User:Bishonen/Diffs and links

Bishonen's diff and link tutorial

When you contribute an argument to an article talkpage or to wikipedia pages like WP:RFC, WP:RFAR, WP:CN, or WP:ANI, it's essential to give evidence for your statements. This is done in the form of links to whole talkpage conversations, and/or diffs to individual edits. Avoid offering links to entire talkpages, as these pages are generally too big to be useful. The content of a talkpage is also liable to change. For instance, when the page is archived, the thread you wanted the reader to see will disappear. Never link to a page history, because the most recent part of the history will probably look quite different by the time people click on the link. What you need are permanent diffs and links, which will go on pointing to the material you're referring to even after the material itself has disappeared from the page.

How to create a permanent link to a talkpage section
The Table of Contents contains links to all the sections on the page. People often post these links, but they are not permanent. As soon as the section is archived, which happens within a day or two on for instance WP:ANI, the link loses touch with the section and starts to point merely to the top of the page. Instead, use the TOC of a permanent version of the page. Like this:
 * Look under "toolbox" in the sidebar on the left and find "Permanent link". Click on it.
 * You now see a permanent version of the page. Look at its TOC for the section heading you want. Right-click on it and select "Copy link location" or similar (different in different browsers). The permanent section link you want is now in your clipboard. Paste it into your evidence as it is, or format it to look better, see below.

How to create a diff
Diffs become permanent automatically.

How to format links and diffs
It is not necessary to format links and diffs, they'll work if you just paste them in. But they're very long and distracting, so you may want to tuck them into a numbered footnote, or into words/a word in your text. These are the two methods:
 * Put single square brackets—not double brackets as with internal wikipedia links—around the link. This produces a numbered footnote. Note that the whole URL must be included, including http://.
 * Paste the link where you want it, add a space, then add the word[s] you want to appear on the page, then put single square brackets round the whole thing. For example, typing this:

xxx

will produce this:

yyyy