Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking

RfC: Linking of three-part place names

There are two common ways to link to a place name with an "A, B, C" format where the article is titled [[A, B]]. Both can be read as fair interpretations of the guidance to "link only the first unit".

1. Have the link span only the smallest unit, using piping if necessary

   Buffalo, New York, United States

2. Have the displayed text match the title of the linked article

   Buffalo, New York, United States

Which style(s) is/are acceptable? If both, is one preferable to the other?

Note: See previous discussion above and above. This is not a question about whether "New York" should be linked to New York (state) in this example; basically everyone agrees that it should not be. 20:57, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Discussion re RfC: Linking of three-part place names

Pings to past participants @Gawaon, Khiikiat, Pi.1415926535, Michael Bednarek, NebY, Biruitorul, and Dahn. Cross-posted to WT:MOSACCESS. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 20:57, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

• Both acceptable, approach 1 preferable. Approach 2 is, no doubt, more common, but both approaches are used in good and featured articles without issue. As a matter of MOS:RETAIN I'll stop short of saying approach 2 should be proscribed, but I think approach 1 is preferable for two reasons:
  • Consistency: Having a prose guideline turn on the title of the article being linked to would be strange, given that the article title policy is informed by various considerations that do not apply to prose, such as disambiguation and the semi-arbitrary rule that is WP:USPLACE. To a reader seeing "Buffalo, New York, United States", next to "Boston, Massachusetts, United States", it is not at all obvious why the two are handled differently. It is cleaner and simpler to have the link span the exact place being referenced, not attached disambiguators like ", New York".
  • Accessibility: The only difference between "Buffalo, New York" and "Buffalo, New York" is the color of the comma. For anyone who, like me, struggles to distinguish between blue and black in small quantities, it looks like clicking on "New York" in the first example will take you to New York (state).
• The main argument made in the opposite direction is simplicity of markup, but that's usually the lowest priority in MoS decisions, certainly lower than accessibility. We should not make our articles more confusing to readers just for the sake of slightly shorter source code. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 20:57, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
• None -- I struggle to understand why it wouldn't be necessary to link the first-level administrative division, in most cases outside the US (and even the US as well, but let's assume that Buffalo, New York is an accepted practice in that context). Who could be expected to consider Ialomița County or Simeulue Regency instantly recognizable terms across the vast expanse of the world? and if we're not linking unfamiliar terms, what is the point of having internal links at all? Seems like someone was peeved by having two links next to each other, and came up with this atrocious moratorium on having necessary links where they appear side by side (though neatly separated by a comma); this bewildering approach should not have been tried out at all, ever. Dahn (talk) 21:10, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

  The normal argument against linking the second-level entity is that it can be easily clicked from the first-level, if some wants. As discussed above, exceptions may apply when the first-level entity's article doesn't prominently discuss the second-level one, mostly in the case of former countries. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 21:17, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

  The exceptions are in fact the norm -- most subdivisions would be unfamiliar to anyone outside that country. Which is why "Buffalo, New York" is a misleading example, the sort of which has prompted some overzealous users to delete links to Olt County and Wallachia, thus leading to the absurd suggestion that Olt County has the same notoriety as New York, and Wallachia is a notion similar to the US. "It can be easily clicked from [somewhere else]" can be said about each and every bluelink out there, so I don't see why that was ever accepted as a valid argument in any debate. Dahn (talk) 21:32, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2 per MOS:SPECIFICLINK. It's also a normal unpiped link, without superfluous text: compare [[Buffalo, New York]], United States (five words) with [[Buffalo, New York|Buffalo]], New York, United States (eight words). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:13, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
• Comment — there are plenty of situations where linking place, subdivision and country is appropriate, and I think the guideline should do more to encourage that. Examples: 1) Bogdana, Tutova County, Moldavia; 2) Haraklány, Szilágy County, Kingdom of Hungary. It’s more than likely the average reader will have no idea where any of these places are/were, so why not link them all? — Biruitorul ^Talk 05:59, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 because it's shorter to write and leads to linked text and linked page title being in agreement. Later addition: Also per WP:NOPIPE, as pointed out below by Bagumba – don't use piped links when you don't have to, and here you very clearly don't have to. Gawaon (talk) 08:55, 18 October 2024 (UTC), edited 07:55, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
• Both acceptable, do not specify preference for either. I personally prefer Option 2, which cuts down on redundant text that looks extremely silly in the editor and in diffs. I suppose it also matches linktext with article titles, which I care less about. I don't think we should enshrine a preference for best practice here. Agree with others above that in many cases it may be helpful to link multiple administrative subdivisions: not long ago I had reason to mention Yao Mangshan Ethnic Township (莽山瑶族乡), Yizhang County, Chenzhou, Hunan. Leaving out the container state, that's still four subdivisions. I left Hunan unlinked since it appears in User:Ohconfucius/script/Common Terms, but there are probably editors who would argue for linking that as well. Folly Mox (talk) 09:52, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
• Link only the most specific item—especially when the other two are so well known. Tony (talk) 10:25, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 Makes no sense to pipe and hide "New York", just to type it again and display it. Per WP:NOPIPE:

  Unnecessary piping makes the wikitext harder to read.

  —Bagumba (talk) 10:54, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 don't find any specific reason to leave out the state from the muncipality, as it is kind of self explanatory. Also creates redundant piping per Bagumba. Takipoint123 (talk) 02:20, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 In this specific format, it seems more intuitive to match the title of the article. I will also add that including the non-linked country at the end may be somewhat out of place/redundant in either option. Symphony Regalia (talk) 14:38, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
• No preference. MOS should state this. I fully agree with Folly Mox here and would go one step further to say the style guide should be explicit in stating there is no dictated preference. It should list some things to consider, provide examples, and otherwise defer to editorial judgment. Things to consider might include MOS:NOPIPE and other rules or guidelines. A lot of this will come down to context-specific factors and personal judgment or consensus within an article. In nearly all cases it matters too little to mandate a single standard and doing so will likely result in more appeals for exceptions and workarounds. MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫— talk 22:03, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1, but both acceptable, per Tamzin and link intuitiveness. I don’t want people clicking “New York” and being confused at being sent to Buffalo. I also think all arguments based on what looks best in wikitext or is easier to type for the editor are wrong. Style decisions are not made for the wikitext editor’s benefit. — HTGS (talk) 00:50, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

  I don’t want people clicking “New York” and being confused at being sent to Buffalo: But that is exactly why we avoid consecutive links to begin with i.e. SOB. It is a single link to <city, state>, not consecutive links <city>, <state>. —Bagumba (talk) 04:37, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

  And avoiding links that span two page-level topics is another step we can take towards making links clearer. — HTGS (talk) 02:06, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

  Right. Readers have no reason to expect that "New York" won't link to New York there: They don't know that MoS says it shouldn't, and in practice countless articles would link to New York there. Using a different state because the NYC/NYS ambiguity complicates things, there are 11,030 articles containing either [[Boston]], [[Massachusetts]] or [[<someplace>, Massachusetts|<someplace>]], [[Massachusetts]]. These links are distinguished from e.g. [[Boston, Massachusetts]] by the color of a character that is less than a millimeter wide at standard zoom. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 00:20, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

  Regardless of the outcome of this RfC, the standalone link to Massachusetts should be unlinked per MOS:GEOLINK in all these cases. MOS:GEOLINK is already very clear on this and it's not something that will change. Gawaon (talk) 08:39, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

• Single link In almost every case the purpose of the link is to take you to the article of a single, unambiguous, location. The link should be written in it's natural format (no piping). The larger regions are merely so that a printed form will lead you to the same place but we don't really expect the reader to want to go directly to the articles for the larger regions - ie, we are listing a city for a reason, the larger regions are just to make it unambiguous and are not a target in their own right. So, we give the link to the city in its natural format (without piping), and then add whatever else is needed in plain text. If it turns out that some cities in a list have the link encompass different portions of the hierarchy (eg Paris, France vs Paris, Ontario, Canada) then that is okay.  Stepho  talk  01:21, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

  Ooh, I really disagree with that last point. I’d rather a list be consistent regardless the choice between these two options. — HTGS (talk) 03:01, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

  How would you list those 2 cities?  Stepho  talk  03:10, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

  Assuming it’s a normal prose sentence, I would have something like: “However in 1894, the government of Paris, France decided to implement the change, while the mayor of Paris, Ontario forced the city to withhold …” But honestly I would still rather the opposite (… Paris, France decided to implement the change, while the mayor of Paris, Ontario did not…”) to the split styling you suggested. — HTGS (talk) 21:40, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

  And for most lists, the same (with disambiguation pages being the exception). — HTGS (talk) 21:42, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

  I agree, but note that what you describe is in fact exactly Option 2 ("Have the displayed text match the title of the linked article"), so you're effectively voting for that. Gawaon (talk) 07:23, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

  the larger regions are just to make it unambiguous and are not a target in their own right: I'm not sure if "unambiguous" is the right word. For a large country, most people have never heard of most non-major cities, so a larger region is mentioned to provide context, whether or not the same city name exists in another region.—Bagumba (talk) 04:48, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

• Definitely Option 2. No pipe gymnastics needed, and the blue the reader sees tells him unambiguously where clicking will take him. EEng 00:33, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
• Link "Buffalo" alone. Tony (talk) 02:25, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

  As in Buffalo, New York, United States? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:01, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

• Comment: Hi folks. I came here to raise a closely related point, then I saw this discussion and the previous ones. I think the examples should be changed to allow or encourage this type of thing:

Three very nice cities are:

• Madison, Wisconsin, US
• Terre Haute, Indiana, US
• Chicago, Illinois, US

That is, in many cases it's preferable to be consistent with how the links are presented, and in my view it's *not* necessary to have the visible linked text exactly match the article titles. So in this example I've coded [[Chicago|Chicago, Illinois]] to achieve that. Although coding [[Chicago, Illinois]] would achieve more or less the same thing, because "Chicago, Illinois" is a redirect to "Chicago". Edited to add: This suggestion does not match either option 1 or option 2. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 01:55, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

• At least correct the description of what is recommended: To me, it is false to say "Both can be read as fair interpretations of the guidance to 'link only the first unit'." In the string "Buffalo, New York, United States", there are clearly three units, and the first of those three units is "Buffalo". If we're going to say that "Buffalo, New York, United States" ([[Buffalo, New York]], United States) is the preferred format, we need a different characterization than saying that for "a sequence of two or more territorial units, link only the first unit". For example, we could say to "link only as much of the name as is used in the corresponding article title" or "link only the initial parts of the name that form its conventional identification". (We might also need to refer the reader to MOS:USPLACE for the conventional form of US location descriptions). —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 01:06, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
• Comment: In most cases no one is ever going to link to "Terre Haute", as suggested above, just because the subject was born there. Who cares? (Unless that town had significant bearing on the notability of the subject.) So often we are faced with the logic of not linking because of insufficient relevance, or because the location is internationally known: the smaller and least consequential "village" ("Terre Haute") vs the too-well-known larger location ("Chicago"). In that case, nothing seems to need linking. Another example: "suburb of London, London, UK"—link nothing, unless the suburb has sufficient relevance to the subject (unlikely).

There are cases that could be linked as a matter of logic. Let's say the formative years were spent in the village of birth: Adalaj, Gujarat, India. Here, the article on Adalaj will reasonably contain a link to Gujarat, if the reader really wants to know more about the state. Remember that the one in 10,000 readers who really do want to know more, in situ, can spend 10 seconds typing a target into the search box. Otherwise we have systemic bunching, which MOSLINK discourages for good reason. Tony (talk) 23:42, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure we have decided in the past to only visibly link to the smallest unit. The reason being that the difference between a link to the smallest unit and it's next superunit, and two links is merely the colour of the comma between the two place names. People will click on the superunit expecting to be taken there, and get a WP:Easter egg. I have done this myself. The priority needs to go to the reader, not the editor here. If you prefer less typing, go ahead, but don't oppose others improving it. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 20:34, 1 March 2025 (UTC).

"I'm fairly sure we have decided in the past" is very much a weasel phrase. Assuming we did, supposedly there would be a rule somewhere that says so? Gawaon (talk) 12:52, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

• Option 1, for internal consistency within articles with links to multiple towns. Graham11 (talk) 03:47, 4 July 2025 (UTC)
• Both should be acceptable. Don't overthink it.--Srleffler (talk) 16:48, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

Meta-discussion

• This RfC was opened more than half a year ago – shouldn't it be closed? Gawaon (talk) 07:27, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

  I might leave it for at least a few days, as the discussion seems to be picking up a bit. But if it quickly dies down, probably. Graham11 (talk) 03:55, 5 July 2025 (UTC)

• It's been another half year, and I just came here looking for the answer to this question. GA-RT-22 (talk) 11:08, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

  Indeed! I think we may safely conclude that the discussion has died down by now. Gawaon (talk) 11:13, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

  Yet no one has closed it or revealed the outcome. I found this discussion when I came here to start my own that's directly related: the MOS:GEOLINK guidance seems contradictory in this regard. It says For a geographical location expressed as a consecutive comma-separated sequence of two or more territorial units, link only the first unit. But then as a correct example it gives

  Buffalo, New York, United States ([[Buffalo, New York]], United States)

  Unless there's a special definition of "unit" that I haven't seen, this is three units ("Buffalo", "New York", "United States"), of which the first two are linked, an unexplained contravention of the guideline that was just given.

  I was going to ask for clarification as to what the passage should say and what should be linked to what, so as to have the guidelines fixed to reflect that, but I see here that that still hasn't been formally resolved. Largoplazo (talk) 17:06, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

  It's not a contraction. The whole point of the guideline is that there should be just one link, which is indeed the case here. The question of whether it's preferable to write it the way you have given or as "Buffalo, New York, United States" remains, unfortunately, unresolved. But I'd say that, as long as this RfC hasn't been closed, either form remains acceptable. Gawaon (talk) 17:57, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

  That isn't clear in the text. Again, how is the average reader supposed to know what "unit" means? Largoplazo (talk) 20:39, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

  Maybe the wording could be clearer, but if it's not clear from the rest of the text, the "Buffalo, New York" example makes it clear (link to the first unit, even though it spans the second one too). Gawaon (talk) 07:08, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

LINKONCE?

There is an article on which someone posted on the talk page that a (brief) level 2 section is confusing because not only do many of the previously mentioned names have links to their articles, many leave out the given name as well, requiring a good deal of effort on the editor's part to figure out what is going on. This comment has been receiving a good deal of resistance on the talk page; I happen to agree with the OP and think "Link a term at most once per major section (Major sections are generally detailed sections with a level-2 heading...) , at first occurrence. " suggests that they are not incorrect, but I would like clarification here if any can be offered. Thanks... Tduk (talk) 18:42, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

Opinions depend upon context. If you want another opinion, post the article name. Johnjbarton (talk) 21:43, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

Sure, thanks.. Agent Carter (TV series), also the discussion is on the talk page there. Tduk (talk) 22:08, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

The core issues on that page are unrelated to LINKONCE. For example, "Ryan" isn't even linked once elsewhere in the article because that person isn't even notable. Johnjbarton (talk) 16:50, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

That's a good point, thanks; this was the closest MOS entry that I could find, is there a more relevant one? Tduk (talk) 19:05, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

I'd say it's not a MOS issue; just try to resolve on the talk page itself whatever issues there are no resolve. Gawaon (talk) 21:13, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

Linking once in each level-2 section is explicitly allowed by our current policy even if the same article was already linked in earlier sections, so I don't understand what's the issue here? Gawaon (talk) 07:40, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

The issue was that the section did NOT link once, and did not include the full names of the people involved, so it was very confusing if one is looking only to read that section. If this is the expected norm, where do I raise an issue with this - because not only is it difficult for those readers, it creates some accessibility issues, requiring the reader to do more work than I think is necessary. Tduk (talk) 13:19, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

MOS:LINKONCE doesn't say that all terms should or must be linked in every major section in which they appear, nor is that our practice, nor do we privilege that hypothetical reader who dives into the middle of an article, expects everything to be made clear there and then, and is unwilling to scroll up even if fully understanding some later part of an aricle would be helped by reading an earlier part. NebY (talk) 14:00, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

Are there use case studies to back up your implication that most people who read wikipedia read the entire article in one sitting? Setting aside the accessibility issues for now. Tduk (talk) 14:53, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

That is your inference, not my implication. NebY (talk) 15:03, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

What is your implication from "nor do we privilege that hypothetical reader who dives into the middle of an article, expects everything to be made clear there and then, and is unwilling to scroll up even if fully understanding some later part of an aricle would be helped by reading an earlier part."? Tduk (talk) 15:27, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

@NebY: We literally have architecture to force a reader to dive into a particular part of a section and skip over the rest of the article: {{Anchor}}. The culture of linking to specific parts of a page has gotten so bad that Template:ATA shortcut notice had to be made for our own internal policies to remind people to read the start. If you want a case study, just look at how we can't even get editors who should know better to read the start of pages and somehow we're expecting this of our readers? Without even any tooltip that we've dumped them in the middle of an unfamiliar land? I think that's unfair. – Mullafacation『talk』 17:11, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Comment: See also /Archive 8#Address hyperlink-era usage patterns in "Repeated links" section – Mullafacation『talk』 17:20, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Since the MOS allows, but doesn't not require wikilinks to be repeated once per major section, this doesn't seem a MOS issue at all. Gawaon (talk) 15:40, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

Easteregg: link to specific cabinet behind "Government"

Hello! I have been in a discussion about the fact that it has become standard practice in {{Infobox legislature}} to write down "Government" with a link to a specific cabinet (e.g. Schoof cabinet), so it becomes Government (See House of Representatives (Netherlands) for the specific example). I consider this a MOS:EASTEREGG, because I expect to be taken to a page like Executive (government). I have proposed to more explicitly mention the cabinet (see rev), but others have reverted these edits because it is against standard practice. Which is true, because many other legislature pages do this. Although there are some examples which make it even more confusing (House of Representatives (Egypt) also links opposition to general opposition article. And House of Representatives (Japan) links to confidence and supply).

I'm curious what the consensus is about this practice versus the guideline. Dajasj (talk) 12:17, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

• Not only is that the standard practice, it is also the information that the template calls for. But I see your point. It seems to me that the problem is the word "Government," which would require a change to the template. Maybe come up with what you think is a better label ("In Power"? "In Government"? "Controlling"?) and start a conversation on the template's talk page with that proposal? ("In Government" may not be the best, but it is probably the easiest to sell.) - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:23, 21 November 2025 (UTC) Strikethrough erroneous text. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 23:35, 21 November 2025 (UTC) Strikethrough erroneous text #2 (this is embarrassing, or would be if I had any shame). - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:37, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

I might be missing something, but where does the template call for this practice specifically? I only see that you can list the political groups in Parliament, not even a suggestion that it should be split out by government vs opposition. Dajasj (talk) 20:42, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

(I have also notified the template talk page of this discussion btw) Dajasj (talk) 20:43, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

I thought your issue is that the word "Government" made the reader think that the link would lead to a generic article regarding the institution, not the name of the governing body/party. Now it seems you are opposed to identifying the party/coalition in control at all.

I think that boat has sailed. The template has two "political_groups" lines, one for "list of the political parties/groups represented in house1" and one for "list of the political parties/groups represented in house2." It seems likely to me that the original purpose of the house2 line was for use in articles covering both houses of a bicameral legislature, for example Parliament of the United Kingdom, meaning it was not intended to have anything in articles about a single house. But, nature abhors a vacuum and, over time, it has been used in single house articles to identify parties out of power, suggesting that editors have found it beneficial to include that information. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 23:35, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

My issue is only with the link behind the genetic term "Government". The split itself is not a problem (which is often done within political_groups1). Sorry if that wasn't clear. My question was, where does the template imply that there should be the word government with a link to a specific cabinet? That's what I understood from your first comment but couldn't find. Dajasj (talk) 07:38, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

My bad. Sorry to send you on a wild goose chase. It looks like "Government" comes from taking taking the HM out of "HM Government" (where it makes sense as a term of art). I still think the solution is to change the word "Government" to something else. Here's a fourth alternative: "Governing." - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:37, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

No problem ;) 'Governing' would be better, but I still think it would be best to be more explicit about the link. Dajasj (talk) 11:45, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

• It's an example of a highly misleading easter egg, and should not be used. Tony (talk) 09:54, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
• Government is the conventional term used, even in parliamentary republics. Glide08 (talk) 10:05, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

The problem is that "government" has multiple meanings. According to the Wikipedia government article: "In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary." I suggest that most readers would assume that meaning. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 13:14, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

I get the impression that "Government" is the common term used to refer to the coalition in power in various parliamentary systems where multiple parties have to form a coalition for anyone to be able govern (i.e. definition 6 at wikt:government#Noun, and maybe also definition 5). In these infoboxes, the "Government" header is introducing the list of parties making up the coalition, and additionally is linking to the article about the coalition itself. The US doesn't have anything directly comparable, as its system selects the Executive separately and the two-party system means no coalitions are needed in the Legislative anyway. The UK seems to specifically qualify it as "HM Government" which makes it distinct from the plain word "government", but that wouldn't work so well for countries without a monarch or ones that separate the monarch from government more than the UK does. It's not clear to me that inventing our own terminology for the general cases would really make things more clear if English-language sources use "Government". Anomie⚔ 15:48, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

• Seconded. Glide08 (talk) 18:02, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
• I don't think the issue is "inventing" terminology but, rather, it's that the use of "Government" as a term of art causes sufficient confusion for those unfamiliar with that definition. We should use a more descriptive term that all readers can instantly understand without consulting Wiktionary). See also Wikipedia:Make_technical_articles_understandable#Lead_section
  Note: This issue wouldn't be all that important if the word was not linked to governing coalitions articles. But it is, and when the uninitiated see "government" they expect land at Government. - — Preceding unsigned comment added by Butwhatdoiknow (talk • contribs) 22:00, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

  Any term could be considered a "term of art" for people who're unfamiliar with it. I think what we need here is for someone to do the research to find out what terminology publications actually use, if not "Government", instead of inventing something that you think might be clearer to some hypothetical uninformed reader. Anomie⚔ 23:41, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

  What sort of publications do you have in mind? And would they be local to each particular country or would the survey include international publications? For example, for the UK parliament governing party/coalition would you include US publications? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 05:24, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

Open the egg

I agree that it is EGGy. I would standardise to Government (Schoof cabinet) (in this case omitting the parenthetical demissionary as detail to cover at the cabinet’s article). — HTGS (talk) 08:21, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

• An elegant solution! (@Dajasj, see above.) - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 14:27, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

  Thanks, I will use that :) Dajasj (talk) 14:11, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

  Don't forget there's an easy alternative: create a "See also" section after the main text. Then the readers will see what they're getting, and clicking the link is more likely. Tony (talk) 23:17, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

  I don’t like that as much for a page like House of Representatives (Netherlands), where the article is agnostic to which government is in power. And I think there’s a good chance that that will get forgotten at the bottom of the page, or (worse), people will add every ministry that has ever held power. — HTGS (talk) 23:48, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

• Another benefit: Out of date links become obvious. For example, Senate(Egypt). - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:39, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

  Some editors are resisting to this change. I guess it would not be unreasonable to consider a RfC even though it should be common sense. StephenMacky1 (talk) 11:16, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

  Why can't they simply participate here? I have no experience starting a RfC, but it feels like doing the same thing all over again. Dajasj (talk) 19:50, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

  Well, hopefully a RfC will not be necessary. I guess more people will just need to be familiar with this. StephenMacky1 (talk) 20:30, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

  It’s not usually helpful to characterise people as “resisting change”; it is possible they have legitimate concerns about the change in format. If so, they should participate here, so that we can find the best way forward. A simple note to say: “hey, this change is a result of discussion [here], and it affects the formatting for a lot of pages, so please say something at [this discussion] if you think this change makes the experience worse for readers.”

  I know we’re all experienced, and very familiar with WP:AGF, but it also really helps if we can keep attitudes (ours and theirs) pointed in the right direction (“making Wikipedia better”), rather than opposing directions (“I'm right and you're wrong”). Hope I’m not being too preachy! — HTGS (talk) 21:18, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

  Also did the template documentation get changed? That can help, just so you have something to point to. (You can’t tap the sign if you don’t have the sign.) — HTGS (talk) 21:21, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

  I mostly point to this discussion. I have considered changing {{Infobox legislature}}, but it would be very specific for this parameter. The current documentation gives no guidance at all Dajasj (talk) 21:27, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

• @Impru20 reverted an edit changing to this format with an edit summary saying Impractical, leave it simple." They have not accepted my invitation to bring these concerns here. So I am doing it on their behalf.

Is this solution to the Easter egg problem impractical or unnecessarily complex? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 01:09, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

No, it avoids an easter egg, is more explicit and makes it easier to keep up to date. While only adding a few words. Dajasj (talk) 01:16, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Don't link to cabinet

I fail to see why a link to the cabinet is needed there? I would say this discussion is an enormously overcomplicated attempt to find a "solution" to a non-problem: just avoid linking to avoid easter eggs, links to cabinet articles are not needed in the infobox of a legislative chamber. In the edit I conducted, I removed some generic links to "Opposition" or "Parliamentary opposition" too; what is the point of linking that? See MOS:CIRCULAR when it says that The purpose of linking is to clarify and to provide reasonable navigation opportunities, not to emphasize a particular word. Impru20^talk 08:19, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

• Ah my bad, I thought you had reverted the edit, but instead you simply removed the link. I have no opinion on whether to include the link at all, if no easter egg is created. Dajasj (talk) 08:33, 14 March 2026 (UTC)
• Yep, I need to apologize as well. Now that I've figured out what you did, I think your solution is actually better. However, I'm guessing that we'd have strong headwinds if we started with that. So I'll continue to undo Easter eggs to, at least, expose the egg contents and then other editors can follow and say "hey, why is that even there at all?" - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:38, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

  I have to agree; my understanding was that this discussion was about how to link, if a link is desired, not about whether to link at all. I personally have a weak preference for the link, but it seems sensible to leave that an open question for the article editors for now. — HTGS (talk) 02:05, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

• Hi there. I agree with @Impru20 on this. Most parliament pages also have a Politics template and the link to the current cabinet is there. Cheers Tuesp1985 (talk) 13:43, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

appearance of section links

MOS:SL states Section-linking options are piped links, redirects, and the {{Section link}} template, which also generates the § character.

I note the absence of an "unpiped" link, a link like Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking#appearance of section links that displays the hash character. I cannot interpret this as anything else than a discouragement (or outright prohibition) on section links whose hash character isn't replaced by the paragraph character of a {{slink}} (or links to sections which don't appear as such, for example a redirect to a section).

If the consensus and intent is not to discourage the hash character (edit: talking chiefly about article space, not talk discussions), I would suggest we tweak the wording to specifically include unpiped section links. This would make it much less likely anyone arrives at the same interpretation I did. Perhaps:

Section-linking options are links (piped or otherwise), redirects, and the {{Section link}} template, which also generates the paragraph (§) character.

(if you want our MOS to remain be open to hash marks in article space section links)

If it is, it wouldn't hurt to spell this out clearly:

Section-linking options are piped links, redirects, and the {{Section link}} template, which also generates the paragraph (§) character. Avoid unpiped links which display the hash (#) character.

(if you want our MOS to be clear about discouraging hash marks in article space section links)

Edit to add: I guess a third option is to prefer MOS to remain silent on the issue. Please then argue why. Also, as I said, I do not believe the current wording can support such a stance, so I would ask you to offer up your own phrasing in that case (or argue why you think my interpretation is not the correct/intended one).

I wanted to update H:SECTIONLINK but realized I should first divine your collective will.

Thoughts? CapnZapp (talk) 11:26, 4 January 2026 (UTC)

I agree it makes sense. Raw # links are fine for discussion pages, but for the article space the cleaner § form is clearly preferable. Gawaon (talk) 11:32, 4 January 2026 (UTC)

Support first version. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:13, 4 January 2026 (UTC)

@CapnZapp: Now I'm a bit confused by your later edit since as it currently stands the MOS does not "remain silent on the issue", rather it seems to effectively forbid unpiped links, by mentioning only piped ones among the valid/recommended options. So keeping the status quo is not silence, though it's a fairly quiet (easy to overhear) way of speaking. Gawaon (talk) 16:17, 4 January 2026 (UTC)

I think I see what your concern is. I replaced "remain open" with "be open" like this: remain be open. Does this answer your query? As for it seems to effectively forbid unpiped links that's exactly the conundrum - I would argue it quite ineffectively forbids them, by being far too obscure. The prohibition is so "hidden" that I'm almost questioning the intent. Which is exactly what this talk section is about. Don't prohibit things by omission - if you want something barred, spell it out!

Sorry if my later edit made it appear I was less direct than I intended to be, I keep standing by my opening statement: "I cannot interpret this as anything else than a discouragement (or outright prohibition) on section links whose hash character isn't [replaced or omitted]". I just had to read the sentence more than once to see this, which is effectively what I want improved here. CapnZapp (talk) 11:29, 5 January 2026 (UTC)

Nikkimaria: as you can read from the above, I wasn't perhaps as clear as I should have been regarding the first option. It appears the current phrasing disallows hash marks in section links, thus option 1 would mean a change rather than preserving status quo. Can I ask if you agree or oppose this train of thought? It would help clarify what you meant by your sentiment. Regards, CapnZapp (talk) 11:33, 5 January 2026 (UTC)

I don't agree that there is currently a disallowance, and prefer wording that makes that clear. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:19, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, okay. Like I said, I think the disallowance is already there, though indeed very implicitly, so I fully agree that it should be expressed more clearly and unambiguously. Gawaon (talk) 03:21, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

The hash character is a technical detail of the URL syntax. It should not appear in article space, and the MOS should say so explicitly. (Section links with a hash are fine on talk pages. And most other non-article namespaces, I think. Maybe not in the MOS itself, since it should be an example of good style.) — Chrisahn (talk) 15:44, 5 January 2026 (UTC)

Why are we holding a parallel discussion? Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Layout#RFC: Piped links in "See also" sections, or at the very least, Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Layout#c-Redrose64-20251207121500-Beland-20251207013900. --Redrose64 🦌 (talk) 18:05, 5 January 2026 (UTC)

Because I had no idea those other discussions existed, User:Redrose64? (For the next time, how would I proceed to find them before starting a new discussion?) Now then, to that discussions: Edit to add: maybe the constructive approach would be to ask you to consider advertising this discussion there? I've gone ahead and added a discussion notice.

The RFC about piped see also links - it sure mentions the hash tag vs the slink template, but I can't see how it clearly answers what I'm asking here. Posters do implicitly assume things about styles and such, but I am no expert on Wikipedia MOS history... which is why I am asking a direct question here and now. Why or how do you feel this discussion you linked is more than adjacent to a point where it is directly relevant to ours? (Are you even saying this discussion should not happen here, because it is happening there...? Maybe I'm misunderstanding your question?)

The second link is directly to a post of yours: Wikipedia uses that syntax for linking to sections because it's being used for exactly its design purpose. I obviously know HTML syntax. Do note that it does not necessarily follow that just because HTML does something a certain way, we should blindly assume Wikipedia does it the same way. It does appear you are saying you prefer our MOS allow hash marks in section links - is this correct? (Pro tip: you could just have said so rather than to link to a, to me, chiefly unrelated discussion thus forcing me to parse that entire context) Back to the point, Redrose64: are you saying you agree the wording currently does not seem to allow it? And do you then prefer we change our wording to explicitly allow it? Your clarity and directness would be welcomed. CapnZapp (talk) 12:02, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

Option 2 is my preferred, regardless of how the current guideline might be interpreted. Templates like {{further}} and {{main}} display §; section links everywhere in articles should be consistent with this for aesthetic reasons and so new readers only have to learn one convention. BTW, "§" is called the "section sign". Paragraph character refers to "¶". The wording should be corrected. -- Beland (talk) 21:51, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

Editors appear to have differing options, but at least we should be able to agree the current wording is sufficiently imprecise to allow different editors to interpret it differently. It thus appears my question was warranted. I should clarify I don't have a strong preference for or against hash mark section links. I wouldn't even mind the MOS leaving it up to local consensus. I do have a strong preference against policies and guidelines worded so vaguely as to be useless. If the MOS is saying something should be allowed or preferred, this should be clear. If the MOS is saying something should be disallowed or discouraged, again this should be clear. Even if the MOS wants to be silent on an issue, it's better to spell this out explicitly and say that the decision is left up to individual editors and/or local consensus.

My impetus for being here is seeing how unpiped links are excluded by our current language (whether intentionally or by accident through the fragmented nature of Wikipedia editing), yet H:SECTIONLINK starts off by explaining how to link to a section using this exact method. The slink template is only mentioned much later. If we were to agree hash marks should be discouraged from section links (which again, I'm not particularly arguing for, other than that the current wording of MOS:SL is difficult to read in any other way) I would like to make the slink method the prominent one, and relegate the HTML section linking URL fragment thingy to secondary importance for use outside article space only. That's really the only concern I have. As long as your consensus provides clarity one way or the other (or the third), I'm content. CapnZapp (talk) 12:13, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

H:SECTIONLINK doesn't start with how to make a raw section link, but with how to make a piped section link – admittedly you see that only thanks to the example, but then, examples always an important part of our instructions. Gawaon (talk) 12:18, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Sigh. If this is supposed to say "don't link to a section in another page without piping the link to avoid the ugly # character" please agree this could be said approximatelya gazillion percent more clearly... Is it so unreasonable to think the |Displayed text]] is there mostly "because" and for no particular reason? If you have edited Wikipedia for any length of time, you know it isn't an intrinsic/required part of the link syntax. The "basic syntax" doesn't have it, so it's very hard to see how it's supposed to be a clear requirement. Regards, CapnZapp (talk) 12:25, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

I agree with your wish for further clarification and I know that the section doesn't say such a thing. But the point remains that it doesn't show how to make unpiped section links either. People can easy guess that that works too, as indeed it does – but for all you know after reading just that section, if you omit the |Displayed text part, an "error: unpiped section link" message could appear. Gawaon (talk) 14:26, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

I really don't know where you're going with this, User:Gawaon. How does your point in any way help with the fact that reading that section gives zero solid clues you should avoid hash marked section links?If we can even assume that's intentional That the example casually omits unpiped links could easily be interpreted by many editors (certainly if they have minimal technical proficiency) as just saving some space and not repeated what "people already know works"... CapnZapp (talk) 16:19, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

It sounds like you both agree on option 2, so unless I'm missing some disagreement over the proposed change, it seems unproductive to quibble over the interpretation of a previous version? -- Beland (talk) 19:27, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

My worry was just that CapnZapp may accidentally be weakening his own case by leaving the impression that our help page gives unpiped section links a much more favourable treatment than it actually does, which could be interpreted as EDITCON in favour of keeping that favourable treatment. Hence my little comment to correct that impression – that was all, and I think we can consider it settled now. Gawaon (talk) 02:55, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

Given we seem to be heavily leaning in that direction, I've gone ahead and put the second version into the guideline. -- Beland (talk) 08:27, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. I should note I stumbled upon Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking#Piped links to sections which was much more clear already. I've updated H:SECTIONLINK accordingly. Regards, CapnZapp (talk) 15:48, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

Abbreviation after or in link

If I write People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) somewhere for the first time, is there a guideline specifying whether it should be People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) or People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD)? I see both used, and I wondered if there were any rules. Dajasj (talk) 14:23, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

I'd use the former, it looks cleaner to me. And it has the advantage of not needing a piped link. Gawaon (talk) 14:54, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

I'd also prefer the former (abbreviation after link), and I'd guess it's more common. But that's just my opinion and gut feeling. I'm not aware of any guideline. — Chrisahn (talk) 16:14, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

Chrisahn provides the answer you're looking for, Dajasj, and that answer is "no": and if there is no such guideline, that means policy leaves it open to you (and other contributors to a particular article or sentence) to agree what works best in each case. CapnZapp (talk) 16:21, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

The former (w/o abbrev). MOS:MORELINKWORDS doesn't apply here. —Bagumba (talk) 19:03, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

A question

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Discussion continues at an RFC at WP:VPM § RFC: Baltic bios infoboxes question. — Jähmefyysikko (talk) 17:11, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

---

In the infobox of Kaja Kallas, under birthplace. How should it be linked? -

• "Tallinn, Estonian SSR, Soviet Union"
• "Tallinn, Estonian SSR, Soviet Union"
  

GoodDay (talk) 03:06, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

The latter. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:08, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Yes, MOS:GEOLINK says that consecutive comma-separated names should not all be linked, just the first one. It also advises against combining extant and non-extant names without a qualifying statement in between, which in this case would be something like "Tallinn, then part of Estonian SSR, USSR", or better, "Tallinn, Estonia, then occupied by USSR". Indrek (talk) 06:48, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

The 2025 RFC on Baltic bios infoboxes, has consensus for (in this case) "Tallinn, Estonian SSR, Soviet Union", fwiw. Thus my question, about linkage. GoodDay (talk) 06:53, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

No, it didn't have consensus. There merely was a small majority of votes. The close was invalid. And the whole RFC was ill-advised. One problem was that the proposed options violated MOS:GEOLINK. — Chrisahn (talk) 07:57, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

If you want to challenege the RFC decision? go to WP:AN. GoodDay (talk) 12:56, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

I'm aware of that RFC, but local consensus (such as achieved in an RFC about a limited set of articles) cannot override a Wikipedia-wide policy or guideline (such as the Manual of Style). Now MOS:GEOLINK is not exactly adamant about qualifying statements between extant and non-extant names, instead recommending them "when feasible", so I'm not saying that the format used in Baltic person infoboxes currently errs against that particular guideline (though I'm also not not saying that). But since there is now debate about using the same format in article bodies, where there is definitely room for more verbosity, the guideline should be kept in mind. Indrek (talk) 08:02, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

So it's "Tallinn, Estonian SSR, Soviet Union". GoodDay (talk) 12:56, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

If I understand Beland’s message here correctly, the close did not determine the linking pattern or the exact form "City, SSR, Soviet Union," only that the SSR and the Soviet Union be mentioned. Beland, please correct me if I have misunderstood you. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 13:19, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, after checking the RfC, it seems to be only about the form of the entry, without explicitly covering linking at all. So the form should be "Tallinn, Estonian SSR, Soviet Union" in agreement with the RfC, but how many of those are to be linked was not really its topic. Gawaon (talk) 14:44, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

I read Beland's comment as suggesting that the inclusion of "then part of" is not contrary to the consensus established at the RFC, and can still be discussed. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 15:01, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

That was not an option in the RFC-in-question. GoodDay (talk) 15:07, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, while the "then part of" was not explicitly discussed by the RfC, I don't think that its outcome explicitly rules this variant out. The outcome mostly says that both the SSR and the Soviet Union should be mentioned. Gawaon (talk) 15:14, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Correct. No one mentioned MOS:GEOLINK, so we didn't take that into consideration, and there wasn't much discussion about linking. So I'd say it's fair to interpret that RFC as saying the SSR and Soviet Union should be mentioned, but not how it should be linked or if there should be a footnote or if "then part of" should be included. -- Beland (talk) 18:53, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

There was a simultaneous conversation at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes#Baltic birth places and linking, which I just closed to continue the conversation here. -- Beland (talk) 18:52, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

There's inconsistencies on this matter, across Wikipedia. GoodDay (talk) 03:13, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

I don't disagree that there are inconsistencies, but the guideline is pretty clear (MOS:GEOLINK). Danbloch (talk) 06:27, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Clarify, please. As no link to Estonian SSR in the infobox, makes a reader's search, tougher. GoodDay (talk) 06:34, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

MOS:GEOLINK states: For a geographical location expressed as a consecutive comma-separated sequence of two or more territorial units, link only the first unit. See the article for examples. Regards, Danbloch (talk) 07:09, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

"Tallinn, Estonian SRR, Soviet Union" - thanks @Danbloch: for your answer. GoodDay (talk) 18:19, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

MOS:GEOLINK also says something which is directly relevant in this case:

If the smallest unit is an extant place, but the largest is not, it is preferable to space the links out when feasible, e.g. Kumrovec, then part of Austria-Hungary ([[Kumrovec]], then part of [[Austria-Hungary]]).

-- Beland (talk) 00:28, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

That would likely be an option in a future RFC on this matter, for the Baltics. GoodDay (talk) 00:44, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

If this thread can come to agreement on this question, there is no need to have another RFC about linking.

• "Tallinn, Estonia, then occupied by USSR" was proposed by Indrek, but this does not link the largest polity, which I think is required by MOS:GEOLINK because the USSR no longer exists. (And our article is Soviet Union, not USSR; I think someone objected to USSR?) It also does not conform to the RFC outcome, which specified "SSR" in the country name.
• "Tallinn, Estonian SSR, Soviet Union" was proposed by GoodDay, but this does not link the largest polity as required by MOS:GEOLINK and does not include the recommended separating text.
• "Tallinn, then part of Estonian SSR, Soviet Union" was proposed by Nikkimaria

The Nikkimaria option is the only one so far that seems to comply with MOS:GEOLINK. Are people OK with adopting that, or would following the policy more literally with "Tallinn, then part of Estonian SSR, Soviet Union" be better, or some other option not yet mentioned? -- Beland (talk) 01:09, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

The latter two are acceptible options. The first option is cumbersome. GoodDay (talk) 01:13, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

There still seems to be some confusion here. MOS:GEOLINK does not require linking the largest polity. Danbloch (talk) 01:29, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Woul you please show us, using our examples? GoodDay (talk) 01:32, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Any of the three suggestions above ("Tallinn, Estonia, then occupied by USSR", "Tallinn, Estonian SSR, Soviet Union", or "Tallinn, then part of Estonian SSR, Soviet Union") are in accord with MOS:GEOLINK. Per MOS:GEOLINK's Kumrovic example, the last of these is probably preferred. Danbloch (talk) 02:57, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Yes, the last one seems fine. Its only disadvantage is that it's a bit long. Gawaon (talk) 03:01, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, Danbloch. The last two are viable options, concerning my reason for having come here. GoodDay (talk) 03:06, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

I proposed the first option because I think "then occupied by" presents a more neutral summary of the situation than "then part of". Note also that MOS:GEOLINK does not say it has to be "then part of", it's only used as an example, so we shouldn't automatically exclude other phrasings. The first option also makes it more clear who occupied who, whereas the third could be read as implying that the Estonian SSR took the city of Tallinn from some other entity, which is of course wrong.

Regarding the largest entity, I didn't link it because I'm not aware of a guideline that says it must be, but I'm not opposed to it. And yes, according to MOS:PLACE, it should be "Soviet Union", not "USSR".

In light of this, I would change the first option to "Tallinn, Estonia, then occupied by Soviet Union". I am not, however, strongly opposed to the third option (which, with minor differences, I also proposed myself earlier), since it does conform to the RFC outcome better, plus linking the SSR is probably more useful than linking "Soviet Union". Indrek (talk) 07:02, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

"then occupied by" seems to have serious POV issues that are avoided by a footnote that addresses these issues more carefully. But that's really a different discussion that doesn't belong here, I'd say. Gawaon (talk) 11:32, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

I don't think any phrase short enough for an infobox would be completely free of POV issues on such a complex subject. A footnote, such as the one being discussed at Talk:Kaja Kallas, would be the best way to address those issues, agreed. The choice of phrase then boils down to which entities (besides the first one, of course) should be linked, which is the core of this discussion. Indrek (talk) 12:20, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

OK, but on that point we are already settled. Gawaon (talk) 14:21, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

What about "Tallinn, then administered as part of Estonian SSR, Soviet Union"? We often used "administered by" to describe de facto control in a neutral way. Or "then administered by" if it needs to be shorter? -- Beland (talk) 17:57, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Apart from being a bit more verbose than the other options, that does sound fairly neutral. Another possible option might be "governed by". Indrek (talk) 19:33, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

FWIW, Danbloch, the aforementiond RFC result - does not call for any additional wording. But, that's not what this discussion here at MOSLINK is about. I only wanted clarity on linkage. I wasn't attempting to alter an RFC decision. GoodDay (talk) 15:24, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

GoodDay has opened a parallel RFC at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 87#RFC: Baltic bios infoboxes question. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 20:53, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

A "parallel RFC" means two (or more) RFC concurrently running. That's not the case, here. GoodDay (talk) 20:56, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Sure, but it is certainly a discussion parallel to this one. This is also not the first restart of the discussion you've done, as Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes#Baltic birth places and linking was running when you decided to open this one here. I do consider this inappropriate. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 21:02, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

I'm genuinely curious, @GoodDay: did the information provided in this thread not sufficiently answer your question, that you felt the need to start another discussion elsewhere? All the talk about qualifying/separating phrases aside, MOS:GEOLINK is very clear about how consecutive comma-separated names (which is what that new RFC is about) should be linked. Or are you intending for the guideline to be amended? Indrek (talk) 21:03, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

That RFC was closed in December 2025, therefore 'not' concurrent with the one I just opened. As for 'here'? this talkpage is for either amending MOS:GEOLINK or seeking clarification on MOS:GEOLINK. I could've came here asking a question concerning the United States or Yugoslavia, makes no difference. GoodDay (talk) 21:14, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

this talkpage is for either amending MOS:GEOLINK or seeking clarification on MOS:GEOLINK. Right. And you already did the latter and got an answer. So why are you doing it all over again at WP:VP? Indrek (talk) 21:20, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

I'm not. GoodDay (talk) 21:25, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Aren't you? Your initial question here, in this thread (WT:MOSLINKS § A question) was about how to link consecutive comma-separated place names. Multiple users, myself included, explained to you how MOS:GEOLINK answers that question. Now you have opened an RFC (WP:VPM § RFC: Baltic bios infoboxes question) where the question is essentially the same, two of the options mirror the ones you used here, and you even explicitly mention MOS:GEOLINK. Both of these threads are, in your own words, "about linkage" (, ).

I agree with Jähmefyysikko's observation that this is starting to look like forum shopping. Indrek (talk) 21:41, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

It's not forum shopping & I'm willing to add options to the RFC, if given clearance there. GoodDay (talk) 21:45, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

SEAOFBLUE example: "chess tournament" -> "tournament of chess"

This seems a poor example because "tournament of chess" sounds unidiomatic and almost wrong. ~2026-49881-2 (talk) 10:22, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, that's terrible phrasing that no one who is actually literate in English would use. oknazevad (talk) 15:33, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

I concur. I don't think I've ever heard that formulation. DonIago (talk) 17:01, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

It's only a possibility to "consider", according to SOB. So, is this discussion going anywhere? Gawaon (talk) 17:09, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

Why are even linking the word tournament? It it was describing what type of tournament (round-robin tournament, double-elimination tournament, single-elimination tournament, etc) sure. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:22, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

It's just an example. If you can think of a better example to use here, just suggest it. Or course, adding a suggestion like "or link just the term that's most relevant in the given context, such as chess" would be possible too and may be quite sound advice. Gawaon (talk) 08:24, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

... adding a suggestion like 'or link just the term that's most relevant in the given context, such as chess': Except we'd still need a replacement example in which adding a word of two is preferable when two or more consecutive terms are important enough to link. —Bagumba (talk) 08:10, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

It's also a bad example 'cause like... chess tournament exists as a page and is what the user should be linking instead of chess + tournament right? 𝔏𝔲𝔫𝔞𝔪𝔞𝔫𝔫🌙🌙🌙 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔐𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔫𝔦𝔢𝔰𝔱 (talk) 10:11, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Possessive Redirects vs Blended/Agglutinated Links

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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How should possessives be linked?

• Option 1: [[Foobar|Foobar's]] > Foobar's
• Option 2: [[Foobar]]'s > Foobar's
• Option 3: [[Foobar's]] > Foobar's, then create a redirect from Foobar's to Foobar

𝔏𝔲𝔫𝔞𝔪𝔞𝔫𝔫🌙🌙🌙 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔐𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔫𝔦𝔢𝔰𝔱 (talk) 12:16, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

---

Hi there, MOS. We over at RfD/WikiProject Redirect have had a heck of a time with this and we need some help.

So, as of now, there is no guidance at MOS:Linking regarding possessives-- i.e. Canada's or George Washington's-- and how to properly link them to, as an example, Canada or George Washington. There's been three main schools of thought--

1. [[Foobar|Foobar's]] > Foobar's. WP:NOPIPE does imply that this shouldn't be done as it impacts wikitext readability.

2. [[Foobar]]'s > Foobar's. This notably has the 's outside the link, but it is implied by Help:Links#Display text agglutination that this is not only intentional but desired. It's also supported by prior discussion here-- at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking/Archive 21#Possessives or Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking#Discussion of formatting links with possessives ('s) at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 August 11.

3. [[Foobar's]] > Foobar's, then create a redirect titled Foobar's and target it at Foobar. This has happened a SHOCKING amount of times, with discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Redirect turning up a stunning 4961 redirects that end in 's (although a good majority of them are instead redirects like Aldi's or 1960's or the like that aren't possessives.)

The consensus at RfD over this is all over the place, split into two camps-- the camp that is convinced that 2 is preferred, 3 is wrong, and the redirects created to support 3 should be deleted, and the camp that is convinced that 3 is either preferred or Fine (including at least one VERY vocal user who is convinced 2 is Dead Wrong because "the 's is part of the word") and the redirects created to support it are helpful. The lack of solid guidance on the MOS page is Not Helping Matters, and the discussions about what to do can get really heated. (I will note that at least from my WP:INVOLVED stance, the former camp seems to be the majority while the latter camp is a vocal minority, but as I just stated I am extremely WP:INVOLVED and quite vocal myself that the former camp is correct, so I'm pretty sure I can't pass judgement re: what consensus actually is)

Thus, we come to you. Can you please help us re: setting down in the MOS page what we're meant to do here?

(Pinging a bunch of editors who've been in the related recent discussions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Redirect and Wikipedia talk:Speedy Deletion:)

User:MEN KISSING User:voorts user:Crouch, Swale user:Thryduulf user:TheTechie user:Tavix user:Jq user:Cryptic user:Myceteae user:SNUGGUMS user:J947 user:Patar knight user:BD2412 user:Organhaver user:FaviFake user:Hog Farm user:Extraordinary Writ user:Toadspike

(holy heck these discussions are getting big)

Also linking the two concurrent discussions:

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Redirect#Otherwise-implausible redirects originally intended as editor assistance (i.e. possessive redirects)

Wikipedia talk:Speedy deletion#New CSD: Redirect's :𝔏𝔲𝔫𝔞𝔪𝔞𝔫𝔫🌙🌙🌙 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔐𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔫𝔦𝔢𝔰𝔱 (talk) 20:04, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

• 2, you can link cars or cars because the "s" is part of the word (and common noun) but you would not want to link Australia's as the "'s" isn't part of the name. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:07, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

  "car", "cars", "Australia" and "Australia's" are all one word. Thryduulf (talk) 01:24, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

• Option 2 is hands down the best choice. You can just use things like "George Washington's military service" for a possessive use that links to Washington. It's completely pointless to duplicate his name for these instances when a possessive comes into play. You can also use "dogs" without having a pipe replicate the word before turning the singular form into a plural, and for that matter such pipes also aren't needed for turning an upper case letter at the start of words into lower case. See WP:NOPIPE and the already linked threads supporting this stance for more. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 20:11, 25 January 2026 (UTC)
• Option 2. We had this discussion at Wiktionary a long, long time ago, where we do include plurals, but it was decided that possessives did not fall within the scope of "all words in all languages" unless they fell into the rare exception of being complete concepts in themselves, like Wikt:confectioner's. The possessive form Foo's merely signifies ownership or possession by Foo, and does not make sense to link unless we would similarly link belonging to Foo. BD2412 T 20:14, 25 January 2026 (UTC)
• Option 3 creates the cleanest link due to not having to pipe and being able to link the entire word. -- Tavix ^(talk) 20:47, 25 January 2026 (UTC)
• Clearly Option 2, as it requires no redirect and no piping, and is moreover the cleanest grammatically, linking just that which is meant to be linked (the name/term in question). For comparison: If we were to replace [[Foobar]]'s House with the House of [[Foobar]], we certainly wouldn't include the "of" in the link – indicating that the "'s", which has the same function, shouldn't be included either. And, as OP already pointed out, Help:Link § Illustrative examples of display text agglutination also marks this as the preferred option, if in a somewhat subtle way. Gawaon (talk) 21:05, 25 January 2026 (UTC)
• 3 or 1 look more natural to me. Maybe that's because I have my links underlined instead of the default to only change color, which is barely visible to me. —Cryptic 21:10, 25 January 2026 (UTC)
• Option 2's the best one here. Jq talk 💬 contributions 21:17, 25 January 2026 (UTC)
• Option 2. This maps with current accepted practice and also allows for an important semantic distinction. Compare "There are many cultures in the world, like Australia's" to "There are many cultures in the world, like Australia's. J947 ‡ ^edits 21:39, 25 January 2026 (UTC)
• Option 2. This is most correct semantically and grammatically. The subject of Batman's car is Batmobile, not Batman, so including the possessive marker in the link is incorrect. As redirects, these are a burden to maintain and verify, and this type of linking should be avoided in article prose regardless of how it is produced. Such links are prone to creating WP:EGG, MOS:EGG and WP:RSURPRISE problems. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 22:00, 25 January 2026 (UTC)
• Option 2's better – Since this is literally the third ongoing discussion about the same exact thing, I'll copy-paste my comment from one of the other two:

  I didn't even know linking only the word and not the 's was controversial. Links should only include the "'s" if that's related to the content linked. For example Jacob's would link to things that belong to Jacob, while Jacob's would link to Jacob as a person. I've always fixed these errors in articles.

  And besides, even we decided that the "'s" should be linked in both cases, redirects shouldn't be kept solely for this reason. Nobody's searching for "Wikipedia's", piping is enough (and should only be done in the cases I described).

  FaviFake (talk) 22:23, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

Option 2, by a long shot. I will note that I originally proposed Option 1, but I can see how it would cause issues. Option 3 seems wildly unnecessary in my opinion. thetechie@enwiki:~$ she/they | talk 22:31, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

• Option 2 since it falls in line with my recent comments at WP:RFD. Weak option 1 ... but not really per WP:NOPIPE. Steel1943 (talk) 23:15, 25 January 2026 (UTC)
• Option 1 or 2. Do I really care? No, not at all. But if we as a community don't decide something here, this extremely pointless series of arguments will continue on forever, and surely there are better things editors could spend their time on. I prefer option 2 because it looks like we can get a consensus for that, but I think option 1 is also find because what wikitext looks like doesn't really matter, and it's probably not worth our time chasing down and yelling at every new editor who does this as the most natural option in the Visual Editor. (FWIW Tavix is probably correct that the 's is part of the word, but I don't think that justifies the creation of thousands, potentially millions, of mostly-useless redirects that the community doesn't want.) Toadspike [Talk] 00:06, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  Yes, it's part of the word and yes, apostrophes are punctuation. I think those questions are largely a distraction. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 03:25, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

I'm neutral on this issue, more interested in helping a process to go along, because the redirects associated with option 3 cause quite a stir over at RfD.

I'd like to point out that the "thousands of redirects" bit may be a bit inaccurate. That was based off of a query provided by Cryptic, which returned 4961 redirects that end in 's. However, there were a lot of false positives in that list. Out of a random spot-check sample of 20 of those redirects, I only find 2 to be clearly problematic: Physician's assistant's → Physician assistant and Grateful Dead's → Grateful Dead. The other 18 were justified, linking something like Live At Grimey's → Live at Grimey's (fixing the capitalization) or Sir Kensington’s → Sir Kensington's (an R from move fixing the wrong apostrophe type). Based on that, I would assume that the true number of problematic redirects is closer to around 500. MEN KISSING (she/they) T - C - Email me! 01:02, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

• I don't care what the preferred style is (that's completely irrelevant to the entire discussion and coming here is WP:FORUMSHOPPING), What I care about is that links made in any of the above styles should work. That means that whether someone writes [[Foobar]]'s, [[Foobar|Foobar's]] or [[Foobar's]] the output should be identical: a blue link to Foobar (assuming Foobar and Foobar's are not distinct topics). Why do I think this? It's the most inclusive and has by far the lowest barrier to entry. We gain nothing by making it harder for editors and readers to find our articles, we lose non-trivial amounts by making people search unnecessarily (and remember that search results may or may not contain the correct target, and may be up to sever clicks/taps away) and we definitely lose when duplicate articles are created. Thryduulf (talk) 01:23, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  Thry, as I mentioned just now at WT:SD, the accusation of forum shopping is unwarranted. I would advise you to strike it. MEN KISSING (she/they) T - C - Email me! 01:43, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  I very much was not aware of the CSD discussion until well after both the Wikiproject Redirect discussion had been made by me and the CSD discussion had already been made by user:voorts; I also did not make this discussion until someone else (also voorts) opined that we needed to get a judgement re: MOS before the redirect side of the discussion was handled. I also had not been made aware of WP:MULTI until after the MOS thread had been made; if I had, not only would I have closed the discussion at Wikiproject Redirect before making the MOS discussion, I would've also requested to Voorts that he close the CSD discussion until after we determine if the Redirect side of the discussion even wanted to delete the redirects.

  I'd also like to point out that FORUMSHOPPING really only takes into account what happens when the first discussion closes in one direction and a user takes it to a different forum in order to try and get a different opinion. This is not that; the CSD and Wikiproject Redirect discussions hadn't closed before the MOS discussion started, and when they did close, the CSD one closed as withdrawn, and the WPRD one closed as procedural, neither of which are actual judgements re: where consensus fell. (I'd also point out that while the discussions had gotten REALLY long, tangled, and messy, it feels to me that if they'd closed with a judgement it would've been in favor of deletion; that said, as stated above, I'm WP:INVOLVED and shouldn't be trusted to make judgements on where things were swinging.)

  Anyways, as for why I was convinced by voort's comment to come here in the first place, it was for two reasons:
  1. I'd much rather whatever consensus we came up with actually be acted on by MORE than just RFD, and that means teaching editors which method is preferred.
  2. Whichever way this swings is going to massively impact consensus when we DO head to RFD, because quite obviously if we end up with MOS deciding that we should go with 3 than we're gonna need to keep the 's redirects in order to support that, meanwhile if MOS decides on 2, the argument that we should keep gets notably weaker. 𝔏𝔲𝔫𝔞𝔪𝔞𝔫𝔫🌙🌙🌙 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔐𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔫𝔦𝔢𝔰𝔱 (talk) 02:12, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  I fail to see any intention to forum shop here. FaviFake (talk) 05:16, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  Yeah, this ain't forum shopping. Having three concurrent discussions was certainly undesirable but the other two closed without a firm decision about what to do with these redirects and the suggestion to address the MOS issue separately (and first) arose out of one of those discussion (and has been suggested before). Additionally, Lunamann has repeatedly tagged participants in prior/concurrent discussions and made good-faith efforts to post links to the latest discussion in other relevant venues. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 20:08, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

• Option 2 is the only acceptable method. Option 3 is flawed because there's a difference, e.g. between Harper's and Harper's. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 01:28, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
• Option 2 per Mycetae. Let's please keep this discussion civil and avoid making accusations. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:35, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
• Option 2. This should've been an actual RFC with a neutral opening summary (WP:RFCNEUTRAL) and linked at WP:CENT to get broader community attention, but I wouldn't particularly mind if Option 2, which I personally think is the clearest, was standardized. However, such standardization is not determinative of whether the redirects should be deleted, since linking isn't the only function of redirects. MOS has existed for a very long time, non-MOS compliant edits have existed for just as long, and not adhering to MOS isn't a reason to delete redirects that users have deliberately created, presumably because of their usefulness, which is an explicit reason to keep redirects (WP:R#K5). -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 06:10, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  I'd like to note that one of the biggest arguments for the redirects created by Option 3 being kept at RfD has, historically, been to point at their "usefulness for editors for this exact purpose"; so... bit of a chicken-and-egg thing going on there. Also, as I was trying to point out up there in my comment to Thryduulf, RfD deciding to delete these redirects would be a bit of a bad idea if MOS decided they were How Things Were Meant To Be Done, right?

  As for the first bit--
  This should've been an actual RfC with a neutral opening summary (WP:RFCNEUTRAL) and linked at WP:CENT to get broader community attention

  Regarding This should've been an actual RfC, back when I first started up the Wikiproject Redirect discussion, I actually went to RfC first, and my eyes landed on WP:RFCBEFORE. It directed me to, as an alternative before making a full RfC, ask at a relevant Wikiproject-- which is why the first discussion venue I chose was Wikiproject Redirect. As for what else happened, see my reply to Thryduulf above. I did not realize back then the sheer scope of what was at question, and if I should've flouted RFCBEFORE and made it a full RFC, my apologies. (Unfortunately it's too late to swap the discussion over to an RfC, I've already got people getting onto me for WP:MULTI and someone tossing a WP:FORUMSHOPPING accusation at me, so let's stay here for now?)

  Regarding with a neutral opening summary (WP:RFCNEUTRAL) I did my best to make it as neutral as possible, while including all relevant information, while also not making it too overly long. If there's ways to make it more neutral, then in the spirit of WP:RFCNEUTRAL I'd like to ask for help on that.

  Regarding linked at WP:CENT, I'd like to bring up A: that this is actually the first time I've heard of CENT lol, and B: there's no WP:DEADLINE for anything; we can definitely still put up a notification there -- in fact, I'm doing that now. (Also is there some reason there's four Ss in "Discusssion" on that page??) 𝔏𝔲𝔫𝔞𝔪𝔞𝔫𝔫🌙🌙🌙 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔐𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔫𝔦𝔢𝔰𝔱 (talk) 06:43, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  As a neat way of solving this conundrum, a short question could be added before your exposition, which would functionally be the first comment, and thus comply with WP:RFCNEUTRAL (meaning it could additionally be tagged as an RfC, as I figure it wouldn't affect the existing responses). Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 10:14, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  Am still waking up but went ahead with a simple initial idea of just shunting everything said after the initial three option question (which contained most of the exposition) over to its own comment; is this sufficient or will more need to be done? (if the latter, I definitely need some wake up time and coffee first lol) 𝔏𝔲𝔫𝔞𝔪𝔞𝔫𝔫🌙🌙🌙 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔐𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔫𝔦𝔢𝔰𝔱 (talk) 12:03, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  I would personally make it even more concise, something like this:

  How should possessives be linked?

  1. [[Foobar|Foobar's]] > Foobar's
  2. [[Foobar]]'s > Foobar's
  3. [[Foobar's]] > Foobar's, then create a redirect from Foobar's to Foobar

  If you want, you may copy-paste this above your comment, sign it and put an {{rfc}} tag above it. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 12:14, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  Thank you so much <3 𝔏𝔲𝔫𝔞𝔪𝔞𝔫𝔫🌙🌙🌙 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔐𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔫𝔦𝔢𝔰𝔱 (talk) 12:19, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

  That argument exists because despite what MOS may say, linguistic prescriptivism always has to eventually deal with how language actually functions. There are endless redirects that would not be MOS compliant links, but are good redirects. I think Option 2 is the preferred style, which most Wikipedia editors are used to and prefer, but it's also a fact that many good faith editors have shown a revealed preference to simply link the full word in the style of Option 3 by deliberately creating these over the years. The arguments for keeping such redirects provided there's no other reason for deletion has been hashed out extensively and I won't repeat them here since they're not relevant.

  RfD deciding to delete these redirects would be a bit of a bad idea if MOS decided they were How Things Were Meant To Be Done, right is true, but a red herring in the context of RFD, since "Option 2" is the predominant linking style.

  In respect to the RFC stuff, adding it to CENT is good, and I think following what Chaotic Enby suggested in terms of splitting the actual question to be discussed and your own thoughts would be fine; this is a standard solution to WP:RFCNEUTRAL violations. This discussion already sort of presupposes that there should be guidance (e.g. instead of MOS:VAR applying]]). If I had started the RFC, I probably would've had it as a two-parter (should be there be one official guidance, then what that be). Cat's already out of the bag though. For what it's worth, I don't think this is forum shopping, but just confusion from someone relatively new to these processes.

  As for neutrality, the proposed split above should be fine, but describing one option using all-caps "SHOCKING", "stunning" and bit text formatting, describing one of its supporters as "VERY vocal" and that he thinks something is "Dead Wrong" when not capitalizing that phrase would be fine) will obviously prime readers to be biased against that. I don't know your writing style, but it comes of as push polling.

  The biggest issue though is you've elided two separate positions: "Option 3 style linking is fine or even preferable" and "Option 3 style redirects should probably not be deleted absent a WP:R#DELETE" into a third position (i.e. "Option 3" liking should be the standardized guidance and then hundreds of thousands if not millions of "Option 3" redirects should be created en masse) that no one actually holds, because the position has mainly just been they're fine or ever preferable and shouldn't be deleted. Several !votes opposing Option 3 have already cited the a floodgates argument for opposing it. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 05:32, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

  If it's pushpolling it's very much not intentional, and probably my own biases leaking through. I'm once again going to thank ChaoticEnby and yourself (and also MEN KISSING) for help with this, and... yeah, I'll admit that maybe I shouldn't have been the one to pull the trigger on this, and I apologize for screwing it up this badly. But I guess on the flip side, if nobody does it, it never gets done, right...? 𝔏𝔲𝔫𝔞𝔪𝔞𝔫𝔫🌙🌙🌙 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔐𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔫𝔦𝔢𝔰𝔱 (talk) 12:23, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

  This should've been an actual RFC
  RfCs are for contentious discussions and this is almost ready for a SNOW close in my opinion. So definitely not RfC-worthy. FaviFake (talk) 16:31, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  While that's what RFCs are often used for, that's not in Wikipedia:Requests for comment#What an RfC is. For changes that affect things widely like how to link one of the most common grammatical forms, making it an RFC and/or advertising at CENT, even if it is eventually SNOWed, makes the outcome much safer against being overturned. That way no one can say that the change was just a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS of editors who already argued over a bunch of pages and were hyperaware of the discussion, but aren't representative of the wider community. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 04:50, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

  RfCs are unfortunately one of those things where the official guideance has lagged behind actual practice. Similarly, WP:RFCBEFORE is now used to mean a pre-discussion/"workshop" of a major policy change. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 12:41, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

  The MOS question is central to the usefulness of these redirects and whether we should keep or delete them. Most RFD participants have agreed that these should be deleted but a vocal minority objects on the grounds that they are useful for linking in articles and that they are useful because some editors create them for use in articles. If consensus is that such links should not appear in articles and the MOS is updated to reflect this, that negates the main arguments for keeping these. I will agree that the MOS question is not entirely determinative of whether or not these should be deleted. We keep certain redirects from misspellings, alternative (incorrect) capitalization, and non-neutral names that should not appear in articles but that are retained as navigational aids. We typically do delete other redirects with additional punctuation, like Foo. or "Foo", although these do not have the same semantic problems as Foo's. Consensus has generally been that Foo's is no more plausible as a search term or error than the likes of Foo. and "Foo". Settling the MOS question is a critical first step to resolving the recurring question at WP:RFD and directly addresses the primary 'keep' reasons that have been put forward. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 16:37, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  If consensus is that such links should not appear in articles and the MOS is updated to reflect this, that negates the main arguments for keeping these. It does no such thing. For the sake of brevity, I shall refrain from repeating the arguments myself and others have made other times this has been brought up, but they are easy to find if anyone has an open mind and isn't already familiar with them. Thryduulf (talk) 17:23, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  If using these links in articles violates the MOS, that absolutely removes the "useful for linking in articles" argument. I maintain that this is the main argument that has been put forward for keeping these redirects. The "plausible search term" notion has been rejected as a basis for assessing these redirects by at least one editor who otherwise supports the maintenance and creation of possessive redirects. I agree that any redirect-specific considerations that don't concern the MOS question are beyond the scope of this discussion and don't bear repeating here. But I maintain that the MOS question is imminently relevant to the recurring WP:RFD discussion and that a definitive outcome here will inform future WP:RFD discussions although it may not be entirely determinative because there are other considerations. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 19:33, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  If the MOS advising not to do something meant that editors never did that thing then you might have a point, however that is trivially obviously not true. They remain useful so that when an editor does use this sort of link (which they will continue to do, regardless of what the MOS says) then both they and the reader who finds the article before someone changes it will have a working link to the article, which is significnatly better for absolutely everybody than a redlink. Thryduulf (talk) 19:37, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  And folks are free to raise that issue, which has appeared rarely in actual RFD discussions. I have previously suggested other courses of action if we treat these like misspellings. I'm happy to revisit this down the line pending the outcome here. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 19:57, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  The plan here is once this WT:MOS discussion gets wrapped up, we can go back to WT:RE and try and come up with a solution for what to do with the redirects (if anything) as informed here. Maybe the redirects can be kept as cheap, maybe they can be deleted as costly. For implementation, maybe a temporary criteria for speedy deletion could be created, or a new entry could be added to WP:RFDO.

  I've remained fairly unopinionated on the redirects themselves, except that what I really want to see more than anything else is some sort of consensus that can decide what to do with them. RfD cannot handle ~500 contentious redirects on it's own. I'm really opposed to this view that this MOS discussion shouldn't hold any weight for the next stage of this process, that's just standing in the way of building consensus. MEN KISSING (she/they) T - C - Email me! 19:48, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  The plan here is once this WT:MOS discussion gets wrapped up, we can go back to WT:RE and try and come up with a solution for what to do with the redirects (if anything) as informed here
  And also clarify the MOS to help prevent or inform future disputes :) FaviFake (talk) 20:04, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

• Notified: Wikipedia:CENT. 𝔏𝔲𝔫𝔞𝔪𝔞𝔫𝔫🌙🌙🌙 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔐𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔫𝔦𝔢𝔰𝔱 (talk) 06:52, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  I think you've done a good job with the summary in regards to neutrality. Also, I personally don't think I would have added an entry to WP:CENT, the discussion feels a bit niche for there, but the wider coverage from folks beyond WT:RE/WT:SD discussions could certainly make things run a bit faster. Also also I see a hanging }} at the end of one of your signatures below, I think you may have messed up the formatting of some template? MEN KISSING (she/they) T - C - Email me! 07:19, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  ...I think {{subst:Notified}} doesn't play nice with WP:Convenient Discussions... Both the template and the Convenient Discussions app automatically add your signature to the end of the post, and I think that broke things. 𝔏𝔲𝔫𝔞𝔪𝔞𝔫𝔫🌙🌙🌙 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔐𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔫𝔦𝔢𝔰𝔱 (talk) 07:37, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

• Option 2 is my preference. Sdkb ^talk 07:17, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

• Option 2, obviously. Sugar Tax (talk) 09:05, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
• Option 2 as the cleanest overall – I figure there's a reason why 's isn't automatically appended to a link like regular strings of letters are. As a second choice, option 1 to avoid the proliferation of redirects. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 10:13, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
• Option 2. Ideally, if the subject Foobar's X exists, we would link there per MOS:SPECIFICLINK. In its absence, we should still keep links as simple as possible (WP:NOPIPE) and keep piped links as intuitive as possible (MOS:EGG), both of which are achieved by option 2. I oppose both other options as they make a crucial mistake: Foobar's is not the same as Foobar. In this construction, the former is a possessive determiner, so it makes no grammatical sense to link the "'s" in any case without also linking the noun it modifies. UpTheOctave! • 8^va? 10:36, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  While I agree on the substance, I'm not sure about that last point: the possessive determiner is, functionally, a noun marked for the genitive case through a clitic. I'm not sure how Wikipedias in languages with a stronger case system do it, but I presume that they link the whole word rather than only the root. In the English case, where the genitive is carried through a clitic rather than a more usual affix, the question is really whether we take it a separate-ish word or as a purely grammatical case marker. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 10:48, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  I know it's not exactly the same, but the German guidelines have a section on linking parts of compound words at de:Wikipedia:Verlinken § Verlinkung von Teilwörtern that seems to advocate for partial linking as a solution to a similar problem.

  In both cases of your cases, it will usually make sense to link either the head or the overall noun phrase (NP). In the second, linking the clitic on its own would not usually be expected per common sense. That just leaves the noun phrase functioning as a possessive determiner (PDNP) and the PDNP without its clitic. If we consider it a separate-ish word then we need to look at the NP as a whole, which is not complete without the head. This means all proposed linking methods are invalid except linking the head or the NP, as the PDNP is considered an indivisable(ish) unit dependant on the head. If we consider it a purely grammatical case marker then ipso facto the PDNP shouldn't be linked for the same reason we wouldn't link only the clitic. This means that, as we're considering the PDNP as divisable, linking the PDNP without its clitic, the head, or the NP is valid. I see "'s" as phrasal clitic, so don't see the PDNP as indivisable. Therefore, the only forms of linking I would support are linking the head, the overall NP, or the PDNP without its clitic.

  This is why I oppose both other options as, regardless of how you consider the construction, I can't see how linking only the PDNP is valid. Thanks for the intellectual stimulation! UpTheOctave! • 8^va? 13:02, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  I think Option 2 is best as well, but in cases where you wouldn't want to link the overall noun phrase because it doesn't have an article, but would want to link the proper noun which does (e.g. "Batman's decision to X" or "Napoleon's arrival in Y"), I think it's just as simple as some editors wanting to just link the whole word since different word forms are a very common type of redirect. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 14:24, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  Absolutely: I might've verged on being too technical above. My usual school of thought on trivial cases like these is that if something is not codified, then it's generally not worth the trouble standardising unless needed. However, now that we are here, I'd rather get down into the details. UpTheOctave! • 8^va? 16:36, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

• Option 2: the 's is not an integral part of the word, as can be seen from examples such as Jacob's vs Jacob's. Furthermore, option 3 would open a WP:PANDORA's box, requiring us to create potentially millions of redirects; delete's quite rightly been the most common outcome for possessive redirects in recent RFDs. Rosbif73 (talk) 13:04, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  Just to note for those unfamilar with RFD, WP:PANDORA is not something that enjoys consensus - on the contrary it is an actively misleading combination of nonsense and discredited arguments - see WP:BACKINBOX. None of the options here would require the creation or deletion of any redirects. Thryduulf (talk) 17:26, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  Except, hmm, for option 3, which say so explicitly ("then create a redirect")? Gawaon (talk) 18:16, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  Option 3 would allow or recommend creating redirects when there is desire to link a possessive. It would not require creating millions of redirects in advance - not that creating that many redirects would be at all problematic if they go to the correct target (such redirects are, after all, useful and it is not any sort of problem to create useful redirects). Thryduulf (talk) 18:25, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

  WP:PANDORA (which is indeed part of an essay and thus neither universally accepted nor universally applicable) talks about encouraging user expectations. In the case at hand, do we really want to be encouraging the expectation that a link to [[Foobar's]] will just work, and thus (given that it won't, unless someone has already created it), encouraging an expectation that it is normal to have to create additional redirects to just "make it work"?

  As to the counter-argument of WP:BACKINBOX, also an essay, I note that it concludes by saying that a good redirect will catch common searches. Since it is highly unlikely that a human being would type a string of characters ending in an 's into a search box, the corresponding redirect is pretty useless and should probably be deleted or not created in the first place. Rosbif73 (talk) 13:29, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

• Option 2 per Gawaon and J947. Chorchapu (talk | edits) 19:15, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Option 2 is the most intuitive to me. The article is about George Washington, not George Washington's stuff, and the link boundaries should respect that. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 19:34, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

• Option 2 is the best choice here. No piping or extra redirect creation involved. A reader would know exactly where they are going if they were to click on John Doe and John Doe's. John Doe's would be more unclear - is it about John Doe or something owned by John Doe? Schützenpanzer (Talk) 00:45, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

  It's only unclear in the abstract. When used in the context of the sentence it is entirely clear - if it isn't the sentence needs to be reworded for reasons unrelated to the link. Thryduulf (talk) 01:24, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

  It's only unclear in the abstract
  No it's not? "John's belongings" is wildly different than "John's belongings", even in practice. FaviFake (talk) 16:38, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

  Yes. Why are we including the possessive in the link? It's not about John's stuff. Here's a totally non-abstract example:

  Tolkien's diaries are not as widely read as Pepys's.

  Compare that to:

  Tolkien's diaries are not as widely read as Pepys's.

  Or, indeed:

  Tolkien's works are just as popular as Dickens's

  Tolkien's works are just as popular as Dickens's.

  Quite, quite different. The distinction is necessary. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 16:53, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

• Comment. I don't have a strong preference, but whatever the outcome is, it should also apply to plural possessives (e.g., dogs'), and the MOS guidance should make that clear. FactOrOpinion (talk) 02:00, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

  In essence, but in practice pluralized words typically are or should be linked to go to the actual article, which will likely use the singular form, hence [[dog]]s', rendered as dogs'. Gawaon (talk) 08:32, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

• Option 2 best satisfies the principle of least astonishment by making clear the scope of what is being linked to, as well as avoiding WP:SEAOFBLUE in certain sentence structures. See also the examples from people like Michael Bednarek and Rosbif, who identify cases where the presence/absence of the 's suffix can distinguish notable topics. Oppose Option 3; readers are never going to search "George Washington's" in order to find George Washington, so such redirects are only useful for people who are trying to write out "George Washington's" as a redirect in wikitext. In other words, making Option 3 into guidance creates a navigational problem just for the sake of being able to solve it, whereas using Option 2 effectively just sidesteps the problem entirely. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 15:36, 27 January 2026 (UTC)
• Option 2 per above, but as Toadspike notes, please be kind to Visual Editor users who generate Option 1-style possessive wikilinks without knowing it. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 18:36, 27 January 2026 (UTC)
• Option 2 I'll admit that I thought this was already the generally-accepted practice. I think J947 makes a good point about why option 1 is problematic and Michael Bednarek ditto about option 3. TompaDompa (talk) 20:10, 27 January 2026 (UTC)
• Question/Comment What is the prescribed method for linking a plural of a word that ends in y - pipe, or redirect? For such words, we cannot simply add an s after the link, because the plural ending is ies and not ys. So if one wanted to link puppies, would the prescribed markup be [[Puppy|puppies]] or [[puppies]] redirected to Puppy? My understanding is that it should be the former, but that a redirect at puppies should also exist? Therefore, this RFC seems to not ask the right question, since nobody ever suggested option 3 should be prescribed - the controversy was only ever about whether these redirects should be MASS DELETED!

It should also be noted, the 's not appearing as part of the wikilink was a consequence of the limitations of the Audra, not because of some fundamental principle that the 's in English possessive nouns are somehow "not part of the word". They absolutely are part of the word: the apostrophe's only function is to differentiate a possesive from a plural.

So, my position would be all should be permissible, per Thryduulf, and redirects of alternate word forms, including possesives, should not be deleted. ~2026-59608-1 (talk) 21:25, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

I would prefer [[puppies]] as it requires less wikitext, and is fine per WP:NOTBROKEN. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 21:54, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Therefore, this RFC seems to not ask the right question, since nobody ever suggested option 3 should be prescribed- the controversy was only ever about whether these redirects should be MASS DELETED! The issue originated with deletion discussions at WP:RFD and the MOS question rose out of these discussions naturally (on multiple occasions). As for plurals, puppiespuppies is a perfectly acceptable {{R from plural}}, as is dogsdogs, even though the latter can be accomplished with agglutination and piping can be used for both. Technical limitations aside, plurals and possessives are quite different so it is reasonable for the MOS to recommend different approaches. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 23:14, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

A directive for "...redirects of alternate word forms, including possesives, should not be deleted..." is both not the scope of this discussion (though it may have been partially the cause) and not enforceable across the board since discussion would have to be performed for each individual redirect, given that a "do not delete any of these ever"-type of directive is not compatible with the basis of Wikipedia's consensus-based functionality. Steel1943 (talk) 23:18, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Agree —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 23:23, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Nor would such a directive be desirable - there are some possessives, etc that should be deleted (e.g. Octopodes's). However simply being a possessive should not be seen as a valid rationale for deletion in the same way that simply being a misspelling alone is not sufficient reason to delete. By consensus there needs to be some indication of why a specific misspelling redirect is harmful or implausible in a way that misspellings generally are not. The same could and should be true for possessives - some indication of why a specific example of such is harmful or implausible in a way that possessives generally are not. Thryduulf (talk) 01:06, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

• Option 2 both for VE editors and this is official done in WP:DYK per WP:DYKMOS Warm Regards, Miminity (Talk?) (me contribs) 03:48, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

GEOLINK-related dispute

Hi, a consensus is needed on whether to de-link "Ukrainian SSR" in Volodymyr Zelenskyy's infobox. Could you guys please share your thoughts at Talk:Volodymyr Zelenskyy#De-linking "Ukrainian SSR" in infobox? Thanks in advance, Thedarkknightli (talk) 19:28, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

There's an RfC for a related question ongoing at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 87#RFC: Baltic bios infoboxes question. While not explicitly targeting the Ukrainian SSR and other non-Baltic SSRs, its outcome should be relevant for how to present other SSRs in infoboxes too, especially regarding the question of which parts to link. (Its options F and G are inapplicable outside the Baltics, I guess, but the others would generalize smoothly to all SSRs.) Hence you might want to voice your opinion there, share the link to it on the talk page in question, and otherwise wait for its results before tweaking the page accordingly. Gawaon (talk) 21:30, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Adding possessive link guidance to MOS

Now that Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Linking#Possessive_Redirects_vs_Blended/Agglutinated_Links has closed with a definitive preference for [[Foo]]'s, explicit guidance should be added to the MOS. Thoughts on the best way to do this? Perhaps a new subsection under Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking § Specific cases? I've played around with simple guidance and I don't really like any wording I've come up with. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 21:33, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

And to be clear, someone should feel free to just boldly update this! —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 21:50, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

A whole subsection would surely be overkill. One option might be to add it as a new list item to MOS:LINK#OTHER. I guess you meant "Specific cases" instead of "Special" ones, but it's not really a specific case, as such possessive links can emerge fairly naturally in normal text and for most kinds of links. Gawaon (talk) 21:52, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I meant "Specific" cases. Will fix. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 22:00, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Crud, I just realized that the following example of a WP:PIPEd link was not brought up during the discussion. Is it assumed this is true?

[[Foobar (thing)|Foobar]]'s > [[Foobar (thing)|Foobar's]]

...Or do we have to have another discussion? Steel1943 (talk) 22:09, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

No, we won't have another discussion of that, the left one wins now, as a matter of course. That doesn't mean we need to explicitly mention it, on the other hand – it might rather go without saying. Gawaon (talk) 22:13, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

My thoughts as well, and was about to also bring up an example like:

[[George Washington|Washington]]'s > [[George Washington|Washington's]]

...But yeah, my thoughts as well. Steel1943 (talk) 22:17, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

@Gawaon: "mean"? Steel1943 (talk) 22:20, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

(Resolved, nothing to see here...) Steel1943 (talk) 23:15, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

This says that the preference confirmed here is better so I don't see that anything needs to be changed, although I would strengthen it so the consensus to not use Foobar's is clear. Also I can't find that example in the current version of Wikipedia:Piped link using Cmd+F. But if there are random examples there or on other pages (like Help:Link) those should be reviewed and updated to align with the current MOS consensus. The MOS guidance, once updated, and/or the RFC can be referenced in the edit summaries. There's no need for another discussion unless there is a new conflict or question that is not adequately resolved by the just-closed discussion. I do agree it would be good to have a piped example like you have with Washington's. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 22:38, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

How about adding a bullet point to MOS:PIPESTYLE:

* Possessives. [[apple]]'s should be used in preference to [[apple's]] (which would require a redirect to be created at Apple's), unless the 's is part of the article title (e.g. Jacob's). This also applies to piped links such as [[George Washington|Washington]]'s.

Rosbif73 (talk) 10:40, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Sounds good, though actually no piping is involved here, except for the "Washington's" case. Hence it rather add it to MOS:LINK#OTHER. Gawaon (talk) 11:12, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Also it should be "in preference to [[apple|apple's]]or [[apple's]] (the latter would require ..." Gawaon (talk) 11:15, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

 Done: see diff . Feel free to further refine the wording if necessary. Rosbif73 (talk) 12:38, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

A cross reference from somewhere in MOS:POSSESSIVE / MOS:'S would be useful. Anomie⚔ 12:50, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

 Done: see diff . I realise that this has created two hatnote lines, but (a) it doesn't seem to be possible to use a piped link with {{for-multi}} and (b) there are already MOS sections with two hatnote lines. Rosbif73 (talk) 13:56, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Looks good! —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 14:38, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

For what it's worth, a few days ago, I created MOS:POSLINK as a redirect towards an anchor for that new guideline. Steel1943 (talk) 20:34, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

I saw that, thanks for doing this @Steel1943! Sadly for me I noticed this after making several edits and using the less specific shortcut MOS:LINK#OTHER. Happy to have a more direct shortcut moving forward! —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 20:58, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Links in infoboxes

Just a query now, but if needed perhaps MOS:GEOLINK needs to be reworded: I have recently seen links to city articles removed from event infoboxes (e.g. MLS Cup 2022) because the stadium/venue is allegedly enough to provide context. In my view it does not, as many stadiums (especially in the U.S.) are in suburbs that are not well-known outside of their immediate area and providing that context would be helpful to readers. There seems to be an interpretation of MOS:GEOLINK that counts a stadium as part of the "consecutive comma-separated sequence of two or more territorial units" despite stadiums not being a geographical/territorial unit. I think we ought to remedy this, as there are thousands of articles that already use the format. SounderBruce 07:12, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Why would you link the suburb, let alone a well-known city. In any case, a link to the stadium anchor will give the reader all they want. Tony (talk) 09:00, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Wouldn't you normally use a connecting word such as "in" in such cases ("Banc of California Stadium in Los Angeles, California, United States")? GEOLINK only applies to comma-separated sequences, hence it will only apply after the connecting proposition, as it should. Linking Los Angeles may nevertheless be overlinking in this specific case, but that's unrelated to GEOLINK. Gawaon (talk) 09:22, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Wouldn't you normally use a connecting word such as 'in' in such cases: The OP was referring to infoboxes (and the same might apply to tables). In sports, some readers might want to know the details of the stadium/venue, while others might just care about the geographic location. That's why some pages choose to present both, and not force the reader to click on the venue just to get to the city. —Bagumba (talk) 06:23, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

Right, in the infobox only the stadium or other actual venue will be linked in such cases, if GEOLINK is strictly followed. Seems fine to me, since people mainly use the infobox to gather facts, not links (I suppose), and since the link to Los Angeles or wherever the event took place can still easily be found in the lead paragraph nearby. Gawaon (talk) 08:52, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

It's fine to link both the venue and city in infoboxes and tables. Seeing something like Intuit Dome (Inglewood, California), a reader can either click on the venue, or just Inglewood if they just wanted to know where geographically the event was without caring about the actual facility. Don't force a double click; thousands of pages already have this format.—Bagumba (talk) 09:27, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, that's possible too and in perfect agreement with GEOLINK. Gawaon (talk) 09:56, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

Possible, but a disservice to readers: the Intuit Dome article (far more specific) has ALL of the information you could want about its location. Tony (talk) 10:34, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

That is a fine solution, and I'll bring it up at WT:FOOTBALL. Definitely prefer to have both the venue and city linked, but without "in", which would be out of place in an infobox row. SounderBruce 03:24, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

It's not a fine solution at all, as I've pointed out above. Tony (talk) 06:36, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

And as also pointed out above, some could care less about the facility and just want to figure out where it is, e.g. is it a home or away game? —Bagumba (talk) 08:28, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

OVERLINK-related dispute

Hi, there's an ongoing dispute over whether to link "Russia" in the body of Lena Katina's article. Could you guys please share your thoughts at Talk:Lena Katina#Overlinking? Thanks in advance, Thedarkknightli (talk) 22:07, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessary. How many readers don't know what Russia is? Tony (talk) 10:12, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

using the ill template for links to sister projects

The {{ill}} template can link to other projects just as easily as it can link to other language Wikipedias.

Welcome to discuss whether this would be appropriate or not at: Template talk:Interlanguage link#calling WikiData and other wikimedia projects Regards, CapnZapp (talk) 12:37, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

"Wikipedia:CONTEXT" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Wikipedia:CONTEXT has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2026 April 3 § Wikipedia:CONTEXT until a consensus is reached. ScrubbedFalcon (talk) 14:59, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

Should we recommend editors to generally prefer targeted redirects over targeted links?

Should we recommend editors to generally prefer targeted redirects over targeted links?This seems like a good idea to me. For technical and normal reasons, targeted redirects are more resistant to being broken, so I think they should be preferred. For instance, if an editor links to Foo Bar (redir to Bar#Foo) instead of Bar#Foo, and then in subsequent edits it's decided that Foo should actually be its own page with no mention on the Bar page, the following benefits occur:

• In the "what links here", it is easy to see that the redirect links to the section that is being excised, which is for some reason impossible for normal targeted links iirc
• All inbound links to Foo Bar can be corrected to Foo with one simple edit of the redirect page.

There are other realistic scenarios where these advantages also attain, but admittedly in most of them editors are already not following best practices (e.g., they are wantonly renaming sections without adding anchors, etc). Dingolover6969 (talk) 13:32, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

Good advice along these lines is given at WP:NOTBROKEN ~Kvng (talk) 17:20, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Also in this page's §Redirects to sections which may become articles. Really, the problem is that §Piped links to sections is in tension, presumably because these two sections were written independently. Dingolover6969 (talk) 19:24, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

The MOS page actually seems to repeat itself repeatedly, causing confusion... Dingolover6969 (talk) 19:35, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

"A list of incoming wikilinks can be generated using the "What links here" feature." ← this should probably be modified to explain the technical limitation. Dingolover6969 (talk) 19:43, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

Project info merger to article namespace guidline

Project info merger to article namespace guidline? this merger seems like it should go to Wikipedia:Piped link a how-to guide vs a article namespace guideline. Do we want to encourage interlanguage without Template:Interlanguage and category llnks in articles? It seems logical to merge Help:Colon trick, but not to make these article protocols. Moxy🍁 20:07, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

Should we leave major cities unlinked in lead?

Hi, there's an ongoing disagreement on whether to link "Houston" in Beyoncé's lead, see Talk:Beyoncé#De-linking "Houston" in lead. Your input is welcome. Thanks in advance, Thedarkknightli (talk) 23:58, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

U.S. states as overlinks?

Added wording (boldfaced here) "Countries (e.g., Brazil/Brazilian, Canada/Canadian, China/Chinese) or states (California, Missouri, Florida, etc.)" and was reverted. Since I can recall editing Wikipedia, linking the names of U.S. has been called overlinking, and editors have removed the links. There are likely millions of them, and I don't usually remove them unless they create a sea of blue, but they overrun many articles. Reading WP:OVERLINK I was actually surprised that U.S. states weren't used as examples, added the wording, and was reverted. Thoughts?, thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:46, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

In cases where the state is standalone, then it is appropriate; we cannot expect every reader to be familiar with all 50 U.S. states, much like we cannot expect them to be familiar with the thousand of national subdivisions globally. Relatedly, I would be in favor of amending the Settlements or municipalities line from MOS:OL, given how it has been applied poorly across many articles; it should only be used for major cities where the context is clear, rather than being removed at every use. SounderBruce 01:43, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes, with the exceptions of California, New York State, Texas, & perhaps Florida, many global readers may at least want to check where states are. Amazing as it may be to Americans, most of the world won't have this at the top of their mind. Missouri for example. Randy, how about Ontario and Manitoba? Or Andhra Pradesh (pop. 50 million)? Johnbod (talk) 03:17, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

I definately do not consider states and provinces over links. They should be linked at least once. Even if a reader knows what California is all about, maybe he is curious about something he read in the article and wants to see the California article for more information or related articles (and doesnt want to type "California"). It's nuts to not link the state or province in some way. Taken straight from the Los Angeles article — Good: "Los Angeles (LA) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of California..." Bad: "Los Angeles (LA) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of California..." I even go so far as to say countries need to be linked too. Infobox is best for that. We don't need a slew of blue eg ...is a park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada... That is too much blue. Drop the hyper link for Canada and have Canada linked in the infobox. Anyways, while I revert a lot of new editors who link common terms like "water", "one", "name" (did those reverts yesterday), to say common terms should never be linked is silly.Masterhatch (talk) 04:33, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

It's a thing called Link suggestions feature and I keep on finding inappropriate links added with this feature. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:47, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes - how does we adjust these suggestions? Can we even do this? They are machine-generated apparently. There are about 30 countries and perhaps 20 cities I don't link, but for example Zaire and Bhutan need links. Johnbod (talk) 14:53, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

The feature can be disabled, but only in a very limited way. If you add {{No newcomer task}} to Los Angeles, it will prevent the feature being used to add outward links to California. But I know of no way of marking California so that the feature is dissuaded from adding inward links from Los Angeles. See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 226#Disable newcomer tasks on a particular page? and Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 228#Can "link suggestions feature" be disabled for an article?. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:50, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

Slight adjustment proposal

Following on from the discussion just above on overlinking, I notice the current text includes this example in Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Linking#General_points_on_linking_style:

"For a geographical location expressed as a consecutive comma-separated sequence of two or more territorial units, link only the first unit. For example, avoid:

• N Paris, France ([[Paris]], [[France]])
• Y Paris, France ([[Paris]], France)

"

but lower down we say not to link to " major examples of ....Settlements or municipalities (e.g., New Delhi; New York City, or just New York if the city context is already clear; London, if the context rules out London, Ontario)"

Surely Paris should not be linked either? I propose using a slightly more obscure example, perhaps "Chennai, India". Thoughts? Johnbod (talk) 14:19, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

No objections, so I will do this. Johnbod (talk) 15:38, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

Can we link both "Soviet Union" and "RSFSR" in the same sentence?

Hi, there's an ongoing disagreement on whether we can link "Soviet Union" in the "early years" section of Lena Katina's article (see Talk:Lena Katina#Linking "Soviet Union"). Your input is welcome. Thanks in advance, Thedarkknightli (talk) 08:14, 3 June 2026 (UTC)

MOS:GEOLINK dispute on figure skating articles

Bgsu98 and Wamalotpark are having a long running dispute about MOS:GEOLINK on figure skating articles. As far as I can work out, this concerns whether [[Stockholm, Sweden]] is preferable to [[Stockholm]], Sweden which is expressly allowed by GEOLINK.

Repeated reverts over this issue have resulted in two ANI reports. As I said in the first ANI discussion, I find the latter alternative preferable to the former, especially with European cities where the "[City], [State]" designation is comparatively uncommon. Thoughts? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:57, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

Both of those forms are allowed. It is [[Stockholm]], [[Sweden]] (ie 2 separate links) that is not allowed.  Stepho  talk  15:16, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks Stepho-wrs. Has there been any discussion on whether one form is preferable over the other? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:23, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

Thank you to User:AirshipJungleman29 for starting this conversation. As I said originally, "As has been stated repeatedly at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking, there is no provision against [[Stockholm, Sweden]] versus [[Stockholm]], Sweden as long as the style is used consistently in the article, since, again, only Stockholm, is being linked." I am aware that countries should not be linked, but I don't like the look of [[city]], country, so I find this a suitable compromise that does not violate the MOS. Bgsu98 (Talk) 16:09, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

GEOLINK discourages multiple links, but that example is only a single link. Something like San Antonio, Texas ([[San Antonio, Texas]]), instead of San Antonio, Texas, discourages a drive-by editor from being "helpful" and adding a consecutive link to "Texas" ([[San Antonio]], [[Texas]]).—Bagumba (talk) 17:46, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

That's a good point. Bgsu98 (Talk) 17:47, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

"Stockholm, Sweden" is preferable to "Stockholm, Sweden" as "Stockholm" does not have "Sweden" in its article title, unlike a small city or one that requires disambiguation like "Nora, Sweden".

Bgsu98 has been incorrectly linking over countries in these figure skating articles, in which (I forget their exact words but) they claim it is a personal choice and an aesthetic that they prefer, and simply because the MOS does not explicitly disallow it, they claim that ability.

Following MOS:GEOLINK is primarily the pursuit.

1. Not linking over the countries allows the reader to discern what articles they are clicking are major cities, and the ones that don't need to be disambiguated.

2. Following the article titles for link areas removes any dual linking styles.

3. It allows for separate links of countries that no longer exist, which is allowed. i.e. Bavaria, West Germany.

4. It is what exists and is understood on pretty much all major articles currently, user Bgsu98's case to use their preferred linking style on figure skating articles is quite unique to come across (they have been reprimanded for ownership and behavior issues multiple times now on the topic). Look at for example the late Queen Elizabeth II's article, they don't link over "London". It's "Mayfair, London,", because Mayfair does not have "London" in its title. Look at Donald Trump's, the link is only over Queens, not New York or US. And so on.

A link like Stockholm, Sweden, should be explicitly not allowed in the MOS to avoid this from now on. Wamalotpark (talk) 22:17, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

Until it's "explicitly not allowed in the MOS", you can't continue to override this simply because you don't like it. Two editors above have said that this format is permissible, so your statement that I have been "incorrectly" do anything is, in fact, incorrect. The issue is not my "ownership" or whatever; it's your bull in a china shop/my way or the highway approach, where multiple editors have told you that you do not have consensus for these mass edits. But when you encounter a situation where you receive pushback, your approach is to edit-war ("I don't have to use BRD") instead of putting the stick down and moving on. Bgsu98 (Talk) 22:39, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

Your ownership issue has been raised by multiple people in previous threads and is an issue. My edit format is permissible as well, and you don't get to revert any edit I make to figure skating articles because you don't like it.

Do you not see the benefits of my points, which still stand? Why wouldn't you want figure skating articles to have the same format as virtually all other high quality articles. Wamalotpark (talk) 23:22, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

There's English wikipedia wide consensus we do not require consistency between articles except when there's established consensus we do. If you want to establish that need for consensus for a certain subset of articles, you'll need to start a widely advertised discussion for it. Note a discussion on a wikiproject without being well properly advertised will generally be rejected as a WP:local consensus which doesn't bind anyone to anything. Any attempt at enforcement is likely to get the wikiproject a terrible reputation among the community & lead to blocks etc. While you're entitled to start a widely advertised discussion I would discourage it. I suspect the community will reject it because the community doesn't generally like the walled garden approach as it makes it too confusing for editors when one set of articles has a set of standard for which there is no good reason. Nil Einne (talk) 12:03, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

Thank you! Bgsu98 (Talk) 14:37, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

While I, too, would personally use "Stockholm, Sweden" as the more straightforward form, "Stockholm, Sweden" and "Stockholm, Sweden" work too, and all are allowed by the MOS. So I don't see why one should edit‑war over this. Any of these used in an article is unambiguous and works, so there's no need to change it to something else – certainly not if another editor objects. Gawaon (talk) 06:53, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

Wamalotpark - Can you point to which discussion established it's preferably site wide? While you're entitled to your own personal preference you're not entitled to force it on others in absence of consensus for this. If there's no consensus on which is better by the community and both are allowed, then we'd fall back on the standard of consistency within article where needed (I'm not certain it's even needed here but I'm mentioning it in case it's felt it is) and following the first contributors preference. This means if Bgsu98 is the first add the term to the article and stylises it in a certain way, you're not allowed to change it without establishing consensus on the article talk page it's better for that article. This isn't ownership, it's just how Wikipedia works. Of course if you're the first to do so, Bgsu98 also cannot change what you have done. If you've modified something when you shouldn't have, Bgsu98 is entitled to revert you just as you are entitled to revert them if you initially introduced something and Bgsu98 changed it when they shouldn't have. Of course you shouldn't edit war over it but this is following BRD where one editor makes a bold edit and the other reverts and then discuss as need be. Note though while it might have been acceptable to be bold initially, now that it's clear the change you are trying to make is dispute you should not be bold any more. If you continue to make changes when you shouldn't do so, that becomes a behaviour concern which might have to be dealt with as we deal with all behavioural concerns. Nil Einne (talk) 11:58, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

I see there is ironically an old but relevant and unclosed RfC above #RfC: Linking of three-part place names. That RfC also links to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking/Archive 21#Ambiguity in GEOLINK examples and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking/Archive 21#RfC: GEOLINK examples. While those discussions are concentrated on three part place names, my read of those three discussions concurs with others in this thread. Even when it comes to two part place names there's no previous consensus on whether Stockholm, Sweden is preferable to Stockholm, Sweden. There's only consensus you should not do Stockholm, Sweden. It's possible that consensus has been established in that RfC but it hasn't been closed & I don't think it's so clear that we can say there's consensus without a proper close. So at this time, it does seem to me that both are perfectly fine and therefore falling back to first contributors preference (with consistency within article if needed) is the way to go. If you are aware of a discussion which establishes consensus for one of them, please link to it. I'd also be helpful even if very belated if you link to it in the above RfC since some contributors were asking for it. Nil Einne (talk) 12:39, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

"overlinking" list of examples should be removed

This list of examples would have us believe that in an article about a Christian thought-leader we shouldn't write "He was influential on Christian thought". It would have us believe that in an article recounting a historical event that involved a British diplomat we shouldn't write "he was then approached by Harold Exampleman, a British diplomat". As noted above, some would say that in an article about Beyonce we shouldn't say "she came from Houston" or whatever (although the article does still say and link this, and that apparently isn't the dispute about the linking in the page?). It would have us believe that if a material was primarily used in making airplanes, we shouldn't write "it is primarily used in making airplanes".

Those conclusions are worse for articles, so we should remove the list of examples from the guidance here. The prose guidance is fine, though.

MOS:DUPLINK covers most of what we want here, in terms of not actually oveerlinking the article. Dingolover6969 (talk) 20:36, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

Disagree that DUPLINK covers most of what we want from OVERLINK - a link can be unique and still unwanted. We don't want to have articles that look like this sentence, even though I've made certain each link is unique. The section notes that links to common terms can be included if "particularly relevant to the context in the article". Nikkimaria (talk) 04:23, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Viewed in isolation, the list at MOS:OVERLINK would be read that way but I think the totality of the guidance as well as the preceding section MOS:UNDERLINK. All of your examples are covered by the first bullet at UNDERLINK: Relevant connections to the subject of another article generally should be linked. (I might quibble about British but I would probably leave it alone if I came across it.) I find the examples helpful and unless there is evidence of widespread misinterpretation or recurring disputes, it should remain as-is. I agree with Nikkimaria that DUPLINK covers something different. —Myceteae‍🌈 (talk) 16:52, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

The whole article "Christian" is too vague to be useful to the reader, so we're left with: who doesn't know what Christianity is? (Readers are always welcome to type in a target, too.) Tony (talk) 01:18, 14 June 2026 (UTC)