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I have been editing here on Wikipedia for a while now, and I really enjoy it especially now that I have more time on my hands, however something has been happening here lately that is starting to get me not really upset but concerned I guess that would be a better way to put it, now this has happened off and on since I started editing here but I guess since I spend much more time here than I used to, it's happening more often. What is that? It is someone going behind me and undoing a link that I put added to a article.
Now I am getting confused because I understand that we don't want to link to common items, at least as little as we possibly can. I for one know not to link to a article say on cat or say ocean, I understand those are way to general or common. I've been looking and I can not find a "guideline" to say what is or is not considered too common to be linked. I am not expecting a guideline that will touch on every word considered to common but I do believe there has to be a some kind of consensus.
Way to often I spend my day editing to only later find out someone else has decided my link was to general or to common, and that is frustrating because I can't go back to that person or now I find Bots or tools are now doing the work of undoing links considered to common.
This is my philosophy on linking. I remember a time when Wikipedia was considered a joke by many people in education field, I remember when I went back to college after retiring from the US Navy back in 2005 professors telling the class when assigning writing assignments flat out telling us that we where in no way to use Wikipedia, they considered the whole concept as a joke and something that wouldn't last, but look at Wikipedia today, it is a highly respected project by most people. So this is where I am going with that. I look at the editing I/We do here as a gift for future generations, I honestly see it as something that will replace the old style encyclopedias whether hard copies or software you add to your computer and that excites me.
Now here is how I decide what should be linked when I am editing, first in many cases I get my inspiration from my young son who loves to sit and just read either articles that interests him or random articles and he does me a favor when he finds something he thinks should be linked but isn't he will either show it too me at that moment or if I am not available write it down on a sticky and put it on or near my computer. For example today he was reading a article on Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne. In that article it had a mention of the Indian Ocean, my son wanted to to get a quick view of the Indian Ocean but it wasn't linked. He told me for example it is easier and faster for me to click on that link and open it in another page rather than going through the trouble of opening another page manually, then going to wikipedia, then searching for Indian Ocean. If I have to do it manually to often in a article I get bored and will move on to another article or just get frustrated and quit all together.
Like I said I see wikipedia as a gift to future generations, so when I am just browsing wikipedia for my enjoyment I try to look at what links I add through my 11 year old son's eyes. To me Indian Ocean was not to general and I see where my son is coming from because I do the same thing (Like Son, Like Father?) I like to be reading and open up a new link that takes me to another subject and I can end up spending my whole day reading like this, if I was to have to constantly open up a new browser and search I wouldn't do it and would be loosing out on a major benefit of wikipedia.
OK here is what I'm saying, someone needs to decide what is to general or common and make it known, my son doesn't live near the Indian Ocean, so for him it's not common, but the pacific would be. Same someone living in the Mediterranean the Pacific Ocean would not be. Let's fix this and fix it soon.