Wikipedia:Piped Link

Right. You need something explained. Let's get this over with.

"Wikipedia:Pipe" is a redirect that lands you here. If you're looking for how to use piping on disambiguation pages, which is an entirely different circle of editorial hell, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages § Piping and redirects. For that little shortcut known as the pipe trick, which I assume you also need help with, see Help:Pipe trick.

This page is a how-to guide. It's here to explain a process used by the community. It is not, I repeat, not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, so don't go citing it like scripture. It simply reflects varying degrees of consensus, which is a nice way of saying it's what people have mostly agreed to stop arguing about for now.

Shortcuts

• WP:PIPEWP:PIPE • WP:PIPELINKWP:PIPELINK

Linking and page manipulation

Linking and diffs

• URLs

• Links

• Orphans

• Interlanguage links

• Interwiki linking

• Shortcuts

• External links

• External link icons

• Plainlinks

• Link color

• Colon trick

• Pipe trick

• Self links

• What links here

• Linksearch

• Manual of Style on linking

• Navigation templates

• Hatnotes

• Template index for links

• Diffs

• Simplest diff guide

• Simple diff and link guide

• Complete diff and link guide

Categorization

• Category

• Categorization guideline

• Classification

• Container category

• FAQ for categorization

• FAQ for categories

• Categories, lists, and navigation templates

• Categorizing articles about people

• By year

• Redirect categories

• User categories

• Overcategorization

• User categories

• Template index for categories

Moving and redirecting

• How to move a page for beginners

• Redirects

• Moving a page

• Requested moves

• How to fix cut-and-paste moves

• Moving files to Commons

• Userfication

• Non-admin and admin-only moves

• Template index for moving

• Template index for redirects

Merging

• Merging

• Proposed article mergers

• Requests for history merge

• Merge and delete?

• Merge what?

• Delete or merge?

• Template index for merging

• WikiProject Merge

Splitting

• Splitting

• Template index for splitting

Importing and copying

• How to import articles

• Requests for page importation

• Import

• Export

• Copying within Wikipedia

Protecting

• Protection

• Protection policy

• High-risk templates

• Requests for page protection

• Rough guide to semi-protection

Additional

• How to create a page

• Your first article

• Editing

• Deletion process

• v • t • e

A piped link is a fundamental internal link that lets you display text that is different from the title of the article you're linking to. It’s a basic piece of wikitext that creates a hyperlinked phrase—you know, the blue, clickable text you’ve been using since the dawn of the internet. It's called "piped" because it uses the pipe character, " | ", also known as a vertical bar. Try to contain your excitement.

For instance, if you type the wikitext [[train station|station]], the page will display the word station, but clicking on it will, as if by magic, take you to the article about train stations. It's a simple mechanism for making your sentences readable instead of a clunky mess of exact article titles.

Now, listen closely. Do not confuse piped links and redirects. They are not the same. It's like confusing a disguise for a forwarding address. Both might get you to the same place eventually, but they are entirely different mechanisms. A piped link changes the appearance of a link in one specific location on a single page. A redirect is a page that exists solely to send any and all traffic that lands on it, from anywhere on Wikipedia, to a different destination page. One is cosmetic; the other is structural. If you can't grasp that, perhaps editing isn't for you.

Use

• Main page: Help:Piped link

Piped links are, against all odds, useful. They exist to preserve the grammatical integrity and natural flow of a sentence. You should use them when:

The exact wording of the article title is awkward and doesn't fit the context of your sentence. For example, if you're writing about whales, you wouldn't say "Whales are part of the infraorder Cetacea"; you'd write that they are part of the infraorder of cetaceans. A piped link makes that possible.
A word has multiple meanings, and you need to direct the reader to the correct one. The word "Mercury" could refer to a planet, a Roman god, a chemical element, or a car company. On a disambiguation page, you'd use piped links like [[Mercury (planet)|the planet]] or [[Mercury (element)|the element]] to clarify.

The pipe character (" | ") is also called a vertical bar. If you're struggling to find this exotic symbol, here are some remedial instructions. On English-layout keyboards, it's typically produced by pressing ⇧ Shift + \ . On Spanish keyboards, try AltGr + 1. On French (AZERTY) keyboards, it's AltGr + 6. If even that is beyond your capabilities, when you're in the source editor, look at the bottom of the page. In the "Wiki markup" section of symbols, it's the third character. You can click it to insert it where your cursor is. A modern marvel, I know.

For a truly exhaustive breakdown of how this feature works, see Help:Piped link.

When not to use

Shortcuts

• WP:NOPIPEWP:NOPIPE • WP:NOPIPEDLINKWP:NOPIPEDLINK

"WP:NOPIPE" also redirects here. If you're looking for the Manual of Style guideline, see MOS:NOPIPE. For the specific guidance against using pipes on disambiguation pages, which you should already know by now, see MOS:DABPIPE.

The core principle here is to keep links as simple as you possibly can. Don't overcomplicate things. It's not clever; it's just messy.

Avoid making links needlessly long. Don't wrap surrounding text into the link itself. It’s redundant.
- N [[George Washington|President George Washington]]
- Y President [[George Washington]]
Do not pipe links merely to avoid redirects. This is a common and particularly irritating mistake. It reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how the site works.
- N [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart]]
- Y [[Mozart]]
Why is this bad? First, unnecessary piping makes the wikitext cluttered and harder for the next editor to read. Second, and more importantly, redirects are useful data. The number of links pointing to a redirect page helps editors identify when a topic might need its own article. If you "fix" the link by piping it, you erase that data. For example, [[Leningrad]] currently redirects to Saint Petersburg. One day, an editor might decide the historical city of Leningrad deserves its own detailed article. If that happens, every link that correctly points to [[Leningrad]] will automatically lead to the new, correct page. Your unnecessarily piped link, [[Saint Petersburg|Leningrad]], will still point to the wrong place, creating cleanup work for someone else. Don't create future problems out of a misplaced sense of tidiness.
Use "blended" suffixes. Characters that follow a link (up to the next punctuation mark) will automatically become part of the displayed hyperlink. This makes piping for simple pluralizations or other affixes completely unnecessary. It is the preferred style.
- N [[public transport|public transportation]]
- Y [[public transport]]ation
The first letter of a page title is not case-sensitive. This is a basic function of the software. You never need to use a pipe to change the first letter from uppercase to lowercase.
- N [[Public transport|public transport]]
- Y [[public transport]]
Both of these will correctly link to the article Public transport. Using a pipe for this is just noise.

Transparency

"WP:EASTEREGG" redirects here. If you were hoping for something more whimsical, you might be looking for MOS:EGG.

Shortcuts

• WP:TRANSPARENCYWP:TRANSPARENCY • WP:EASTEREGGWP:EASTEREGG • WP:RICKROLLWP:RICKROLL • WP:TROJANHORSEWP:TROJANHORSE

Wikipedia is not an advent calendar. Your goal is to inform, not to create a scavenger hunt. Don't tease the reader.

Your piped links should be transparent and follow the principle of least astonishment. This means the reader should have a reasonable idea of where a link will take them before they click it. Do not use piped links to create "Easter egg" links—links where the displayed text gives no clue about the destination. This forces the reader to click or hover just to understand your reference, which is inefficient and annoying.

Also, remember that some people print articles. Your clever hidden links are completely lost on paper. For example, do not write this:

... and by mid-century the puns and sexual humor were (with only a few [[Thomas Bowdler|exceptions]]) back in to stay.

A reader will have no idea you're making a witty reference to Thomas Bowdler unless they happen to click or hover over the generic word "exceptions". In a printed version, the reference vanishes entirely. Instead, be explicit:

... and by mid-century the puns and sexual humor were (with only a few exceptions, such as [[Thomas Bowdler]]) back in to stay.

Similarly, instead of this vague construction:

After an [[1944 Bombay explosion|earlier disaster]] ...

Consider being more direct:

After an earlier disaster, the [[1944 Bombay explosion]], ...

Or, even better, just integrate it naturally:

After the [[1944 Bombay explosion]], ...

If you need to link to a fuller explanation of a concept, link the entire relevant phrase, not just a single, ambiguous word. For example, in the article on Pontiac's War, the lead describes it as:

a war launched in 1763 by a loose confederation of elements of Native American tribes,

A reader might want more information on that specific confederation. Linking just the word "confederation" is misleading:

a war launched in 1763 by a loose confederation of elements of Native American tribes

This looks like a link to the general article Confederation, which is incorrect. At a minimum, link a phrase that clearly isn't a standard article title under our conventions:

a war launched in 1763 by a loose confederation of elements of Native American tribes.

Furthermore, it is entirely inappropriate to embed your own veiled, uncited interpretations into an article through piped links. This is a form of editorializing that borders on vandalism. The article on The Iron Dream once contained this mess, riddled with over 30 hidden "interpretations":

The pure and strong young "Trueman" (so named for the lack of mutations in his DNA) Feric Jaggar returns from the outlands of Borgravia where his family was exiled by the Treaty of Karmak with the surrounding mutant states ...

The wikitext was a disaster of embedded opinion:

The pure and strong young [[breeding true|"Trueman"]] (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]] ...

If such interpretations are valid, they must be properly sourced and explained in the text with citations. If they are merely the editor's personal analysis, they constitute original research and must be removed immediately.

Piped category links

• Main page: WP:SORTKEY

When used in a category link, a pipe does more than change the display text—it overrides the default alphabetical sorting of the article on the category page.

For example, if you add [[Category:Quantum physicists]] to the Albert Einstein article, he will appear in Category:Quantum physicists. The category page will list the article under "A" for "Albert Einstein." This is incorrect; he should be sorted by his last name, under "E".

One way to fix this is to pipe the link: [[Category:Quantum physicists|Einstein, Albert]]. This forces the category page to sort the entry as "Einstein, Albert," placing it correctly among the "E"s, while still displaying the article title as "Albert Einstein".

However, a figure like Einstein belongs to dozens of categories. Piping every single one would be tedious and messy. The standard, more efficient method for biography pages is to use the {{DEFAULTSORT:Einstein, Albert}} template. This sets a default sort key for all category links on the page that aren't individually piped. So, [[Category:Quantum physicists]] on his page automatically sorts him under "E" without needing a pipe.

This template can be overridden, however. The Einstein page also has the category [[Category:Einstein family|Albert]]. The pipe here is intentional. It ensures that on that specific category page, he is alphabetized under "A" for "Albert", which is the logical way to sort members of the same family.

Templates

The pipe character is also used to separate parameters when calling templates. This is a completely different function from a piped link. Do not confuse them.

Some templates automatically format links for you. In those cases, a standard piped link will not work. To create a pipe within such a template parameter, you must use the magic word {{!}}, which calls Template:! and renders as a pipe character. This is a niche case, but now you know. Don't say I never gave you anything.

Wikipedia:Piped Link

Use

When not to use

Transparency

Piped category links

Templates

See also