Talk:Overlinking

This page exists...

This page exists because of the excessive amount of time one spends undoing links that point to common nouns, and that contribute nothing to the articles.

Keep and move to Bad Jokes etc Lee M 23:47, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Try Wikipedia talk:Make only links relevant to the context if you must vent about overlinking please. —No-One Jones ^(m) 23:51, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Note:

The term, 'overlinking,' has 300+ Google hits, and is a real term. What you're judging is an in-progress piece of writing that was not intended to be a self-referential Wikipedia manual page, but that was repeatedly flagged as it was being written, first for one reason, then for another.

Instead of writing the article, I had to spend paragraphs asking people to please leave it alone, first because it was labeled 'patent nonsense,' then because it belonged in 'bad jokes,' and later because it looked like a manual page. If I were to draft another paragraph of the article, somebody could absolutely find another category for deletion based on what that one looked like, and so on. That's not what this process is intended for.

This is not an article. It is an unfinished scrap of writing. It is on a legitimate topic, but has not been written yet.

The portion on Wikipedia is one piece of a greater thesis.

I don't know how to say this any more politely or clearly: A contributor, Kevin Rector, flagged this page in error, and was asked nicely to please hold off judgement. Instead, he refused to communicate, deleted my comment from his talk page, and flagged the page again.

This happened while I was typing. I've spent perhaps 1500 words trying to make Kevin Rector go away until there was an article to judge. I don't know him, and he seems like a decent enough person, but I've written numerous articles here, while his contributions seem mostly to be deleting things and making minor edits -- policing content. There are times in which that's extremely valuable, but also times in which it's a giant pain in the ass to someone who's trying to get work done.

I want it to be clear that I don't care about the page. The issue here is the misuse of the process. I've asked this person to please come back when there's something to read, yet he won't go away or communicate. So I'm not going to finish the article, and you should delete it.

Auto movil 13:27, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

That's your choice, but it doesn't seem a very constructive choice to me. My advice is to put just a little of the effort that you've put into the debate into the article instead. If it becomes a good, NPOV article about the phenomenon in general, rather than an opinion about what's good for Wikipedia, then I'll change my vote to keep and I expect so will enough others to keep it in the article namespace. There's plenty of time to do that, but it is running out.

I agree with many of the points you have made about procedures. In theory the Wikipedia policy is assume good faith, but in practice lately it is shoot first ask questions later. That's not to say that MWOT isn't a good thing, obviously I think it is. It's a balance, and the key is wikilove. In theory the standard is no personal attacks, in practice lately it seems you can be as rude as you like unless you dare to criticise this rudeness as I have, and then I got a real rocket in reply, which went unchallenged.

If you want an example of the different approaches, try comparing User talk:Sergio casares to User:Sergio casares. You may need to check the page histories, I mean the first versions of each page. Andrewa 19:53, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What about underlinking? Google hits: 26 atm. :) Seriously, I think that overlinking scare is very POVed. Hypertext is Wiki strength, don't take it away. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 22:01, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Don't go into panic mode. The idea is one must be reasonable. Not too much, not too few. And BTW strength may be abused, too. Look at this. Nice colors. Mikkalai 03:33, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hyperlink page

This page an example of horrible hyperovermonstrouslinking. I am wondering whether to clean it up or add a phrase to it: "This page is an example of a common abuse known as overlinking". What do you think? Mikkalai 19:13, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Backing off. It was about this version made by an anon "for fun". Mikkalai 19:17, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Merge and delete

A recent attempt to delete this article stub has failed once again:

• Archived debate: no consensus [1]

The problem is that we have two competing articles here at Wikipedia, and one of them has got to go:

• "Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context" is a style guide, not an ordinary article. It uses the shortcut WP:CONTEXT.
• "Overlinking" is a stub of an article.

1. The first has good content, but an extremely clumsy name, and that needs changing.
2. The second (this one) has so little content that it should be merged with the first, and then deleted.

The question is how to do this.

I have now merged all relevant content that was different into the WP:CONTEXT article, which means this page can be blanked and replaced with a redirect, which would be very necessary, since the term "overlinking" is used extensively here at Wikipedia.

The next thing is a new title for the style guide "Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context."

I suggest a title which not only describes the content perfectly, but it also fits the current shortcut (WP:CONTEXT):

• New title: "Contextual hyperlinking"

This is a recognized concept on the web, as this Google search reveals.

What is the best way to do the renaming? Since the shortcut remains unchanged, the redirect is the only problem, (or is it?) -- Fyslee 21:46, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I actually prefer this as a stand-alone article. It describes and documents a phenomenon outside of Wikipedia. It includes an external citation. It is written in a fair and neutral manner. That makes it a pretty good article. The fact that it's a stub is not a problem. Many of our best articles started as stubs and stayed that way for a long time. I would oppose changing this into a redirect. Give it some more time to grow.

As for the title change to WP:CONTEXT, you should propose it on that page's Talk page and give it lots of time for consensus to emerge. I have some further comments, but I'll make them over there so the discussion doesn't get too badly fragmented. By the way, please make sure that I've properly copied your proposal over. If I made a mistake or misstated your position, please correct it. Rossami (talk) 15:54, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I understand what you're saying. It has been explained to me that this and the other article are different, as they are in different wiki spaces, or something like that. Therefore this article deserves to be expanded, but still linked to the other as supplementary reading.

This one would have to meet the usual criteria for articles, and could document the concept using sources from the web. Thus it would document the concept, while the other "article" would remain a guideline. -- Fyslee 16:07, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, so let's give it a chance. This article explicitly attempts (or should attempt) to explore the concepts of over- and under- hyperlinking in any linked document, while being clear that it's not just about the guidelines at Wikipedia. So it should diverge. That being said, there's not enough here yet about guidelines being used in other information resources and other standards. Those are sought. But they'll never appear from people who know about them, if you blank the proper article in which they should appear. Which is this one.

And by the way, in this hypertexted on-line information universe we're all moving into, the concept being discussed is of more than passing importance. It's sure as heck more important than most things that have Wikis devoted to them on Wikipedia. SBHarris 00:54, 23 January 2007 (UTC)