Wikipedia:Avoid shortcut talk

This page is about the problems of using shortcuts while talking. For talking about specific shortcuts, see Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion.

Although shortcuts are a useful feature built around the non-article pages of Wikipedia, its use in discussions can be problematic. Try to avoid them, and use natural language instead.

The problem with shortcuts

The main advantage of shortcuts is that they allow for quick navigation, allowing one to go to a desired page with typing just a few characters. It also helps when writing: "You can try to [[Wikipedia:How to improve image quality|improve the image quality]]" is longer to write than just "You can try to [[WP:HIIQ|improve the image quality]]".

The problem is when shortcuts are used in its raw form. The previous sentences both appear the same to the reader, but if we tell someone "try to WP:HIIQ", we're just delivering meaningless characters. Only a frequent editor will catch the meaning of the shortcut on the fly, for new editors a shortcut may make little or no sense. Even an expert editor may not recognize a shortcut if it's new or outside his usual work area. Yes, the shortcut provides a link, but it would be rude to expect people to follow a link so that a phrase makes sense. The usual reading order is to read the full sentence first and check links later, if he's so interested. The same principle applies to piped links on article namespace, which should make clear where do they lead.

Another common problem is, as shortcuts usually use common words, it is tempting to turn that word in one's argument into a shortcut, to make the argument look as if backed by policy, while forgetting to actually consider what does the page actually says, which may have nothing to do with the discussion at hand. For example, the word "Undue" means "unwarranted or inappropriate because excessive or disproportionate". There are multiple discussions where such a word may show up (excessive trivia, too long plot sections, too many images, etc) and not all of them are about Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Due and undue weight (target of the shortcut WP:UNDUE). This problem may also happen with pages and sections names; for example WP:STATUSQUO is about the version of an article that should stay live during a dispute, and not about maintaining a status quo in the article or the Wikipedia community. To avoid this, do not simply drop policy page names in a discussion, but rather argue how do your proposes edits keep the article aligned with it better than the alternatives. If you assume good faith you should not think that the user never heard about the core policies, but rather understand that he probably knows them too, but just thinks that his way of doing things is the most correct one to follow them, just like you do.