What is a wiki link
editLet's first start with what an internet link is.
An internet link connects one page to another page. For example, the following link connects this page to the google home page. Click on it
Did you find your way back here?
A wikilink is a link that connects you from one page on wikipedia, to another page on wikipedia.
For example, the following link connects you to the page about the Yangtze giant softshell turtle. Did you click on it?
How to make a wikilink
editMost computer codes are complicated, but wiki codes are quite easy. One of the simpliest wikicodes is the wikilink.
A wiki link just has two brackets. Brackets look like this: [[ ]].
When you go to a wikipedia page, you cannot see the brackets because they are hidden inside the computer code.
For example, look at the following sentence. It has wikilinks, but you can't see the brackets, you just see the wikilinks. Click on any of the words with wikilinks and you will be sent to a new wikipedia page:
The species became known to the Western science in 1873, when John Edward Gray, the turtle expert at the British Museum, described the specimen sent to him from Shanghai by Robert Swinhoe.
Below you can see the same sentence with the visible wikilinks.
The species became known to Western science in 1873, when [[John Edward Gray]], the turtle expert at the [[British Museum]], described the specimen sent to him from [[Shanghai]] by [[Robert Swinhoe]].
Where to put your wikilinks
editWikilinks should be placed around important words in your article. Readers of your article can then click on those links to learn more information about those subjects.
For example, read this sentence in the article about the Yangtze giant softshell turtle
The Yangtze giant softshell turtle has been known to inhabit the Yangtze River and Lake Taihu, situated on the border of Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces.
Which words look important? Which subject would readers want to read more about? Did you pick these ones?
Yangtze River, Lake Taihu, Jiangsu and Zhejiang
The name Yangtze giant softshell turtle (Rafetus swinhoei) is important, but it is the title of the article, so we don't need to create a wikilink for it. If we created a link to it, the link would send you back to the same page. Why would you want to do that? We just need wikilinks that connect to other articles.
But there are some other important words that we could create wikilinks to because people might want to learn more about these subjects.
Now we just need to put brackets around each word that we want to create. Your page will look like this:
The Yangtze giant softshell turtle has been known to inhabit the [[Yangtze River]] and [[Lake Taihu]], situated on the border of [[Jiangsu]] and [[Zhejiang]] Provinces.
When you press save, your sentence will now look like this:
The Yangtze giant softshell turtle has been known to inhabit the Yangtze River and Lake Taihu, situated on the border of Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces.
Practice!
editNow it is time for you to practice.
Below is the word "edit me." Next to it is a link that says "edit."
Copy the sentence below, press on the "edit" link. This will open up an edit box. Paste the sentence into the edit box and add links. Press save and see if the links work.
Copy this: The Yangtze giant softshell turtle has been known to inhabit the Yangtze River and Lake Taihu, situated on the border of Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces.
Edit me
editThe Yangtze giant softshell turtle has been known to inhabit the Yangtze River and Lake Taihu, situated on the border of Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces.
Did your link not work?
editIt is common to make a mistake, so don't worry. Just check and see if you can fix it. The most common mistake is forgetting to include enough brackets.
For example, if you wanted to create a link to the article about turtles, but you only put one set of brackets, instead of two, your link would look like this:
[turtle]
That doesn't send you anywhere.
Or maybe you forgot only one bracket, like this:
[turtle]]
Again, this doesn't create a link.
To fix this, just make sure there are two brackets in the front and the back of the word you want to link to, and it will look like this: