
{{r?|Shakespeare}} redirects to {{r?|William Shakespeare}} → ShakespeareShakespeare redirects to William Shakespeare

”

This should go anywhere before § Special pages links, so that by the time the reader gets to the first "redirect=no" example there, they already know they don't need to do it that way in straightforward cases. - 2A02:560:5829:B000:B9F7:CF82:EEE5:7596 (talk) 16:39, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just a comment. § Special pages links is not intended to teach people how to link to redirect pages. It's just a example of a link with an ampersand in it. The proposed text can, and probably should, be below it. Dan Bloch (talk) 17:08, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Quite, but what a section is intended to do doesn't really signify. Coming to this page and searching for "redirect" or "redirect=no" specifically is a likely course of action for those trying to find out how to link to redirect pages, and those sections are currently where that lands them, and which even allow them to work out a solution of sorts.

Replacing the mention of "redirect=no" with a different one of the various query strings that can occur in the kind of URL that the questions are intended to be about would be even better. Note that the "redirect" parameter never actually ends up occuring in the code portions but only the prose portions of those sections.

I just figured relative placement would be sufficient.

- 2A02:560:5829:B000:B9F7:CF82:EEE5:7596 (talk) 19:38, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Special pages links says: Because the ampersand character is disallowed, it is not possible to create an ordinary link containing action edit or redirect no in the URL query string. In these cases, use templates or magic words, see Links containing URL query strings.

Isn't this sufficient? CapnZapp (talk) 10:50, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template. Shadow311 (talk) 18:46, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

#top anchor

@CapnZapp and Pokechu22: So, my edit was only partially correct. #top all lowercase is actually special cased by MediaWiki (see mw:Help:Links#A manual anchor). Any other capitalization falls back to the HTML spec. If you're on Vector legacy, it's kinda obvious, #Top goes to the very top of the page but #top goes to the page title. So, if we decide to keep my addition, we may want to clarify a little more. Nickps (talk) 19:21, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Nickps: As I hopefully made clear in my revert, I don't mind your addition per se. Just make sure you (and your references) talk about mediawiki. If possible please avoid unsourced assumptions of mediawiki support for the wider www spec.

@Pokechu22: Can I ask you to brush up on WP:BRD? Please reserve your chosen approach (BOLD, revert, revert) for genuine mistakes, where you have no reason to believe the discussion will need to continue. Hopefully it is clear to you this is not the case here. I hope that upon reflection you agree that BOLD, revert, discuss would have served us all better in this case, meaning that next time: instead of reverting the revert, post your edit summary as a discussion topic on talk instead. CapnZapp (talk) 09:38, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, yes, that probably would have been better (or I should have at least also brought it up on the talk page in addition to the revert to get a discussion going). I'm not super active nowadays, so I tend to be a bit lazy on that front. My apologies. Pokechu22 (talk) 19:38, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. CapnZapp (talk) 20:49, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikilinking to archivable topics

Please add a section on linking to individual topics on archivable pages such as article talk pages or the Village Pump. If I link to such content using the current URL or Wikilink, the link would break when the topic is archived.

I remember being instructed on how to wikilink to an unbreakablelink for a topic. I cannot remember where those instructions were and cannot remember how it was accomplished.

For clarification, I don't mean the permalink to the topic content as of when I created the link, as would happen with the instrutions in Help:Permanent link. I mean linking to the current state of the topic without regard to whether it has been archived or is still on the active talk or special page.

I believe the instructions belong on this current help page. Thisisnotatest (talk) 00:09, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Consensus on posessives?

Does this edit reflect a consensus that has been discussed somewhere or set down in a guideline? I always prefer to link the entire word: Washington's. Linking only part of a word is odd: Washington's. — Srleffler (talk) 17:04, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The help page is a technical guide on how to make links and on what bracketings yield what resulting links. The bullet point in question is an example. It's not necessarily intended as a style guideline. Note the template at the top of the page, which displays with the text:

"This help page is a how-to guide.

"It explains concepts or processes used by the Wikipedia community. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of consensus."

Also note a few sentences down from that: "For guidelines on how links should be used in Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking."

Monkeysoap (talk) 17:42, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I take it then that you will have no objection to me removing the statement "This does the right thing for possessives," which prescribes a particular style not supported by a guideline (as far as I know).--Srleffler (talk) 18:01, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, I have no objection (though I'm not sure a style prescription was what was intended). But if you're looking for consensus on your style question , a more effective place to seek it might be Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking.

Monkeysoap (talk) 19:52, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is not inconceivable User:Danbloch's intent was only to provide an illustrative example, not to prescribe usage. Note that while the MoS prescribes including the 's' in the link for plurals, it is silent for possessives. What I'm trying to say is: if you remove the text, please replace with another illustrative example. Merely

[[a]]:b gives a:b since the rule doesn't apply to punctuation.

...isn't sufficiently clear in my opinion; it's not obvious to the layman that "punctuation" refers to the characters that aren't letters or numbers. The current example might needlessly carry an opinion, but it does hold value in illustrating "the s isn't linked because the apostrophe breaks the rule that text immediately after a link is included in the link text". Regards, CapnZapp (talk) 19:49, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear, I am not proposing to remove the illustrative example with 's, only the statement "This does the right thing for possessives," which prescribes a particular style that does not appear to come from the MoS.--Srleffler (talk) 06:05, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it's not explicitly mentioned in the MOS, but it seems to be common sense, and that, surely, is good enough. Gawaon (talk) 07:31, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I do not agree that it is "common sense" to link part of a word for the reasons that have been described here. There are just two different opinions about which way is best, based on people focusing on different things. Consensus seems to favor your preferred way, though, and that is good enough. --Srleffler (talk) 05:54, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think the original objection above against This does the right thing for possessives is misguided, and that phrase should remain. There's a difference in meaning between Washington's and Washington's. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:19, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Gawaon (talk) 07:28, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The edit has gone unchallenged for nearly four years, so I'd say: yes, it's reflects EDITCON. It's also how I would always write such possessive links (the link goes to Washington, not to whatever Washington may have possessed), and it's technically easiest, so let's leave it as is. Gawaon (talk) 08:03, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Crosslink: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking#Possessives CapnZapp (talk) 07:53, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]