Have you ever encountered on Wikipedia a sentence like this:
"...because a <a>blue</a> <a>whale</a> did..."
rather than
"...because a <a>blue whale</a> did..."
Obviously, the latter version would have been more useful, and I find it difficult to believe that a human being would have made such a mistake. Don't get me wrong - such instances are rare, but they do happen and are an indicator that not all links are generated manually. I don't know what they are using today (if anything), but as someone else pointed out, in the early days they used UseModWiki to ensure a high level of deep interlinking. We can argue that this was done to improve the UX, but the level of ambition that went into it signals that they also saw it as a strategic move (and they would have been right to assume that - 20 years ago, a highly interlinked site was likely the best bang for the buck in SEO when it came to how to prioritize your time and resources).
"...because a <a>blue</a> <a>whale</a> did..."
rather than
"...because a <a>blue whale</a> did..."
Obviously, the latter version would have been more useful, and I find it difficult to believe that a human being would have made such a mistake. Don't get me wrong - such instances are rare, but they do happen and are an indicator that not all links are generated manually. I don't know what they are using today (if anything), but as someone else pointed out, in the early days they used UseModWiki to ensure a high level of deep interlinking. We can argue that this was done to improve the UX, but the level of ambition that went into it signals that they also saw it as a strategic move (and they would have been right to assume that - 20 years ago, a highly interlinked site was likely the best bang for the buck in SEO when it came to how to prioritize your time and resources).