The Wandering Inn Wiki:Chapter Linking

From The Wandering Inn Wiki

There has been discussion and contention about when and where to link chapters directly to their pages on the TWI Website or their wiki pages.

It has been brought up that some of our readers prefer a link to the chapter itself. However, the Wiki should also have its chapter wiki articles easily accessible as they do contain valuable summary information about each chapter that a reader may find useful. We should decide which link to use, in each scenario, depending on what brings more value to our readers.

Please use comments to discuss the issue, the policy proposal, and vote!

Policy Proposal[edit | edit source]

The following items should link to the direct chapter:

  • References and citations link to the direct chapter.
  • Character Quotes link to the direct chapter.

The following items should link to the chapter's wiki page:

  • Chapter Appearances
  • First Appearance in a character's infobox
  • Leveling History for each character

For exceptional circumstances outside of the above situations, it is understood that editors will proceed with common sense and choose the option that will bring more informative value and make more sense to a reader.

Proposal Polling[edit | edit source]

If the majority of the polling results are against the proposed policy, we will rework the policy and then poll the community once more, until a majority consensus is reached. The first poll will run for one (1) week and will end on January 23, 2024.

Poll Results[edit | edit source]

Chapter Linking Poll Results.png
Torenity
Results are In
Torenity | Posted on Jan 26, 2024 at 5:47 am

See the post, a little late with closing the poll but the majority votes remained.

I'll add these into the Help:Policies/Style Guide under the linking section this weekend.

AxelTerizaki
Wiki pages should be the reference
Axel Terizaki | Posted on Jan 15, 2024 at 1:08 pm | Last edited on Jan 15, 2024 at 1:08 pm

I voted for wiki pages for several reasons.

  • If pirateaba changes from wordpress to another content management system or changes URLs somehow, we'll need to change links in all pages. The ReplaceText extension can help us but it's still far from ideal.
  • On wikipedia, you don't reference works by their URLs on individual pages. Instead they always refer to the pages on Wikipedia first. The page on Wikipedia for something holds the only link to the actual content (official site for example.) I think we should follow their model.
  • People clicking on the link for reference will have access to the information on the wiki first. if they want to see the chapter itself and search for the reference, it's one click away. Maybe make the chapter link more visible like "Read the actual chapter here."

Of course, this is up for debate :)

Ayutac
Ayutac | Posted on Jan 15, 2024 at 5:07 pm

I cant vote because I think it depends on the context. References should always be to the actual chapters. And we wouldn't need to replace much if we use the chl template everywhere.

AxelTerizaki
Axel Terizaki | Posted on Jan 15, 2024 at 5:26 pm

That's true, I forgot about the template. This eases things.

Can you explicit why references should always be to actual chapters? I admit references as they work in Wikipedia are like that so what you say makes sense but I feel like it's a bit of a shame if people can't properly land on chapter pages from such links. It would make an intermediate page between the reference and the actual chapter.

Torenity
Torenity | Posted on Jan 15, 2024 at 8:03 pm

I agree with Ayutac, these should be split up into the various scenarios/context linking occurs.

  • References should point to the actual website, because references cite the original source on principal. And it's what people should expect when clicking on a reference citation, to go to the actual chapter.
  • The Chapter Appearances for each Character: I think those are the ideal spot to have wiki-page links.
  • First Appearance on a character's infobox page... can be wiki-page links too, why not?

For the most part, I believe everything but Reference citations can reasonably point to the chapter's wiki page.

When we agree on this policy, we can lay out all the usual linking contexts. And for edge cases where it isn't as clear, we can point to asking the wiki community or have a common sense clause "For occasional exception to the above situations, proceed with common sense as needed".

AxelTerizaki
Axel Terizaki | Posted on Jan 15, 2024 at 8:26 pm

Feel free to edit the poll then to add the different options, perhaps?

Or if we can agree on something without a poll, it'd be cool. What you suggest seems good and clear to me.

Ayutac
Ayutac | Posted on Jan 15, 2024 at 10:50 pm

I would move quotes to references

Torenity
Torenity | Posted on Jan 15, 2024 at 11:54 pm

Updated, Quotes and References are now in the "Link to direct TWI website" half of the policy. No one has voted yet, so I thought it safe to update.

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