Why we bookmark this way

Bookmarking in wormhole space is one of those things everyone does slightly differently — and those small differences add up to wasted time, rescans, and confusion mid-fight. This is an opinionated convention. It isn't the only way to name bookmarks, but it's the one we've found to be the most declarative and efficient, and the value comes from everyone using the same one.

The whole convention rests on two rules:

1. Every resolved signature gets a bookmark immediately.
2. Bookmarks and mapper entries must always match.

If those two hold, anyone can drop into the chain and read it instantly.

The name is the route

The real power of the convention is that a wormhole's number is its route description. Aliases are built up hole by hole as you map outward: the system you reach through home's hole 2 becomes the 2; a hole you scan inside it becomes the 28; the system beyond that is the 283. Each number is simply its parent's number with the next hole appended.

So the name spells out the path. To reach the 283 you jump the 2, then the 28, then the 283 — in that order. When someone on comms says "I'm in the 283", you don't have to open the map to work out where that is: open your in-game bookmarks and follow 2 → 28 → 283, one hole at a time. The structure of the entire chain is encoded in every single name — the bookmark list alone is enough to navigate.

Why it works so well

• Declarative — the name tells you everything. A bookmark like 12 XYZ C5 or 21 HS ABC Amarr Domain says where the hole goes, what class it is, and which signature it is, without opening the scanner or the map. You read the destination straight off the label.
• It doubles as turn-by-turn directions. As above — the number is the path, so you can follow bookmarks to any system without touching the map.
• It sorts itself. Because the number (or class) comes first, the in-game bookmark list falls into a logical order on its own, and a system's holes group together right under it. The hole you want is where you expect it, every time.
• Short, stable handles for comms. Numbered holes give everyone a quick way to talk about a hole — "tackle on the 283", "collapse the 28" — that doesn't change as the chain grows.
• You always know where you stand. The * return marker shows at a glance which hole you came in through, even in a system with no other connections yet.
• No wasted characters. Signatures are letters-only — the three letters already identify the hole uniquely within a system, so the digits add nothing.
• It's generated for you. The mapper builds these names from the chain (see Let the mapper name it), so there are no typos and the bookmark always matches the map.

The pages that follow give the exact formats for known space and wormhole space, how the numbers translate into comms, and how to keep the chain healthy for everyone.