User talk:Sundown456y

Adding links to articles

 * I am posting this message to you because you are one of a fairly large group of fairly inexperienced editors who have recently been adding links to the article The Odyssey (Smith), and many of the links have been unsuitable. I said "fairly inexperienced", but that expression covers a range from several brand new accounts to some which have been around for some time, but have previously done very little editing. I shall first describe what the concern about the editing is, and then ask you whether you can clarify for me how this has happened.


 * Adding links from one article to another, known as "wikilinks", can be very helpful, but it is a very common mistake among new editors to add too many wikilinks to articles, in on or other of two ways, both of which are commonly referred to as "overlinking". Firstly, a wikilink should normally be added only if it provides information which is likely to help readers of the article in which the link is placed to understand content of that article, or provide further information closely connected to content of that article. Linking to articles in other situations is not just unnecessary, it can actually be harmful, because research has established that the more irrelevant, or only slightly relevant, links there are in a page, the less likely readers are to find the ones which they might find useful. Thus, for example, nobody reading the article The Odyssey (Smith) is likely to need to consult the article clock in order to understand content of The Odyssey (Smith), nor does the article clock contain any information about Smith's Odyssey, so linking the one to the other is not likely to be helpful, but that is one of the links which have recently been added. Secondly, an article should not normally contain more than one link to any other article: just linking the first mention of the linked term is enough.


 * There is nothing unusual about new or fairly inexperienced editors overlinking: as I said above, it is a very common mistake. However, for so many inexperienced editors to all come along to the same article and all start making very similar edits is most unusual; in fact I don't believe I have ever seen it before. There must be a connection; maybe someone has been organising some sort of group editing and has encouraged editors to add links to that article, or something of the kind. Are you able to give me any information which may clarify for me what is happening? JBW (talk) 22:38, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Hey! I got what you said and it makes perfect sense. I created my account just because i had donated and wanted to contribute even more, I hope to learn better soon.
 * But now, answering your question, I think I might know what is happenning. I will try to summarize it here, but be warned that I'm not so good at that.
 * When I created my account it showed me an "edit suggestion" page, on there I could choose the complexity of the edits etc. It has three levels, easy, medium and hard. Each of which have little check boxes to choose what type of edit is being suggest for the pages, on the easy category there are two: Copyedit (fix spelling, grammar, and tone); Add links between articles;
 * The latter being the problem, because when you select it and desselect the copyedit box only a single article appears as suggestion, can you guess which? Exactly, The Odyssey (Smith).
 * So I believe many new editors were looking and exploring, like me, and noticed there was only this one article on that filter. And clicked to edit it thinking "How hard could it be to add links to other pages?", just like I did.
 * I'm not sure if this is clear enough, but I am pretty sure it is the reason of your confusion. Hope this helped! I will take your comment as a tip for editing properly. Sundown456y (talk) 01:06, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the explanation. I have never before known the same article to keep coming up repeatedly for "suggested edits", but now it's been explained, it makes sense. JBW (talk) 11:58, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Good :)
 * Thank you one more time for the bit of knowledge, I will be more careful before adding links (and making other edits) to articles! Have a wonderful day, friend! Sundown456y (talk) 12:02, 27 March 2024 (UTC)