The Blackout Club Wiki:Style Guide/Housekeeping/Links


 * For a complete guide to linking, please refer to Wikipedia's Manual of Style, although do note that some of the policies about linking listed there may differ here.

Links direct the reader to a new spot at the point(s) where the reader is most likely to take a temporary detour to learn more information about the particular topic.The use of links is a difficult balance between providing the reader enough useful links to allow them to "wander through" articles, and excessive linking which can distract them from their reading flow. Underlinking can cause the reader to become frustrated because questions may arise about the article's contents which can only be resolved by using the search option or other sources for clarification, interrupting and distracting the reader. Overlinking may distract the reader because links are usually colored differently causing the eye to shift focus constantly. Additionally, if the same word is linked multiple times in the same paragraph it can cause the reader to question if the links are directing them to different articles for the same topic.

The TBC Wiki's guidelines for linking are:
 * No more than 10% of the words in an article may be contained in links.
 * Avoid using multiple links sequentially like this.
 * Do not link to pages that do not exist (do not create red links ).
 * Links for any single term should not be excessively repeated in the same article. Excessive linking is defined as multiple use of the same term, in a line or a paragraph, which will almost certainly appear needlessly on the viewer's screen. Only the first instance should be linked. The exception being long articles and in the captions in an image gallery subpage.
 * Duplicating an important link distant from a previous occurrence in an article may well be appropriate. If an important term appears many times in a long article, but is only linked once at the very beginning of the article, it may actually be underlinked.

Linking to a piped link is preferred over using a redirect. A piped link should never point to a redirect. It is preferred if links use the articles' full name in a piped link, followed by the truncated form of the name for the article.

Examples:
 * instead of  is desired since   is a redirect.


 * instead of  is desired since   is a redirect.