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The result of the debate was Adopt proposal to add linking clause to Manual of Style. Toprawa and Ralltiir 02:21, October 9, 2010 (UTC)

This one's pretty straightforward, folks: it's recently come to my attention that there is actually no official rule on when to link subjects in our articles.

While reviewing Coruscant Security Force, I meantioned that everything should be linked once in the intro, once in the infobox, and once on its first mention in the main body, something we have done (at least on the GAN and FAN) for quite a while now. However, Coruscantfan pointed out that he'd discussed the matter with a couple other users already, and they'd found that there was no actual policy on the matter; and after reviewing the LG and the MoS myself, I found that they were correct.

Therefore, I propose that we add the following clause to the MoS:

"A subject should be linked once upon its first appearance in the article's infobox, once upon its first mention in the article's intro, and once upon its first mention in the article's main body."

This could be seen as an insignificant matter, but I think it would be in our best interest to keep everything consistent. This is also one of those "let's make a real rule out of something we already do anyway" things, but again, I think it's best to make it a rule for the sake of consistency inn our articles.

As always, please bring up any new voting options or wording tweaks to the proposed clause in the discussion section. Thanks. Jonjedigrandmaster ^(Talk) 00:22, October 2, 2010 (UTC)

VotingEdit

For the proposalEdit

1. Jonjedigrandmaster ^(Talk) 00:22, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
2. We've been doing this for as long as I can remember anyway. Grand Moff Tranner ^(Comlink) 00:23, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
3. Xicer9^(Combadge) 00:35, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
4. Master Jonathan ^{(Jedi Council Chambers)} 00:37, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
5. I was wondering about this. Let's make it official. Master Fredcerique ^{Begun the Clone Wars has} † 01:20, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
6. Cylka^-talk- 01:22, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
7. Darth Karika^{will destroy your planet!} 01:29, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
8. Seriously...correct me if I'm wrong, I can't believe this wasn't already policy. CC7567 ^(talk) 02:41, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
9. —Jedi Kasra (comlink) 02:59, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
10. As several others have noted already, this is something we've been doing as the standard since before I joined this wiki more than three years ago, so it makes sense to codify it as policy in the instance that someone actually questions it. And as far as concerns of overlinking go, there's really no reason not to link to everything we can. It certainly doesn't hurt anything, and it's a great help in terms of conducing article research on the site, because it allows us to go into the "What links here" feature and see what topics are connected to what. That has often been a great help to me, personally, when writing articles to make sure what I'm doing is as comprehensive as possible. Toprawa and Ralltiir 03:15, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
11. This should be included because i didn't know where to link where. this is good. --Vandar Tokare42 (Talk to the hand) 04:12, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
12. SoresuMakashi^{(Everything I tell you is the truth)} 05:19, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
13. Per CC. 1358 ^(Talk) 06:15, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
14. Menkooroo 06:49, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
15. Although I'll still add links once in image captions and quote attributions too :P NAYAYEN 08:16, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
16. Grunny (talk) 08:52, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
17. Green Tentacle ^(Talk) 12:58, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
18. In favor of codifying anything that is already codified in the DNA of the users. Graestan^(Talk) 13:06, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
19. QuiGonJinn ^(Talk) 20:31, October 3, 2010 (UTC)
20. NaruHina ^Talk 04:39, October 4, 2010 (UTC)
21. Cavalier One^{(Squadron channel)} 08:37, October 4, 2010 (UTC)
22. Clone Commander Lee ^Talk 17:57, October 4, 2010 (UTC)
23. This is one of the two reasons why the whole "underlinking" objection ticked me off. It wasn't policy. Now that it is, I still have my other reason. — Fiolli 19:38, October 4, 2010 (UTC)
24. Especially per Tope, there's no way we can hurt by linking, especially linking properly and consistently. (: --Tm_T ^(Talk) 20:26, October 4, 2010 (UTC)
25. You have got to be kidding me. Chack Jadson ^(Talk) 16:52, October 8, 2010 (UTC)

Against the proposalEdit

1. I know this proposition will probably pass, but I think we drastically overlink articles, so here's my vote of protest. :P ~ SavageBob 01:52, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
   • Jerk. lol jk c):D Master Fredcerique ^{Begun the Clone Wars has} † 04:02, October 2, 2010 (UTC)

DiscussionEdit

Per the September 2007 Mofference, "As opposed to a simple one-link-per-article, it is now acceptable (but not required) to link to a given page in an article's introduction, body, infobox, captions, and quotes attributions." I've been following that ever since but have noticed that several users remove links from captions and quote attributions. Green Tentacle ^(Talk) 00:32, October 2, 2010 (UTC)

• Just to clarify the above into an actual question… We've had a policy on this for a little over three years now (minimum of one link but allow more), even if it was never written up in the MOS. This CT will mandate the infobox, intro and body links, but are we overturning the previous consensus and scrapping links in quote attribution (obviously unless not otherwise linked) and image captions? Green Tentacle ^(Talk) 01:03, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
  • This is not meant to overturn anything about the quote and image captions. For the quotes, the LG already specifies: "Do not use links within a quote, unless it is the only mention in the article of a certain subject." And for image captions we've generally been going by the same rule—don't link unless it's the only mention in the article—albeit this seems to be an unwritten rule and we've been following it far more loosely. But if you think it would be better to specify these rulings in this clause for the sake of clarity, then I will. Jonjedigrandmaster ^(Talk) 03:56, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
    • The LG only says not to link within the quotes themselves, it doesn't say anything about the quote attributions. Xicer9^(Combadge) 04:14, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
      • Ah, my mistake; so then that's another unwritten rule we've generally been going by… Do you guys think we should add these to the proposal? Jonjedigrandmaster ^(Talk) 04:17, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
        • I don't think it's necessary to add it to this proposal. I've always viewed attribution and caption linking as optional, for good or ill, and have never made much of a stink over it since it's fairly minor. I say leave them as separate issues and let someone else work the kinks out of that one in another CT. :P Toprawa and Ralltiir 04:37, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
          • Makes sense. We should probably note that they can include links too in the MOS though. But then we should have done that years ago. :P Green Tentacle ^(Talk) 12:58, October 2, 2010 (UTC)

• What about shorter articles, which are often intro-less? Under the LG, since they don't have the Biography header and have the bolded name, they could be classified as an introduction, as opposed to being part of the body. That would mean that things like intro-less CANs would link once in the "biography" and again in the P&T/bts. SoresuMakashi^{(Everything I tell you is the truth)} 04:50, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
  • No, because we've already established that in such cases the intro itself counts as the body—note how we source the "intros" of such articles. Jonjedigrandmaster ^(Talk) 04:52, October 2, 2010 (UTC)
    • Ah, very true. SoresuMakashi^{(Everything I tell you is the truth)} 05:19, October 2, 2010 (UTC)