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If you confused by what I'm talking about I'm going to give an example from the Donald Trump in popular culture article:

Trump has an article on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Editors of Wikipedia often have contentious discussions on what should be included in the article, and there are accusations of political bias among editors. The article has extended confirmed protection, so only certain editors (editors with at least 30 days of activity and 500 edits) can edit the article as well an unofficial editorial board.[75][76] The website "Loser.com" directs to Trump's Wikipedia article, and it is unclear who runs the site.[77][78]

In this excerpt notice how there is a link to the article Wikipedia:Protection policy. I think this type of link is inappropriate. There should be no linking to articles that are within Wikipedia, since these articles are not meant to be content articles, but pages to help editors. I have seen this a few times on Wikipedia and I don't believe it's addressed in guideline. It needs to be addressed and formally discouraged or banned. Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 03:54, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Iamreallygoodatcheckers, it's addressed partially at WP:Manual of Style/Self-references to avoid, and was previously brought up here at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Linking/Archive_20#Linking_to_projectspace_in_articles. I agree with you that that should be prohibited, since linking from a mainspace article to another namespace page (non-mainspace pages are not articles) is essentially akin to adding an inline external link, and allowing ourselves to do it is basically giving ourselves preference over other entities that don't get inline external links. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:08, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. If non-existing articles have drafts, then visitors of article space see large editnotices. An example of what such notices look like:

Among other reasons, such editnotices are "in order to prevent the unnecessary creation of duplicates". As you know, some titles are ambiguous and therefore require a qualifier. Related to the above example, Luminary is the disambiguation page, while Luminary (podcast network) has a draft article associated with the ambiguous title. Editors who would like to - read; if it doesn't exist - create an article about the network, are much more likely to check the disambiguation page than they'll (correctly) guess/search+find the qualifier. My opinion is therefore that it makes sense to allow editors to link to such drafts on disambiguation pages. Currently, MOS:DRAFTNOLINK does no include an exception that allows such links. (Even though MediaWiki already uses {{Template:Draft at}} in article space.) Do you agree it makes sense to allow linking to drafts on disambiguation pages? I attempted to do so here, but my edit was reverted. --77.162.8.57 (talk) 10:36, 21 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - and not just because I was the editor who reverted the IPs addition.
On 29 July 2020 I started a discussion at Wikipedia:Edit filter noticeboard, which is archived here. This was taken up at Wikipedia:Edit filter/Requested but somehow, fell by the wayside. I have, however, been running daily searches for links to draft articles in mainspace.
I have not kept statistics, but I would estimate that over 60% of such additions are to drafts that have been rejected at WP:AFC, so are " .... not yet ready for the main article space, it is not in shape for ordinary readers ...." to quote Template:Uw-draft-link. The majority of such draft-links are added to to lists, typically, notable people, alumni or disambiguation pages. Assuming we are agreed that we do not want links to articles that have failed AFC, (whilst many of the others are ego/puffery pieces that clearly would fail AFC) I cannot see that there should be any exceptions. - Arjayay (talk) 15:41, 21 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's fairly common for articles to begin with a sentence of the form SUBJECT is an X Y, where X and Y are both linkable topics. That situation presents three possible paths, each with pros/cons:

1. Rephrase the text to move one of the links later, e.g. SUBJECT is an X. It is a Y, and... Sometimes this works well, but often it results in clunky phrasing.
2. Delink either X or Y in the first sentence. Sometimes it can be added farther down, but even when so, this typically makes it harder for readers to navigate to a defining contextual link.
3. Keep both links in the first sentence, resulting in a sea of blue.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that there's no super elegant path available for options 1/2, as that'd be a cop out. I'm interested to hear from folks how you weigh the three options.

Personally, I tend to lean toward option 3, since research indicates readers don't tend to click links often, making the clunky phrasing of 1 a big downside, but when they do, position matters a ton, creating a downside to 2. Seas of blue are never ideal, but I'm not sure they actually harm enough to need to be avoided at all costs (something the guideline acknowledges with the when possible caveat), and I feel that they can be overpoliced because they're comparatively easy to identify. Thoughts? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:39, 5 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm interested in the general question here, rather than any specific example, but courtesy pinging @Dying and @Ravenpuff because you recently applied option 1 and 2 respectively to an upcoming TFA blurb. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:41, 5 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I generally aim for option 1, which I agree can result in a clunky first-sentence. If I can't make it work I usually just ignore it (option 3). In the interest of respecting the guideline I suppose I should use option 2 but there's also the fact that the next person to edit the article could have a better editorial sense than I do and can craft an option 1 sentence that reads perfectly well. Primergrey (talk) 14:01, 6 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Option 4 - "don't link either unless they really need it". Don't link "painter, scientist, historian, soldier" etc etc. Nor most countries. That removes 98% of the problem. The only problem is that eventually some idiot will come along and link "Italian" or "painter". Johnbod (talk) 15:03, 6 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Johnbod, I'm certainly with you about the issues with overlinking, but MOS:CONTEXTLINK does allow a lot of links in the first sentence that you wouldn't normally want elsewhere, so I'm not sure it's quite 98%. For the sake of discussion here, let's assume the terms are uncommon enough to warrant links. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:22, 6 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Option 1 to rephrase. Something like Tom Brady's ...is an American football quarterback for the... could be re-written as ...is an American football player who is a quarterback for the... Every case is different, but here some might not know that a quarterback is a playing position.—Bagumba (talk) 17:38, 6 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Two links is not a sea of blue in my opinion. It also depends on how technical the article itself is. Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:38, 14 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The link, Phoenix, Arizona's Chinatown, is unclear because it could be read as either the Chinatown in Phoenix (as intended), or that "Arizona's Chinatown" is called Phoenix. I proposed fixing this by linking it as Phoenix, Arizona's Chinatown. Others have suggested that is an Easteregg link and should not be used. I think is sufficiently transparent. If you click on the link, would you be surprised/confused to be reading about the Chinatown in Phoenix, and not any Chinatown? This relates to a DYK hook and should be concise, not something unnaturally wordly. Thoughts? To avoid forking the discussion, Please comment at DYK. MB 20:35, 21 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The problem has nothing to do with it being a link, the displayed phrase is simply unclear. I can't see the context I'd need to reword it properly because you haven't shared the location, but suitable wording might be "the Chinatown of Phoenix, Arizona" or "Chinatown in Phoenix, Arizona". Largoplazo (talk) 22:13, 21 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I linked the word germane to the wikitionary article on it. This was reverted by EEng, with the edit summary 'We assume our editors are basically literate' given as motivation. I think this is a fairly uncommon word. Per the Manual of Style itself, "Everyday words understood by most readers in context (e.g., education, violence, aircraft, river)" should not be linked, but germane is not such a word.

As I don't want to get into an edit war, I started this discussion page. Thoughts? TypistMonkey (talk) 02:18, 23 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I was also surprised that you linked it. I don't think of it as uncommon. Largoplazo (talk) 02:36, 23 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

a) The advice in the MoS is for article content; the MoS itself is not a Wikipedia article. b) I agree that germane is not uncommon. c) It could be replaced with relevant. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:40, 23 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is uncommon (at least in British English), and therefore best avoided. There are plenty of alternatives for any given context. Johnbod (talk) 02:44, 23 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Using my benchmark of a high school freshman, I would say it isn't a common word to such a target reader. While I would probably not link it to the en.wp article because it's not likely to be directly relevant to the subject in question (because of the nature of the word), I don't think a link to wikt would be misplaced. -- Ohc ^{revolution of our times} 07:26, 23 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]