User talk:Slysplace/Archives/2008/October

Latest comment: 16 years ago by Slysplace in topic Overlinking


Could you please explain the rationale behind your series of Repairing Music related DAB Redirects / links to DAB pages edits? I am confused because WP:R#NOTBROKEN says: "There should almost never be a reason to replace [[redirect]] with [[target|redirect]]. This kind of change is almost never an improvement, and it can actually be detrimental."

But this is exactly what seems to occur in the edits I observed: The Minotaur (opera) • The Golden Cockerel • Idomeneo • The Magic Flute. Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:09, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

SEE Slysplace explained Slysplace talk 21:26, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
That table does not quantify what happened. A quick count shows that 190 (68%) out of 278 terms are classed as "redirect", 39 (14%) as "red", 26 (9%) as "dab"; no "hit" numbers are attached to the 278 terms. It seems to me that only the 65 (23%) "red"/"dab" targets should have been worthy of attention. All your edits I observed were of the class "redirect", which suggests that occurrences of "red/dab" terms would be much lower than the 23% representation in the list of terms.
Of course there won't be any complaints — changing [[english horn]] to [[Cor anglais|english horn]] has no effect on the reader, (unless someone wants to write an article on the history of the former term). Speaking of [[English horn]], how come there are still 154 articles linking to it, and 25 to [[English Horn]]? Case-dependent search?
If your answer to my original question is WP:BEBOLD and WHO CARES, you could have said so right here without sending me to a lengthy table which explains nothing.
I'm not complaining either: please read what I wrote. I'm just asking how an operation like this can be reconciled with WP:R#NOTBROKEN. You see, terms which link to redirects are abundant in opera-related articles: the names of most operas are known in at least three versions: original language (in various spellings), English, and a short name. When I started editing here, I would sometimes edit an article only for the purpose of sharpening these links, until I came across WP:R#NOTBROKEN. Now I restrict this kind of thing to occasions where I edit an article for other reasons. There are a number of opera-related articles which do link to DAB pages ([[Paris Opera]]) or to the wrong target ([[Tristan]]), but I can't see how these could be resolved by an automated process. Michael Bednarek (talk) 05:20, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
Generally as a rule I remain civil, and avoid confrontation, I've read many of the policies on wiki and it's uses and to be honest, BEBOLD is the overriding factor for me as it's obviously the founding/starting point for most editors Novice and expert alike. Once someone gets on a kick that MOS / MOSCAPS or R#NOTBROKEN are the gospel that keep the encyclopedia perfect they generally have much less inclination to actually even contribute to the encyclopedia and are obviously more inclined to reprimand others by contributing to talk pages.
As for the number of red links listed in my table, originally there were more, I've created redirects for some of the more obvious misspellings.
For other situations I've changed the link entirely, Take [[Drums|EXAMPLE]] Drums has been used for everything from a singular drum, a cymbal, a drummer, drumming, various percussion instruments etc... Many of which obviously have there own articles. If an article raves about a [[Drums|Drummer]] or his style using this link they are linking to a redirect to [[Drum]] which is not technically going to provide further information on [[Drummer]]s or drumming styles. Sax is another touchy on, when I read about an artist it's great to know he plays the "sax" But which one? Often times Sax is listed as [[Sax]] or [[saxaphone]] or worse "alto and tennor [[Sax]]." spelling errors intentional This was just bad editing on the original editors part, lack of a spell check or adequate research on the articles available when the correct spelling is used.
Please don't flatter yourself by thinking I created the table for you alone, I've been working on it off line for some time with the hopes it may help others involved with Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums and other music related projects and or be incorporated somehow into the MOS for those projects. To answer your questions regarding English horn, I haven't searched for pages linking to english horn (case sensitive or otherwise) I started primarily in the areas related to pop / rock / music genres which appeared to be in horrible shape in many more ways than just dab links. Opera is something I honestly no very little about, however some of those pages did link to Drums, keyboards, Guitars or Double Basses and using AWB I obviously cleaned up other items in the table.
I started a series of edits with the intention of cleaning up pages that link to Drums, a task which obviously was slightly more detailed than I originally anticipated. I wanted to finish 11,000 + Pages, and just as I finish... concerns of R#NOTBROKEN ... Happy editing Slysplace talk 12:53, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

You erred in Dream of Gerontius, which is certainly about a human soul and has nothing to do with soul music. I didn't notice it at the time because of the other (correct) changes. Someone just fixed it. Could there be other cases of links you have changed that really were intended to be to soul? David Brooks (talk) 22:22, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

While I'm sure it is possible, I'm also confident it's unlikely. I disambiguated a tremendous amount of link's to soul manually prior to running music related articles through AWB's Search and replace. I cant recall the articles but I remember I found a couple which were both soul music and soul appropriate. I do check every edit and I know I rejected a few that were obviously human soul (or other) so I'm hopeful that this was an isolated incident, humans and computers being what they are, prone to error. My apologies extended... Happy editing Slysplace talk 00:27, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. David Brooks (talk) 17:50, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

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Overlinking

Thanks for catching my overlink in the 1969 draft page. I had not yet read WP:OVERLINK, I just ran across it very recently, while I have been undergoing a feature list review on the 2002 NFL Expansion Draft page, but now I know. I couldn't remember how many times I had done that or where. Btw, if you want to help on some NFL pages, please see the new NFL Expansion Draft pages I've started. 1961 and 1967 especially need some help.--User:2008Olympianchitchatseemywork 03:20, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

  • One note on overlinking: the restriction doesn't apply to the info in the tables themselves. From WP:OVERLINK: "A link that had last appeared much earlier in the article may be repeated, but generally not in the the same section. (Table entries are an exception to this; each row of a table should be able to stand on its own)" (emphasis added). Thanks again for your help on these pages.--User:2008Olympianchitchatseemywork 08:24, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
    • I've read this as well. I've argued the point also. And following suit I originally cleaned up some of the tables in the first instance format table by table. Then argued some more. Eventually I followed the suggestions of the project and changed them all to first instance only. At this point even a successful argument would not really make a difference in the lists themselves as they have been formatted more to meet the Good Article MOS rather than the exception to the rule Table MOS. My opinion on the draft lists and their tables is that they are formatted correctly but still lacking in the more important features like quality opening statements, link verification specifically in regards to individual players (and reduction of red links), and lastly citations and references as I did with the pro bowler sections and the Heisman award. In short I would point out our donated time is better spent on improving rather than arguing MOS. Slysplace talk 12:03, 21 October 2008 (UTC)