Wikipedia talk:Only make links that are relevant to the context/Archive 3

message: Why was this page renamed from "Make only" to "Only make"? The new title has "only" modifying the action "make", as if to warn us that we should make links that are relevant to the context, but we shouldn't do other things to them. Before, "only" modified the phrase "links..." which was correct. Melchoir 11:23, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hear, hear!  "Only make" is not correct English!  Kaisershatner 04:21, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

text: "Make only links relevent to the context" and "Only make links that are relevent to the context" are both ambiguous, depending on how you look at them. The first can be interpreted to mean the only thing you can make is links relevent to the context, so you can't make bulleted lists or toys. The second can be interpreted to mean the only thing you can do, period, in all of your existence, is make links, so you can't sleep or read literature. The key word missing is when (or if), as in, "Make links only when they are relevent to the context".—jiy (talk) 16:42, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How about just "Don't make links that are irrelevant to the context", since that's the intended meaning here. This page isn't about getting people to make more relevant links, it's about getting people to make fewer irrelevant links. Plus I'm sick of all the positivity in Wikipedia pages. -Silence 04:12, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree. Both previous titles are unclear, and awkward phrasings as well. Oh yeah and WIKIPEDIA SUCKS. (no, not really, just trying to solve your positivity problem...) Stevage 07:04, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How about "Avoid irrelevant links"? Melchoir 01:51, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page move? 

message: What good is the sum of human knowledge if the vast majority of it is inaccessible?  Wikipedia is one of the last truly "surfable" places online, and in the interest of spreading knowledge, I view non-linking as a denial of information to a reader.  Sure, there's something to be said for a hierarchy of relevence, though maybe that's an argument for each Wiki page having a Trivia section.  The world would be a better place if everyone who looked up sociology also saw that it was one of the domains of the Nine Unknown Men.  It seems like a lot of uptight anti-learning sentiment that fuels the anti-linkist mentality.  Links should point people in directions they would not explore on their own. If I want to read about Orientalism, I'll find it on my own; but how am I going to learn about Miquelon unless someone just happens to hyperlink it? Amber388
:While I'm all for constructing more silly labels and factions ("anti-linkists"?), I really think that, to the contrary, omission of links is a critical source of information. The choice of links allow a reader to avoid irrelevant, misleading, or too-general articles and quickly focus in on the related topics of immediate relevance, which for an unfamiliar topic is not always clear. If everything were linked, the reader would have to "hunt" for interesting related topics, which right now we're doing for them. Also, it's not like it's difficult to visit any topic they want - they just have to copy it into the search box and hit Go.
:I think this proposal has attracted some opposition (including some from myself) due to wording that is too strong and trying to do much at once, but the essential premise that completely irrelevent links are stupid has attracted very few opponents, as far as I can tell. Deco 14:43, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that the argument that linking all terms is misleading is a spurious one. The astute reader will have no difficulty determining which links will proceed to relevant background or sideground information and which ones will not. For that matter, the preponderance of links already do not yield information specifically related to that in the article containing the link. If I say "Joe Blow was born in Canada but moved to England at an early age", neither of these links is going to tell me more about Joe Blow than is already contained in his article. It does not take long for someone who frequents Wikipedia to learn this. Personally, I think all words should be linked to something, whether it's another Wikipedia article, or Wiktionary, or Wikibooks, or wherever. The only reasonable argument I see against linking is that they generate text which can be messy to read. I solve this problem by turning off underlining in my prefs. I believe this ought to be the default setting for Wikipedia - who does not have a color monitor anymore which allows one to discriminate between blue links and black unlinked words? Denni ☯ 23:25, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: A Case for Whimsy

message: As many people here have pointed out, many articles have far too many links that are a frustrating distraction when reading.  Is it technically possible to allow the reader to toggle these links on and off?  If it is, then wouldn't this option be a useful feature for readers?  I envision it like this: the default view would remain unchanged, but there would be a small button or other clickable feature at the top or bottom of an article's page which would toggle the links on and off.  I think many users would appreciate the simpler and more straightforward view of the article that this would provide.--BlackBox 04:19, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You can use "my preferences" to change the formatting of all links on the page.  But to me, that's a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  Rossami (talk) 04:37, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add optionality to not display links in article? 

message: The current policy reads:
:Words that have been linked earlier in the article. This advice follows the standard practice of defining or explaining a term, or spelling out an acronym, on its first occurrence in a text and not subsequently.
I propose adding:
:Exceptions to this rule exist, such as photo captions and other places which readers are likely to jump to without reading the earlier section where the term is linked.
Any objections/modifications? savidan(talk) (e@) 02:58, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It was most recently proposed in this section above.  Yes, there were objections.  Rossami (talk) 05:02, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed ammendment