Irritating Wikipedia Linking

[Absolute]

I was browsing some Wikipedia articles today, and noticed something that annoyed me. A lot of the links between articles are really quite pointless, and contribute nothing to an understanding of the topic being discussed. Rather, they're just links put in for the hell of having links.

For example, take the following snippet (links are indicated with underscores):

Since then, Ellison has been shown on _television_ many times outside SBC park in his _kayak_ dressed in a _chicken_ _costume_, as the chicken has become a symbol of the opposing teams fear of pitching to Barry Bonds.

The "television", "kayak", "chicken", and "costume" links link to the Wikipedia articles on television, kayaks, chickens, and costumes respectively. I don't understand what the point of this is: if the goal is to make as many words as possible in Wikipedia cross-referenced, why not include similar links for SBC, Barry Bonds, "pitching", and so on? And why is the linking done so arbitrarily - who the hell cares about the Wikipedia articles on chickens, kayaks and costumes in this context? And even if someone did, would it be that hard for them to just look them up manually?

It's hard to express why this annoyed me so much - I suppose it's the sheer pointlessness of it, along with the fact that I see it everywhere on Wikipedia. Or maybe I'm just grouchy and easily irritated.

And please excuse the fact that my example is about a dancing chicken man outside a baseball stadium - it is late and I'm tired, and I can't remember the better examples I found earlier today.

[Little Nemo]

I also feel that Wikipedia is over-linked. But everytime I've been in a discussion on this issue, it's been clear the majority disagrees and likes the links.

[matt_mcl]

I'm a rather heavy participant on Wikipedia, and I hate overlinking too. Basically I link when the subject being discussed could lead to an interest in the subject linked.

What drives me even more nuts, however, is when they're discussing some abstruse topic and they use a term and there ISN'T any link.

[matt_mcl]

I'm a rather heavy participant on Wikipedia, and I hate overlinking too. Basically I link when the subject being discussed could lead to an interest in the subject linked.

What drives me even more nuts, however, is when they're discussing some abstruse topic and they use a term and there ISN'T any link.

[Liberal]

I like the links. If you don't want to click them, you don't have to.

[Derleth]

Originally Posted by matt_mcl

What drives me even more nuts, however, is when they're discussing some abstruse topic and they use a term and there ISN'T any link.

Then add one.

If there isn't an article, I'll admit that's more of a problem. But a dead link is one possible way to advertise that lack to people who can fix it.

[matt_mcl]

Originally Posted by Derleth

Then add one.

I do.

Less often, but from time to time, I'll remove stupid links, particularly when they're irrelevant. (For example, if it's something like "Carrie Fisher's typecasting [[limit]]ed her [[career]]..." and the article [[limit]] is about mathematical limits.)

[Ace309]

The other day I was reading a very properly-linked article on the Preacher comic... but it didn't have a link for western movies in the sentence where it talked about how heavily Preacher draws on them! Someone had a brain fart there.

[John Mace]

Yeah, lets complain about something that's free...

[Derleth]

Originally Posted by John Mace

Yeah, lets complain about something that's free...

The point isn't that it's free. The point is that you can trivially improve it if you take just a little bit of time, and that bitching about it is probably more work than fixing it, at least for the problem mentioned here.

Bitching about the lack of coverage of certain areas is more difficult to say that about, but Wikipedia is improving. The best response is to add information in fields you're versed in, and to turn other people on to the project. In the final analysis, Wikipedia has nowhere to go but up.

[Gamaliel]

Invariably when I add a new article or a chunk of text I've written, someone immediately comes along and links a bunch of proper nouns. And I feel I link to excess to begin with. But there are far more aggravating things about wikipedia, like trolls and problem users and fervent political or single-issue partisans, but obviously I'm looking at it from the contributor's as opposed to the reader's perspective.

[Derleth]

Trolls and revert wars are a recognized problem in the Wikipedia world. The people who care about the success of the project (most of them, it seems) work hard to watch known-troublesome pages (abortion, various history pages, religious issues of all kinds) and quickly revert damage done by trolls. In the case of simple disagreement, each page has its own Discussion page. In some cases, this Discussion page will have more text than the article, because of lengthy, often heated discussions about content and point-of-view. Wikipedia attempts to come to consensus, with the understanding that some people will not play ball.

If someone is a persistent vandal and refuses to play nice, he can be banned. Entire IP address blocks have been banned, if a user persists in being a chucklehead. Banning is a last resort, as it is here, and numerous attempts at conflict resolution will be made before someone new is kicked off. (Repeat reprobates are booted without such formality.) If you search, you can find a list of banned users, usually with a (terse) description of why they were banned. Wikipedia is very big on documentation and preservation of evidence.

(A revert war is where two groups fight over the content of a page. The page is reverted multiple times, as one group undoes the work of the other. In bad cases, the page can be frozen and the two groups have to settle down and work out their disagreement. Revert wars are wasteful and stupid, but an article on a hotbutton issue is bound to generate some flack, especially if it's aiming to be neutral.)

[TJdude825]

Another issue that hasn't been brought up in this thread yet is that each link must be analyzed to see whether it links to a page that exists or one that is yet to be created. And this slows down the site if you overdo it.

If the wikipedia community wanted to come up with a consistent policy of linking, where would they put it so that contributors can see and edit it? I'm thinking along the lines of

"If it's something that most people probably know about, like "television" or "music" then don't link. If it's something more obscure like the De Havillan Vampire or Irwin, Illinois, a link is acceptable. If you want to alert readers to a not-yet-created page, a link is encouraged."

[Frank]

Originally Posted by TJdude825

If the wikipedia community wanted to come up with a consistent policy of linking, where would they put it so that contributors can see and edit it? I'm thinking along the lines of

"If it's something that most people probably know about, like "television" or "music" then don't link. If it's something more obscure like the De Havillan Vampire or Irwin, Illinois, a link is acceptable. If you want to alert readers to a not-yet-created page, a link is encouraged."

I find that last extremely irritating. If I click on a link, it's because I know little or nothing about the subject, and want to learn something. It's certainly not me that has the capability to create a new page on the subject.

[Wikkit]

Originally Posted by This Year's Model

I find that last extremely irritating. If I click on a link, it's because I know little or nothing about the subject, and want to learn something. It's certainly not me that has the capability to create a new page on the subject.

Well yes, it is you that has the capability to create a new page on the subject. That's the whole point of the wikipedia.

[TJdude825]

I suppose that it is a good point, This Year's Model, but those who contribute actively might like to see redlinks so that they know what work they can do for the site. I don't know whether more people feel like you do, or the opposite way.

In any case, the "linking guide" I imagined turns out to exist already:

The use of so-called "free links" to other topics, for example, [[George W. Bush]], is encouraged. Use the links for all words and terms that are relevant to your article.

Don't make too many links. For each link that you add, ensure that there is a reasonable amount of unlinked text to make the article easy to read. It is difficult to know how many links are appropriate for any particular article. A suggestion is that if 10% of the words are already linked, then perhaps some less vital link can be removed when more important links are added. Do not link every occurrence of a word; simply linking the first time the word appears will usually be enough. For words that appear first in an article and then in a list farther down, it can be linked again in the list. For dates like [[25 March]] [[2004]] wikify every time so that the date preference of the reader will be used. Note both day-month and year must be linked for the preference to work correctly.

Of course, just because the policy exists, doesn't mean people will follow it.

[Frank]

Originally Posted by Wikkit

Well yes, it is you that has the capability to create a new page on the subject. That's the whole point of the wikipedia.

I could have phrased that better. It's not me that has the knowledge to create a new page on the subject. I'm not sure how people who do have the knowledge would know a page is needed, as they would not be likely to click the link.

TJdude825, redlinks? Are they supposed to be a different color? That's not so on my browser.

[Gest]

Originally Posted by This Year's Model

I could have phrased that better. It's not me that has the knowledge to create a new page on the subject. I'm not sure how people who do have the knowledge would know a page is needed, as they would not be likely to click the link.

People with knowledge of a certain area will look for Wikipedia coverage of it so they can add to it if it is lacking. The whole idea is based on people contributing as much as it is based on taking.

TJdude825, redlinks? Are they supposed to be a different color? That's not so on my browser.

If you get an account, you can choose that option in your user preferences. The attitude is generally to make it as easy as possible for people to use it without needing an account but some aspects like preferences make this difficult.

[Frank]

Originally Posted by Gest

If you get an account, you can choose that option in your user preferences. The attitude is generally to make it as easy as possible for people to use it without needing an account but some aspects like preferences make this difficult.

Ah, thank you. Well, maybe I'll get an account. I've been idly considering adding some history sections to various U.S. cities. The bare demographic reports are pretty bland.

[Wikkit]

Originally Posted by This Year's Model

I could have phrased that better. It's not me that has the TJdude825, redlinks? Are they supposed to be a different color? That's not so on my browser.

What browser are you using? If things are working correctly, acticles, stubs, and nonexistent articles all have different links. You can set the cutoff for stub in your preferences.

We should have a ist of SDMB users on the Wikipedia. If you want to associate your wikipedia identity with your SDMB identity, leave a note on my talk page and I'll set up a table somewhere. So far the only person I've recognized is Paul in Saudi.

User Brockert,
who used to be 300-somethingth for total number of edits, but has slowed down considerably.

[SmackFu]

It's too bad the links are usually only one way. It's easy to say that something happened in Irwin, Illinois and link it, in an article about it. Yet it's quite hard to find out everything that happened in Irwin, Illinois from scratch.

[Wikkit]

Originally Posted by SmackFu

It's too bad the links are usually only one way. It's easy to say that something happened in Irwin, Illinois and link it, in an article about it. Yet it's quite hard to find out everything that happened in Irwin, Illinois from scratch.

There's a "What Links Here" link on every page. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml...in%2C_Illinois

[SmackFu]

Hey, you're right. I agree with the above posters, there are too many links on a wikipedia page.