a simple internal link within WoWwiki to [["target"]] where "target" is the title of the page such as Argent Crusade - [[Argent Crusade]]. These links may be classed as:
an existing page (no class)
a stub page with the template but very few details - see "Stub Feature" below (class = 'stub')
as a labelled URL World of Warcraft Forums - [http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/ World of Warcraft Forums]
as a reference to the source of information used in a wiki page<ref>"title of page in quotes" - full URL - Author, month year</ref> and include a references heading followed by <references/>. For example:
Example [1] - <ref>"URLs in external links" - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:URL#URLs_in_external_links - Meta Wikimedia, May 2008</ref>
Example [2] - <ref>"Cite" - http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Cite/Cite.php - Media Wiki, April 2009</ref>
The classes enable web pages using CSS to highlight the different types of link using different colours or fonts. This gives the reader a visual means of identifying when a page will take them outside of the wiki, but should not be relied on. See also the Security guide.
Labels
A label enables complex page titles or URLs to be simplified to something more intelligible. There are different ways of allowing the link label and the (eventual) link target to be chosen independently. A label can be specified in case:
internal and intrawiki links, using the exact title of the target page title
internal and intrawiki links, using a label ''target'' ''label'' with a blank space in between
external links, as e.g. Blizzard's | World of Warcraft website - [http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/index.xml | World of Warcraft]
By using a piped link and a redirect, the label, title, and target can all be chosen independently.
Special Characters in URLs
Spaces
For external URLs (Universal Resource Locators), you cannot use the space character " ". For Wiki pages, the blank space can be replaced by an underscore. In general, the space should be replaced with "%20".
Plus sign +
In internal and interwiki link style, a plus sign in a page name is not allowed, the HTML and hence the rendered page just shows the wikitext, e.g. a+b.
In external link style a plus sign in the URL is retained. It is often equivalent to a space.
Lastly, various wiki extensions can provide a mechanism for using an image as a link to a page (see Using the imagelink extension subsection below).
In case 3, links like [ target ] are automatically labelled with serial numbers 1, 2, 3, ...
For link type 1 there is an existence detection feature: it will be a link to the viewing page if the page exists at the time of loading or previewing of the referring page (no class or class='stub'), otherwise to the edit page (class='new').
Hover tooltip links
If you use the {{loot}} template and the article it points to uses the {{tooltip}} template as described by Help:Tooltips, the loot link should show a hover tooltip from the target article when moused over.
An image link extension is implemented on WoWWiki that uses SGML tags to link external pages to from external images. Rustak knows the details of where this came from and how it was installed, but it works well for this case. This extension was kept when WoWWiki transitioned over to be a Wikia site.
NOTE: The order of the target and label are reversed from typical wiki links. Imagelink uses label then target, whereas most wiki links use target then label.
A link in internal link style to an existing internal page will be in class 'stub' iff all the following are true:
the page is in the main namespace
the page is not a redirect
the number of bytes of the wikitext is less than the value of the "threshold for stub display" specified in the preferences
The idea behind this is that such pages are "stubs" which need fixing, or which are less worthwhile to go to. Alternatively, with a higher threshold value, the feature allows indication that a page is large (with a slow connection perhaps a reason not to go to it). However, note that due to the possible inclusion of templates and images, a small wikitext does not necessarily mean a small composite page in terms of amount of information, or amount of bytes to load.
Also, by specifying a very high value as threshold, this feature allows, instead of the intended use of distinction according to size:
distinction according to namespace (in the main namespace or not); however, redirects in the main space are marked "as if in another namespace", regardless of the namespace of the target of the redirect
for links to the main namespace, known from the hoverbox or status bar, an indication of links having a redirect as target
However, linking to a section of what according to this criterion is a stub does not seem to work, except when external link style is used!
When to use an External Link Style to an Internal or Intrawiki page
Reasons to use type 3 to link to an internal page or a page on a sister wiki include:
linking to the edit or talk pages of an existing internal page
linking to an edit page on a sister wiki (including a non-existing page, the link being an invitation or preparation for creating one, just like is common for internal pages)
linking to a page for which internal link style is not possible, such as an old version of a page, a diff of two versions, Recent Changes or Watchlist with parameters, Backlinks page, etc.
A redirect to a section of a page does not go to the section. One can use it anyway as a clarification. At least it works when clicking on the link from the redirect page.
A link that specifies a section of a redirect page corresponds to a link to that section of the target of the redirect.
On some browsers, putting the mouse pointer over a hyperlink will show a hover box with the title attribute in the link anchor in the HTML code. This is the page name (without the possible section indication) in case 1, the page name with prefix in case 2, and the URL in case 3.
This can be switched off in the preferences. The browser may also show similar info, but with the possible section indication, in the adress bar.
Other URL Conversions
In accordance with the rules explained in Help:Page name, some other character conversions are made. This is demonstrated in the following examples:
[[__%20_%70RoJecT %20 : a b : c # d___%20]]
[[__%20_%70RoJekT %20 : a b : c # d___%20]]
[[ wikipedia:__%20_%70RoJecT %20 : a b : c # d___%20]]
nothing is changed (except that when the browser reports the link target, %70 is converted to p).
Note that a project does not keep a record of namespace prefixes or capitalization settings of sister projects, therefore less conversions can take place in an interwiki link than in an internal link.
Apart from linking to the top, one can link to a section, see section linking. If one wants to link to a position that is not suitable for starting a (sub)section, one can not use a HTML element "a" (see Help:HTML in wikitext), but one can make a div tag <div id=".."></div> or add id=".." to the start tag of any existing HTML element. See e.g. the three rank links in wikipedia:Netherlands and their targets.
If, on applying the link, the page name has to be converted, e.g. capitalized, then section linking still works, but the anchor part of the address disappears from the address bar. A consequence is e.g. that one can not conveniently bookmark the URL with anchor, after applying the link.
This is not applicable for internal links, because the conversions have already taken place on Preview or Save of the referring page.
As shown by the examples a#b, wikipedia:a#b, http://a.b#c, giving the link titles a, wikipedia:a, and http://a.b#c, respectively (also for the piped link versions), the anchor is in the title in the external link style, but not in the internal link style and not in the interwiki link style. However, even if the anchor is not in the title and even if the browser does not show the URL in the hover box, the anchor can still be seen in the status bar.
Since the HTML element "a" is disabled when put directly in the wikitext, one can not choose the link target and link title independently. This would be useful e.g. to link the word "inch" to the article "inch", with link title "2.54 cm", so that one gets informed through the hover box even without following the link. A workaround is to link to a page named "2.54 cm", which redirects to "inch".
Subpage feature
Depending on the project, for certain namespaces a subpage feature is enabled. On Wikipedia this is in talk namespaces, and the user and project namespace, on Meta also in the main namespace. The default set in
DefaultSettings.php[1] is:
# which namespaces should support subpages? See Language.php
# for a list of namespaces
# default: only discussion ("talk") namespaces and user pages
# allow subpages
# 0=no subpages, 1=subpages
$wgNamespacesWithSubpages = array(
-1 => 0,
0 => 0,
1 => 1,
2 => 1,
3 => 1,
4 => 0,
5 => 1,
6 => 0,
7 => 1
);
A page with a name of the form A/b is considered a so-called "subpage" of the page A.
From the parent page it can be linked to with simply [[/b]] or the corresponding piped link. In namespaces for which the feature is disabled, the slash is ignored and not displayed. On this project in this namespace (Help) it gives: /b.
At the top of the subpage body a link to the parent page is shown automatically, without any corresponding wikitext. The link shows up even if the page A/b does not exist, provided that the page A exists.
Like most letters of a page name, the first letter after the slash is case-sensitive, A/B and A/b are different.
Subpages can have subpages themselves. Links to the whole hierarchy line of pages from the top is shown on the page.
External links should usually be used for content that cannot be put on WoWWiki. If the information already exists within WoWWiki an internal link should always be used. If the content doesn't exists in WoWWiki, but can exist then there are many factors to consider. For example, if you are linking offsite to mob, quest, or item information that doesn't exist within WoWWiki then that information has less of a chance of getting created. By using an internal link the page has a much higher chance of being created.
Everyone who sees that page will see that the article needs to be created
Many people use the wanted pages list to find out which articles need to be created or browse their favorite pages looking for dead internal links. Using internal links is a great way to help the wiki expand, but not the best solution for the users of WoWWiki. Instead of being able to click on a link and access off site information they now have a dead link with nothing and are forced to go offsite and search for the information.
You can create the article and add the required stub tag. In addition to the stub create a section called External Links and add links to external resources for the page.
Users will now have more choices than before, instead of being forced to use whatever external link the article writer choose they can now select from a list of external links to go to their preffered site.
The page will also be added to the appropriate stub category and anyone expanding it will already have links to the resources to get the information from, this way it can bee seen by contributers as needing expanding on and won't go ignored.
Date format - since this effect applies for every link occurrence independently, a convention to avoid multiple linking to the same page within one page typically does not apply for date links.
To create a link, you must be in edit mode. Begin by highlighting the text you want to link.
Then click on the button on the toolbar. (If you don't see this button, there are other options. See below.)
A window will pop up that gives you two options for linking: an internal link or an external link. Internal links are pages within the wiki (or to another wiki on Wikia). External links are to pages outside of Wikia. Select which one you need.
Enter the target of the link. For an Internal link, enter the name of the page (see "Types of Internal Links" below for more detail). For an external link, enter the full URL (including the "http://" part).
Make sure the text that should display for the link looks correct (it should be displaying the text you highlighted earlier).
Click "OK". Your link will appear!
Types of Internal Links
An internal link is a link that goes from one page on Wikia to another, and can be in any of the following forms:
To link to an article page, just enter the name of the article in the link field.
Example: Season One
To link to a page in a namespace, enter the name both the namespace and the page in the link field, with a colon (":") between them. This should match how the same text appears at the end of that page's URL.
Example: Characters:Joe_Smith
To link to a page on a different wiki, enter "w:c:" followed by the domain of that wiki, followed by the namespace and pagename.
Preview your changes, and Save when you are sure that you are finished.
If your new link is red in the Preview, either that destination does not exist, or you typed it incorrectly. If you click on the red link, you will be asked to create the page.
Updating for Mists of Pandaria
Meta-Wiki HelpIntro for basic MediaWiki usage!
image description page contains a redirect.
preferences. The browser may also show similar info, but with the possible section indication, in the adress bar.
Added by Dr. Ball, M.D.
button on the toolbar. (If you don't see this button, there are other options. See below.)
.jpg)
