Undertale Wiki:Links
Links are a way to connect different pages on the wiki. They help users dive deeper into any particular Undertale or Deltarune topic, by following these links from other pages where the relevant topic was mentioned. As the most important navigation mechanism on the wikis, care must be taken when adding and managing links.
The wiki software allows us to change link text by using the pipe syntax (e.g. [[page name|link text]]), but that feature should be avoided unless necessary. There are several reasons for this, explained in sections below.
When a user clicks a link, they should know where the link will take them. Never use a piped link when it conceals the link destination, and instead reword the text to naturally use an unpiped link.
Prefer linking to redirects instead of piping a link. Linking to redirects helps us determine how popular that destination page is, which can contribute to a decision to split the page, and it also significantly reduces maintenance in case a page does get split from its previous location.
- Yes:
[[Old Man]](when referring to the Darkner),[[mus_star]] - No:
[[Gerson Boom|Old Man]],[[Unused music tracks#mus_star|mus_star]]
Linking to redirects also makes for cleaner wikitext. You can link to pages using lowercase first letters, and suffixes of the link will be a part of the link. Possessive 's should be outside the link.
- Yes:
[[boss]]es,[[Sans]]'s - No:
[[Boss|bosses]],[[Sans|Sans's]]
In navboxes, you should not link to redirects because they may create self-redirects on target pages.
While linking to redirects is preferred, there are certain redirects that should not be linked to, such as those created for navigational purposes.
Special:SearchDigest is a useful page that tells us which pages people search for, but don't exist. One purpose of such a tool is to create redirects from commonly searched misspellings or fan names to appropriate destination pages, to speed up searching. While these redirects are useful for search, they should never be linked to from wiki pages themselves, as these names are usually not canonical or commonly accepted.
Another source of navigational pages are disambiguations. Disambiguation pages are meant to be found via search, other disambiguation pages, or context links such as {{For}}. Linking to them leaves the user wondering what was the original page trying to say, and so you should always disambiguate the link yourself rather than linking to a disambiguation page.
- No:
[[Mantle]] - Yes:
[[Shadow Mantle]],[[Original Game]]
When linking to a page on another wiki, avoid linking to a cross-wiki redirect because it leaves the destination page ambiguous. Instead, link to the relevant page (or redirect) using its interwiki prefix.
- Yes:
[[dr:Deltarune|Deltarune]](assuming the current wiki is Undertale Wiki) - No:
[[Deltarune]]
Too many links can make text paragraphs unreadable. This is why duplicate links (links to the same page and section) should be carefully placed. The rule of thumb is that there should be only one link per major section. There are certain exceptions to this, when duplicate links are allowed because in these areas they don't impede readability:
- Within templates such as infoboxes and navboxes
- Within references and image captions
- Within lists (e.g. Leitmotifs) or tables (e.g. Introduction), where the linked term represents the subject of the list item or table row
A "main section" is generally defined as a section delineated by level two headings (== ==), but if a section is frequently linked to (for example, a motif on Leitmotifs or a track on Unused music tracks), it is useful to allow link repetition within such sections as users may land directly on that section instead of reading through the article in order. Conversely, item and track pages are treated as a single main section as they are generally short.
Links should not be placed in section headers, because they are important navigational elements that should not be obstructed by links. Links also have no place within quoted content, unless the original text being quoted also contains the same link.