User talk:Chase46

Duplicate links on page
As a new editor of Wikipedia I want to abide by general good practices as included in the tutorial, style guide & elsewhere. However, the Tutorial stating 'should only link the first occurrence of a word' I believe should be defined slightly different. I realize it says 'should', and thus could allow multiple links, but I believe defining a consistent style would help us all.

I believe it is sometime useful to have a link to another article even if it is not the first. The particular case I have in mind is when the second (or later) usage is a list of related items. Seeing some of the items linked, but not others is inconsistent in visual style, makes the list less usable, and is potentially a point of confusion.

My case in point is the last sentence in the section Physics: Core theories, "These include classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, electromagnetism, and special relativity." The first item, classical mechanics, is not currently linked since it is referenced in the previous paragraph. However, I feel the list would be more usable if it was linked.

Comments?

Chase46 (talk) 18:05, 24 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Howdy, and welcome.


 * The tutorial tries to 'keep things simple', but rest assured we have many more detailed guides, the main one being the manual of style.


 * For this particular question, the guidance is in WP:MOSLINKS - usually (but see below), you'd only link something once within a section. Whether you should link it in other sections is another question. We don't want to have too many links, because it can be distracting; also, we only want links that actually help in comprehension of the specific topic. So we don't link Chzz was born in England in 1969 because a) England is such a common term that we can reasonably assume people know what it is, and b) the article on 1969 does not help to understand the subject Chzz.


 * Actually, for 'date links' we had a truly monumental debate about that, and the broad conclusion is that we only link them if they are really relevent to the subject...but I digress.


 * The other very important point is, we avoid any real firm rules because there are always special cases – hence notice that MOS is a guideline only, whereas this is a policy; If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it. - Ignore all rules.


 * My final, and most important advice is, please talk to other Wikipedians here. Best,  Chzz  ► 18:27, 24 August 2010 (UTC)


 * P.S. We also like bold changes, so, I made this edit - do you think that is an improvement? If not, just undo it or change it, of course. Cheers,  Chzz  ► 18:37, 24 August 2010 (UTC)