User talk:Ramendoctor

Wiki linking

I hardly see any improvement in [1]. Please, either learn WP:Manual of Style/Linking thoroughly, or switch your activity to content creation from present sprinkling of the blue paint into articles edited by tens of competent editors for many years. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 10:51, 23 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I do not wish to appear to be incredibly knowledgeable of this matter, because, quite frankly, I am not. The linking to other pages that I did was not intended to deface or ruin the work of those competent editors, and I certainly admire what they did. Wikipedia, however, is intended to be a source of information, and a handy one at that. Linking to other articles allows the reader to follow those links and thus explore Wikipedia, connecting one concept to another, and more fully accessing the enormous bank of information that is this online encyclopedia. I do not feel that my linking in any way hurt the article, and I believe that, in due time, many curious readers will click those links and read about more interesting topics.

I do, however, concede that linking to "germany" may be a tad bit irrelevant in an article about a chemical element; if you wish to delete that link, then please do. But I added in a few other links, links that I believe are more pertinent and wish you to keep. In the future, I will limit my linking to more germane topics. But, I ask you, what harm did I do?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ramendoctor (talk • contribs) 13:39, 23 July 2013‎

WP:OVERLINK is the guideline on what not to link - if an article has a lot of links scattered through its text, the genuinely useful ones will be less apparent to the reader. Like you say, everyday and tangential concepts like "Germany" shouldn't be linked because the reader is unlikely to want to look them up mid-article. The other thing to bear in mind is repeating links; an article should rarely need to link a term that's already been linked earlier in the article. --McGeddon (talk) 12:50, 23 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I completely agree. I tried to be mindful of duplicate links, but if I slipped in some, I am very sorry. I usually find that, when I read something toward the bottom of the Wikipedia page, there are many fewer links because all the links are closer to the top. Sometimes (and I just found out this is not allowed, sorry) I add links to words or phrases that have been linked before, but are too far down in the article, away from the previous link. Once again, I'm sorry for my over linking. I do admit the geographical locations were a bit much. Thanks for the tip.

Also, aside from the geographical links (once again, my bad haha) I tried to keep the rest of my links chemistry-related: oxidation state, the names of different elements, redox, etc. That way, the reader of the page can quickly open up a link to a helpful page while reading it. I don't feel that those links should have been deleted, am I right? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ramendoctor (talk • contribs) 13:55, 23 July 2013‎

I left oxidation state in there when I reverted your other edits, but let's take a look at the others:-

Germany - "names of major geographic features and locations" per WP:OVERLINK
ions - there actually aren't any other links to the main "ion" page in the article, so this is maybe fair enough in retrospect
caesium - already linked twice earlier in the article
Manitoba and Canada - "major geographic features", again

"Ion" is a common chemistry term so may be redundant per "understood by most readers in context" of WP:OVERLINK. But given that the article already links "air" and "atom", it seems fair enough. I'll put a link back around "ions". --McGeddon (talk) 13:22, 23 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Too far down in the article… yes, now you understood something. But you still miss the point of specificity. You should not discreet potential links between chemistry-related and not so. You should discreet between near and specific on the positive side and distant and unspecific on the negative. Look at the example with a mine in Canada. A reader interested in rubidium can also be interested in mines where it is extracted. But s/he unlikely will jump to Canada from the article, and in any case links to the country and province are present at Tanco Mine, where they are (semantically) nearer. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 13:36, 23 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I totally agree. Once again, I apologize for that. I now know what to link and I'm really sorry if it caused some trouble for you. I'm one of those people who goes on wikipedia for hours on end, linking from one page to the next. To me, the more links, the better. Sorry for not realizing that was not part of the policy. I still believe links are helpful, but you're right, they are only helpful if they are pertinent. I'll keep them pertinent from now on. Don't you worry. (Eh... sorry about this but I edited a bunch of pages yesterday, and I may have linked to countries on one more of them... maybe Silicon. I'll check and see if I can fix it if someone else hasn't already.) But yeah, to me, this is what a helpful link is:

1) one that talks about something the reader may be interested in upon reading 2) one that is not so close to another link to the same page that it can be viewed on the same screen

So, theoretically, if there's a link at the VERY top of the page, then I think there should be one at the middle or bottom of the page too. It's just easier that way. Other than that I agree fully with the guidelines.

You are awesome. It's one thing to uphold the rules, but it's another to do so with the reader in mind, as you do. Once again, I realize how silly it was to link such stupid things as geographic areas. I didn't realize caesium was already linked twice... normally I'm more careful than that. As for "ions," I figured that they were fair game since "air" was linked before, as you mentioned. Trust me, I actually use decent discretion in what I link and what I do not. I tend normally to link chemistry terms that a layman may not understand (for example, "redox" in a page on sodium, which I assume is a pretty well-visited page and thus will not only be viewed by chemists) and other chemical elements (if previously unlinked). There are some fluke links, and I take full responsibility for the problems they caused. I really did not mean at all to come off as haphazardly "sprinkling blue paint" as I was accused of before. I only wanted to be useful. If I have your permission, I would like to continue to spruce up the chemical elements' pages, which I find to be very inconsistent. (For example, the word "isotope" appears on virtually ever page but was only linked in half of the pages I inspected. I proceeded to link the first "isotope" I saw in any that did not contain the link.) But I will exercise more restraint than what I did before. Is that ok? Thanks for the help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ramendoctor (talk • contribs) 13:33, 23 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]