Encyclopedia Dramatica:Why not pipe?
Consult the ED style guide and you will be well on your way to success!
Piping is the process of making a link look like something it's not - that is, disguising unfunny links as funny ones. You can create a pipe by separating a standard link, [[Gerald Holtstadt]] into the 'actual' link and what Æ will display thus, [[Gerald Holtstadt|fag]] - Æ will display the link in the text as "fag", not the name. Although piping is a good way to get started in your quest to help, it is not a replacement for lurking. Please read the primer before doing any of this, and consider using the sandbox to practice. Piping is named after the pipe symbol, '|', in the middle of a pipe. The pipe symbol does not actually perform any pipe-like functions, such as carrying waste, rain water or crack.
Reasons not to pipe
Because Æ is built primarily for the lulz, the lulz must be easily accessible. Pipes diminish this ability by disguising where the reader will end up, by confusing the reader as to why they ended up where they went, and by ambiguating topics.
However it goes without saying if you don't check your statusbar or something before visiting links you're practically begging to be bombarded with images of bambis shitting out bambis or teenage girls with their heads smashed in or you name it.
Common mistakes with pipes
Piping singulars to plural articles (Or vice versa)
[[hippies|hippy]]
This makes messy code because now you have to pipe all the singulars to plurals. The solution is to set up a redirect on [[hippy]] to [[hippies]] - this means that authors won't accidently not create the pipe and thus end up with a [[hippy]] link. This also means that should a singular article ever be created to distinguish between one hippy and many, all of the old [[hippy]] links will be pointed toward it instead of the plural - removing the need for an intrepid author to search out all the old pipe instances and remove them in order to link properly to their new article.
Note: generally speaking, articles are listed under their singular form. It is easy to pluralize a link without piping it, because a link will always extend itself to the end of the word. For example, [[sex]]y yields sexy.
Already an article
[[Meele|Stalker]]
This breeds confusion because while it serves as a subtle condemnation, the article Internet stalking is already in existence. Anybody who has already read that article will be of the expectation that this link will lead to that article - they probably won't click it, or will be clicking it to get back to Internet stalking. The solution for this is to either add in new sections to the article, pipe link phrases (instead of single words), or alter the content of the old article to include the desired pipe.
What the fuck are you piping for?
[[communities|community]]
Seriously, this makes no sense - Community is a redirect to Community. You're piping to a redirect to the actual article that's being displayed on the Æ page. In other words you're wasting time and bandwidth.
It's fucking backwards, n00b.
White wimmenz get niggers when walking down the streets of Detroit.
What went wrong here? [[raeped|niggers]] is fucking backwards. Remember, it's lay the trap, then put out the bait.
Reasons to Pipe
Lulz, mainly. It can also be used as a means of inciting drama, for example priests piping to the pedophile article. Best used sparingly and best when used to support/incite a stereotype. You can also pipe if you don't want to display the namespace. For example, to link to the main help page, you could link to [[Encyclopedia Dramatica:Help]], but you would most likely want to link to [[Encyclopedia Dramatica:Help|]], which yields Help. You might even want to clarify by using [[Encyclopedia Dramatica:Help|the help page]].