User talk:Colonies Chris/Archive/2010/Apr

Delinking, again

I noticed the removal of wikilinks to countries, cities etc when one came up on my watchlist the other day ("France", on the French wine page). Looking around, you seem to have some form of bot running, and are removing links to countries, cities etc en masse from hundreds of articles. I also note that you're saying this is simply per the MOS on linking, which was established by consensus and has been in place for a year or so. Can I make a couple of points here?

• Even if there was such a consensus, it would seem better not to force it through uniformly and without any discretion, via mass automated changes like this.
• Consensus in any event probably just meant the dozen or fewer people who happened to come across the debate and express a view. I for one never got a chance to, and would certainly have come out against any such proposal - wikilinks are not redundant simply because they might point to a page covering something people might already know about (and who makes that judgment on behalf of a supposedly undifferentiated mass of people anyway?) Fair enough, people might be well aware that France is a country in Europe for example, but even then it seems a little pointless to make it more difficult for people to navigate through to the page in order to find out what the WP article about France actually says, or to look for a detail about France that they might not be aware of. I certainly can't see what harm is being done, so long as it is genuinely not overlinked. Links are about ease of navigation, and having the option available, not about guessing what things people supposedly already know about or not.
• In any event, it seems you are overinterpreting the MOS. The wording is, my emphasis - "Unless they are particularly relevant to the topic of the article, avoid linking terms whose ...". Now surely "France" is relevant to "French wine"? "New York" is relevant to an article about a church in that city? As mentioned at point 1, the perils of automated mass reverting I guess.

Thanks. N-HH talk/edits 16:39, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

N-HH, in fact, WP:LINK specifies that well-known geographical names should not generally be linked. Colonies Chris is doing readers a service by reducing the dilution of high-value links; ironically, this makes readers more likely to click on linked items—the high-value ones. Tony (talk) 23:53, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I had let this rest, but it's come up again on the Champagne article. I really think that removing any links to France in articles about French things is actually quite unhelpful, as well as being in clear breach of the WP:LINK wording that people keep pointing me to, where it actually says - correctly in my view - that terms about "major geographic features and locations" that are "relevant to the topic of the article" should be linked. You're not applying any discretion here. And why has France as a country, for example, been singled out for removal? Here, you've even taken it out of an infobox - while nonetheless retaining Algeria underneath it. Not necessary, nothing to do with the flow of any prose text and totally arbitrary. I'd add that the removal of links to the World War pages in an article about a French general who served in both of them seems a little over-zealous as well. N-HH talk/edits 17:30, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

It says "Unless they are particularly relevant to the topic of the article, avoid linking terms whose meaning can be understood by most readers of the English Wikipedia, including plain English words, the names of major geographic features and locations,...". And it says: "[link] articles about geographic places that are likely to be unfamiliar to readers". Who is unfamiliar with the notion of France? The infobox you mention even contains "Cavalry corps (France)", a "chain link". Tony (talk) 23:34, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Is it remotely likely that a reader, seeing the mention that a general served in World War II, would think 'what's that?' and click on the link? Links to particular campaigns in which he served might be valuable, but a link to such a huge and universally familiar subject has no value here at all. Colonies Chris (talk) 00:01, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

And in the St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church, New York article, the link to New York City which I removed occurs within a few words of much more specific and relevant links to 51st Street (Manhattan) and Midtown Manhattan (which themselves link to New York City).

Whoever said - least of all me - that people are "unfamiliar with the notion of France", or don't know what WW2 is? What difference does that make to the point at issue anyway, and to the questions I have asked about relevance, navigability and arbitrariness? You both appear to be removing hundreds of perfectly usable and often no-doubt-useful-to-some-people links to things that are clearly relevant to the topics at hand in each case, including from infoboxes. These links are to major topics, not just to dates or whatever. And please do better than making personal assertions about what is uniformly "useful" or "valuable" or "a topic already known to the reader", and what is supposedly not, on behalf of 1000s of other readers/editors and non-editing readers. People don't all think as one, know the same things, or use Wikipedia the same way or for the same reasons. N-HH talk/edits 18:18, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

ps: (re St Barts, edit conflict) so, you agree in fact that it's reasonable for people to be able to link through to the New York page - but it should take them twice as many steps?

pps: (to Tony) I know LINK says well-known things should not be linked unless particularly relevant. I've been relying on exactly that point of course - I don't see how it supports your view in the examples under discussion. The second quote, calling for links to places that are likely to be unfamiliar, isn't relevant to this discussion about not linking to places that are, I fully admit, likely to be familiar

Responses to N-HH from here and the same-named subsection at your talk page:

• "It's merely saying that some people might want to click through, others might not - but they at least have the option to make that decision themselves. By removing the link unilaterally, you are denying them that choice". Yes, but please consider both sides of the balance sheet: every link comes at a cost, in terms of diluting high-value links in the vicinity, in the appearance and readability of the text (it is not desirable to have a speckled bright-blue appearance unless, as in some leads, for example, it is natural and important that dense wikilinking appear). There are also exceptions for tables, which actually look better if all items in a column are bright blue, especially the table is sortable. Now when you say that not linking an item is "denying them that choice", I'm afraid we do need to deny that choice for most items lest, as Chris has pointed out, we link every single work in WP's text. A blue carpet encourages people to ignore the linking function. You may be interested in reading the opinion of a former professional webmaster, who dealt with this issue on a large scale. Now, on the matter of relevance: it's not just whether a link-target is relevant to the topic ("the" is relevant to all topics—actually, very relevant), but whether it is useful to readers; i.e., whether it is sufficiently likely to help them to understand the topic at hand, given the need to use our judgement in rationing the system for our readers. Such rationing is, in fact, a service to readers, since it shows them which items—in our considered, knowledgeable opinion—are most likely to help them. And please note an important principle: WP is not a dictionary.
• "Links don't interrupt the flow or readability of the text in any way". I don't know how one could conclude this.
• You are welcome to raise more questions of this type; you may also be interested in this page, for which I encourage critical feedback on the talk page there. Tony (talk) 13:20, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

OK, last comment (again) from me as it's not our talk page, although the topic is relevant here of course. We seem to have a fundamental disagreement here - Tony and Chris, your focus would appear to be on what you've asserted as readability of text and a hierarchy of relevance in respect of links. For me, I'm more bothered about overall navigability and wider reader choice, which seems to be more in the spirit of what this place - an online collaborative encyclopedia - is meant to be about. And regardless, on your interpretation of both points, I think you're wrong:

• On readability: it's only the occasional blue word, and the repeated references to a "sea of blue" or "linking every word" is just a red herring really, that's simply not what we're talking about here - nor is this about attempting to turn Wikipedia into a dictionary, I don't quite understand that point. And how on earth does this justification, as I have asked, apply to removing links from infoboxes?
• On relevance/value/"dilution": I'll say it again - genuinely not intending it to be rude or offensive - that this argument, and your overall attitude, comes across as very patronising, and even arrogant. Who made you guys the judges and the executioners here, with the right to roam across hundreds of pages, removing links en masse to terms that you personally have decided should not be connected, but which other editors, in hundreds of individual judgments, thought worth including, and which have no doubt been clicked on many times by readers? And couldn't it equally be argued, more generally, that links to the more obvious articles are in fact the most relevant, since they are the ones people are more likely to want to go to, and to end up looking at?

If I want to see clear uninterrupted text, without pictures, diagrams, subsections, footnotes and links etc, and to read intelligent writing put together by my identified and accredited betters, whose judgment about issues and about what I might wish to read subsequently I might occasionally be inclined to defer to, I sit down with an issue of the London Review of Books. I don't think most people come to Wikipedia expecting much of that, unles they're a little nuts. N-HH talk/edits 17:56, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Well who made you the judge who says everything should be linked? Tony (talk) 21:38, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

A key point here is the incorrect assertion that these links were made by hundreds of individual judgments. A similar assertion was made during the date delinking dispute - it was wrong then and it's wrong now. Those links were made not on the basis of careful judgments but because editors copy each other - they see links to every country, every language, every continent, and they think 'that's how things work around here' and they add more of those links. But slowly people are beginning to realise that it's better to be much more selective about links, so that the important ones stand out. Imagine if in a printed encyclopaedia, the first mention of any country, no matter how well known, in an article had an asterisk and a footnote telling you that more information about that country was available on pages 1383-1394, for example. That would get pretty tiresome pretty quickly. Nobody's being prevented from accessing any article by removing a link, but their attention is not distracted by links they're unlikely ever to use. And you have no evidence whatsoever for your claim that links to commonplace items have been clicked on by many readers. I suspect the opposite is true - probably a lot of people go to the France article from the main page via the search box and very few go via a link from a more specific article. Colonies Chris (talk) 22:26, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but hang on a minute here. You're claiming that these "common terms" links are not based on individual judgment, but merely on the actions of sheep-like editors who are mindlessly copying their predecessors? And that, while N-HH has "no evidence whatsoever for [their] claim that links to commonplace items have been clicked on by many readers", you are correct in claiming the opposite? How is that not patronizing or judgmental? I think N-HH has voiced a lot of the same concerns I've been feeling about this whole issue over the past while. (Despite ridiculous and unsupportable claims to the contrary, I've no desire to carpet-bomb the project with useless links and I'm not going to protest if you're reducing excessive linking to cat. So please, don't even bother trying to use such claims again.) However, the effort currently under way has many, many flaws, not the least of which is the complete lack of discussion and consensus prior to launching such a rapid and radical delinking campaign. While the language currently in the guideline may direct us toward increased discretion in linking, there is nothing to support the radical and undiscussed claims of a pressing need to as strip away so many links, especially many related to geography. Yes, when given the chance to discuss it, some people have (for example) agreed with removing links to United States in sentences such as "x is an American television series", given that the focus of the article is on entertainment. However, it is a stretch to presume such agreement equals a consensus to (again, for example) remove not just duplicate links, but instead every link to United States in geographical articles. It is also a real problem to see wide-scale changes being made with a private list of "common terms" that does not receive public scrutiny, and that is not easily accessible for discussion and change. --Ckatz^chat_spy 01:50, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

• I think the point is reached where the discussion has become highly philosophical and theoretical, and would be better adjourned to WT:Linking, where it would reach a wider, yet select, audience. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:03, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Fine. In the meantime could editors stop running these programmes, while we wait for wider input? And what benefit has been brought for example by this edit - marked as minor, but which removed hundreds of links from a list? Even if one accepts the "readability of text" argument, how does it apply to a list? More specifically, why has England been delinked, but not Wales - who made that arbitrary judgment as to where the axe should fall? Etc etc

For the record, and in response to a couple of points above: I make no judgment about why people add links in individual cases, and even if you are correct in respect of some cases, that does not mean they are all "wrong" to have done so; and also WP is not a printed encyclopedia, and links do not drag people down to footnotes, as per the comparison you are trying to make (where people would then also still have to flick through the pages to get to the related entries, with or without such footnotes) - they are hidden and embedded within ordinary text, and provide direct and easy access to related pages. That is, they disrupt less but do far more. Now, that's enough of my weekend wasted .. N-HH talk/edits 18:57, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

In response to the specific question about List of twin towns and sister cities in the Republic of Ireland: The first benefit was the spelling correction Chatillon --> Châtillon and my fixes to the redlinks for Arklow and Wicklow. As for the country links: Each entry on that list has a flag icon, which links directly to the article on that country. Therefore the additional country links are completely superfluous. I agree that to be fully consistent I should have removed all country links - but no doubt you wouuld have complained even more bitterly had I done so. I will do so in the near future if you have no objection. Secondly, the [[city, state]] links - the point of this list is cities - there is no need to contrive a separate link to the US state by the convoluted method of writing [[city, state|city]], [[state]] - the state is only there for clarity/disambiguation. A link to the state is available in each city's article. Colonies Chris (talk) 09:48, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Are you ill? I only ask because you are still ranging across 100s of pages, imposing your idea of what are good links. Would you stop if someone asked you politely, or at least wonder whether they might have a point? Or will you simply accuse everyone of "bitterly complaining" if they happen to disagree with you? OCD is treatable you know. N-HH talk/edits 00:23, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Why do you imagine that I would stop improving the encyclopaedia, in line with the MoS, just because you disagree with some of my judgments? Please don't put any more of your offensive comments on my talk page. How dare you suggest that anyone who disagrees with you must be ill - if that isn't arrogance, I don't know what is. If you want to continue this discussion, take it to WT:LINKING. Colonies Chris (talk) 00:34, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Delinking in list of state leaders articles

Lists are not normal articles hence the MOS does not necessarily apply. I would much appreciate it if you would revert back your changes and not make these kind of sweeping bot assisted changes without discussing it at the talk page first. Fornadan (t) 23:30, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Can you please enlarge on this notion that lists are not normal articles? There is a rider for tables, but not lists. Tony (talk) 23:50, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

For example there is a separate Wikipedia:Featured lists which exists separately from the Featured Articles and Featured Pictures, while there's no Featured Animals or Featured Events. Fornadan (t) 00:41, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Lists are not fundamentally different from articles. Often, a page could be nominated for FLC or FAC. This matter has come up several times and has been resolved in terms of not drawing a wall between the two. That is only for featured content, anyway; for article space in general, there is no formal distinction, except that sometimes "List of ..." is chosen as a title. That is neither here nor there. Tony (talk) 04:09, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Fornadan, can you be more specific about which issues you disagree with? Looking through Chris' edits, I don't see anything that is could cause disagreement, except for maybe a couple country links? Dabomb87 (talk) 04:37, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

French broutilles

Chris,

C'est drôlement chouette de trouver sur son chemin quelqu'un qui a des accents et des cédilles plein les poches... On se sent moins seul sur en:wiki!

Cordialement, --Frania W. (talk) 02:57, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Bonjour Chris,

Vous me surprenez, je vous croyais français - et je suis totalement d'accord avec vous en ce qui concerne l'orthographe, surtout dans une encyclopédie. Cordialement, --Frania W. (talk) 15:12, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

AWB again

Hi, Chris.

The first time I came to this page I brought up the issue of some quoted text that you edited, and you said that if you'd known it was a quotation you wouldn't have run the bot on it. What happened? It's still going on ([1]). SamEV (talk) 23:57, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

It's within a ref template; it's all the content between "|quote=" and "}}</ref>". SamEV (talk) 00:10, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

OK. No problem. SamEV (talk) 00:27, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

---

Thanks for the edit to Anthony Santos ([2]).

I have a question about one item. You changed "[[United States|American]]" to just "American". Obviously the point is to reduce overlinking.

However. In the last two years I've opposed editors on both sides of the debate about use of "America". My position can be stated simply: there's divided usage of that term, so that it can mean both the whole of the Western Hemisphere (more or less) and the United States of America, and AFAIC, both uses are valid.

But that in turn means that neither use should be treated as the 'normal' one, and I'm afraid that your edit does. I advocate keeping "[[United States|American]]".

What do you think? SamEV (talk) 01:10, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Is there a wide-ranging discussion where this was settled? I mean, is this part of some kind of policy or guideline? Or is it up to each editor's preference? SamEV (talk) 01:24, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Tony, thank you. I'll reply here to keep the discussion from fragmenting too much.

I disagree with you. I participated in a protracted controversy at Americas. Enough references were presented, and it bears noting, enough good will prevailed among the side which espoused the view similar to yours, that the outcome was a decision that the term is indeed divided.

I really think that a normative approach would be disruptive to this encyclopedia, guys, having seen the rancor it engendered among some editors at several articles.

And I say that as someone who nearly always uses the term as you guys do. SamEV (talk) 01:49, 24 March 2010 (UTC); 01:52, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi Sam. I can see the potential ambiguity, but I don't it's as big an issue as you claim it to be. I have never once seen or heard of such an issue on-Wiki at any article before. I (and I presume most other readers and editors, since it doesn't seem to be a divisive issue in articles aside from the discussion at Americas) have always understood "American" to refer to the United States, not to the Americas as a whole. No biography on Wiki that I have ever seen has ever said "So-and-so was a(n) European/Asian/African/South American ..." so IMO it's understood that "American" is not used in the broader sense you are referring to. Not saying your argument isn't valid, but unless this becomes more of a widespread problem I don't think the perceived benefit is higher than the disadvantage of diluting more valuable links. As far as guidelines go, WP:OVERLINK says "the names of major geographic features and locations" should not be linked. Just my two cents. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:07, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Dabomb. I suggest that maybe it's not so big an issue thanks to the resolution of the dispute at the Americas article. A compromise that seems to have pleased both sides was reached last year.

I agree that the term refers mostly to the US, and that's how I use it, as I said, just about always (but then again, that may be because I edit US-related demographics articles and biographies of Americans (US, of course) so much). But there's significant use of the other meaning that I argue that it should be taken into account and the word piped to "United States" or "Americas" as required, both for disambiguation and as a gesture of good will.

I think it would be best if the entire Wikipedia community were convoked to arrive at a policy about this, with the significant participation of editors from all the major regions of the world. SamEV (talk) 03:58, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Tony, perhaps you misunderstood. I said nothing more than that each use should indicate exactly what it means by including a link. That surely adds information than if its used unlinked. SamEV (talk) 05:18, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Sam, then we could link every single word on the basis that it will add information? There's a plus and a minus about adding each link: this needs to be weighed up before linking an item. Have you seen WP:OVERLINK? Tony (talk) 12:05, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

No, I'm not talking about overlinking the word either. Just linking it when used for the first time in the article. SamEV (talk) 18:09, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Read "each use should indicate exactly what it means", and everything I've said so far, as "neither use should take for granted that one meaning is the 'correct' one and will/must be understood by all readers". SamEV (talk) 18:32, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Overlinking has two meanings: 1) linking a term too many times in an article, and 2) linking a term that should not be linked because it does not significantly aid readers' understanding. I believe Tony is referring to the latter. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:12, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Maybe he meant that as well. In whichever case, since ambiguity exists, a link is necessary (if only once in the article), IMHO.

Anyway, it wasn't my intention to 're-litigate' this matter, so to speak, having been through the experience at Americas. Let's just agree to disagree, I suppose. Cheers, everyone. SamEV (talk) 00:21, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

---

Hi, Chris.

Thank you again for your help.

In this edit, [3], you changed "Sept. 15 – Oct. 15" to "September 15 – October 15" within a reference. But the former is part of the title of the reference; have a look: [4]. So just like the title of a book, it should be quoted exactly. Your thoughts? SamEV (talk) 18:34, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but I think that the titles of documents are necessary sometimes when trying to locate them, such as in Web archives perhaps, when they become unavailable on the original website. That's why keeping the exact titles would be important, as it removes any guesswork re: spelling. SamEV (talk) 20:54, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

CfD nomination of Category:Lists of Ancient Rome office-holders

I have nominated Category:Lists of Ancient Rome office-holders (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) for renaming to Category:List of ancient Roma office-holders (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs). Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at the discussion page. Thank you. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:34, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Orphan tag

Thanks for improving the Alexander Imich article. I'm just curious why you added the orphan tag, since the Wikipedia:Orphan#Criteria says: "Currently our priority is to focus on orphans with NO incoming links at all, and it is recommended to only place the {{orphan}} tag if the article has ZERO incoming links from other articles", while the Imich article has two incoming links from other articles (and there's dicussion on the talk page from a third, too)? Hepcat65 (talk) 23:27, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

You suggested I take it to the Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser. It has already been covered there. Please read Wikipedia talk:AWB#Orphan tagging for methods to run the browser without tagging articles with one or two incoming links. Hepcat65 (talk) 23:45, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for making me aware of that option - I've set it on now. Colonies Chris (talk) 12:15, 11 April 2010 (UTC)