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I have a proposal for the FAQ, section "Editing and Formatting": What is the recommended way to refer to another question?

  • If I copy the title, no link is "automagically" created
  • If I copy the link, an ugly link appears without the question title (not even as hover information, it seems)

So the only way seems to be manual creation of a link. However, considering that this is a frequent activity as well as a recommended one, I cannot believe that there isn't an easier way to get the pretty result.

Finally (a bit off-topic): When someone refers to a question, and that question is closed (e.g. as duplicate) later, the reference remains. It seems like a good idea to me if the referrers were notified if the referred target changed status (maybe to update or replace it then). For example, Where to ask "office like" (e.g. LibreOffice Calc) questions refers to a "-4" question for a recommended answer.

As the original question was downvoted, here's what made up my confusion:

The preview while editing this question (the link text is "ugly"):

Preview while editing question

After saving the link text, it is no longer "ugly":

Final rendering of the question

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    "If I copy the link, an ugly link appears without the question title" - wrong, and if true it's a bug. The link becomes the title linked to the question: i.stack.imgur.com/klyXI.png (if you see something different, please start a bug report.) – Shadow The Curly Braced Wizard Apr 30 at 11:05
  • @ShadowWizard Some sites work and some are broken, you have to test the bare link and see if it works, and if not then copy the title text and manually add the link to it. – Rob Apr 30 at 14:07
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    @Rob example of a site that doesn't work? There are some limitations, e.g. think that up to 5 links, but one link should always work no matter to which site. (In SE of course.) – Shadow The Curly Braced Wizard Apr 30 at 14:12
  • @ShadowWizard Oh, excellent! I never actually noticed that share links end up with their titles automatically. I've always assumed they didn't (and never managed to glance at the preview window to see anything different), so I've always created everything manually. This will save me some trouble in the future. – Jason Bassford Apr 30 at 14:18
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    @Jason not just the share link, it should "onebox" all kinds of links. – Shadow The Curly Braced Wizard Apr 30 at 14:21
  • @ShadowWizard - STR: Copy the URL above and paste it into the question box below (on Meta.SE) and see the result is correct - do the same on Physics.SE and see this. I'd offer more examples but I'm in the middle of something. – Rob Apr 30 at 14:24
  • @Rob In this case (given the discussion so far), I'd say it's a bug at Physics.SE and should be raised at its meta specifically. But that shouldn't prevent the FAQ from detailing how things should work. – Jason Bassford Apr 30 at 14:26
  • More than one site, back in a few hours. – Rob Apr 30 at 14:28
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    @Rob sorry, turns out I was wrong. Linking to other sites works only here, from MSE to any other site, since this site is about the whole network, but it's not working the other way: on other sites, it will auto link only to/from their child meta. It's explained in this answer. – Shadow The Curly Braced Wizard Apr 30 at 14:33
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    @ShadowWizard - Looking quickly I'd say that's probably, usually, the case. Rather than remember at those rules and exceptions I just paste it and see if it works. If not I often go back and grab the title and inline it manually (use square brackets and parentheses within the text, rather than using the editor's 🔗 button). It would be much simpler if new users got one working link and anyone permitted was able to jam as many as needed, it's not like there's a huge cost if it's such a helpful feature (and such a convoluted set of rules and exceptions to remember, that's just annoying). – Rob Apr 30 at 14:46
  • Re: manual creation of a link, this userscript might help. – Meta Andrew T. May 2 at 4:23

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