Wikipedia talk:Piped link

"It is generally not good practice to pipe links simply to avoid redirects"
I take issue with the general notion of "It is generally not good practice to pipe links simply to avoid redirects". Oh? Since when are redirects considered the default versus clean, direct linking to specific Wikipedia articles? Redirects exist as a result of internal link attrition (articles being moved, etc.). I don't care whether having redirects is "some sort of useful tool to gauge [this condition or that]", they exist primarily to deal with internal link attrition, as well as when a linked article's name doesn't fit cleanly into the style of wording of an article that the link originates from. Bumm13 (talk) 00:47, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I also take issue with the corresponding NOTBROKEN (I'd use a pipe but apparently some people are against them, per this very page). Since when do other editors get to say one of my edits to an article is "invalid" simply because some random person thinks that edits only involving the making of piped links ("fixing redirects") is somehow detrimental to building an online encyclopedia? Bumm13 (talk) 00:56, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I have to agree with Bumm13. Back when I was starting out in Wikipedia, many, many years ago, I was told that redirected links should always be fixed with direct links whenever possible. Now they're saying it should not be? I don't understand the logic behind this. Illegitimate Barrister 16:07, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * &, one reason is that some redirects may eventually become their own articles. Faceless Enemy (talk) 18:54, 16 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, here's the thing. Sometimes that might be true, but sometimes it isn't. I only learned of this policy because I took "The Honorable" and made it link (piped it? is that the proper term?) to "The Honourable" because that's what the article is called, even though the particular page was for an American and therefore used the American spelling. There's absolutely no reason to have two different articles in that case, but someone reverted my edit. And the case doesn't correspond to any of the other reasons given, either. Is there still a reason to have the redirect? If so, someone should explain that and add it to the article. (Or, at least, tell me, please!) If not, then the article should be clear that piping is valid when none of those conditions apply. And, yes, I would support avoiding redirects in general (note that some of the reasons, such as the George Washington example, don't even lead to redirects), but I can see the idea that you can leave redirects if there's a legitimate possibility that a new page will be created.Brettalan (talk) 17:51, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I would also like to add my support against the current policy. Why have a tool and then ban its use?  Also, like most policies, it is inconsistently enforced. --Acjelen (talk) 15:51, 5 May 2017 (UTC)


 * The reasons, why redirects are, in most cases, superior to pipes have been discussed at length in the past. A summary of reasons and a list when to use them (and when not) can be found at WP:NOTBROKEN.
 * Here are two follow-up threads putting Bumm13's misleading comment above into context:
 * User_talk:Matthiaspaul
 * Wikipedia_talk:Redirect/Archive_2013


 * --Matthiaspaul (talk) 17:15, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I also support rational Since when are redirects considered the default versus clean.  -  FlightTime  ( open channel ) 17:22, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Bumm13 didn't provide a rationale at all, he only offered an opinion (in form of a question). But to answer that question, there is stable community consensus for more than a decade. This consensus wasn't build on opinions, but on reasons improving the usability/functionality for readers, editors and bots (for example: improve search box behaviour, improve reverse lookup, allow to enrich links with attributes, thereby building the web) and ease maintainability (for example: adjust link targets in one place instead of many, make it easier to track and correct errors, derive statistics). The cases when to use redirects and when to use pipes are discussed at WP:NOTBROKEN. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 20:44, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Formatting...
I'm wondering if formating links to be different colors or use small or bold instructions should be here or on a "see also" page linked from here. There are legitimate reasons for modifying links as such for example if a background color on the page makes links invisible or in signatures or something... Technical 13 (talk) 15:36, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Ironic example
The last sentence of Intuitiveness section reads, "If the interpretation is purely that of the editor, it is original research and should be moved someplace else entirely."

While some may find it amusing, the last link may confuse the reader (at least myself, initially). A style guide should be concise and unambiguous, e.g. "it is original research and should not be included."

cm&#610;&#671;ee&#9094;&#964;a&#671;&#954; 12:00, 17 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Ugh, cryptic. I've changed to "and should be removed", which preserves the original meaning and encourages fixing of this problem.  Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 14:24, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Clear links policy
Wikipedia is ever more plagued by 'easter egg' links, as described in this article's section, 'Piped_link'. This isn't a lack of intuitiveness even - it's a lack of clarity. Avoiding these should be a matter of policy. However, looking at List of policies, it's not clear that there is even an appropriate section for a policy on the use of piping. If such a policy were introduced, a suitably clear title would be the 'clear links policy'. - Crosbie 15:50, 30 December 2014 (UTC)


 * In my experience, I've found the opposite. I've read several plot summaries for works of fiction that are over-detailed. An example is The Fast and the Furious (2001 film). Almost every vehicle is over-detailed. Whereas Jaws (film) simply uses a generic term for vehicles in that film. Even if the contributors to former film are more knowledgeable about the vehicles in that film, than contributors of the latter's film are, this is a very small group that doesn't represent the average Wikipedia reader. For the most part, the average Wikipedia reader doesn't have as great of an interest in the exact make/model/year/type/subtype/sub-subtype of vehicle appearing in either film. And in the case of TFATF, piping could help cut down the word count (as indicated in its current template message of "excessively detailed plot summary"). Ivansevil (talk) 02:08, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Pensacola, Florida or Pensacola, Florida
Is it better to link like Pensacola, Florida or like Pensacola, Florida? Siuenti (talk) 11:29, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The first one. See WP:SPECIFICLINK -- Red rose64 (talk) 12:34, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

WP:EASTEREGG
So "[ Citation Needed ]"   ("[ Citation Needed ]")  is right off? Smiley)  (Smiley))  --Guy Macon (talk) 23:46, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

WP:EASTEREGG: clarity sought on a particular situation
See the second line in the infobox at Beiseker. The village's municipal status is piped Village. Linking directly to Village could potentially be WP:OVERLINK as an everyday word understood by most readers in a general context. The benefit of Village as the current state here however is to link to the article that discusses what a village is in the Alberta context. So, is the above example an WP:EASTEREGG violation or not? Cheers, Hwy43 (talk) 22:46, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Anyone care to assist? Hwy43 (talk) 08:59, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
 * This appears to happen quite a lot: Acme, Alberta, Bal Harbour, Florida, Clayton, Illinois, etc. I think it is clear enough what the intention of the piped link is: the word "village" links to a list of such communities via a "List of..." page. IMO that makes sense and is not a surprise. OTOH, village would be a surprise per the essay... — Iadmc  ♫ talk  15:23, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
 * , thank you. I've always felt it to be reasonable, and agree it makes sense and is not a surprise. Cheers, Hwy43 (talk) 16:53, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

RFC to clarify WP:EASTEREGG applicability to parameters in settlement infoboxes
Is it a WP:EASTEREGG violation to pipelink a community status type (e.g. city) in an infobox settlement_type parameter to the list article applicable to the context in which it is located (e.g. List of cities in Foo)? Hwy43 (talk) 23:12, 22 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Additional question relevant to the above:
 * Same question applies to:
 * |subdivision_type1 = Province (see Provinces and territories of Canada);
 * |subdivision_type2 = Region (see Regions of Canada);
 * |blank_name = Highways (see List of British Columbia provincial highways);
 * etc.

Given that wikilinking to City, Town, State, Province, Region, and Highways would be considered WP:OVERLINK violations (as such are already commonly understood terms), is it a surprise to land at pages that elaborate on what these things are in the context of their higher levels of government (e.g. | settlement_type = [[List of villages in British Columbia |Village]] )? Hwy43 (talk) 23:18, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

See the discussion above, preceding this RFC's heading, for what was originally posed in 2017. Hwy43 (talk) 23:21, 22 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Strong no in fact, it would be overlinking to the max and overly generic to link to generic terms. I'm gobsmacked this is even an RfC. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 00:41, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Not sure you're parsing what the issue is. It's not: should "City" be linked to the generic term or a much more specific "List of cities in Foo"? It's: is "City" being linked to the specific "List of cities in Foo" a case of WP:EASTER? If yes, it doesn't mean people would (or should!) start linking "City" to the article on the generic term. As mentioned below, that would be OVERLINK. —Joeyconnick (talk) 01:54, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
 * No, it's not an Easter egg, but it is an OVERLINK, just as linking Capital to the capital cities of the country is, linking Largest city to the list of largest metropolitan areas in the country is, etc. It should not be done. Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:31, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
 * No as above. ili (talk) 18:22, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes (not convinced the RfC wording is clear enough or neutral enough, based on the comments so far) A random reader would expect an infobox heading to be linked—if it is linked at all—to an explanation of what the heading meant. So if we used something like "population density" or "GDP", which are not necessarily common terms, we would link to the generic meanings. An infobox is not a navbox—its purpose is not to lead the reader to links related to the topic but to provide highlights of the article—and linking a generic term like "City" to the very specific "List of cities in Foo" is classic WP:EASTER. And given it's classic EASTER, then the generic terms could only legitimately be linked to their generic definitions... which as points out would be OVERLINK. —Joeyconnick (talk) 01:50, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes: I couldn't anticipate where the link was going to go, so it's an Easter egg link. I'm not as convinced that it's overlink—maybe some rephrasing like  would be appropriate. But outright removal seems sensible. — Bilorv ( talk ) 13:55, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
 * No: As stated in the 2017 conversation that preceded this RfC, "Village" linking as [[List of villages in Alberta|Village ]] is not a surprise and makes sense, whereas linking as  [[Village People|Village ]] would be a surprise. Linking to an article that explains what a "village" is in the specific context of Alberta is actually helpful to the reader's understanding. WP:OVERLINK is a different discussion and not subject to the question at hand. In my view however, preventing  [[Village ]] (linking to the generic term) is the intent of the OVERLINK guideline, where the general context of the targeted article is already understood. Preventing  [[List of villages in Alberta|Village ]] is not the intent of the OVERLINK guideline. Speaking of, Piped link, of which WP:EASTER points to the third heading, "is a how-to guide" and "not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines". In the seven years since I implemented linking to " City/Town/Village/District municipality " in the infoboxes of British Columbia municipality articles, only one editor has contested said implementation as WP:EASTER... seven years later. That editor is now in a slow edit war on numerous articles with another editor, asserting that WP:EASTER is a guideline when, as mentioned above, it is not a guideline. Meanwhile I stand by in accordance with the second bullet at Requests for comment. I'm not intervening and not exacerbating the dispute. Rather, I am waiting to make "improvements in accord with consensus after the RfC is resolved." I would request  cease what I view as disruptive editing and edit warring until this RfC comes to a close. Hwy43 (talk) 05:06, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * MOS:PIPEDLINK is a guideline. I happen to agree that linking to the more specific article is more helpful to the reader than linking to the generic term would be, but at the same time that doesn't preclude it being an Easter egg. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:59, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I see MOS:PIPEDLINK is embedded in MOS:LINK, which is a guideline whereas WP:EASTER is embedded in WP:PIPELINK, which is not a guideline, hence the confusion. Hwy43 (talk) 16:51, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Hoping that call to stop edits along these lines also includes folks like, whose multiple bot-like edits to add many of these EASTER links are what started this debate in the first place (because I began reverting them). Unfortunately, I find many people are inappropriately swayed by "a ton of other articles do this" as justification in these debates for a practice that is clearly against guidelines. Left unchecked, MokaMo's edits would simply have added fuel to that very mistaken fire. Unsurprisingly, MokaMo has claimed exactly that as their "rationale": that this is somehow a standard for British Columbia settlement articles and thus should be done across all such settlement articles simply because it was done in some. —Joeyconnick (talk) 16:53, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * While I believe appears to have been implementing WP:STATUSQUO in good faith, that user was also apprised of this RfC and has not participated. Instead, that user has been an equal partner in the slow, disruptive edit war. Instead of furthering things,  should stop and instead comment here, otherwise I would suggest that perhaps the user truly is WP:NOTHERE to build an encyclopedia. Hwy43 (talk) 17:17, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I guess just forgot we were still discussing this? Or rather, that this was unresolved? —Joeyconnick (talk) 17:21, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
 * YES These are EELs because they do not go to where expected. They don't provide forther information on what the term means (which as already stated in usually unnecessary) and are more of a navigation/see related type thing which doesn't belong in the infobox. MB 15:08, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

"Bombay Explosion (1944)" vs. "1944 Bombay explosion" in transparency examples
Yesterday I edited the examples in the "Transparency" section to change "Bombay Explosion (1944)" to "1944 Bombay explosion":.

This edit was reverted by User:Redrose64 with the edit summary, "this defeats the point of the examples."

I'm afraid I don't understand the reasoning here. In what way is the text "Bombay Explosion (1944)" preferable to the text "1944 Bombay explosion"? The second option makes the example sentences read more naturally:


 * "After an earlier disaster, the 1944 Bombay explosion, ..." is better than "After an earlier disaster, the Bombay Explosion (1944), ..."
 * "After the 1944 Bombay explosion, ..." is better than "After the Bombay Explosion (1944), ..."

So it can't be for readability or naturalness of language. And it can't be to match the title of the linked article, because that title is 1944 Bombay explosion, not Bombay Explosion (1944), which is a redirect.

Why is "Bombay Explosion (1944)" preferable to "1944 Bombay explosion"? —Bkell (talk) 03:20, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
 * The page is about piped links. The section describes a particular type of piped link. A section not much earlier covers the WP:NOTBROKEN situation. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 23:35, 30 November 2017 (UTC)


 * What? The section under discussion is about transparency of piped links and suggests ways to reword a sentence in order to improve that transparency. The reason for my edit was to improve that rewording to use the more natural "1944 Bombay explosion" instead of the clumsy "Bombay Explosion (1944)". My edit was changing the visible text of the examples. WP:NOTBROKEN specifically says: "However, it is perfectly acceptable to change it to  if for some reason it is preferred that 'Franklin D. Roosevelt' actually appear in the visible text." The edit I made was to change the visible text from "Bombay Explosion (1944)" to "1944 Bombay explosion", because the text "1944 Bombay explosion" is clearer and more natural language. In none of the three cases was I adding a piped link or changing the link target purely to "fix a redirect," which is what WP:NOTBROKEN is about. The fact that this improvement in the link text also bypassed the redirect is a nice side effect, but it was not the main point of my edit. —Bkell (talk) 23:50, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

[ [redirect|target] ] may be helpful?
After explaining why piping a link to avoid a redirect is poor practice, the guide makes the following rather obscure statement: "However, while is unhelpful,   may be helpful."

Well, this guidance is not very helpful; why on earth would   be helpful? (does anyone know, by the way?) Assuming there is a good reason to use, such reason should be stated, or the whole sentence should go; as it currently stands, it's a pretty useless piece of advice. --Deeday-UK (talk) 23:09, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
 * It does seem not so obvious. There are some cases where a page doesn't have the proper name, as it is otherwise used. When more than one page has an obvious name, and they turn out the same, only one gets it.  The other will then have a different name, and maybe the redirect is a better name.  Only one I can think of. Gah4 (talk) 04:34, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * It's unclear what you mean: what's a page's "proper name"? If "more than one page has an obvious name, and they turn out the same" then those pages require disambiguation, not messing about with redirects and piped links. --Deeday-UK (talk) 12:44, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

VisualEditor trash
Can anybody tell the user not to make as  ? know no ready-to-link piece of wisdom discouraging exactly this kind of misleading markup scrabble. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 10:56, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

By the way, this originates from WP:VisualEditor; the user likely doesn’t realize what’s going in the code at all. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 11:03, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

New shortcut for "Transparency"?
Can we add a new shortcut to the "Transparency" section? I'm thinking  or , as I was not expecting to be redirected to that section with. — Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 )  20:53, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Underscore
When using piped links, should the left part (that isn't displayed) have underscores or blanks? Seems to me that underscores are fine, and I usually do cut/paste to be sure it is spelled right. Obviously you need blanks for not piped links. Gah4 (talk) 04:32, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Obscure terms
I think a piped link of the type " numerology " should be OK. Here "Isopsephy" is the specifically-relevant article, but few people reading the article containing the link would know what this obscure word means. Therefore, the link is explicated by using the word "numerology" (since isopsephy is a form of numerology), but not linking to the general "numerology" article (most of which would be irrelevant)... AnonMoos (talk) 03:31, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Long piped texts cause template rendering issues on several standard browsers; devices !?
After another editor complained to me about the rendering of navbox "Template:US Mil. Support Rides; WW II–1990", I had some trouble replicating any rendering issues, but I was able to get some funky rendering of the box on my late 2019 "smart" TV-set... Turned out, my TV-set wasn't able to line-break very long piped texts... – which then influenced the rendering of the entire navbox in an adverse way. I've asked the other editor whether my alteration, version 15:51 of 14 October 2021, versus the previous version, (oldid=1049889600) 13:10 of 14 October 2021, has also fixed the rendering issue that he complained about.

I then found out that Long piped texts turn out to be a general issue ! — Taking my browser windows out of maxed, and making them narrow, showed that All my regular browsers (Chrome, FFox, Edge / OS=Win10) are unable to line-break long piped-texts, resulting in some very peculiar template rendering... --GeeTeeBee (talk) 16:54, 14 October 2021 (UTC)


 * This is nothing to do with the fact that the links are piped - it would happen just the same for ordinary unpiped links in the same navbox, so strictly speaking, the problem is outside the scope of this page. Anyway, the non-breaking of links is because Template:US Mil. Support Rides; WW II–1990 is built around which is a specialised form of a navbox. Module:Navbox has this code:   and MediaWiki:Common.css has this CSS rule:   This rule, therefore, is applied to all links inside a navbox, and so, by default, links inside navboxes don't wrap. I don't know why that is done, you'd need to ask at Template talk:Navbox. But this behaviour can be suppressed by adding the wraplinks parameter to the  that is inside Template:US Mil. Support Rides; WW II–1990. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 21:14, 14 October 2021 (UTC)


 * OK, thank you for the quick response & sleuthing efforts! This is far beyond my scope as a bread-and-butter Wikipidian... Love, GeeTeeBee (talk) 08:38, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Accidentally broke a template in article, don't know how to fix
The hatnote currently shows as this:

However, my edit was supposed to show like this:

For the pipe trick in links (such as  ), see Help:Pipe trick.

Can someone fix this? I don't know how to fix the template turning into a mess when I try to add nowiki tags like I did. 172.112.210.32 (talk) 19:19, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Fixed. You just needed the nowiki tags to be around the entire example, with a literal pipe symbol instead of the pipe. Perryprog (talk) 20:26, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Moderating some of the language
Please see Wikipedia talk:Redirect – I've raised some concerns about how stridently opinionated that section has become, and how out-of-step with actual practice; it involves some language here at WP:NOPIPE also. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:40, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Example in section #transparency is wrong? +suggested change
"At a minimum, link something that, obviously, wouldn't be the title of an article under our article title conventions:


 * a war launched in 1763 by a loose confederation of elements of Native American tribes"

Wouldn't the sentence be parsed as "(a war launched in 1763) by (a loose confederation of (elements of Native American tribes))"? The current link separates "elements" from the noun it describes ("Native American tribes").

So I think the correct linking would be "a loose confederation"  AltoStev  ( talk ) 16:26, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Language Wikipedia
Maybe something should be added about languages. Is WP:EASTEREGG to use Daniel J. Alpert (hidden redirect to German Wikipedia) instead of Daniel J. Alpert? Example coming from WP:PHYSICS. ReyHahn (talk) 17:09, 11 October 2023 (UTC)