GenericUser24

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Happy editing! Infrabel1 (talk) 01:26, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Adding links to articles

• I am posting this message to you because you are one of a fairly large group of fairly inexperienced editors who have recently been adding links to the article The Odyssey (Smith), and many of the links have been unsuitable. I said "fairly inexperienced", but that expression covers a range from several brand new accounts to some which have been around for some time, but have previously done very little editing. I shall first describe what the concern about the editing is, and then ask you whether you can clarify for me how this has happened.

• Adding links from one article to another, known as "wikilinks", can be very helpful, but it is a very common mistake among new editors to add too many wikilinks to articles, in on or other of two ways, both of which are commonly referred to as "overlinking". Firstly, a wikilink should normally be added only if it provides information which is likely to help readers of the article in which the link is placed to understand content of that article, or provide further information closely connected to content of that article. Linking to articles in other situations is not just unnecessary, it can actually be harmful, because research has established that the more irrelevant, or only slightly relevant, links there are in a page, the less likely readers are to find the ones which they might find useful. Thus, for example, nobody reading the article The Odyssey (Smith) is likely to need to consult the article clock in order to understand content of The Odyssey (Smith), nor does the article clock contain any information about Smith's Odyssey, so linking the one to the other is not likely to be helpful, but that is one of the links which have recently been added. Secondly, an article should not normally contain more than one link to any other article: just linking the first mention of the linked term is enough.

A couple of people have now given me answers to the question below, so I now understand what was happening, and I don't need any more explanation. JBW (talk) 11:53, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

• There is nothing unusual about new or fairly inexperienced editors overlinking: as I said above, it is a very common mistake. However, for so many inexperienced editors to all come along to the same article and all start making very similar edits is most unusual; in fact I don't believe I have ever seen it before. There must be a connection; maybe someone has been organising some sort of group editing and has encouraged editors to add links to that article, or something of the kind. Are you able to give me any information which may clarify for me what is happening? JBW (talk) 22:37, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

  The website gives suggestions to new users for what to work on. It suggested that I add links to the article you were talking about. The edits are all tagged as 'newcomer tasks'. It does give guidlines on linking, and I regret that some people did not read them. GenericUser24 (talk) 16:15, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

  I was thinking about editing the article, but the edit button seems to have disappeared. Does that happen to do with the linking problem? I was very careful not to overlink, I only added links to pages of exotic musical instruments. GenericUser24 (talk) 16:20, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure "flute" and "duet" are exotic. JBW (talk) 17:53, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

April 2024

Hello, I'm Binnenstaat. I wanted to let you know that one or more of your recent contributions to Lodha Altamount have been undone because they did not appear constructive. If you would like to experiment, please use your sandbox. If you have any questions, you can ask for assistance at the Teahouse or the Help desk. Thanks. Binnenstaat (talk) 16:44, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

I believe you are mistaken. I removed information about Lodha Park and Lodha, which which were not relevant to the article, and also some extremely promotional and irrelevant information. Please be more careful in reverting. GenericUser24 (talk) 20:19, 8 April 2024 (UTC)