Wikipedia:Piped link
From Free net encyclopedia
{{{1{{{1|}}}|
A piped link is a link where the hyperlinked (underlined, clickable) text displayed on a Wikipedia page is different from the title of the article to which the text links.
For example, [[Train station|station]] displays as station, but links to the Train station wiki page.
Piped links are useful for preserving the grammatical structure and flow of a sentence when:
1) the wording of the exact link title does not fit in context, or
2) there are multiple meanings of the word (see "Mercury" example on the Disambiguation page).
- To create the pipe ("|") character press (SHIFT + BACKSLASH) on English-layout and other keyboards.
For full details on how to use this feature, see m:Help:Piped link.
Do not use piped links to create "easter egg links", that require the reader to follow them before understanding what's going on.
For example, do not write this:
- ...and by mid-century the puns and sexual humor were (with only a few [[Thomas Bowdler|exceptions]]) back in to stay.
The readers will not understand the hidden reference to Thomas Bowdler unless they click on the piped exceptions link — in a print version, there is no link to select, and the reference is lost.
Instead, reference the article explicitly:
- ...and by mid-century the puns and sexual humor were (with only a few exceptions; ''see'' [[Thomas Bowdler]]) back in to stay.
In the case of a category link, a piped link serves to sort the article alphabetically within the category. For example, to place Albert Einstein in Category:Physicists, you can link the article to [[Category:Physicists|Einstein, Albert]], and the category will then alphabetize him under Einstein rather than Albert.
Please note that links to "year-in-x" articles (such as 2003 in film) should be labeled accordingly, and not with just the year. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers), Wikipedia:WikiProject Music standards, Wikipedia talk:Music standards archive 1 and Talk:Bad Religion for discussion and further details on this.