Academic Kids:Make only links relevant to the context
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Template:Style This page is in dynamic tension with the general rule to build the web. See the talk page for additional considerations.
One of Wikipedia's rules to consider:
Make only links relevant to the context. It is not useful and can be very distracting to mark all possible words as hyperlinks. Links should add to the user's experience. They should not detract from it by making the article harder to read.
It's not always an easy call. Linking to the number three from triangle is helpful, while linking to the number six from Six O'Clock News would be quite wrong. Linking to the number three from The Three Bears is a judgement call - it depends on whether there is something important about the number three that makes it particularly relevant for this story.
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Rules of thumb for linking
What should be linked:
- birth and death dates
- major connections with the subject of the article, that is, if it's an article about, say, B.B. King, there should be links on blues, guitar, and singer
- significant names mentioned in the article, defining significant to mean people or events who deserve an article. If an article mentions the Rolling Stones that would deserve a link, even if there would be no article on the Rolling Stones yet; however, B.B. King's bass player should not get a link unless and until an article about him is written.
- General, broad topics touched on in the article, like novel, autobiography, saxophone, jazz, American Civil War, as well as collective pointers like the 1960s, the 17th century.
- Anything you think there should be an article about (except as noted below). Linking enough times gets it on the Most Wanted list.
What should not be linked:
- plain English words
- dates of marriage, book publication, and other dates between the "big two" unless they bear some kind of significant connection with the date. That Bob Dylan arrived in New York City in 1961 is significant because it was a zeitgeist event. Ask yourself, "Would this event ever appear on a timeline under this date?"
- Every song on a record album.
- Likewise, every book and short story by an author, unless you're prepared to back it up by writing almost all the articles, as the Robert Heinlein enthusiasts did. Otherwise, leave the various works unlinked until you get around to writing an article.
- Similarly, in an article about a municipality that contains a list of all villages it comprises, a village need not be linked until it gets a separate article; the latter is needed only when so much info about it is added that that does not fit well in the municipality article.
Other considerations
Avoid duplicate links on a page. Redundant links clutter up the page and make future maintenance harder. However, link the first occurrence of a term, and always link when directing to a page for more information, e.g. "Relevant background can be found in Fourier series".
When you create a redirect, make sure this does not create links from the page to itself via this redirect, since this annoys readers considerably.
Linking of years is particularly controversial. Unless the user's understanding of the article relies heavily on the surrounding historical context, the article about the particular year or date is unlikely to be relevant to most readers. (On the other hand, linking of years does make the creation and maintenance of certain timeline articles easier when reader/editors use the "What links here" option.) However dates like March 11 or March 11, 2004 need to be linked to enable the user preference for date display style.
Aim for a consistent 'Link Density'. Don't link 8 words on one sentence and then none in the rest of the article.