Board Thread:Suggestions/@comment-26415383-20160625182137/@comment-27794543-20160702040720

Hatnotes are generally used "if there is a large possibility of a reader arriving at the article either by mistake or with another topic in mind".

When a title already specifies the use, e.g. The 100 (TV series) or Jason Rothenberg (television producer), a hatnote isn't used. For this wikia, a hatnote on Clarke (Novel) isn't necessary since the title can only refer to that specific page (but is necessary for Clarke Griffin since the title isn't clear if this is about book or tv character).

A redirect hatnote is helpful when something, e.g. Jaha, redirects to one page, e.g. Thelonious Jaha, but there are other uses, e.g. Wells Jaha. Same with Miller going to Nathan Miller instead of David Miller. In this case a redirect hatnote is useful since when user wrote Jaha or Miller, they may have been interested in Wells or David. A reverse hatnote (e.g. from David to Nathan) is not necessary since the redirect only goes to one page (in this example, to Nathan).

In cases of redirects, Template:Redirect hatnote is better than Template:Youmay. It makes it clear why the article is being linked. If we just used Template:Youmay for redirects, editors will see: "This article is about Thelonious. You may be looking for Wells Jaha." Then they'll start linking all the family members together (e.g. Clarke - you may be looking for Abby and Jake; Bellamy, Octavia and Aurora; Monty & Hannah; Marcus & Vera, etc.), not realizing that the reason Thelonious's article links to Wells is because Jaha redirects to Thelonious.

For wikia purposes, I can see how a reader on Clarke (Novel) may be also interested in the tv character Clarke (so even though a hatnote isn't necessary, it may be useful). It's correct to link Spacewalker to Finn Collins since that was Finn's nickname. A reader typing in "Spacewalker" may have been interested in Finn, not the episode. However, there is no need to hatlink Finn to the episode, since a reader who typed "Finn Collins" or "Finn" wasn't trying to type the episode name.

Regardless, for hatnotes to be useful, they should be used sparingly. Otherwise, there will be multiple hatnotes on each page and readers will just ignore them. We already have "See Also" sections and navboxes at the bottom, so hatnotes shouldn't be used just to link articles. Generally, just use them in cases where a user may have been expecting a different article.