Wikipedia:Avoid using wikilinks
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{{Humour Wikilinked}}
Wikilinks allows an article to be pointed to by enclosing the article's title in square brackets. This allows the editor to link to another article without having to type in the URL of the article or enclose it in HTML anchor tags.
This article is an attempt to gather information supporting the assertion that wikilinks are harmful to Wikipedia. Convenience is often cited as the reason for using wikilinks. Certainly, it offers a useful shortcut to creating links and allows the links to point to the same article regardless of article moves. This helps to tie many articles of similar interest together.
[[Why]] [[Chicken Wings|wikilinks]] [[are]] [[considered harmful]]
- All those blue words are confusing. It makes the reader think, "What should I do with this? Click? Or just view and appreciate the simplicity of this tranquil blue text floating in a sea of black?" Many users think this is potentially harmful to readers and may cause overheating. The color blue has also been linked to depression and reduced fertility.
- Heavily wikilinked texts resemble spaghetti code. Doubly so if you have "Display links to disambiguation pages in orange" activated in your preferences, because half of these pages are.
- Having green links for redirects, which can be found here and here can create even more chaos when compounded with yellow and blue links.
- If a link points to a page that does not exist yet, the link appears as red (also called a "redlink"), which looks bad. The color red has also been linked to fire and feelings of anger. ARRGHH!
- Every time a page is moved, all the wikilinks that incorrectly point to the old site will now point to a redirect, making the servers pull up two pages in a row.
- All of these actions waste valuable server resources.
- True Wikipedians never need links anyway. That is what the search bar was invented for.
- And all of that scrolling is good for their fingers.
- Wikilinks create many problems for readers using smartphones or other touch screen devices, as they make it difficult to scroll through an article without accidentally clicking on a link. This can be frustrating if pages load slowly on readers' devices.
Somewhat ironically, this page is a perfect example of the harms of wikilinks.{{Among whom}}{{According to whom}}{{Attribution needed}}{{By whom}}{{From whom?}}{{Like whom?}}{{To whom?}}{{Who}}{{With whom}}{{Ambiguous}}{{Clarify}}{{Clarify timeframe}}{{Context inline}}{{Expand acronym}}{{Incomprehensible inline}}{{Key needed}}{{Non sequitur}}{{Sentence fragment}}{{Which calendar}}{{Chinese script needed inline}}{{Copyright violation}}{{Copyvio link}}{{Data missing}}{{Disambiguation needed}}{{External links inline}}{{Improve caption}}{{Needs IPA}}{{Original research inline}}{{Pronunciation needed}}{{Script needed inline}}{{Spam link}}{{Synthesis inline}}{{Under discussion inline}}{{Verify spelling}}{{Whose translation}}{{Buzzword inline}}{{Compared to?}}{{Editorializing}}{{Fact or opinion}}{{Opinion}}{{Peacock inline}}{{POV statement}}{{Promotion inline}}{{Unbalanced opinion}}{{Weasel inline}}{{By how much}}{{Definition}}{{Definition needed}}{{Example needed}}{{Explain}}{{How}}{{How often}}{{Misquoted}}{{Quantify}}{{Specify}}{{Vague}}{{When}}{{Where}}{{Which}}{{Who else}}{{Why}}{{Year needed}}{{Overly detailed inline}}{{Importance inline}}{{Relevance inline}}{{Undue weight inline}}{{Globalize inline}}{{Infobox clutter}}{{Anachronism inline}}{{Clarify timeframe}}{{Current event inline}}{{Is this date calibrated?}}{{Update after}}{{Update inline}}{{Contradictory inline}}{{Disputed inline}}{{Dubious}}{{Inconsistent}}{{Needs independent confirmation}}{{Speculation inline}}{{Bare URL inline}}{{Bare URL non-HTML}}{{Bare URL AV media}}{{Bare URL PDF}}{{Bare URL image}}{{Bare URL DOC}}{{Bare URL plain text}}{{Bare URL spreadsheet}}{{Author incomplete}}{{Author missing}}{{Date missing}}{{Dead link}}{{Edition needed}}{{Episode needed}}{{Full citation needed}}{{Incomplete short citation}}{{ISBN missing}}{{Moved resource}}{{Page needed}}{{Dead link|date= |fix-attempted=yes |url=}}{{Place missing}}{{Publisher missing}}{{Season needed}}{{Time needed}}{{Title incomplete}}{{Title missing}}{{Unused source}}{{Volume needed}}{{Year missing}}{{Additional citation needed}}{{Better source needed}}{{Better source needed example}}{{Check quotation}}{{Chronology citation needed}}{{Circular reference}}{{Citation needed}}{{Citation not found}}{{Close paraphrasing inline}}{{COI source}}{{Deprecated inline}}{{Excessive citations inline}}{{Failed verification}}{{Image reference needed}}{{Irrelevant citation}}{{Medical citation needed}}{{Nonspecific}}{{Not verified in body}}{{Obsolete source}}{{Page range too broad}}{{Primary source inline}}{{Promotional source}}{{Quote without source}}{{Request quotation}}{{Scientific citation needed}}{{Self-published inline}}{{Tertiary source inline}}{{Third-party inline}}{{Unreliable fringe source}}{{Unreliable medical source}}{{Unreliable source?}}{{Verify quote}}{{Verify source}}{{Buzzword inline}}{{Colloquialism}}{{Copy edit inline}}{{Idiom}}{{Neologism inline}}{{Technical inline}}{{Tone inline}}
[[See]] [[also]]
{{Wikipedia essays|humour}}