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	<id>https://wiki.tachyony.co.uk/w/index.php?action=history&amp;feed=atom&amp;title=Wp%3Apiped_link</id>
	<title>Wp:piped link - Revision history</title>
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	<updated>2026-05-15T15:16:02Z</updated>
	<subtitle>Revision history for this page on the wiki</subtitle>
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	<entry>
		<id>https://wiki.tachyony.co.uk/w/index.php?title=Wp:piped_link&amp;diff=10180&amp;oldid=prev</id>
		<title>Tachyony: Imported page</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://wiki.tachyony.co.uk/w/index.php?title=Wp:piped_link&amp;diff=10180&amp;oldid=prev"/>
		<updated>2022-01-22T03:41:41Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Imported page&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;New page&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div&gt;{{About||the use of piping on disambiguation pages|Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages#Piping and redirects|the pipe trick in links (such as &amp;lt;nowiki&amp;gt;[[Wikipedia:Example|]]&amp;lt;/nowiki&amp;gt;|Help:Pipe trick}}&lt;br /&gt;
{{See also|Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking#Piped links}}&lt;br /&gt;
{{Wikipedia how-to|WP:PIPE|WP:PIPELINK}}&lt;br /&gt;
{{Linking and page manipulation|Linking and diffs}}&lt;br /&gt;
A &amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039;piped link&amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039; is an internal [[WP:Links|link]] that displays text that is different from the title of the page to which the text links. It is created with [[WP:Wikitext|wikitext]] that results in [[hyperlink|hyperlinked]] (underlined, clickable) text. For example, the wikitext &amp;lt;code&amp;gt;&amp;lt;nowiki&amp;gt;[[train station|station]]&amp;lt;/nowiki&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/code&amp;gt; displays as [[train station|station]] but links to the Wikipedia article about [[train station]]s.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[[WP:Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages#Piping and redirects|Do not confuse piped links and redirects]]: they are two very different mechanisms. Both allow the displayed text of a link to differ from the title of the final destination page (the page that a reader will see after clicking that link). However, a piped link conceals the destination page&amp;#039;s title &amp;#039;&amp;#039;only&amp;#039;&amp;#039; in that single line on the single page where its wikitext is used, while on any page throughout Wikipedia any link, piped or not, to a specific redirect page will always lead to the same destination page.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Use==&lt;br /&gt;
{{Main|Help:Piped link}}&lt;br /&gt;
{{see also|Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking#Piped links}}&lt;br /&gt;
Piped links are useful for preserving the grammatical structure and flow of a sentence when:&lt;br /&gt;
#the wording of the exact link title does not fit in context, or&lt;br /&gt;
#there are multiple meanings of the word (see &amp;quot;[[Mercury]]&amp;quot; example on the [[WP:Disambiguation|Disambiguation]] page).&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
To create the pipe (&amp;quot;&amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039;|&amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;quot;) character (also known as a [[vertical bar]]), you may press ({{key top|Shift}} + {{key top|Backslash}}) on English-layout keyboards. On Spanish keyboards, the pipe character can be obtained by pressing ({{key top|AltGr}}+{{key top|1}}). More simply, note that the pipe character is the third character that appears in the &amp;quot;wiki markup&amp;quot; section of symbols at the bottom of the symbol page that appears in &amp;quot;edit this page&amp;quot; mode. Clicking on the pipe symbol &amp;#039;&amp;#039;there&amp;#039;&amp;#039; inserts it at the cursor spot, just as happens for any symbol chosen from this page. For full details on how to use this feature, see &amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039;[[Help:Piped link]]&amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039;.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==When not to use==&lt;br /&gt;
{{Shortcut|WP:NOPIPE|WP:NOPIPEDLINK}}&lt;br /&gt;
{{Anchor|NOT}}&amp;lt;!-- for quick access via [[WP:PIPE#NOT]] --&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
{{Redirect|WP:NOPIPE|the Manual of Style guideline|MOS:NOPIPE}}&lt;br /&gt;
First of all, keep links as simple as possible:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
*Avoid making links longer than necessary:&lt;br /&gt;
{{block indent|&lt;br /&gt;
{{xmark|15}} &amp;lt;code&amp;gt;{{!mxt|&amp;lt;nowiki&amp;gt;[[George Washington|President George Washington]]&amp;lt;/nowiki&amp;gt;}}&amp;lt;/code&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
{{tick|15}} &amp;lt;code&amp;gt;{{mxt|&amp;lt;nowiki&amp;gt;President [[George Washington]]&amp;lt;/nowiki&amp;gt;}}&amp;lt;/code&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
}}&lt;br /&gt;
*It is generally not good practice to pipe links simply [[Wikipedia:Redirect#Do not &amp;quot;fix&amp;quot; links to redirects that are not broken|to avoid redirects]]:&lt;br /&gt;
{{block indent|&lt;br /&gt;
{{xmark|15}} &amp;lt;code&amp;gt;{{!mxt|&amp;lt;nowiki&amp;gt;[[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart]]&amp;lt;/nowiki&amp;gt;}}&amp;lt;/code&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
{{tick|15}} &amp;lt;code&amp;gt;{{mxt|&amp;lt;nowiki&amp;gt;[[Mozart]]&amp;lt;/nowiki&amp;gt;}}&amp;lt;/code&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
}}&lt;br /&gt;
:Unnecessary piping makes the [[Help:Wikitext|wikitext]] harder to read. Furthermore, the number of links to a redirect page can be a useful gauge of when it would be helpful to spin off a subtopic of an article into its own page, and such links would also continue to work correctly after the spin-off. For example: &amp;lt;code&amp;gt;&amp;lt;nowiki&amp;gt;[[Leningrad]]&amp;lt;/nowiki&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/code&amp;gt; currently redirects to [[Saint Petersburg]], but one day it could be decided to spin off a dedicated article about the old city of Leningrad; when that happens, all existing links &amp;lt;code&amp;gt;&amp;lt;nowiki&amp;gt;[[Leningrad]]&amp;lt;/nowiki&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/code&amp;gt; will automatically point to the correct article, while the unnecessarily piped ones &amp;lt;code&amp;gt;&amp;lt;nowiki&amp;gt;[[Saint Petersburg|Leningrad]]&amp;lt;/nowiki&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/code&amp;gt; will not.&lt;br /&gt;
*Given the option to pipe a link or to &amp;quot;blend&amp;quot; an [[affix]], preferred style is to use a blended affix:&lt;br /&gt;
{{block indent|&lt;br /&gt;
{{xmark|15}} &amp;lt;code&amp;gt;{{!mxt|&amp;lt;nowiki&amp;gt;[[public transport|public transportation]]&amp;lt;/nowiki&amp;gt;}}&amp;lt;/code&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
{{tick|15}} &amp;lt;code&amp;gt;{{mxt|&amp;lt;nowiki&amp;gt;[[public transport]]ation&amp;lt;/nowiki&amp;gt;}}&amp;lt;/code&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
}}&lt;br /&gt;
*Never use piped links to convert the first letter to lower case:&lt;br /&gt;
{{block indent|&lt;br /&gt;
{{xmark|15}} &amp;lt;code&amp;gt;{{!mxt|&amp;lt;nowiki&amp;gt;[[Public transport|public transport]]&amp;lt;/nowiki&amp;gt;}}&amp;lt;/code&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
{{tick|15}} &amp;lt;code&amp;gt;{{mxt|&amp;lt;nowiki&amp;gt;[[public transport]]&amp;lt;/nowiki&amp;gt;}}&amp;lt;/code&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
}}&lt;br /&gt;
:Both display identically as [[public transport]]. The first letter of a page title (after the namespace prefix) is never case-sensitive.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
{{Anchor|EGG}} &amp;lt;!-- Please keep the span tag *above* the header, as it allows the shortcut to work properly --&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Transparency==&lt;br /&gt;
{{redirect|WP:EASTEREGG|text=You may also be looking for [[MOS:EGG]]}}&lt;br /&gt;
{{Anchor|Intuitiveness}}&lt;br /&gt;
[[File:Adventkalender AR.jpg|thumb|200px|Wikipedia is not an [[Advent calendar]], so don&amp;#039;t tease the reader.]]&lt;br /&gt;
{{Shortcut|WP:EASTEREGG|WP:EASTER|WP:RICKROLL}}&lt;br /&gt;
Keep piped links as transparent as possible. Do not use piped links to create &amp;quot;[[Easter egg (media)|Easter egg]]&amp;quot; links that require the reader to open them before understanding what&amp;#039;s going on. Wikipedia is not an [[Advent calendar]]. Also remember there are people who print the articles. For example, do not write this:&lt;br /&gt;
:{{!xt|...and by mid-century the puns and sexual humor were (with only a few &amp;lt;nowiki&amp;gt;[[Thomas Bowdler|exceptions]]&amp;lt;/nowiki&amp;gt;) back in to stay.}}&lt;br /&gt;
The readers will not see the hidden reference to [[Thomas Bowdler]] unless they click or hover over the piped [[Thomas Bowdler|exceptions]] link. In a print version, there is no link to select, and the reference is lost. Instead, reference the article explicitly:&lt;br /&gt;
:{{xt|...and by mid-century the puns and sexual humor were (with only a few exceptions, such as &amp;lt;nowiki&amp;gt;[[Thomas Bowdler]]&amp;lt;/nowiki&amp;gt;) back in to stay.}}&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Similarly, instead of:&lt;br /&gt;
:{{!xt|After an [[1944 Bombay explosion|earlier disaster]]...}}&lt;br /&gt;
consider:&lt;br /&gt;
:{{xt|After an earlier disaster, the [[1944 Bombay explosion]], ...}}&lt;br /&gt;
or simply:&lt;br /&gt;
:{{xt|After the [[1944 Bombay explosion]], ...}}&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
It will occasionally be useful to link to a fuller explanation of a phrase; when this is done, link the phrase, not a single word.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If Pontiac&amp;#039;s War is defined as having been&lt;br /&gt;
:a war launched in 1763 by a loose confederation of elements of Native American tribes,&lt;br /&gt;
and there is no space for further explanation in that context (this is a quote from the lead of the article), then some readers will value a link to a description of the confederation. This should &amp;#039;&amp;#039;not&amp;#039;&amp;#039; be linked from the word confederation; the link in the following phrase:&lt;br /&gt;
:{{!xt|a war launched in 1763 by a loose [[Pontiac&amp;#039;s Rebellion#Origins|confederation]] of elements of Native American tribes}}&lt;br /&gt;
looks like a link to the article [[Confederation]]. At a minimum, link something that wouldn&amp;#039;t be the title of an article under [[WP:Article titles|our article title conventions]]:&lt;br /&gt;
:{{xt|a war launched in 1763 by a [[Pontiac&amp;#039;s Rebellion#Origins|loose confederation of elements]] of Native American tribes&amp;#039;&amp;#039;.}}&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Further, it is inappropriate to contain veiled and uncited interpretations of fiction through piped links, as in this excerpt from the [[The Iron Dream]] article, which contained over 30 interpretations hidden in links:&lt;br /&gt;
:{{!xt|The pure and strong young [[breeding true|&amp;quot;Trueman&amp;quot;]] (so named for the lack of mutations in his [[DNA]]) Feric Jaggar returns from the outlands of [[Austria|Borgravia]] where his family was exiled by the [[Treaty of Versailles|Treaty of Karmak]] with the [[Allies of World War I|surrounding mutant states]] to his ancestral land of [[Germany|Helder]] (&amp;quot;the High Republic of Heldon&amp;quot;; founded on the principles of killing mutants and keeping humanity pure), only to find its rigor slackened and corrupted by the &amp;quot;[[Marxism|Universalists]]&amp;quot;, pawns of the sinister Dominator country [[Soviet Union|Zind]], which seeks to corrupt Helder&amp;#039;s pure human gene pool into the mutant diversity that rules the rest of the world.}}&lt;br /&gt;
Such interpretation, if [[WP:Citing sources|properly sourced]], should be placed in its own section and citations provided. If the interpretation is purely that of the editor, it is [[WP:No original research|original research]] and should be removed.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Piped category links==&lt;br /&gt;
{{Main|WP:SORTKEY}}&lt;br /&gt;
In the case of a [[WP:Categorization|category]] link, a piped link overrides the alphabetical sort order of the article, as shown on the linked category page.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
For example, in a hypothetical new article [[Albert Einstein]], using &amp;lt;code&amp;gt;&amp;lt;nowiki&amp;gt;[[Category:Theoretical physicists]]&amp;lt;/nowiki&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/code&amp;gt; places him in [[:Category:Theoretical physicists]]. That category page will list him as &amp;quot;Albert Einstein&amp;quot;, but it will list him among the &amp;quot;A&amp;quot;s, instead of the &amp;quot;E&amp;quot;s (where he belongs), because it sorts on the article&amp;#039;s name, &amp;quot;Albert Einstein&amp;quot;.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
One way to impose correct sort order is to use &amp;lt;code&amp;gt;&amp;lt;nowiki&amp;gt;[[Category:Theoretical physicists|Einstein, Albert]]&amp;lt;/nowiki&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/code&amp;gt;, which makes that category page list &amp;quot;Albert Einstein&amp;quot; among the &amp;quot;E&amp;quot;s (between &amp;quot;Martin B. Einhorn&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Leonard Eisenbud&amp;quot;), by sorting it &amp;#039;&amp;#039;as if&amp;#039;&amp;#039; it were &amp;quot;Einstein, Albert&amp;quot; rather than &amp;quot;Albert Einstein&amp;quot;.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
However, the &amp;#039;&amp;#039;actual&amp;#039;&amp;#039; [[Albert Einstein]] page has 83 category links. Piping every category link would be unattractive. As is standard for most &amp;quot;person&amp;quot; pages, that page uses &amp;lt;code&amp;gt;&amp;lt;nowiki&amp;gt;{{DEFAULTSORT:Einstein, Albert}}&amp;lt;/nowiki&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/code&amp;gt; to override the default sorting for category links. On that page, &amp;lt;code&amp;gt;&amp;lt;nowiki&amp;gt;[[Category:Theoretical physicists]]&amp;lt;/nowiki&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/code&amp;gt; places him in [[:Category:Theoretical physicists]] as &amp;quot;Albert Einstein&amp;quot;, &amp;#039;&amp;#039;and&amp;#039;&amp;#039; makes that category page sort him as &amp;quot;Einstein, Albert&amp;quot;, without need of a piped link, and likewise for 81 other category links. That page uses one piped category link, &amp;lt;code&amp;gt;&amp;lt;nowiki&amp;gt;[[Category:Einstein family|Albert]]&amp;lt;/nowiki&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/code&amp;gt;, to place him in [[:Category:Einstein family]] and make (only) that category alphabetize him under &amp;quot;Albert&amp;quot;.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Templates==&lt;br /&gt;
The pipe character is also used when supplying parameters to [[Help:Template|templates]]; this is not the same thing as a piped link.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==See also==&lt;br /&gt;
*[[Help:Pipe trick]]&lt;br /&gt;
*[[Help:Link]]&lt;br /&gt;
*[[Help:Editing]]&lt;br /&gt;
*[[Wikipedia:FAQ/Editing#How do I make links?|Editing FAQ: How do I make links?]]&lt;br /&gt;
*{{tl|Pipe}}&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
{{Wikipedia help pages}}&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Wikipedia how-to|{{PAGENAME}}]]&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Wikipedia link help]]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Tachyony</name></author>
	</entry>
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