User:Professor Penguino/subpage/What is "Overlinking?"
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What exactly is WP:OVERLINKING? Overlinking is when there is an excess of links to other Wikipedia articles. Let's take the revision of the "Lion" article as of 18:55 UTC, 22 December 2022:[1]
The lion (Panthera leo) is a large cat of the genus Panthera native to Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body; short, rounded head; round ears; and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. It is sexually dimorphic; adult male lions are larger than females and have a prominent mane.
It would be confusing if there were a bunch of links to other articles. Like if the lede were this:
The lion (Panthera leo) is a large cat of the genus Panthera native to Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body; short, rounded head; round ears; and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. It is sexually dimorphic; adult male lions are larger than females and have a prominent mane.
I see this very often. It's a common rookie mistake to simply add a bunch of links to an article that just confuse the reader.