Wikipedia talk:Links to minor subjects

I'm not annoyed with this, not in the least. Ok, if Oola would be linked to from a zillion pages as a "See also" link, yes, that would be annoying. But if you wanted to say something like

Jerry Seinfeld could've played parts as important as Oola (you know, the Star Wars main character), were he not discovered by Margaret Thatcher.

then you can bet your life I would crave for that Oola link! :-D --Gutza 01:27 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It sounds like you're agreeing with me - links should only be made where they're highly relevant. :-) Evercat 01:29 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

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Shouldn't this be merged with Wikipedia:make only links where relevant (?) and Wikipedia:Build the web (?) and moved somewhere more memorable like Wikipedia:link? We seem to be duplicating effort here... Martin 13:10 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia:make links only where relevant appears not to exist yet. It should. I am going to remove the Idealist Press International link from List of American companies in accordance with the evolving standard, as it's an American company, just not important enough to be included in this list. --Daniel C. Boyer 19:32 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I see this has already been done. Apologies. --Daniel C. Boyer 19:33 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It does, I just got the name wrong. Martin

Hmm, possibly these 2 pages could be merged. But what I'm really complaining about is stuff like "See also: Yoism" in an article where such a link is really not useful but rather a sort of internal spamming. Whereas the page above is complaining about "unnecessary links like this" - not the same thing. Evercat 01:47 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Links to minor pages

Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump on Saturday, August 2nd, 02003.

I was thinking, in regard to pages like Yoism, Idealist Press International, Ltd., and so on, that in cases of pages on (really) minor subjects, the pages themselves can be perfectly fine but links to them from major articles are what's really irritating.

I was wondering if this was enshrined in policy somewhere - by all means, create pages on minor subjects (though really, really minor ones may be deleted anyway) but avoid the temptation to link to them in such a way that they seem very important.

If it's not an official policy, it should be. :-) How about Wikipedia:Links to minor subjects? Evercat 01:01 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

This was kind of implied by the extended discussion of the wikipedia:neutral point of view policy that we nailed down (so long ago, it seems). However, making the point explicit can't hurt.

On this topic, there's been some mention of the "1000-person" or "5000-person" guideline for article inclusion (on the idea that if it's of relevance to less than that many people, we can't really write an article about it). Is this mentioned anywhere on the Wikipedia yet? It's an interesting idea, and it would be nice to have guidelines for "too obscure to be on Wikipedia.". Some refinement would obviously be in order though... --Robert Merkel 04:46 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I threw out the idea a while back to see if it would stick, apparently it has. :-) I think I've pondered enough to write up a page now, I just hate to use up my precious article-writing time on meta-pages, and been putting it off. Stan 14:55 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I'm not sure I like this idea -- I think there are plenty of encyclopedic things known by fewer than 1000 people. For example, a lot of historical information in relatively obscure fields might fall into this category, or even some of the math pages on more specialized topics of which perhaps only 500 or so researchers in that particular field would be aware. I don't see any reason these sorts of things shouldn't go in an encyclopedia though. --Delirium 00:48 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Wasn't it 1000 people affected rather than know about it? That would cover the obscure historical facts, most of which (I assume) affected at least that number. Where it leaves pure maths though is a problem. :-) Evercat 00:52 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Oola no longer a relevant example

Oola is no longer a relevant example for this page - it's now a redirect that points to Minor characters in Star Wars. Kevyn 06:45, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Actually, it's now a page on a town in Ireland, with a dab link to the minor Star Wars page. zoney ♣ talk 19:23, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Removed from page, another similar example may be needed:

For example, take the page Oola, which describes a fictional character from Star Wars so minor it is unlikely even devoted fans know her name. However, it is linked to from only one page, which gives a list of characters, even minor ones. As such, the link is perfectly appropriate. What would not be appropriate would be gratuitously linking to the page from articles where it would be by far the least important link.

To clarify, it is not the act of linking itself that is questionable, but rather the inclusion of relatively trivial information. If there was a page where mention of the character of Oola was relevant, then of course a link should exist (rather than an unlinked mention of her).