UESPWiki:Archive/CP Cluttering Links

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Cluttering Links

Moving this discussion here for community attention. I'm not that concerned about this particular set of edits -- it's more of a general point of what counts as cluttering links. --Wrye 13:24, 26 September 2007 (EDT)

Re my reversion of your changes to Prince of Madness... See Avoid Cluttering Links. It's not desirable to link to everything that's linkable -- rather only to the pages that are particularly relevant to the article. Cheers... --Wrye 18:46, 25 September 2007 (EDT)

Wikipedia has similar guidelines, but their articles have a lot of links. Shouldn't we have the same standard here? Also, not all the links you reverted were irrelevant, were they?

Actually, I got this linking idea after looking at some of Wikipedia articles. I think they are wonderful. What is your opinion on this? --Mankar Camoran 09:24, 26 September 2007 (EDT)

Wikipedia also has a lot more articles. You could pretty much link every word in a typical Wikipedia article and not get many red links. But obviously, they don't do this, as it would be really distracting. At any rate, the key word is always "relevant". It may have been a little overzealous reverting the entire edit, but going through them all individually would be a bit of a pain, considering just how many of them there were. Also, there's generally no need to link to the same page more than once within an article or section of an article. Just because the word "Bosmer" appears 3 times doesn't mean it has to be a link every time. The first time is sufficient, if you link to it at all. (This is a borderline irrelevant case - it should only be linked if it's some how beneficial to know more about Bosmers when reading the article.) --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 10:23, 26 September 2007 (EDT)

Thanks. That was very helpful. I will keep that in mind. --Mankar Camoran 12:06, 26 September 2007 (EDT)

Again, the topic under discussion is Cluttering Links (please read). The main point is not to mechanically link to everything that could be linked, but rather to link only to the items which is reader of the page is reasonably likely to want clarification and/or additional info on.

For Shivering:The_Prince_of_Madness, the final step of the main SI quest, you can assume that the reader has already played through (or at least read through) the previous parts of the quest. At this point most background information about SI is known and should not be linked to. Ditto for basic information about gameplay mechanics (health, cure poison, luck, attributes, etc.) -- all of that is known and should not be linked to.

Note that the judgement is what is relevant is dependent on context, and the context for a quest page is different from the context of e.g. an attributes page. E.g., on the page for Luck, it makes sense to link to other attribute pages and to spells, etc. that affect luck -- all of that is relevant at that level of enquiry. But it's not relevant on a quest page where it's assumed to be known background info.

So, specifically for Shivering:The_Prince_of_Madness:

• SI Known Background (should not be linked): Shivering Isles, Sheogorath, Golden Saints, Dark Seducers, Mania.
• General gameplay Known Background (should not be linked): Attributes, health, poison, cure, personality, luck, speechcraft, Bosmer, Khajiit,
• Quest background. These are background info for the quest, but are strongly affected by this stage of the quest, so a link is okay: Greymarch, Forces of Order, Brellach, Pinnacle Rock.

--Wrye 13:24, 26 September 2007 (EDT)

Before stating my opinion, I just want to tell you all that I know what happened here in February (was it April?) very well. I personally think it was very sad. But rest assured, nothing like that is going to come from my side. All of you can feel very safe with me :)

Now, to my opinion. It is very simple. As you have rightly pointed out Wyre, the reader's convenience should be the main consideration. So, when I edit something I think from the reader's point of view. I only add those links which I genuinely believe will help the reader. I agree with you on SI Known Background (although I think there really isn't a problem if it is linked).

About attributes etc. I think they should be linked, because not everyone can be expected to know everything about them. Many people may need more info (I speak from experience here).

Another thing I want to tell you is, I am not an experienced editor. I don't know a lot about editing. But my sincere wish is to improve the quality of this site. I really think many articles are under-linked. I used to feel it when I was browsing this site some time ago. Therefore, my vote is for more links.

I hope that clarifies things. Now, it is for you people to decide on the issue. --Mankar Camoran 15:14, 26 September 2007 (EDT)

It's not so much a decision as a guideline. Links are the foundation of a wiki but if you link everything you link nothing helpfully (to misquote Frederick the Great). Wrye's summary is roughly what I'd suggest too; personally I'd say the links to Golden Saints and Dark Seducers are okay because they're in a section summarising rewards, but that's just me. Shivering:The_Prince_of_Madness is quite a special case as it comes at the end of a quest-line, and an expansion quest-line at that. I think it's fair to assume a reasonable amount of knowledge on the part of the player at that point. If you were linking, say, Unfriendly Competition - which is likely to be encountered early on - there should be more links. Similarly for a quest (The Ultimate Heist springs to mind) that benefits from excellence in a skill or attribute, the attribute in question should receive a link.

You've been doing some fantastic work on improving the links on the site and nobody wants you to stop doing that. A certain amount of discretion is advised though, as linking to too many words can become a touch distracting :-) --Rpeh^Talk 15:59, 26 September 2007 (EDT)

My opinion: I don't see a problem with having links to things like SI storyline background, attributes, etc. I've actually used those links many times. My thoughts are that if it is discussed on the page then it is relevant to the page. But I also feel that there is no need for more than one link to the same page. One thing that I thought of while scanning the page in question, though; Shivering:Magic#Manipulate Weather explains Greater Powers (now), so there's no need for a link to Oblivion:Greater Power. The same would apply, for instance, with a link to Oblivion:Personality; that would eliminate the need for a link to Oblivion:Attributes. --GuildKnight (Talk) ^contribs 16:11, 26 September 2007 (EDT)

I basically agree that we should avoid having too many links and that the best way to do this is to limit ourselves to relevant ones. The problem, of course, is in deciding what's relevant and what the reader might want more information about as they read a particular article. In most cases, like NPC pages, this is pretty simple, but in other places I think it will be more complicated. I personally like to have more links than might be conisdered necessary because I have a researcher's instinct--I like to click on everything I find and see what else I can learn or might have forgotten. I realize that not everybody does the same thing, but I just wanted to point out that we might run into some problems if we decide to really crack down on this linking business. It's good to have a general guideline, but I don't want any wars over this. --Eshe 16:40, 26 September 2007 (EDT)

You took the words right out of my mouth, Eshe. I completely agree with you. I have a very similar mentality. I guess that explains all the linking! But I may need to go easy a bit. --Mankar Camoran 16:53, 26 September 2007 (EDT)

Again, relevancy is the key point here. If you're saying that somebody is wearing Orcish Armor, don't link to an article about Orcs. (You'd be surprised how often I've seen that.) Now, you might consider linking to an article describing Orcish Armor - maybe. But even that is common enough that it's not really that worthy of mention. Now if they were wearing some snazzy enchanted armor, you'd definitely want a link, because it's not just generic junk this time, but something potentially new and useful. (Of course, on most Oblivion articles, you can't really do that since almost all the gear is leveled, but that's beside the point.) --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 16:54, 26 September 2007 (EDT)

It's not just about relevance, although that's one of the major criteria. As I mentioned above, a quest should receive more links if it is likely to feature at the start of a player's game. The same is true of other pages. Again in the Oblivion context (it's what I know!) Oblivion:Vilverin was one of the first to receive a full walk-through because it's the first thing a new player will see upon leaving the sewers at the start of the game. As an example, it mentions that the "blue stones" are "Welkynd Stones", information that would be considered excessive almost anywhere else.

The simple truth is that there's no Right or Wrong answer to what has now become The Great Linking Debate. "One man's meat is another man's poison" sums things up admirably (if the ladies and vegetarians on the site will excuse my choice of quote), and it's up to the individual editors to use their best judgment. --Rpeh^Talk 17:49, 26 September 2007 (EDT)