维基百科:格式手册/链接/new

本页使用了标题或全文手工转换
维基百科,自由的百科全书

维基百科的一大特色就是超链接。内部链接使得整个网站连在一起;跨维基链接将不同语言版本的维基百科,以及姊妹计划(例如维基文库维基词典等)连接在一起;外部链接则把维基百科连入国际互联网

合适的链接可以成为同向站内外不同位置的捷径,可以使读者对条目的内容有更好的理解。所以在编辑条目的时候,我们不仅仅要考虑写些什么,还要考虑这个条目包含哪些链接更有利于读者的阅读,以及其他哪些条目需要链接到这里。需要小心的是,在编辑过程中既要避免链接不足,又要防止过度链接

本指引说明了哪些情况下应当使用链接,哪些情况下不应使用,以及如何统一链接的格式。链接的使用方法已由Help:链接说明。消歧义页面的链接格式则由消歧义页指引规范。

原理

维基百科建立在超文本基础上,并致力于“构筑网络”,使读者轻松访问其他页面上的相关信息。页面激活超链接之处称为锚点;链接指向的页面称为目标。 页面中的链接指向被称为目标。

在增删链接时,请将条目置于知识树。内部链接可以提升维基百科的条目连接力和实用性,通过让读者便捷访问其它条目而深入了解主题。自问,“读者有多大可能还想阅读其它条目?”考虑加入读者可能会用到的链接;比如在条目序言、新章节的开头、表格的单元格,以及图像题注中。但是注意下文的经验法则,编辑应只在条目中术语首次出现之处加入链接。

链接风格一般问题

  • 若可能,则不要让链接间邻接,好像看起来是一个链接,比如[[爱尔兰]][[国际象棋]][[冠军]]。考虑改述语句,或使以更具体的链接(如爱尔兰国际象棋冠军)代之。
  • 请勿在条目中链接用户页或维基计划页面,除非条目和维基百科本身有关。(见Wikipedia:避免自我参照
  • 不要无必要的强迫读者点开链接:对于技术性很强的术语,如可能,请简短解释之。同样,也请不要让读者必须点开链接才能理解句子,特别点开后还套一层链接才能理解。(即页面中有个术语需要点开链接,点开后里面又有个术语还需要再点开链接,如此循环)不要假设读者可以打开链接,比如他们可能正在纸上阅读打印版本。

过度链接与连接不足

通常应该链接的项目

如果条目中需要链接以便理解条目的词语未有链接,则条目称为连接不足。一般而言,这些内容应被链接:

  • 有助读者更充分理解条目(见下文示例),而指向其它条目有关主题的链接。这可以包括已有条目或显然值得的人物、事件与主题,只要链接和条目问题有关。
  • 有关信息的条目,比如“相关背景见傅里叶级数”。
  • 需要解释的专业术语、行话、俗语或片语——但是你还是可以给出一个简明定义或同时也加上链接,而单只放置链接。如果维基百科没有合适的条目,也可以用跨维基链接链接合适的维基词典页面。
  • 读者可能不熟悉的专有名词。

不必害怕连接到尚未建立的潜在条目。(见下文红色链接

如果你认为链接不适宜插入条目正文,可考虑移至“参见”章节。

通常应链接的项目

如果条目中含有过量链接,致使难以确定哪些内容能大大有助于读者理解条目,则条目为过度链接[1]。特别的,除非下列内容与条目主题非常有关,则通常不应链接:、

  • 大多数读者可理解的日常词汇;
  • 主要地理要素与地点;语言;宗教;常见职业;pre- and post-nominals
  • 常见度量单位,比如有关面积、长度、温度、时间和体积的单位(如果同时列出非公制与公制单位,如18 °C(64 °F),则两个单位都不需要链接,因为读者都至少能理解其一);

请勿链接重定向回页面自身的链接。(除非是指向条目合适的章节可能性重定向

一般而言,链接在同一篇条目中只应出现一次,但如果有助于读者,则链接可以在信息框、表格、图像题注、脚注,以及在导言之后的首次出现时重复链接。

序言章节

过多链接会让阅读变得困难。对于使用不常见术语的专业条目,可能必须在序言中使用高出平常的链接密度。这时试着在导言给出通俗解释,从而避免在条目下文开始前出现太多专业术语——见Wikipedia:让专业条目也可理解和点。点en:WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, textbook, or scientific journal的第7点。

An example article

For example, in the article on supply and demand:

  • almost certainly link "microeconomics" and "general equilibrium theory", as these are technical terms that many readers are unlikely to understand at first sight;
  • consider linking "price" and "goods" only if these common words have technical dimensions that are specifically relevant to the topic.
  • do not link to the "United States", because that is an article on a very broad topic with no direct connection to supply and demand.
  • definitely do not link "wheat", because it is a common term with no particular relationship to the article on supply and demand, beyond its arbitrary use as an example of traded goods in that article.
  • Make sure that the links are directed to the correct articles: in this example, you should link good (economics), not good. Many common dictionary words link to disambiguation pages.

Link clarity

The article linked to should correspond to the term showing as the link as closely as possible given the context: for example, When Mozart wrote his Requiem rather than When Mozart wrote his Requiem, or Previn conducted Mozart's Requiem rather than Previn conducted Mozart's Requiem – this makes it clear the link is to the article on Mozart's Requiem in particular, rather than that on requiems in general. The link target and the link label do not have to correspond to each other, but the link must be as intuitive as possible. Thus, one may have a link "second longest European river" with the target 'Danube' and the link label 'second longest European river'. For further detail, refer to the section Piped links.

Link specificity

Always link to the article on the most specific topic appropriate to the context from which you link: it will generally contain more focused information, as well as links to more general topics. (Move your mouse pointer over the blue links in the table below to see the target.)

What you type How it appears Specificity
[[Icelandic alphabet]] Icelandic alphabet Specific
[[Icelandic language|Icelandic]] alphabet Icelandic alphabet Related, but less specific
Icelandic [[alphabet]] Icelandic alphabet Unspecific
the [[flag of Tokelau]] the flag of Tokelau Specific
the [[flag]] of [[Tokelau]] the flag of Tokelau Unspecific
[[Requiem (Mozart)|Requiem]] Requiem Specific
[[Requiem]] Requiem Unspecific

In each case the specific link is preferred.

If there is no article about the most specific topic, do one of the following things:

  • Consider creating the article yourself.
  • If an article on the specific topic does not yet exist, create a redirect page to the article about a more general topic, as described in section Template:Sectionlink. For example, if no article yet exists on the song "Sad Statue" from the album Mezmerize, create a new article called Sad Statue that redirects to the article Mezmerize.
  • If there is no article on a more general topic either, then create a red link, but read Template:Sectionlink below.

When neither a redirect nor a red link appear appropriate, consider linking to a more general article instead. For example, instead of Baroque hairstyles, write Baroque hairstyles, Baroque hairstyles, Baroque hairstyles, or hairstyles of the Baroque, depending on the context.

Section links

If an existing article has a section specifically about the topic, you can redirect or link directly to it, by appending a number sign (#) and the name of the section to the article name. For example, Underpromotion is a redirect to Promotion (chess)#Underpromotion, and in the article Quark, the link eight gluon types (typed as [[Gluon#Eight gluon colors|eight gluon types]]) links to a specific section in the article Gluon. When doing this, add a hidden comment to the target section such as <!-- "Quark" links here --> so that someone changing the title of that section can fix the incoming links. (Alternatively, use Template:Anchor in case of a large number of links to the section.)

To link to a section of the same article, e.g. in the lead of Promotion (chess), write: [[#Promotion to rook or bishop|promotion to a rook or bishop]].

Note: the hidden message (<!-- "Article" links here -->) must be added to the target section with a break between the header and the hidden message:
==Target section==
<!-- "Article" links here -->

If there is no break:
==Target section==<!-- "Article" links here -->
problems arise such as the target section title not being added to the edit summary when the section edit button is clicked and the article does not return to that section after editing.

Techniques

Redirects

Let's assume for example you needed to link "poodle", and there was no article for poodles yet. You might want to create a redirect from "poodle" to "dog" as follows: Write the link in the text as if the "poodle" article existed: She owned a [[poodle]]. When you save or preview this, you will see: She owned a poodle. Click on the red link to create the redirect page, and enter the code #REDIRECT followed by a space and a standard wikilink to the target article name (in our case, Dog). The result should be: #REDIRECT [[Dog]].

The advantage of redirects over piped links is that they allow us to determine which pages link to the given topic using Special:WhatLinksHere, which in turn allows us to

(There is currently no way to apply Whatlinkshere directly to article sections.)

To link to a redirect page without following the underlying redirect, use {{noredirect|PageName}}, replacing PageName with the name of the redirect page to link.

Piped links

You may want to display a text for a link that is different from the linked article title. This can be achieved with what is called Piped links. Example: [[Henry II of England|Henry II]], which displays as Henry II. However, make sure that it is still clear what the link refers to without having to follow the link. Think about what the reader will believe the link is about. Example: When you use a link such as [[Archery at the 2008 Summer Olympics|Archery]] (which displays as Archery), the reader will expect this link to go to a general article on archery, rather than Archery at the 2008 Summer Olympics. The exception is when it is clear from the context that links go to specific articles, as in template:2008 Summer Olympics calendar, where all links go to the article about these specific games.

  • Plurals and other derived names. When forming plurals, you can do so thus: [[apple]]s which includes the final "s" in the link like this: apples. This is easier to type and clearer to read in the source text than [[apple|apples]]. This works not just for "s", but for any words that consist of an article name and some additional letters. For details, see Help:Link. (This does not work for affixes beginning with hyphens, apostrophes, or capital letters.)
  • Case sensitivity. Links are not sensitive to initial capitalization, so there is no need to use piping where the only difference between the text and the target is the case of the initial letter (Wikipedia article titles almost always begin with a capital, whereas the linked words in context often do not). However, links are case-sensitive for all but the initial character.
  • Intuitiveness. Keep piped links as intuitive as possible. Per the principle of least astonishment, make sure that the reader knows what to expect when clicking on a link. You should plan your page structure and links so that everything appears reasonable and makes sense. If a link takes readers to somewhere other than where they thought it would, it should at least take them somewhere that makes sense. For example, do not write this:
Template:!xt2
The readers will not see the hidden reference to the parton model unless they click on or hover over the piped particle physics link; in hard copy, the reference to partons is completely lost. (Such links are sometimes called "Easter egg links" or "submarine links".) Instead, reference the article with an explicit "see also" or by rephrasing:

Richard Feynman was also known for work in [[particle physics]] (he proposed the [[parton (particle physics)|parton]] model).

  • Piping and redirects. Per Template:Sectionlink above, do not use a piped link where it is possible to use a redirected term that fits well within the scope of the text. For example, let's assume the page A Dirge for Sabis is a redirect to the page The Sword of Knowledge, and while you're editing some other article, you want to add a link to A Dirge for Sabis. You may be tempted to avoid the redirect by directly linking to it with a pipe like this: [[The Sword of Knowledge|A Dirge for Sabis]]. Instead, write simply [[A Dirge for Sabis]] and let the system handle the rest. This has the added advantage that if an article is written later about the more specific subject (in this case, A Dirge for Sabis), fewer links will need to be changed to accommodate the new article.

Piped links and redirects to sections of articles

Linking to particular sections of articles can be useful, inasmuch as it can take the reader immediately to the information that is most focused on the original topic. If you decide not to use a redirect, you have to use a piped link, because the format "Article name#Section name", is inappropriate for display in an article. The format for a subsection link is [[Article#Section|name of link]]. Please note, section name is case sensitive. For example, to link to the "Culture" subsection of the Oman article, type [[Oman#Culture|culture of Oman]] (which displays as culture of Oman). When doing this, add a hidden comment to the target section such as <!-- the article WP:LINK links here --> so that someone changing the title of that section can fix the incoming links. (Alternatively, use {{Anchor}} in case of a large number of links to the section.)

History of Topic: #REDIRECT[''Topic''#History

[[history of Topic]]

[[Topic#History|history of Topic]]

Among topics useful for linking to, there are many which Wikipedia currently implements as article sections, but which are potentially notable enough to become standalone articles. For example, the article Eastern Anyshire can have a small ==History== section, but this does not preclude an article on the History of Eastern Anyshire to be written eventually. Usually, a redirect page from a sub-topic to a general topic already exists, or should be created on demand. It is bad practice to make such links as Article#Section links explicitly, because navigation becomes inconvenient after the section is replaced by a summary of a new article. Instead, link through redirects, as it costs little and makes improvements easier.

Links to Wikipedia's categories

Wikipedia has categories of articles like [[Category:Phrases]]; adding this to an article puts it into that category. You can link to a category by putting a colon in front.

For example [[:Category:Phrases]] links to Category:Phrases, and piping can be used: Phrases.

{{see also cat|Phrases}} creates:

Red links

Overlinking in general is a style issue partly because of the undesirable effect upon readability. But if too many blue links is distracting (reducing the chance the article will be read), then a red link is even more so. The unassuming coloration of the text, (probably black), is the most productive.

In prose, if it seems that the level of red linking is overlinking, remember that red links have been found to be a driving force that encourage contributions[nb 1], and then use that fact to balance the perceived stylistic issues of "overlinking" the red links. (Legitimate red links are titles to unfulfilled coverage of topics that do not violate What Wikipedia is not.) Given a certain number of red links needed, if marking all of them could be overlinking, then just how many should be marked could be a style issue, and just which ones are priority is a helpful contribution.

In lists, overlinking red links can occur when every item on a list is a red link. If the list is uniform, where each item is obviously qualified for an article, a single red link (or blue link) could indicate that. If the list is not uniform, the research effort to mark all possible red links is a risky investment: while red means "approved" status, "black" remains ambiguous, even though it meant "disapproved" after research. Valid requests for the future creation of each title in a list, or in prose, may also be a risky investment when the number of red links could be perceived by other editors as overlinking, and then removed before the investment was fruitful. The removal of massive numbers of red links from an overlinked list is best handled by an editor skilled in the automation of text processing.

Red links can also be removed if they violate policy or the guideline for red links, but otherwise red links do not have an expiration date. If you remain convinced there is overlinking of red links, consider turning some of them blue. The methods to do so are by creating a simple stub, a redirect, or a disambiguation page. All of these require the certainty that the red link was legitimate in the first place, such as the conventions on naming and titling.

Checking links as they are created

One of the most common errors in linking occurs when editors do not check to see whether a link they have created goes to the intended location. This is especially true when a mistake is not obvious to the reader or to other editors. The text of links needs to be exact, and many Wikipedia destinations have a number of similar titles. To avoid such problems, which can be irritating for readers, the following procedure is recommended, especially for editors who are new to creating links.

  1. Carefully key in the link.
  2. Click on "Show preview".
  3. In the display-mode, click on the links (or open them in a new browser tab) to check they go where you intend; if they do not, fix them. If a destination page does not appear to exist, do a quick search to determine whether the article has a differently worded title or the subject is treated in a section of another article. Adjust the link accordingly or leave it as a red link.
  4. Return to the "Show preview" page using your browser's return button (or close the browser tab showing the linked article).
  5. Click on "Save page".

By following naming conventions, an internal link will be much more likely to lead to an existing article. When there is not yet an article about the subject, a good link will make the creation of a correctly named article much easier for subsequent writers.

Specific cases

Chronological items

Month-and-day linking

Month-and-day articles (e.g. February 24 and 10 July) should not be linked unless their content is relevant and appropriate to the subject. Such links should share an important connection with that subject other than that the events occurred on the same date. For example, editors should not link the date (or year) in a sentence such as (from Sydney Opera House): "The Sydney Opera House was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 28 June 2007", because little, if any, of the contents of either June 28 or 2007 are germane to either UNESCO, a World Heritage Site, or the Sydney Opera House.

References to commemorative days (Saint Patrick's Day) are treated as for any other link. Intrinsically chronological articles (1789, January, and 1940s) may themselves contain linked chronological items.

Year linking

Year articles (e.g. 1795, 1955, 2007) should not be linked unless they contain information that is germane and topical to the subject matter—that is, the events in the year article should share an important connection other than merely that they occurred in the same year. For instance, Timeline of World War II (1942) may be linked to from another article about WWII, and so too may 1787 in science when writing about a particular development on the metric system in that year. However, the years of birth and death of architect Philip C. Johnson should not be linked, because little, if any, of the contents of 1906 and 2005 are germane to either Johnson or to architecture.

Intrinsically chronological articles (1789, January, and 1940s) may themselves contain linked chronological items.

Units of measurement that aren't obscure

Units should generally only be linked to if they are likely to be obscure to readers of the article, or if they are being discussed (see use–mention distinction). So, for example, the troy ounce or bushel, the candela, mho or millibarn might be considered obscure. Units that are relatively common generally don't need to be linked. Other units may be obscure in some countries, but well known in others (such as metric system units, which are not well known in the US) and so linking them may be useful, unless a conversion is present, as in 20 °C(68 °F) or 68 °F(20 °C)—practically all readers will understand at least one of the measures.

External links section

Wikipedia is not a link collection, and an article comprising only links is contrary to what the "what Wikipedia is not" policy dictates.

Syntax

The syntax for referencing a URL is simple. Just enclose it in single brackets with a space between the URL and the text that will be displayed when the page is previewed or saved:

[http://www.example.org Text to display]

The text will display as:

Text to display

The URL must begin with http:// or another common protocol, such as ftp:// or news://. If no protocol is used, the square brackets will display normally – [like this] – and can be used in the standard way.

In addition, putting URLs in plain text with no markup automatically produces a link, for example http://www.example.org/http://www.example.org/. However, this feature may disappear in a future release. Therefore, in cases where you wish to display the URL because it is intrinsically valuable information, it is better to use the short form of the URL (domain name) as the optional text: [http://www.example.org/ example.org] produces example.org.

Link titles

You should not add a descriptive title to an embedded HTML link within an article. Instead, when giving an embedded link as a source within an article, simply enclose the URL in square brackets, like this: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1650417,00.html][1]. However, you should add a descriptive title when an external link is offered in the References, Further reading, or External links section. This is done by supplying descriptive text after the URL, separated by a space and enclosing it all in square brackets.

For example, to add a title to a bare URL such as http://en.wikipedia.org/ (this is rendered as http://en.wikipedia.org/), use the following syntax: [http://en.wikipedia.org/ an open-content encyclopedia] (this is rendered as "an open-content encyclopedia").

Generally, URLs are ugly and uninformative; it is better for a meaningful title to be displayed rather than the URL itself. For example, European Space Agency website is much more reader-friendly than http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/index.html. There may be exceptions where the URL is well known or is the company name. In this case, putting both the URL and a valid title will be more informative: for example, European Space Agency website, www.esa.int.

If the URL is displayed, make it as simple as possible; for example, if the index.html is superfluous, remove it (but be sure to check in preview mode first).

The "printable version" of a page displays all URLs in full, including those given a title, so no information is lost.

URLs as embedded (numbered) links

Without the optional text, external references appear as automatically numbered links: For example,

[http://en.wikipedia.org/]

is displayed like this:

[2]

When an embedded HTML link is used to provide an inline source in an article, a numbered link should be used after the punctuation, like this, [3] with a full citation given in the References section. This style of referencing is not recommended, because such links are susceptible to link rot. See Wikipedia:Cite sources and Wikipedia:Verifiability for more information.

When placed in the References and External links sections, these links should be expanded with link text, and preferably a full citation, including the name of the article, the author, the journal or newspaper the article appeared in, the date it was published, and the date retrieved.

Position in article

Embedded links that are used to support information in an article are positioned in the same manner as any other reference in the article, following the usual standards about citation formatting and placement in relation to punctuation.

Links that are not used as sources can be listed in the External links section, like this:

== External links ==
* [http://
* [http://

As with other top-level headings, two equal signs should be used to mark up the external links heading (see Headings elsewhere in the article). External links should always be the last section in an article. It precedes categories and some kinds of navigation templates.

If there is a dispute on the position of an embedded link, consider organizing alphabetically.

Non-English-language sites

Webpages in English are highly preferred. Linking to non-English pages may still be useful for readers in the following cases:

  • when the website is the subject of the article
  • when linking to pages with maps, diagrams, photos, tables (explain the key terms with the link, so that people who do not know the language can interpret them)
  • when the webpage contains information found on no English-language site of comparable quality, and is used as a citation (or when translations on English-language sites are not authoritative).

If the language is one that most readers could not be expected to recognize, or is for some other reason unclear from the name of the publication or the book/article/page title, consider indicating what language the site is in.

You can also indicate the language by putting a language icon after the link. This is done using Template:Language icon by typing {{Language icon|<language code>|<language name>}}. For example, {{Language icon|es}} displays as: (西班牙語). Alternatively, type {{xx icon}}, where xx is the language code. For example, {{pl icon}} gives: (波兰文). See Category:Language icon templates for a list of these templates and the list of ISO 639 codes.

When using one of the above templates in references that use a {{cite}} template, make sure you place the {{language}} or {{XX icon}} template outside of the {{cite}} template, like this: <ref>{{cite web ...}}{{es icon}}</ref>

File type and size

If the link is not to an HTML or PDF file (the latter is identified automatically by the software with an icon like this: [4]), identify the file type. Useful templates are available: {{DOClink}}, {{RTFlink}}. If a browser plugin is required to view the file, mention that as well. If a link is to a PDF file but doesn't end with .pdf, you can put a #.pdf at the end to flag it as a PDF.

If the link is to a large file (in the case of HTML, consider the size of the entire page, including the images), a note about that is useful too. Someone with a slow (or expensive) connection may decide not to use it.

Interwiki links

Linking

Interwiki links can take the form of:

[[wiktionary:article]] which appears as: wiktionary:article

The pipe symbol suppresses the prefix:

[[wiktionary:article|]]article

Adding text after the pipe allows different text:

[[wiktionary:article|Any text]]Any text

Floating boxes

Floating boxes for links to articles in other Wikimedia Foundation projects such as Wiktionary and Wikiquote can be done with special link templates such as {{Wikiquote|Jimmy Wales}}. These will display as a box with a logo. Similar templates exist for some free content resources that are not run by the Wikimedia Foundation. These boxes are formatted in light green to distinguish them from Wikipedia's official sister projects. A list of such templates can be found at Wikipedia:List of templates linking to other free content projects.

Link maintenance

Linking and continual change are both central features of Wikipedia. However, continual change makes linking vulnerable to acquired technical faults, and to the later provision of different information from that which was originally intended. This is true of both "outgoing" links (from an article) and "incoming" links (to an article).

  • Outgoing links: These should be checked from time to time for unintended changes that are undesirable. If the opportunity arises to improve their formatting, appropriateness, and focus, this should be done.
  • Incoming links: Creating an article will turn blue any existing red links to its title (proper redlinks are created only in the hope that an article will eventually be written). Therefore, when creating an article, it is wise to check "What links here" to identify such redlinks, if any, and that they are appropriate.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Academic research has suggested that red links may be a driving force in Wikipedia growth; see Spinellis, D.; Louridas, P. The collaborative organization of knowledge. Communications of the ACM. 2008, 51 (8): 68–73. doi:10.1145/1378704.1378720. Most new articles are created shortly after a corresponding reference to them is entered into the system  See also Wikipedia:Inflationary hypothesis of Wikipedia growth.
  1. ^ Many, but not all, articles repeat the article title in bold face in the first line of the article. Linking the article to itself produces boldface text; this practice is discouraged as page moves will result in a useless circular link through a redirect. Linking part of the bolded text is also discouraged because it changes the visual effect of bolding; some readers will miss the visual cue which is the purpose of using bold face in the first place.

References

  1. ^ Dvorak, John C. Missing Links. PC Magazine. April 2002. 

External links

  • Silvers, V. L.; Kreiner, D. S. The Effects of Pre-Existing Inappropriate Highlighting on Reading Comprehension. Reading Research and Instruction. 1997, 36 (3): 217–223. doi:10.1080/19388079709558240. Template:MASID. 

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