Forum:CT Archive/Linking to colors

This consensus track concerns whether we should link to colors.

At present, we have several articles on colors which function as disambiguation pages. They direct the reader to a variety of articles that have the particular color in its title. A recent trend has developed among some users to link any occurrence of a color to these disambiguation pages. I think we should stop this practice.

First, these color articles are disambig pages. The disambig template specifically says:
 * If an article link referred you here, you might want to go back and fix it to point directly to the intended page.

Therefore, there is a logical inconsistency in linking there. Second, I fail to see how linking to a color aids the reader of the encyclopedia in any way. A color is a color. It has no different meaning in Star Wars than in the real world. Therefore, the reader gains nothing by the link to it.

If this CT succeeds, it would be a simple task to get a bot to remove the links so there will be no great effort needed on the part of Wookieepedians. If, and this is a big if, there is a color I am unaware of that is unique to the Star Wars universe, I would be happy to link to that, but we could cross that bridge if we come to it.

As usual, please do not start any new voting options without first discussing.

[EDIT] To clarify, as there seems to have been some confusion, this CT will not involve deleting the color disambig pages from the Wook, just ceasing to link to the disambiguation pages (as is our current Disambig policy as quoted above). --Eyrezer 06:41, May 16, 2010 (UTC)

Don't link to color disambiguation pages

 * 1) --Eyrezer 10:32, May 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) Lord Hydronium 10:34, May 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) CFS. Thefourdotelipsis 10:50, May 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) I was thinking about this not one week ago. SoresuMakashi ( Everything I tell you is a lie  the truth  ) 11:00, May 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * 5) Imperialles 11:18, May 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * 6) The mother of redundancy. -- 1358  (Talk) 11:19, May 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * 7) --Skippy Farlstendoiro 11:28, May 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * 8) A reasonable idea, but I have mixed feelings about it given the effort I've put into making color disambigs utterly ridiculous. -- Darth Culator  (Talk) 12:11, May 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * 9) I'd only been doing it because I saw other colors were linked. -  JMAS  Jolly Trooper.png Hey, it's me! 12:31, May 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * 10) I've stopped anyway. Xicer9 [[Image:atgar.svg|20px]]( Combadge) 14:17, May 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * 11) I want to see the colors unique to Star Wars, throw my perception of reality into question and all that.  NAYAYEN : TALK 16:16, May 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * 12) Per Soresu and Xd. &mdash;Master Jonathan(Jedi Council Chambers) 17:28, May 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * 13) There's no reason to link to a disambig and every reason not to. Havac 21:25, May 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * 14) Same thing as JMAS. QuiGonJinn  Senate seal.svg(Talk) 21:02, May 15, 2010 (UTC)
 * Oo, I've been waiting for someone to start a CT about this. I'm not sure why this trend started, but I'd like to see it stop. ~ SavageBob 06:09, May 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Now that I actually understand what the CT is about, then I vote to stop linking to 'em. I thought we were gonna get rid of the disambigs at first.  Trak Nar  Ramble on 06:39, May 16, 2010 (UTC)

Do link to color disambiguation pages

 * 1) What's the big deal? If people want to link to something and it's generally useful, let them link to it. There are some people on this wiki who forget that just because you write an article doesn't mean you own it. Toprawa and Ralltiir 17:15, May 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) Strong per Tope.  Chack Jadson  (Talk) 19:16, May 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) How ridiculously petty. Graestan ( Talk ) 19:19, May 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) Sure, linking to colors in articles really isn't a necessity, but I don't see why it's a big deal. I do recall a CT not so long ago, wherein we decided that people could source single-source articles if they wanted to&mdash;even though it clearly wasn't necessary, as sourcing a single-source article is obviously redundant&mdash;simply because people wanted to. It's basically the same situation&mdash;if people want to link colors, why shouldn't we let them? So, per Tope and Grae. Jonjedigrandmaster  ( Talk ) 21:34, May 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * 5) Do we really have nothing better to worry about? Per Graestan. —Tommy 9281 22:56, May 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * 6) —Xwing328 (Talk) 04:12, May 15, 2010 (UTC)
 * 7)  JangFett  (Talk) 06:42, May 15, 2010 (UTC)
 * 8) * If we don't link to green, then where else would we be able to use the awesome quote from Colors and Shapes? It would only exist on a userpage, and we can't have that!  Trak Nar  Ramble on 06:44, May 15, 2010 (UTC)
 * 9) Per Jon. If it doesn't hurt, why not?--Bella&#39;Mia 07:01, May 15, 2010 (UTC)
 * 10) Per Graestan and Tommy. Grunny  ( talk ) 07:47, May 15, 2010 (UTC)
 * 11) Meh. Doubt I'll ever bother to link to one, but I really don't mind if others want to. Green Tentacle (Talk) 16:25, May 15, 2010 (UTC)
 * 12) Jedi Kasra (comlink) 21:03, May 15, 2010 (UTC)
 * 13) Per all above.  CC7567  (talk) 06:11, May 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * 14) We link to everything else even if it's not terribly relevant to an article, why not the colors? It's not like users actually need a link to blood or death or male and female in every article that mentions them, but we do it for consistency. Same here. If the disambig tags are confusing, take them off the articles; strictly speaking, the color pages aren't really don't need to be disambigs anyway, since they can describe and define the color, and only after that link to a slew of related terms. EDIT: Okay, so apparently I misremembered how some of those pages looked. Still, with a little editing, the articles don't have to be strict disambigs. jSarek 06:36, May 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * 15) I fail to see why we need to codify one way or the other about something as trivial as this. Frankly, I'm voting against laziness on this one. It really isn't hard to link to an article. &mdash; Fiolli  {Alpheridies University ComNet} 15:18, May 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * 16) If you don't link to them, you effectively turn them into orphans. It's just good organization to have things arranged by color. --  Riffsyphon  1024 19:54, May 17, 2010 (UTC)

Discussion
Trying to stick just to substantive discussion, what I differ on with you Tope is what these links are "generally useful". That may be a difference of opinion, and that's fine. That is part of what CT's are for. Grae, I don't see how calling it "ridiculously petty" adds anything constructive to the topic. --Eyrezer 23:18, May 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * To answer Jon's question, I'll explain why this is different from allowing people to place citations in single-source article. Citations in that case are not obtrusive, they're only redundant, and in the case that the given topic gets another mention somewhere it's already got the sourcing infrastructure. Which is objectively helpful. Linking to a disambig is objectively unhelpful. It's sloppy, considering that the disambiguation template itself says that these pages shouldn't be linked to, and more importantly, links are there to provide the reader with instantaneous access to directly relevant further reading. Every other link does this, except those links to colours. That's not helpful to the reader in any way shape or form. It's just a waste of time for everyone involved. Thefourdotelipsis 06:36, May 15, 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with Fourdot. When a reader sees a blue link, they assume that there's a useful article on the other side of it. Disambiguation pages are useful for helping someone who's lost, but they're not all that useful for providing Star Wars information. In other words, there's lots to be gained from linking to Green Squadron when discussing Jake Farrell, but little to be gained from linking to green (disambiguation) when discussing the color of a Lizard Warrior's scales. (And I'm not sure what the subtext of this CT is that people are being called petty and whatnot; I legitimately think disambig links in general are not helpful, and have voted for that reason alone.) ~ SavageBob 06:18, May 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * Just out of curiosity, if this CT results in no consensus, (which it appears it will) what happens? Will linking to color pages be enforced requirements for articles, or will it just be kind of a "if you think of it, do it, but if not, somebody else can do it if they really want to" kind of thing? Because these are not normal links (they're disambigs), and because linking to these pages isn't currently any kind of a requirement (seems more like a trend) would it be up to the editor to add, and not formally enforced or forbidden? I honestly don't care one way or another, but I'm just wondering. Darth Trayus ( Trayus Academy ) 06:29, May 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * Totally agreed (with Fourdot and Bob). Disambigs are for helping lost people. Linking directly to a "You may be looking for X, Y, or Z" page is absurd, since they're not looking for any of those. If we just want to link to things that are useful and may be of general interest, but are irrelevant to the article, we might as well stick pipelinks to our policies all over article intros. Or start pipelinking categories. If you're getting linked to a page, you assume that you're being given a destination, not going out sightseeing on a Sunday drive. That's totally unlike sourcing one-source articles, which is redundant but directly practical. Havac 06:35, May 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * And to reply to Trayus, whose comment wasn't here when I started: the default policy is not to link to disambigs. So under no consensus, we ought to default to not linking disambigs, which would exclude colors. That would be the logical result. Havac 06:39, May 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * Personally, I'd be happy with a "no one can object to a nom because it doesn't link to colors". --Eyrezer 22:08, May 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * They can't do that from before, really. :P --Imperialles 22:10, May 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * Btw, Eyrezer. Didn't you start the purple page? --  Riffsyphon  1024 19:57, May 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * The existence of diambigs isn't being debated, but whether the use of a word in text, outside the context of any of the items being disambiguated, should be linked to them. We don't link any use of the word "allegiance" to Allegiance, for example, because it's utterly useless and defeats the whole purpose of links as being informative. - Lord Hydronium 20:02, May 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * Riff, they are disamgibuation pages. They are meant to be orphans! --Eyrezer 20:59, May 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * What I'm seeing in the "Do link" votes are three themes: 1) What's the harm in linking to disambigs? A variant of this is that this vote is "petty" or "trivial." 2) Not linking them is lazy. 3) Not linking to them makes them orphans.
 * To 1, the harm is that linking to a disambig reduces an article's usefulness. Our users should be whom this vote is aimed to help, and linking to a long list of random articles is not helpful to them. A blue link is supposed to mean something, otherwise it's just an impediment to comprehension. Seas of blue links interrupt the flow of the page and actually slow down comprehension. This is why boldface and italics are supposed to be used sparingly and for emphasis in graphic design and publishing. Colors are similar. This gets to JSarek's point, in that in reality, I would argue that we should not be linking to anything that can be linked. We should be linking only to terms that are of immediate pertinence to the article's subject. But disambigs are even worse than that, becuase they don't go anywhere. They go to a long, confusing list. They are there for people who enter something into a search box as signposts, not for people who have already reached an article.
 * To 2, there's nothing lazy about it. In fact, the inclination to link to everything without considering whether it's a useful link or not is the lazy part. We currently have a lazy policy in that we link to pretty much anything that can be linked. It takes more effort to make a decision on a link.
 * And to 3, disambiguation pages are supposed to be orphans. They are found by using the "search" function, and that is how they are supposed to be found.
 * That's why we should avoid linking to these pages from articles, and why I am not convinced by the people voting for the second option. ~ SavageBob 22:09, May 17, 2010 (UTC)