Help talk:Link/Archive 1

Not Clear About PMID - Need To know (I think) the PMID of the Reference attached to this entry - where is the PMID? -or- how does one obtain a PMID for this particular reference?^[1]

Thanks in advance - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 19:57, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

If I want to go back to a section I have edited, I can't do it from my list of contributions if the word "anchor" is in the title. Is this a bug that can be fixed, or something that needs to be explained in this article?— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:03, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

The problem is not the word "anchor" but having a template in a section heading, for example {{anchor}} as suggested at Help:Link#Section linking (anchors). The linked arrow in section edit summaries is documented at Help:Edit summary#Section editing. Perhaps the issue should be mentioned there. An example from your contributions is where the case with {{anchor|...}} does not work. You can manually remove the template code from the edit summary before saving but few people will do that. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:37, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, yeah, I knew it was the template and not just the word. Thanks.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 16:50, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

How to link falsetto into a Chinese Wikipedia page that I'm working on?TimHowardII (talk) 21:06, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

See interlanguage links under Interwiki links. LittleBen (talk) 04:16, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I have two subpages from my sand box, /a and /b. I can get to /b from /a by writing {{../b|params..}} but when I try to transclude /a from my sandbox, as {{/a|params..}} it then tries to access b as user/b not user/sandbox/b

Or am I doing something wrong? Alternatively, is there an easy way of removing [ and ] from a string? John of Cromer in China (talk) mytime= Sat 13:58, wikitime= 05:58, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

I've tried to answer this at the Help desk. It's probably best to raise questions in just one place at a time. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:43, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

I copy edited the Subpage links section.

BTW, I had to change the bit using the term anchor. It seems that term is defined and used consistently until sections 4, 5, and 6, where it turns into what was before target. I just substitute {{anchor}}.— CpiralCpiral 02:27, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Section first says (they) "take a prefix ":x:" which specifies the target site". And later it says: for example, [[m:Help:Link]] links to the "Help:Link" page on Meta ...

But m:Help:Link is not in the form that has a prefix ":x:". Yurivict (talk) 02:41, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Greetings! Does anobody know how to make an intra-link to a subsection? For example, if there was an hypothetical article Alphabet, and it had a section called == Vowels == and a subsection === Letter A ===, how can you make an intra-link to the subsection === Letter A ===? (Alphabet -> Vowels -> Letter A)

I tried to find an answer from the Help -section, but there was no mention of such a case. Therefore, I'd like to suggest that such instructions are included to the current Help -site :P Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 20:55, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Linking a subsection is the same as linking a section: [[Alphabet#Letter A]] --RacerX¹¹ Talk to me^{Stalk me} 21:40, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

This history link shows the earlier topics which were on this talk page before they were deleted by Uncle G's 'bot 21:35, 4 December 2006‎ (UTC). (They have nothing to do with the heading "From Meta:Help talk:Link" – that heading was just an empty topic created by Uncle G's 'bot.) --83.255.55.91 (talk) 17:38, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Is it possible to print red links (articles that have not been made) as plain text, without the use of ParserFuntions?

Example: [[link|name|non-existent=plaintext]] = or something of that sort. I repeat - I cannot use ParserFunctions where I wish to achieve this, so it has to be a build-in feature.

Thanks! --62.65.192.86 (talk) 14:45, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Try <nowiki>...</nowiki> - that's not a parser function. <nowiki>[[link|name]]</nowiki> → [[link|name]] --Redrose64 (talk) 20:10, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Please read my message again, that is not what I asked for (: --85.253.84.55 (talk) 04:01, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

It's hard to understand what you meant to ask, since you didn't explain what you mean by print, or what purpose this is for. Did you mean that you want to display red links as non-linked plain text on wiki pages (not Wikipedia?)? The hypothetical syntax of your example appears to be for marking up specific links with this property – is that what you want? --83.255.55.91 (talk) 19:10, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere

Please see Wikipedia talk:Red link#Proposal regarding redlinks in navigation templates  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:50, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Hi! You may be interested in Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking#Saxon genitive and piping. It is about [[George Washington|George Washington's]] administration vs. [[George Washington]]'s administration wikilinks. Thanks in advance! -- Basilicofresco (msg) 04:55, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

I am attempting to make a link to a subsection of another page, and the link keeps taking me to the bottom of the page instead of the subsection. Anyone know how to fix this?

Example: {{OP|Document:MainSection#subsectiontitle|subSectiontitle}}

This link, goes to the bottom of the "Document" instead of the "subsectiontitle". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jhmechanic (talk • contribs) 17:32, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

If you give us a wikilink to an example, we can look at it. Your contribution record shows nothing other than this question. I'm also rather confused by the syntax in your question; there isn't a "Document" namespace, and {{OP}} apparently doesn't take any parameters. --David Biddulph (talk) 17:41, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

We have had a bunch of new editors asking questions about this page.....seems people are overwhelmed with all the technical data and wording. Think its time we make a simple page to link for new editors... as of now best to link Wikipedia:Tutorial/Wikipedia links for new editors. Will work on this next week. -- Moxy (talk) 23:43, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Fixed. See altered {{About}} template. Mathglot (talk) 20:03, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

The article needs to have a treatment of how to handle linking to section titles which have embedded slashes, and why it doesn't work "the normal way" but requires an escape; for example: #Gender identity and sexuality/sexual orientation. This arose from a question on my Talk page. I answered in part, but didn't go into detail about where the 2F escape comes from, because I was worried about burying a new user in TMI about an arcane topic. But a full explanation of the issue would be completely appropriate here at Help:Link.

There is already a section #Disallowed_characters in the article, but a new explanation doesn't belong there (at least, not if the section title remains the same) as slash is not a disallowed character in section names. Possibly it could go there if the section were renamed '#Special characters' with sub-subsections '#Disallowed', '#Meta', and '#Slash'. Otherwise, perhaps it could be added to #Section linking (anchors) (aka, WP:ANCHOR).

The new treatment might also mention in passing that the Manual of Style frowns on the use of slash to join words as a general rule. In addition, possibly something should be mentioned, or maybe just a link added, about the different default handling of slash in Main: and Talk: namespaces with respect to slashes in the page title and whether subpages are automatically created or not, if that's not too O/T. Mathglot (talk) 20:43, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

@Mathglot: Slashes work fine in section links: Social construction of gender#Gender identity and sexuality/sexual orientation. The problem in a question on your Talk page was wrong addition of "_2" to a link. The characters [ ] { | } do require encoding in section links. I have added mention of that. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:54, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Don't know where else to take this issue, but the "Highlight duplicate links" button in the "tools" section has been malfunctioning for a while. Before, it distinguished between the lead and the article body when highlighting duplinks, but now it counts links in the article body as duplinks if they are linked in the intro, which makes the feature pretty much useless. Can someone change it back to how it was? FunkMonk (talk) 20:20, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

@FunkMonk: That tool is added by the javascript User:Ucucha/duplinks.js which you added to your common.js. I'll ping the script author - @Ucucha: - but if he doesn't respond in a few days, I suggest you post at WP:VPT and perhaps one of the project's scripting experts will take a look. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:18, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Ok, thanks! FunkMonk (talk) 14:00, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

URLs like https://www.google.com/search?q="awarded+a+royal+charter" render as:

https://www.google.com/search?q="awarded+a+royal+charter"

or, in square brackets, as:

"awarded+a+royal+charter"

Can someone add a note on how to use them correctly, please? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 08:27, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

You could try https://www.google.com/search?q=%22awarded+a+royal+charter%22 which renders as https://www.google.com/search?q=%22awarded+a+royal+charter%22 and works as a link. If you want it to display with the quote marks you can use [https://www.google.com/search?q=%22awarded+a+royal+charter%22 https://www.google.com/search?q="awarded+a+royal+charter"] which renders as https://www.google.com/search?q="awarded+a+royal+charter" --David Biddulph (talk) 08:44, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

See also Help:URL#Linking to URLs which is linked in Help:Link#External links. For Google searches we also have {{Google}}. {{Google|"awarded a royal charter"}} produces "awarded a royal charter". PrimeHunter (talk) 10:21, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Hi all,

I have been looking around (Inlcuding in the WP:WikiProject Red Link Recovery) for information on how to remove all red links from an article (The article in question 2002 WPA World Nine-ball Championship, was translated from the German Wikipedia; which has red links, and more pool players on), as the ones that have been translated are non-notable. The only thing I've seen is that it may be possible via AWB; but didn't go into details. Is there any way to change this information (as I may need to use this more than once, and manually it's quite the job)? Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 11:45, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't know a tool but here is a method using regular expressions in the source editor. It skips piped links and some things can go wrong. Click "Advanced" in the toolbar above the edit area to show the advanced menu. Click the magnifying glass icon at the right to get a popup search and replace box. Enter \[\[([^\|]*?)\]\] at "Search for:". Enter {{subst:#ifexist:$1|[[$1]]|$1}} at "Replace with:". Make a checkmark at "Treat search string as a regular expression". Click "Replace all". The source should now have a lot of ifexist code but don't worry yet. Click "Show changes" to see the source changes which will be performed on save. If it looks OK then save. Otherwise abandon the edit or make manual changes. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:24, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

MY user page is Rosogolla Film, Wikipedia published my page, Rasgulla Film, Which is not correct. Page link URL is redirect with Rusgulla desert, I want ot remove this URL. How to solve my problem. Please help me. Bhattacharya rani (talk) 11:25, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Your request is unclear. Your user page is User:Bhattacharya rani. You can post to Wikipedia:Teahouse but please use the exact names of pages you refer to and link them like I did here, e.g. [[Rosogolla (film)]]. I guess it's about some of the pages/redirects Rosogolla (film), Rasgulla (film), Rosogolla, Rasgulla, but you didn't actually give the name of a single of those pages. Also be clear about whether you really want to remove a url or only change a redirect at that url into an article. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:51, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Is there a way to have a link that could e.g. contain ~~~~? I tried the magic words like fullurl, but the only way to prevent the conversion to a signature seems to be <nowiki>. Watchduck (quack) 15:40, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

@Watchduck: No page at Wikipedia can have three or more consecutive tildes in its name; the software doesn't allow it. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions)#Three consecutive tildes. You can place three or more tildes on the right of a piped link; one way is to use nowiki like this ~~~~, another is to break up the sequence like this ~~~~ or like this ~~~~ (view the source to see the coding). -- John of Reading (talk) 16:06, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

@Watchduck: You didn't say whether it's for external links or wikilinks. There are ways for external links. You can percent-encode ~ as %7E like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%7E%7E%7E%7E, or you can insert a comment in the url like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/~~<!---->~~ which produces https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/~~~~. It's not possible in wikilinks, and there couldn't be a target page if it was possible. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions)#Three consecutive tildes says: "Titles cannot contain 3 or more consecutive tildes". That's why https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/~~~~ or variations like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A~~~B say "Bad title" and "The requested page title contains invalid magic tilde sequence (~~~)." (this is Mediawiki:Title-invalid-magic-tilde). MediaWiki prevents wikilinks to such invalid titles. Two tildes are allowed. [[~~]] produces ~~. [[~<!---->~]] works and produces ~~, so wikilinks can contain comments. But [[~~<!---->~~]] fails and produces the unlinked [[~~~~]] with displayed brackets. It's the same for other wikilinks with at least 3 consecutive tildes, e.g. [[A~~~B]]. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:30, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the hint with <!---->. I meant external links like http://example.com?names=~~~~. I am aware of percent-encoding, but in the case that made me ask that would not help. The tildas are meant as separators of strings that may be empty, buy may also contain tildas: http://example.com?names=Huey~Dewey~Louie~non%257Econformist. This query string encodes four names, and the last one is non~conformist. Percent-encoding states that the tilda is not a reserved character, so there should be nothing wrong with this URL. It would be good to have a template that makes sure all legal URLs can actually be used. Would that be technically possible? 20:43, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

@Watchduck: I don't know how your example was constructed but it fails because double percent encoding was used on ~. First it was encoded as %7E and then % in that was encoded as %25, producing %257E. This is not a valid encoding of ~. No encoding http://example.com?names=Huey~Dewey~Louie~non~conformist or one encoding http://example.com?names=Huey~Dewey~Louie~non%7Econformist both work. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:24, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Believe it or not, but in my use case %257E is actually the right solution. I did not come up with it, it's what strict-uri-encode gives me. The two URLs you wrote "both work", but they both encode five names, the last two non and conformist.

Anyway, do you think a template could do something like including <!---->? Are there other examples of legal URLs that could be misinterpreted as wiki syntax? http://example.com?names=---- works fine (despite <hr>). Watchduck (quack) 23:56, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

@Watchduck: I don't know what your unspecified site requires but %257E is not a valid percent encoding of ~. Are you sure you used strict-uri-encode correctly? I don't have the tool but suspect you asked it to encode the already encoded http://example.com?names=Huey~Dewey~Louie~non%7Econformist. Your browser address bar may display the same for this and for http://example.com?names=Huey~Dewey~Louie~non~conformist, but they are not the same and your browser may copy-paste them differently from the address bar. Four ---- only make a horizontal rule <hr /> at the start of a line. A template could not be called with a plain text ~~~~ written in the wikitext without nowiki, comment tags or something else, because it would be converted to a signature as soon as the page is saved. Three consecutive tildes in url's is rare. A common issue is square brackets, e.g. http://example.com?[string] producing http://example.com?[string] while http://example.com?%5Bstring%5D works. See more at Help:URL. If you try to call a template with a url as a parameter then you get trouble with some allowed url characters being interpreted as wiki syntax. I don't think a general solution is possible where the wikitext can contain any valid url without modifications. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:51, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Bot requests § Fixing broken shortcuts to sections. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 05:54, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

I've collated and extended the available help on this worthy topic. Feel free to share your thoughts on my efforts CapnZapp (talk) 10:08, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm placing this here rather than the help desk because it seems like it might be an obscure question. If the help desk is a better place, please let me know.

Question: Is there a way to create a consistent anchor or link in a Talk page so the the anchor or link still works after the relevant section has been archived? Thanks. Finney1234 (talk) 02:07, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

@Finney1234: No, that is not possible. I have occasionally made both a normal wikilink which will break on archiving and a permanent link which will continue to work but only show the page as it looked when the link was made. Example:

"As I posted to Wikipedia:Teahouse#area of a circle (permanent link), your work is original research and would not belong in Wikipedia even if it was correct."

The archived section at Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 1089#area of a circle has two newer posts which aren't in the permanent link. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:44, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. A permanent link wouldn't be ideal, but might be semi-adequate. Finney1234 (talk) 03:07, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

None of the magic words fix this issue in any way that I could work out: Try either linking or wikilinking to this lovely Talk thread using magic words (and please post if you can): Help_talk:Citation_Style_1/Archive_41#{{Cite_book}}_and_|contribution_problems. I did it with a simple online percent-encoder, but I don't see how a magic word can do it without first encoding some of the text manually. So some kind of web app has to be linked to. If there's an appropriate tool (open source or whatever) or an alternative simple method that the community would prefer, list it or replace it later. Otherwise I'll add this one in a week or so. SamuelRiv (talk) 01:57, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

This will work: Help_talk:Citation_Style_1/Archive_41#.7B.7BCite_book.7D.7D_and_.7Ccontribution_problems, but its not an obvious solution. Another would be to edit that archive and put a sensible {{anchor}} there. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:42, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

Please post the source for how you made the substitution. It's unreasonable to ask a user to manually substitute a hypothetical Help_talk:Template#Who_decided_to_make_us_type_{{#ifeq:{{{1|{{{2|{{{3|}}}}}}}}}}}??? SamuelRiv (talk) 12:24, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

I inspected the HTML code of the target page and used the id for that section; I wrote it isn't an obvious solution. AFAICS there is no simple way (other than putting a sensible anchor there). -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 17:54, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

This combines three different tricks: [[Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 41#{{Cite_book}}_and_|contribution_problems]]. It works but is hard to do. I don't know a tool but fiddled with it manually. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:28, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

It's easier if you also post the code so that we can see it instead of checking the source page.

It works in this case of templates, but if it doesn't work for nested brackets then the point remains the same. So it's clear there's no objections to an external tool. SamuelRiv (talk) 19:45, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

My code was: [[Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 41#{{anchorencode:{<nowiki/>{Cite book}<nowiki/>} and {{!}}contribution problems}}]]. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:18, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

I reverted the supplied example. I don't have anything against it technically, but it ambushes the reader with a serious case of technobabble, and I just want us to first ask ourselves: is it worth it?

What I mean is, if we identify a real need to go into this level of detail, we must ensure we bring our readers along. As written, the section made a lot of assumptions of the technical competence of the reader, and did not introduce the problem. Also, can we come up with a less absurdly complex example to get the same point across? Isn't it much simpler to do the "try it out and see what the web browser resolves it to" method?

I'm not saying I have the answers. (I'm not even entirely sure I understand the question!) I just think a second pass on this would be worthwhile. If y'all disagree, feel free to undo the undo and not much time was lost. CapnZapp (talk) 12:14, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

The question is discussed above. It is a problem and the solution is not trivial. As to your objections: The problem was introduced and exemplified; there are a number of technical matters raised in the help page, and interested readers will find them, eh, helpful; the removed text is quite concise and not overly long and certainly doesn't "babble"; the page doesn't have to bring every reader along – those with simple questions will just skip sections they're not interested in – the page has to cater for a wide readership. I suggest to restore SamuelRiv's text. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:40, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

A second pass? You have yet to make a first pass. Please pass. Otherwise get out of the left lane (or right if you're Imperial). SamuelRiv (talk) 13:02, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

There are problems with the addition as written, most notably it ignores the fact that this is an automated version of the manual process described directly above, but if we think it's worth mentioning the W3 School percent encoder, the problems are cosmetic and easily fixed. (I'd be happy to do it.) I think it's probably worth adding. Dan Bloch (talk) 16:09, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Nowhere in the article (or anywhere on wikimedia help sites that I've found) does it mention that special characters are allowed in section headings, or how the characters should be encoded properly be encoded in wikilinks when an automated process is desired (that is, if any wiki parser functions will work, and thus maybe imply that an automated process is currently not implemented on-site as far as we know). Several parser functions are mentioned here and in other help documents, so naturally a user (template coder) would try them out. One immediate purpose is that someone who maybe wants to write a script or template to parse section links should be aware that these types of links exist.

Do you really want to just list your username on the Help page instead of W3 Schools (which specifies NC fair use, which is better than the copyright info from the other online converters I found)? Maybe we can code a template with the phrase "send all links you want parsed to Danbloch" -- I'm pretty sure there's a python library that does that. SamuelRiv (talk) 17:13, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Two paragraphs above the text you added, it says, "Some characters in a web address link need to be represented as escape characters because they are reserved for Wikipedia edits. Examples include %5B for [, ..." But also, are you replying to some other message? Mine said it's probably worth adding. Dan Bloch (talk) 18:08, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

The sentence is clearly in the context of external links, and the subject of the paragraph is external links. It is confusing because the preceding and following paragraphs then refer at least in part to wikilinks. And again, this is important to specify in one way or another and to offer a solution (or note the lack thereof) because the only automated parsing is done by MW and the local browser, and MW does not otherwise error-correct for a section heading that it cannot automatically parse in a section wikilink.

If you think it should go in but have other suggestions for how to word it, then feel free to edit the page. I don't see why it should all be removed until I can magically determine what everyone likes. SamuelRiv (talk) 15:13, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes, you have a consensus. Feel free to add it back. Dan Bloch (talk) 16:27, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Wikilinks to sections of an article don't seem to work in the IOS app when the target is within the same article. Is that a known issue and if so, is there a workaround using anchors or explicit HTML? Onceler (talk) 19:27, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

On which page and which link did you observe this behaviour? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 00:53, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

In the following:

Article:Tim Bray

Wikilink:Antarctica Systems

Onceler (talk) 11:41, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

What do you mean by "don't seem to work"? Instead of scrolling to that section, what happens? BTW, you ought to construct intra-article links without the article name: not [[Tim Bray#Antarctica Systems|Antarctica Systems]] but [[#Antarctica Systems|Antarctica Systems]]. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:55, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

What I mean is that what happens is nothing: selecting the link takes you to where you already were. Instead of changing the focus to the linked section as expected, the view just remains the same.

Thanks for the tip. I don’t disagree about starting section links to elsewhere in the same article with the ‘#’ directly, omitting the redundant article name, but that didn’t seem to help when I tried to edit it. This link cited as an example was already in that form when I first found it. Onceler (talk) 02:47, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

I tried that link with the Android app, and behaved as expected – it scrolled to the section. The mechanism for jumping to an internal named link is the same as jumping to sections from the table of contents. Does that work? According to mw:Wikimedia Apps/iOS FAQ#Where do I report bugs?, there's a method in the app via its "Settings"/"Help and feedback"/"Report a bug" facility. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:11, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Which is preferred, a redirect (e.g. [[neologistic]]) or a non-redirect wikilink ([[Neologism|neologistic]])? Someone changed it on Neopronoun and I was curious if it's a norm in the lead — Tazuco ✉️ 15:47, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

​I'm pretty sure this falls under WP:NOTBROKEN; that is, the redirect is preferred. Dan Bloch (talk) 17:58, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

For me, I would prefer to use non-redirect wikilink and add the pipe link to it, so yes I'll choose the later option. Chongkian (talk) 03:04, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

§ Using a redirect as alternative suggests using the target of a link to convey additional information – invisible in the main text, but available to an interested reader. This contradicts MOS:NOFORCELINK and is not accessible. For abbreviations, {{abbr}} or {{abbrlink}} are appropriate. For non-abbreviations, MOS:NOHOVER discourages tooltips; instead, use H:NOTES.

I propose that the page should either:

• discourage "hiding info in links" and explain these accessibility considerations
• since this is a technical article, neutrally discuss the possibility of "hiding info in links", but also link to MOS:NOFORCELINK
• not mention "hiding info in links" at all

jlwoodwa (talk) 20:51, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

This edit request to Help:Link has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

A wikilink (or internal link) is a link from one page to another page within the English Wikipedia, or, more generally, within the same Wikipedia (e.g. within the French Wikipedia), in other words: within the same domain, or, even more generally, within the same Wikimedia project (e.g. within Wiktionary). 223.177.183.193 (talk) 08:07, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

 Not done for now: It's not clear what changes you want to be made - the only difference is that you've linked "within Wiktionary" to this article. Is that what you intended? Tollens (talk) 08:25, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Simple question: what is In the context of a link from an anchor to a target, it is the starting place. and could you give an example of when this occurs? CapnZapp (talk) 12:44, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

I can't tell if this is intentional or a glitch. In mobile view, links I have already clicked, instead of being purple, are the same color as normal text. This makes it impossible to tell if a word is linked if you have clicked a link to that article before. This issue applies to normal links, section links, and every other kind of link that changes from blue to purple when clicked. The links are still the correct color in desktop view. QuicoleJR (talk) 21:43, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Nevermind, found the task on Phabricator. QuicoleJR (talk) 22:23, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

This edit request to Help:Link has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

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:

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)

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)

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)

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)

 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)

@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)

@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)

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)

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

The redirect Wikilink has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 July 8 § Wikilink until a consensus is reached. Thepharoah17 (talk) 04:52, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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

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)

I have boldly made an edit that cuts to what I don't see sufficiently discussed. The discussion focused too much, in my opinion, on what's linguistically correct, and not enough on what I believe to be User:Srleffler's original point: should a random help page issue linguistic guidance or take a stand on matters unrelated to the help page at hand?

My edit changes "This does the right thing for possessives:" to "This is often helpful for possessives:". Note the subtle difference. The new wording does not (or at least, isn't intended to) in any way shape or form disagree with the consensus above (and at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking#Possessives, mind you), but it does avoid talking about right and wrong on matters unrelated to links and how to use them.

Feel free to improve further. CapnZapp (talk) 09:33, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

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

The text of WP:ANCHOR DEF is a bit confusing and overly detailed. It currently reads:

The word "anchor" has two opposite meanings.

In the context of a link from an anchor to a target, it is the starting place.

In the context of the {{anchor}} template, an "anchor" is a landing place for a link to jump to. The {{anchor}} template automatically creates some invisible coding from certain text in the template in the "landing place". In this context, the word "anchor" may refer to:

• the text and parameters, in the template, from which the invisible code is created,
• the mostly invisible HTML code, or
• the landing place/location/spot in itself.

I propose to change it to:

The word "anchor" has two meanings, which are quite different:

In the context of web page hyperlinks: for a link from an anchor to a target, the anchor is the starting place.

In the context of the Wikipedia {{anchor}} template: an "anchor" is a destination for a link to jump to. The {{anchor}} template defines the destination location in some Wikipedia page. Links to the anchor typically look like [[Article name#Anchor name|display text]].

The purpose of the revised text is to make it easier for readers to understand; and also to reduce the overlap with the following section WP:ANCHOR. Thoughts? Noleander (talk) 20:53, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

Reads OK to me. Gawaon (talk) 21:43, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

Alright, I updated the Help page accordingly. Noleander (talk) 01:18, 6 August 2025 (UTC)

Hi. I rewrote the section in a way that explains more and gets to the point. Feel free to improve further, or even (hopefully not) revert. CapnZapp (talk) 10:23, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

To expand upon the change - you might be wondering why I didn't detail each change. I genuinely felt the most constructive way forward wasn't to critique each fragment of the previous phrasing but instead to start fresh. If you are curious why I left certain parts behind, feel free to ask. CapnZapp (talk) 10:28, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

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)

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner, User:Thisisnotatest. Unless I'm misunderstanding your request, this is difficult because the particulars of each page's archive can differ - there does not exist one given way of accessing a page's archives.

In particular, you can't predict the exact URL of where a topic will be found before its archiving has actually taken place. For instance, this talk page has bot archiving set up. Does this mean I can, as of this writing, create a link that will point to this very talk section ("Wikilinking to archivable topics") once the topic has been archived? No. First off, if I link into the archives, that link fails while this topic remains on the main talk page (=not in the archives yet). Secondly, while I could guess the (future) link to be Help talk:Link/Archive 1#Wikilinking to archivable topics (while this link is blue, it doesn't mean it is necessarily correct; it only means Archive #1 exists, not that this talk section appears there. When I click on the link today, using a desktop web browser, I get a popup tooltip telling me "couldn't be found on this page, but does exist on Help Talk:Link".) that is far from a guarantee. The most obvious cause would be simply that Archive #1 fills up, and the bot archives this talk section into Archive #2 instead. But other things could happen too, even if they're much less likely, such as a future editor changing the way this Talk page is archived.

More generally, there exists several (as in more than one) archiving scheme. Each Wikipedia talk page has archiving set up individually, with no concern for consistency or how other pages are archived. Have a look at User:Lowercase sigmabot III/Archive HowTo. That page details at least three approaches to page talk archiving, and each one would lead to a different wikilink. And that's just one of the archive bots; others exist.

Yes is is slightly unfortunate and sometimes inconvenient that you can't link to any given talk topic in just one unchanging way. But I understand why no editor has attempted to tackle the subject on this help page. Especially since permanent links exist and does offer workable solutions for when you simply must be able to provide a singular always-working link. Cheers CapnZapp (talk) 10:49, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

One of the archive bots actually adjusts links to archived topics from other talk pages once the archival had happened, I've noticed. I'm not aware of the details though, and I don't know how thorough it is. Gawaon (talk) 11:23, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

@CapnZapp:, @Gawaon: Thank you both! I guess if it's handled automatically, I don't have to worry about it, although the archive how to page makes it clear things can go worng. Thisisnotatest (talk) 20:47, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

It does sound like there is things to say on this subject on our help page. CapnZapp (talk) 21:22, 8 August 2025 (UTC)